New action gameplay and art experiments
It's been two weeks since my last post, and I've made quite a bit of progress on my adventure game.
Here's a montage:
Painterly art style
If you've been following development, you may have noticed that the characters in the game look a bit different now. They used to look more cartoony. This was supposed to mimic old TV cartoons where the characters would stand out on painted backgrounds.
Now the characters use the same painterly art style as the environments. I think I like this better.
Level design
I've spent some time playing with variations of textures, lighting setups and map composition. Some of the areas in the new video are actually reworked environments from the previous post from 2 weeks ago.
I'm still in the experimentation phase, but overall this level of detail is closer to what's going to end up in the finished game.
Animations
As I've been testing the game, I've made a bunch of small adjustments to the player animations. Most notably, the treasure chest animation and the running animations are almost completely new.
The process is gradual: first I put together a system of all animations of a character, and then tweak each individual action over multiple days or even weeks. It's easier for me to notice errors over time. I suppose there will be more changes to the animations later.
Action gameplay
As with everything else in the video, the action gameplay isn't final. But there's a bunch of toys available to the player now, and most of them are fun to use.
Now what?
Overall, I'm pleased with how the game's progressing... I think. Right now it's a playground for me to test ideas in, and I'm constantly adjusting things and trying new stuff to figure out what feels good and what doesn't.
The coming weeks will be crucial in determining if it's worth to continue making the game. I'll keep experimenting.
If you're interested in the game, you're welcome to stop by my Discord community and let me know what you think.