Category: Progress Reports

Game Update

So, I’ve finished the Serenity Crater event sequence. I’m currently waiting on some images from Chickenwhite and I need to fix up some bugs in the cutscenes, but it’s playable start to finish even if there’s no enemies in the area. I’ll probably clean up the bugs and do balancing work this week.

Chicken has finished the Golem transformation images and is now working on the enemies in the Serenity Crater area. It’s not just Darkmatter Girls!

Hund is working on the last two combat animations I need for our prototype purposes. There are lots more to go, but these are for damage types that aren’t in the game yet, like Crusading and Obscuring, so we don’t need them immediately.

Urimas has been working on the running animations. Look below!

Running Animations

Here’s the running animations in action. Your browser will need to be able to play animated gifs, so sorry for that, some mobile users.

Urimas is most of the way done the running animations. A few of Christine’s forms need to get them still, all of Mei’s, 55’s, and Florentina’s are done. These animations will be in v1.05 and Prototype 5-2 when they come out.

Random Level Generator

So I’ve mentioned that the next thing on my work list is the Tellurium Mines. This area is unlike the rest of Chapter 5 in that it is randomly generated by floor. You’ll be doing a lot of quests and subquests in the mines for the Steam Droids, or you’ll be doing them for Regulus City for work credits. Either way, there’s lots to do in the mines.

I’ve started work on the level generator. It’ll take a lot of work to get it making nice levels, since Pandemonium can build fairly complex enemy patrol routes. I’ll probably do a Design with a Grain of Salt post on the random levels when I get a bit further along.

This is the start of the room-and-tunnel generator. The mines will have several generators to pick from, this one is fairly similar to the NetHack style of generating rooms and then linking them together.

Prototype 5-2 Objectives

Here’s what my objectives are for Prototype 5-2 and Chapter 1 v1.05. When everything on this list is checked off, it’s release time baby!

• Serenity Crater (Mostly Done)
• Tellurium Mines (In Progress)
• Text Adventure Subquest
• Golem Transformation images (Done)
• Latex Drone Transformation images
• Enemies for Serenity Crater (In progress)
• All running animations completes (In progress)
• New UI Overhaul (In Progress)
• Eldritch Dream Girl Transformation (Text only, no images – Mostly Done)
• Work Credits System implemented and balanced
• Next balance pass of Chapter 5 (In Progress)
• Darkmatter Girl Transformation (Text only, no images – Being Edited)
• Electrosprite Transformation (Text only, no images)
• Steam Droid Transformation (Text only, no images)

I’m not putting a time estimate on Prototype 5-2 at the current date, because I want to get the mines and text-adventure modules in. I had originally wanted just Serenity done, but since the Patrons voted for more significant updates, we’ll be doing all three of the side content areas for the next prototype.

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Yes, I know I promised a Coding with a Grain of Salt this week. I got called into work. It’ll be up Wednesday. Damn it.

Coding

Serenity Crater is completely mapped and 50% scripted. I decided to add more world stuff to examine and characters to talk to, really brings the place to life.

I’ve also added automated texture atlasing to the program. It only actually applies to the sprites. The atlasing is not meant to improve VRAM usage, it’s meant to improve loading speeds, which it does only in the case of sprites. It also improves rendering speed, but Pandemonium has never been rendering speed choked.

I can’t do statically sized atlases because the texture size is limited based on the user’s graphics card and I don’t want users on older machines to have problems. You have to toggle atlasing on, and it only boosts loading speed by about 0.4 seconds. That adds up when you’re like me and run the program 100 times an hour, but I expect only users on older equipment will notice more than 1 second gain.

Art

Hund is working his way through the combat animations. They’re starting to come together. I’ve also updated the combat sound effects using stolen borrowed sounds. They make combat a lot more fun to observe, and it flows much more nicely.

Chicken is most of the way through the Golem TF, and also got us some updated Mei Zombee sprites. The new UI requires full-sized portraits, and Zombee never had one (because Mei cannot enter combat during that sequence). Well, now she does. Patrons will get to see it.

Urimas is currently working his way through the running animations. I’ll be posting some gifs of those next week. They look pretty darn great and really make the game come alive.

Other Stuff

I’m going to outline my project targets in next week’s post. No, we won’t be doing Prototype 5-2 this month, it will probably be in May.

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Coding Stuff

I’ve spent most of the previous week working on another project, which launched on Sunday. I’m taking a few days off because working every day for 2 months has taken a bit of a toll.

If you’re interested, the project is on itch.io and can be downloaded for free. I did the engine work, and my associate did the art and the writing.

Art Stuff

Hund is working on the map and damage animations, Chicken is working on TF art. We’re also getting a new UI in the next two weeks. I’ve been trying to badger Cocomint into making a new UI for about 8 months now and it’s finally happening.

Future Plans

Next week will be a special post to celebrate a recent milestone on Patreon. I will also be putting up two polls for Patrons. One is a feedback survey for Prototype 5-1, and the other is a steering poll. Do you want more frequent but less polished prototypes? What area should we be focusing on next? The poll will decide what we do.

For the moment, the next two weeks will be spent working on getting the new UI in. We’ll probably have another round of prototypes later this month based on the progress I make once I’ve recovered a bit.

