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trying on a metaphor
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@spacepoutine-blog
We've been hard at work coding--the menus and overworld are done, and now the hardest part--the battle system. In the meantime, here's the boss theme of Roshanak, the recurring adversary who shows up to battle Isidore for honor and country.
There hasn't been a whole lot of visually impressive stuff being made to show off lately, but the menu system is nearly completely coded now. Here is a sample of how the detailed party status screen appears in-game.
Today we have some NPC concept art for the ladies of Aceracea! Based on Western fashions popular between 1890 and 1910, Aceracean citizens will roam the red brick-lined streets of the city. Most are familiar with Isidore, or at least his renowned father.
A short regional theme to accompany yesterday's update, this plays on all interior and exterior maps in Aceracea.
I really like the accordion synth I've figured out how to do on the 2A03--it's a matter of playing a pulse wave of duty cycle 2 over a pulse wave of duty cycle 1 with a chorus layering effect so that it sounds like one instrument.
After quite a bit of fiddling around with input handling, Strange Bedfellows' overworld system is essentially complete, with proper walking animations, scrolling maps, and fully implemented collision detection. Now it's time to populate the overworld with events and warps!
Here's the overworld/world map theme for Strange Bedfellows!
I try to let my strongest tracks be the ones that the player will hear the most, so that you won't get sick of hearing it on loop a lot. That's my philosophy on making a good game soundtrack.
Another map--this time of Aceracea's capital, Isidore's hometown. His house is the one with the gray chimney, bottom-right within the city walls. Houses inside the walls are a lot larger and nicer than those outside.
Aceracea is a tiny country tucked away in the mountains between Massalia and Sequania, and as it only won independence 50 years prior to the story, it is still growing. Even its capital is small, quiet and idyllic aside from the massive capitol building in the center of the city. Red brick architecture and grey-blue cobblestone define the aesthetics of the area. Poutine carts and traveling merchants roam its small but busy streets.
Here's a sample of what I've been focusing on lately: tile-based maps! This is the palace of Massalia, where the first mission of the game takes place. Grand Duke Laurent maintains the palace's extravagant wealth and image, often to the detriment of Massalia's poorer residents.
Now that I've finished creating all the tiles for the first three areas, as well as some free time for the summer, I'll be working on putting them into the game over the coming week.
Concept art for the character of Ziemas as a young man, twenty years prior to the story--as he appears in flashbacks. Ziemas was a crusader with the Holy Knights of Sequania for several years. He was stern and saw the world in absolutes before his redemption.
A note on the alternate hair color: one of the rules of magic in the Strange Bedfellows universe is that those who are chosen by the elemental spirits to wield their magic directly receive a change in hair or eye color to indicate their status. As Ziemas received the powers of ice magic rather late in life, he appears here with his natural hair color.
Here's a preview of one of the cutscenes I've been working on recently.
SCENE: Rain falls, thunder crashes. A silhouetted figure stands in the doorway of ZIEMAS's small dirt-floor cottage. As the details of the figure fade in, it becomes apparent that this is ALBERTS, Ziemas's son, aged about 18. His clothes hang in tatters from tense, bony shoulders; there's a stump wrapped in bloody bandages where his left hand once was. This time, he's been caught stealing from the wrong person, and he's dragged himself home one last time from Goddess only knows where. There's hate in his eyes--he looks so much like his father--and his piercing, accusatory gaze tells Ziemas it's all his fault for raising a thief. A subtle halo outlines Alberts' head, heralding the message his cold and distant father must finally hear.
This track was a pain to wrestle with--but it's finally in a presentable state. Here is the title track that plays when the game boots up. By the way--the title screen's coding is essentially complete now that the accompanying music is finished!
Here's a track you should hope not to be hearing--the Game Over music. A simple, short remix of the battle theme.
I have another track ready too, but Tumblr only allows me to upload one music file per day, so expect that tomorrow!
So I've written textbox display routines now, and I was debating adding a new feature--Easy Read Textboxes.
The nature of the amount of text I have to fit into a textbox may make it look a bit cramped at times--which is what Easy Read Textboxes aims to help make more accessible to the visually impaired or to anyone trying to read through the game's text more quickly. This would be an optional feature that the player can turn on or off on the Options screen.
Easy Read Textbox enabled:
Easy Read Textbox disabled:
Thoughts? Or would it be a better solution to allow textboxes only five lines of text--or even implement both solutions?
Another announcement: coding progress is going very well! I have a few final projects to finish up for school that will slow me down over the weekdays, but things are going well.
I might throw in some audio updates this week, but it's all contingent on how crunch week goes.
Some colour palette ideas for Roshanak! We're trying to go for a moon-like aesthetic, thus the purple and blue schemes. Green is to try to balance out the colour schemes of all the characters put together - so far, there aren't any that feature green as a prominent design choice. Which one is your favourite? :)
P.S. Thank you for 40 followers! We really appreciate your support!
No new content today, but an announcement: now that the last programming assignment I have for school is finished, I'll be able to buckle down on coding Strange Bedfellows. I have quite a few subroutines already written, tested and working, but now it's time to start integrating things into one cohesive program.
This means that most of what I'll be working on in the coding department won't really be interesting to look at until I start on interfaces and graphics coding, so I won't be posting much on the coding front until much later. I'll still be working on making graphics and sound and fun stuff in the meantime, so keep watching!
Small update today because of homework--this is a first draft of a face sprite for Roshanak.
