PixelPuddle
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Progress update: demo date, idle animations, and pink aura
🕑 Added 2023-08-15 17:12:22 +0000 UTCHey all! I'm back with the mid-August progress update.
Let's get the second demo release date out of the way first :)
September 6th!
After the demo is out, I'm gonna focus on making sure the second demo is mostly bug-free, and then I'm switching back to working on the dark forest region again. Just as a reminder, the dark forest region will be released as an early insider build that Patrons have access to, as I'll switch over to doing insider builds towards the full release of the game. This also means the planned Patreon tier changes will go into effect, but if you're reading this now you'll keep the tier you're in now and still get access to insider builds as a thank you for the early support!
Animations
One day between the last progress update I wanted to try drawing some higher-res feet - it spiraled into an animation that eventually ended up becoming a new Panthrill boss battle/quest reward higher-resolution animation! It's going to be an "idle" animation alike the one that's already in-game where if you do nothing for 60 seconds, Erisia takes up your whole screen. Unlike the previous idle animation, this one is also a full animation with variable speeds.
Eventually I want to integrate idle animations a bit more with the game so they're not just activated after 60 seconds, but I have to think some more on how. The groundwork for the animation I was planning is still here, and I'll likely finish it at some point but for the second demo this higher-res animations is going in instead
The remaining animation work for the second demo is now as follows:
- The plant lady hide-and-seek animation - it's partially done
- The boss Panthrill's two super animations
- The green vine tentacle's multiple super animations
As usual I'll be posting animations on socials, including replacing the old ones with their updated equivalents (with super thrusts and the animation improvements), so make sure to follow my socials if you aren't already :)
Here's the bee lady super thrust as a teaser before I post a full updated animation to socials - I ended up doing a bit more for this one since speeding up an existing sub-animation wasn't doing it, so you get this zoom-bubble as well
I've also added an animated godrays visual effect to the background - they're not as good as I want them yet, but it adds some much needed flair to the backgrounds. I've experimented with some better looking godrays which we should get sometime after the second demo
Gameplay
Since the last update I decided to add a small change to the pink gauge. Every time an entity gets close to Erisia and tries to initiate an animation her pink gauge fills by 1%. So unlike the previously mentioned change, this means you have time before Erisia starts auto-starting animations, but you still want to try a little bit to avoid entities if you don't want her to get pinker, or vice versa if you do :) Erisia also has the pink aura so you'll know when she begins auto-starting animations, and little hearts fly every time an entity makes contact.
I've also split the game into normal and hard difficulties - if you preferred the old type of gameplay where Erisia was always auto-starting animations, and rhythm misses were a bit more punishing, you can do that now by selecting "hard" when doing a new game.
Mari's quest (the cat tailed lady) should be done now, but needs to be game-tested for the release. The plant lady hide-and-seek quest is still work-in-progress, but it's a smaller one so it shouldn't take long to finish now that most other things are out of the way.
Menus
In addition to the status effects and the map menus, I've also added an entity information menu - you can see short descriptions for the various entities you meet throughout the world, which hopefully should help clear up what exactly an entity is capable of doing
That's it for this one. The next update here will likely just be the one announcing the release of the second demo - see you then!
