Wednesday, May 9, 2012

good news for everyone!

I finally managed to get the Grab-System working as it should be.
I must admit that at one point, it was pretty frustrating...
I couldn't find the mistake I made, but after taking a few hours off, and then returning to the programming, I finally did it.
So... taking a break once in a while isn't wrong I guess.
(uh... yes... currently I'm actually working full-time on this, since I'm a workaholic, I can be quite a fanatic at times)

Anyway it's working now!
I just need to add some more h-attacks to it, then combining some of them.
After I did that I guess there's nothing that can stop us anymore.
I'm just glad the Grab-System works as planned.

So what's left to do is adding overall stuff, finally doing the levels and of course the voice acting.
Doing the levels is pretty easy (currently we just have our testing stage), the hardest part is comming up with some riddles or other stuff to make the game more interesting.
But we already came up with some things, so what's left is to implement it.

When I release a demo version at the end of may, the basic system will be working.
But I guess it won't be the full sewer stage, not all the enemys will have all the hentai-attacks they'll have later on, not all CG's will be done etc.
At least it will have all the core parts of the game, but it's still a beta-version.
I won't bring out new demo-versions regularly, because most of the changes won't be noticed that easily, so I only bring out new ones when there are major changes.
(which means, every 2-3 weeks maybe)
But let's look forward to the end of may... with a bit luck we might even be able to do more stuff than planned.


Amelia is currently practicing for the actual voice acting of Verdani.
 Up til now the game has no sound an no voice, not even music.
I must admit that I'm no expert for music, but I learned several instruments for several years.
So I guess I'll be fine, somehow.
I have some software to do the music, but I haven't had the time to work with it that much.
And it looks like I'm missing the right soundfonts.
I seem to always chose the wrong ones which never sound harmonic when combined... so if someone could help me with selecting the right soundfonts for such a game, I would be extremely grateful.
(a set of soundfonts which sound harmonic would be nice)


So when Amelia has done the voice acting, Verdani has her voice... but there are some other female characters in the game as well.

The good news is:
Our team just got a new member, and I'm reeeaaaally happy that I got to know her.
She'll do the voice acting for Neamera, which is pretty important to me, since this character appears in several games... but I won't spoil the fun now... thehehe ^^
(haven't said much about this character, and I still want to leave her in the shadows a little while longer)



Another good thing for all the japanese people out there:
Our new team member is translating the game into japanese, so I hope we'll have a japanese version.
I guess the menu can stay in english?
But at least the dialog and the scenes should be in japanese.
And of course, the CG's for a japanese version must be censored.



So as promissed some information on "what's different than planned".
I'll keep this short, since this post is pretty long already.

We just wanted to do a pretty simple game... just like Doubledragon, regarding the levels/stages and the fighting.
But now we worked on the whole system to have some interaction with the surroundings.
So for example in the sewers, you can jump down into the water, or jump out of it etc.
(some controls may seem a bit unnatural, but I'll do a tutorial for the demo, there I'll explain everything with pictures and text)
We also implement some stuff like collecting a key to pass through a locked door, or other things you have to do, in order to proceed.
So it's no plain "fight yourself from the left side of the screen to right one" anymore.
There are different passages you can go through, and some might even lead to a game over, if Verdani messes something up.
So it has some exploring content, but I'll try my best to not make the riddles too hard.

I think this even makes the game more enjoyable, and it doesn't feel that short either.
(doing the graphics takes so much time that I think it would be wasted, if I won't do a good and enjoyable game out of it... anyway, since I'm only the back-up artist I have plenty of time for programming)


What's unchanged:
- the Grab-System
- Fighting style
- having a boss at the end of each stage/level
- having 4 different enemy types (and a few subtypes)


Last but not least, I'll present a draft from a tentacle scene:




The lineart as well as the coloring has already been done.
All that's left to do is adding some variations, like it's usually done on CG's.
(like having the same CG but with different facial expressions, and some different details)
Currently we plan on having about 30 different CG scenes.
Which means 30 completely different CG's, but they'll have some variations/different facial expressions... like usually done on CGs.



~Wolfenstahl~

2 comments:

  1. Your making everything out of scratch? The voice, the music, the sounds? That's dedication to originality! I can't wait to see the results! :D

    ReplyDelete
  2. Except for the sounds (jumping, hitting & scratching sounds, background sounds (water dripping etc.)), we're doing everything out of scratch, yes.

    Especially the graphics, CG's and voices.
    I still have to do the music, or in worst case scenario, find someone who I can pay for doing it.

    But I only need 4 different tracks, I guess.
    (1 for each stage and 1 for the game overs in general)

    ReplyDelete