The inn's done. How about a brief tour?
Took far longer than I expected, but the inn is finally done! I actually finished this up around October, but as they say, the last 20% takes 80% of the work. For the most part, the visuals of the inn won't change much from here to the end of the game, which is exactly why I spent so much time on it!
With this being the most important location of the story, I wanted it to be as good as it can possibly be. It was my hope that putting a lot of effort in now means I won't have to worry about this place as much during the end phases of development. Now even with this, please remember: nothing here is 100% final. Anything can change from here through to the game's release.
I've already introduced the inn's staff in a previous post, but one character I neglected to mention was OJ. He's a weird little guy who can almost always be found in the inn's dining hall. No one ever seems to mention him, but he's a friendly conversationalist nonetheless. Keep an eye on him as the game progresses and you might find out why people choose to pass him by, however.
One thing about Clemence Inn is that it also doubles as a town hall. Shepherd, the mayor of the town of Clemence, has an office space of his very own. Can you tell what he likes from appearances alone?
You can't really have an inn without a place to cook, now can you. This is the kitchen area, where all the yummy food is cooked up for the inn's many visitors. Every now and then, you might see a friendly face in there.
Heading upstairs, the inn is split into two separate hallways; One for guests and one for residents. As the player, you get a resident room! When you start the game, your room will be rather empty but, as you progress, the room will become even fuller than what's shown here.
Heading outside, we have the inn's garden area. This place is ideal for any guest who wants to simply relax and enjoy the peaceful scenery. To help maximize the tranquility, there's even a fountain in the middle of the garden.
With the garden area, I should mention that part of the reason this took me so long is because I had to redo the outdoor tilesheet as well. This was a lot of work, but the results paid off tremendously. Just outside the inn greets you with a rather pretty view!
Unless this post is take 8 minutes of straight scrolling, I unfortunately can't show off all of the inn and its surrounding area. So, I picked the parts that I thought were the most interesting. There's a lot more to the inn than what I've shown here, but I suppose this just means there's more to explore when the game releases.
Currently, I've been reworking the player's battle spritesheets. It's about time I finally make a more "finalized" version of these, especially now that I have a better grasp of what is and isn't working in the game's battle system.
Along with making adjustments relating to that, my plan is to add more places to the game. Next up will be the game's first "dungeon", in quotes because it's less so a dungeon and moreso a 2-room-long walk through nature. After that, I'll work on another location in the game, Clemence's library. My goal is to just slowly expand outwards until the entirety of Clemence is done, then continue to just add more places from there, slowly branching out until the entire game's map is complete. I think that'll give me enough time to do things like finish the game's script, add all the enemies and boss fights i wanted, add more items, make more adjustments, etc.
From here on out, everything about development seems like it'll be taking less of a "step by step" method and more of a "everything will kinda just flow where I need it to be by the end of this" method. In the meantime, here's to hoping the next big update takes a little less than 5 months to show off :P
And before I forget, have a happy holidays and new years everyone!
