#loot snake

[cls-cal-fanart-dump]

Star Wars Reference??????? In my CaL fanart????

[lootsnakegame]

Long Time No See

It has been a while, hasn’t it.

The last post on this blog was back in June 2018, announcing that development of Loot Snake would be slowing down while I work on (the then unnamed) Cats are Liquid - A Better Place.

Now that A Better Place is out in the world and I’ve had a chance to catch my breath a bit, I’m here to say that unfortunately I’ll be continuing the entire “not much progress happening on Loot Snake“ thing for at least a while longer.

The reason for this is that I honestly don’t feel like I can work on another large project. A Better Place took a lot of out of me, and Loot Snake is a lot bigger scope-wise. I just don’t think I’d be able to put my best work in it. These games are (if you don’t count the music and SFX) a single person effort.

That’s why I’m taking a break from long-term projects and instead focusing on something smaller. Quite a bit smaller. I won’t be sharing too many details about this new project yet, but you should of course follow @lastquarterdev on Twitter for the latest news on that. The scope of it is pretty small, and I’m trying to be careful to not add too much stuff in it.

And Loot Snake won’t be forgotten!

Just like I said in the original post: the development is just slowing down. I have gotten all sorts of new ideas for the game, including plans to do a bit of a redesign of the ability system and certain other things. I’m honestly feeling very excited for it.

But that time for that is just not right now.

[catsareliquidgame]

A new game

So, I’m working on a new game. Been working on it for a while, actually. But yesterday the very first pre-alpha version of it was released.

The game is called Loot Snake, and it’s a combination of a dungeon crawler and the classic game Snake. You can create your own little dungeons and play through them. It only has the very basic features in it right now, but I’ll keep updating it regularly.

You can check out the dev blog here if you want to, and download the game for free on itch.io.

Don’t worry, I do have something Cats are Liquid related coming up soon. It’s going to take a while though, since it’s going to be split into multiple parts. Should be released early next month, or late this month.

That’s all for now.

Thanks for reading!

[lootsnakegame]

Bug fixes for days (8/2018)

Hey look! It’s just like I promised last time. Tons of tiny improvements and fixes! (and a new enemy type, and some new environment art stuff)

Environment art stuff

Considering the environment, the style of it wasn’t quite where I wanted it to be. I tried taking it in a more cleaner, geometric / minimalist look, but that didn’t work out. I also tried to make the loot and enemies pop out more by making the floor darker, but that just didn’t work out either. Now I’m testing out a more gritty, dirtier look for the environment, and I think it’s working out a lot better. The goal is to make the loot look clean, modern and inviting, while making the everything else look uninviting, old and rundown.

Here’s a couple pictures of the style I was experimenting with:

The style I’m going to go with is going to be similar to the current one, but with more detailed floors and backgrounds. The goal is to make the environment look more like a drawing or a black and white watercolor painting.

Here’s the current progress:

It’s still in its early stages, so it doesn’t look that different yet, but it will improve during the following weeks.

New enemy

It’s a really simple little enemy that just charges at the player and can be destroyed with just one hit. It doesn’t offer as large of a challenge as the other enemy types, but can still hit the player if they aren’t paying attention.

Small changes

Here’s the change log of most of the smaller changes that were made during the last couple weeks:

PolyMap / Map editor:

Fixed PolyMap item loading and saving.

Fixed PolyMap ShapeManager Reset method.

Replaced the PolyMap 2-state active system, with a 3-state active system.

Fixed and refactored PolyMap shape and point moving and selecting.

Fixed item editor rotation loading to UI always going to 1 instead of the actual value.

Fixed all shapes becoming active when switching from item editing mode to shape editing mode in the map editor.

Fixed PolyMap points not updating location on startup.

Fixed the editor error and warning message popups.

New layout for the shape selectors.

Updated map editor shape icons.

New map editor icons for loot container, floor spike and all enemies.

Fixed map editor room loading buttons sometimes having buttons from the previous map.