There will also be a budget report next week once all the Patreon funding gets settled. It’s been a lot of hard work but everything is going great.

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Prototype 5-1 is now going out to Patrons

Yes that’s right, after four months of waiting, Prototype 5-1 is out. I killed myself getting it done, and the artists barely helped likewise put their all into it.

If you’re a patron, then head over to Patreon and check your inbox. We’ll be using a new system this time, with a static page that has prototype access as well as updates when patches are released, instead of me having to spam you.

If you’re not a patron, you should be, because then you’d be playing Prototype 5-1, genius. You’ll also be supporting the game’s development, of course.

In other news, there will be two polls in the next two weeks for 5$ patrons. The first one will be an opinion survey on Prototype 5-1, and the other one will be a “Settings” poll. I want to know if the patrons want more regular but rougher prototypes, less-frequent but nicer prototypes, and what I should be focusing on for the next prototype.

Patrons, bug reports go on the forums. Remember to put spoilers on plot stuff!

(Because I took a nap and now it’s after midnight, oh no!)

Prototype Status (And Bad News)

Due to unforeseen/unforeseeable issues, Chicken believes she will not have all of the transformation art completed in time for the prototype. We may have one of the sequences done, but not the other. Sad.

On the other hand, all of the cutscenes are done and fairly polished. I need to do a lot of balance testing, adding examinables, and adding treasure, but the prototype is now fully playable with no placeholders all the way through to its conclusion. The only main area that needs new balance testing is the eastern side of the LRT facility and the Equinox boss battles.

I had to add some code to the combat engine to handle threat and internal states. It’s fairly rough looking right now, and it’s hard to target friendly party members with the current interface. If I have time I will try to fix that before the prototype goes out.

The minigames will probably not have time to get polished before the prototype. They’re playable but they’re not all that fun (from my perspective) and don’t provide work credits. For the purposes of the prototype, I’ll probably just provide some base work credits and let you do a subquest to get the rest.

Otherwise, everything is on track for the release on the 26th.

Three weeks to the Patron Pal Prototype for Chapter 5. Mark your calenders.

Programming

Things are going well on the coding front. I did my second balance pass, but I spent most of my time improving cutscenes, improving maps, and polishing dialogue. Chapter 5 looks pretty darn good in my opinion.

I still need to polish and balance the LRT facility, and the Equinox facility’s battles are still unbalanced. There is also a major puzzle (optional, for those of you who hate puzzles) which I have put the map in for but not completed the back-end for.

Since I have three weeks to go, I probably won’t get all the polishing work in I want. But, everything will be functional for the prototype players to give feedback on.

Art

Sprites and inking are up to date, and I’m getting Urimas to add some special sprites for a cutscene I’m planning. Hund is going to be putting together a map for Regulus. Right now he’s putting together some buildings and pieces which will be arranged into a map.

Chickenwhite is redesigning one of the bosses from Chapter 5 to be – better. That’s all I will say. After that she’s on TF-scene duty. I’m hoping all four TFs will be completed by the time the prototype goes out, but that’s a bit of a tall order. They will probably only be in sketch form.

Everything Else

There isn’t an “everything else”. Right now, this project is art and coding. I do the music and sound work myself. Damn it.

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First, a bit of free art this week. This is the Raiju, one of the monster species of Chapter 5. It’s been a while since we showed off any art to non-patrons, so I’m taking this opportunity. Happy… February…

In coding news, I’m starting balance work. I’ve already done the first balance pass for the first part of Chapter 5, but I wasn’t happy with it and have to go and edit it. And then I’ll probably redo it a few more times until I’m happy with it. We’re also doing an internal balance test later this week once I have everything in place.

Once the balance work is complete, it’s just art that needs completion and then we can ship the March prototype. Well, that and bug tests, but there’s always bugs.

In terms of art, the entire art skeleton for the first prototype is complete. There are a few character concepts left to do, but the characters in question don’t appear in the prototype so we’ll do them later. This week the artists will be starting on the TF sequences and the dialogue art.

Whether or not I’ll have time to get in any more bonus content is a big question. I have another (paid!) project I’m working on, which also has a prototype due at the end of March. I’ve been splitting my time between the two. If I’m satisfied by the balance and polish of the minigames, I’ll try to squeeze Serenity Crater Observatory in.

There will also likely be a “[X] With a Grain of Salt” post later this week. I want to discuss linguistic realism and how to do it properly. It might even not bore someone!

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Good news, comrades!

The Equinox Facility scripting is completed

The Long-range Telemetry Facility scripting is completed

The Lower Sector 15 sub-quest is completed

Amazingly, I got all of that done in a week. This includes two transformation sequences, several cutscenes, and a bunch of map layouts.

With this done, I have another project I need to work on for a while. I will try to get my first balancing pass done this week so we can start that testing. MarioneTTe has already edited one of the TF sequences to make it excellent, and the art is inked and awaiting coloring for that sequence.

Depending on how much extra time we have, I should be able to get done 1-2 of the extra content requests in the poll a few weeks back. I also have to polish up the cutscenes and get their timings down (some make extensive use of sound and music for effect) and polish up the minigames and work-credits system, which has some bugs. Otherwise, everything is going fantastically well.

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