WIDOW

Welcome to WIDOW's tumblr devblog. Widow is a adventure platformer game currently in production by Rosalie Vile

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Can You Take It | 1934 — Popeye joins a secret society

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New logo i made last night (top), and the old logo for comparison. Which do you prefer?

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It really is still happening, I promise

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Some art of Widow in combat with a Bonehead Jr.!

Patreon - Twitter

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Here’s a gameplay video featuring some of the stuff I’ve been working on this past month!

Please consider checking out the Widow Patreon! More content including gameplay videos, live streams, demo downloads, and exclusive downloads are on the way :-)

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New dialogue system in progress! I want everything in the game world to feel like it’s PART of the scene you’re in, rather than a cutscene

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Hey everyone!

I’ve officially launched a Widow Patreon! As you may know, I’ve been working on a project for several years now that has gone through several rebirths. After successfully creating a few small indie games with my development team, I feel confident enough to follow through and develop the game all the way to the end.

However, I am currently working full-time and struggling to pay rent. On top of working and searching for a new job, I have very little time to devote to game development. Which is why I’ve started this Patreon!

Currently, the rewards available are access to patron-exclusive devblogs and a monthly livestream, as well as regular demo releases. Thanks for checking it out!

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experimenting with knockback and hurt/heal using red cubes

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new grass sprites, and added a breeze that blows through the grass every once in a while. gotta get that ambience!!!!

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i’ve been pretty busy in the past week, adding ... you guessed it, features!

i wouldn’t say i’ve “restarted the game” or anything so dramatic, but i’m massively restructuring everything into a very coherent system instead of the scattered mess it once was.

and with that comes some new additions, like:

the on-screen inventory with the ability to drop or throw items directly into the game world (or, of course, use the items without opening any menus)

a healthbar system that allows you to collect backup healthbars

and, more boring, a more seamless state system that allows for more seamless stuff like climbing, wall-jumping, swimming, and determining the images to use

in all this restructuring i DID break some stuff like one-way platforms and the (bad) attack system, but all of this will be repaired soon! and much better than before, with cooler design and lesser chance of lag

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sketch of the new HUD system (or whatever you call these dealies). since there’s only three inventory slots (extra slots can be found throughout the game), no cut-away screens are necessary. weapons/tools (umbrellas and guns) are considered items too, so they’re all handled with the same keys/buttons. essentially any item can be used, dropped into the world, or thrown. there are no “key” items which are one-of-a-kind or necessary to keep in your inventory for an extended amount of time.

Keep reading

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artwork of frogkid and lucie!

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ignoring the weird shading effects on the far arm (still gotta figure that out), this is a sorta rough draft of widow’s one-frame turning animation, sans veil and umbrella. in order to preserve the general rule of right-top lighting with eyes lit from the bottom-left, all complex figure sprites will have two versions, one for right and one for left. this will allow for asymmetrical design as well, like how widow’s hair is parted from the right, or how her hat sits more toward the right, or how she’s always left-handed

the front-facing tween frame exists not only to smooth out left-to-right transitions when you’re standing still, it also gives a single frame for position micro-adjustment when platforming. tapping the opposite directional key will simply shift your sprite rather than moving you in any direction, which could be useful, for instance, if standing on a narrow platform and fighting off flying monsters

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some of the fantastic artwork of Starlight Warriors from pigsquad’s drink and draw earlier this week! if you drew any of these please let me know so i can link your twitter/tumblr on this post :)

btw, the game’s new demo is available here.

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I’m currently building a text engine tentatively called voiceMachine, for use in both Widow and Bell Heart Boxes.

Taking some inspiration from games like Ace Attorney and UnderTale, I’m trying to make characters’ speech as expressive as possible without voice acting. Various text effects like these, as well as color text, different fonts, and full-screen effects (like screenshake/flash/sound fx) will accompany the speech of characters to emphasize words and phrases.

The first, for instance, could be used to express fear or excitement. The second could signify a sing-songy voice or a ghost’s “booooo!”

Of course, I’m using my all purpose “i know he ate a cheese” sample text

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widow prologue: before/after bricks

taking some inspiration from yoshi’s island environments, i opted for a far less cluttered brick texture and it’s working very well. i think a good principle is to heavily texture the outside and emphasize negative space on the inside. it looks far less cluttered/busy, and allows for more contrast where it really matters (the widow!)

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lots of new environmental tilesets! no sprite for pushing and pulling crates yet though...whoops!