Fixed map editor item editing panel not opening.

Fixed the map editor UI.

Other smaller PolyMap improvements.

Powerups:

Added the Ice Square powerup.

Added distortion effects and the ability to spawn gameobjects on hit to the Projectile class.

Added hit distortions to all powerups that should have it.

Added impact particles and slightly adjusted the look of the spit powerups.

Misc:

Fixed enemies lunging and shooting at the player when frozen of confused.

Added the ability for enemies to spawn loot on hit, and fixed the loot grouping up bug.

Fixed enemy AI stopping when the room the enemy is in gets unloaded.

Reorganized some scripts to correct folders.

New smoke particle material.

Fixed Spear hit sounds.

Added possibility of using a Rigidbody2D to the Spinner class.

Fixed powerup discard button not working.

Updated the look of the floor spikes.

Added a slight wiggle to the snake movement.

Improved the pause screen.

Whew.

As always, remember to follow @lastquarterdev on Twitter for all the latest news about the game.

[lootsnakegame]

Progress on the art overhaul (50/2017)

What do you mean this post is a day late? I’ve always posted these on Sundays. Please don’t fact check that.

Anyways, the topic of this post is the current progress on the art overhaul / refresh.

Let’s look at the progress that was made, step by step. (I posted all of these on the @lastquarterdev Twitter account, which all the cool kids follow. And since you’re cool as well, you should totally follow it.)

And here’s what the game currently looks like:

There’s still a lot to be done. The powerups, the icons for the powerups, the icons in the map editor, lava, water and all that stuff. But I think this is off to a good start.

There might not be a bi-weekly update on week 52. So the next progress update you see might be on the second week of next year. I’ll be posting (almost)daily updates to the @lastquarterdev Twitter account though.

Happy holidays!

[lootsnakegame]

Plans and stuff (updated)

I don’t know if you noticed, but the year just (give or take a week) changed. So it’s the perfect time to revise the long-term plan for Loot Snake.

Note that the Alpha and Beta sections are going to be split into smaller updates. (Alpha 1.0, Alpha 1.1, etc)

Pre-Alpha 0.3.0

The version that’s currently being worked on. The main focus points are the complete art and powerup refresh.

Pre-Alpha 0.4.0

More sound effects, music, ambiance, stuff like that. After this version gets released I’ll start contacting YouTubers and other content creators that might be interested in the game.

Pre-Alpha 0.5.0

More stuff for the rooms. (Traps, decorations, new enemies, etc.)

Pre-Alpha 0.6.0

Environmental effects. Fire spreads on grass, water can be poisoned / frozen, stuff like that. (This might also come in an earlier update, or be pushed to the Alpha version of the game.)

Alpha

Shops, pets, procedural maps. Add easier map sharing to the list as well.

This version will most likely have a price tag on it. And if it does, it’ll be somewhere around $1 - $2. People who played the pre-alpha will get this version for free.

Beta

New game modes, content, and polish. Small price increase. People who have played the pre-alpha, or the alpha can play this version for free.

Release (Gold)

A story driven campaign. Lots of more content.

The game will be released on Steam and get the final price tag. Between $5 - $10. People who have played pre-alpha, alpha or beta versions of the game will get this version for free + a Steam key. (If you got the game in pre-alpha, you have to have donated some amount of money to get the Steam key. This is a restriction put in place by itch.io.)

So that’s the revised plans. Not much has changed, but it’s still good to do these update posts to make sure that there’s at least some sort of long term plan. There’s probably going to be other small changes made to this in the future as well.

[lootsnakegame]

Loot Snake development slowing down

Hi.

This is just a quick announcement that the development of Loot Snake will slow down while I work on the next Cats are Liquid game (for which you can read the plans for here).

This doesn’t mean that the development is stopping completely, or that the game is canceled. Just that it’s not currently the top priority.

[lootsnakegame]

Pre-Alpha 0.3.0 is out now!

You can get the new version here.

Change log is available here.