Heyo everyone! It was a bit of a scramble to get this one done on time, but here we are! Testing was fairly minimal unfortunately, so bugs are likely. Any reports would be greatly appreciated! Let's get into the changelog! There were a couple features I couldn't get in, like Pom's function as an ally, but that will come in the future still.
Changelog:
MAJOR:
New Level: Neos
New Ally: Nika
2 Nika Hscenes
Nika's abilities:
>Reckless Play: Throw a ball of yarn out. Collecting the yarn will increase attack speed on most weapons by 1.5%, but also increase damage taken by 1.5%.
>Nimble: Doubles boost speed, and halves brake speed.
-Added the ability to review tentacle "Help" sequences in the Hscene room
-Catiya Cutscene is now colored and animated.
Minor:
-Increase Charge Shot radius.
-Change Player lasers to ensure they collide with Enemies before obstacles if it collides with both on the same frame.
-Reduced Molbon boss' tentacles HP from 1500 to 1000
-Added Party Icons to display when abilities are ready.
-Added UI alerts for when purple claws are latched on to the player.
-Increased how wide the player can aim
-Increased how far the player/camera can travel left and right on the rail in most levels.
-Reworked UI in the Hscene room.
-Fixed a bug where the player would "jitter" during certain segments of levels
-Gatling and Power shot now shoot much farther.
-Fixed a bug where Titas' final checkpoint could still send you underground.
Alright! Thanks again everyone! I hope you enjoy v0.6!
The file size has officially gotten a bit too large for Patreon, so I will need to post the files via a Mega link.
If you have problems with the download let me know!
HOTFIX:
v0.6.1 (February 10th)
-Fixed a bug where Nika would talk on planets, even if she is not unlocked or in the party. -Increased the required motion in Gamepad movement for it to kick in. (You will likely now need to move the analog a lot more in order for the game to automatically switch to gamepad controls. This is to avoid gamepad from taking control if it has a slight drift)
Heyo again everyone! Sorry for the late post, there was a lot going on today, but here we are with the last progress report before v0.6's launch on the 1st. I still have a bit left to do unfortunately, but I am hoping to put in the hours to wrap it up this weekend.
Now! Let's get to it!
As you can see above, Nika has been added to the party select, and you may have noticed some changes to her planned abilities. Let's take a look at her abilities in their current state:
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ACTIVE:
Reckless Play: Throw out a ball of yarn. Collecting will give you +1.5% ATK SPD on primary weapons (This will also effect Gatling Gun), but you will also take +1.5% Damage (The image is out of date in terms of the current numbers). This buff will stack infinitely, and will last until the end of the level.
PASSIVE:
Nimble: Boost speed is doubled, and Brake speed is halved.
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At first Reckless Play was spread across both her passive, and her active. Upon review, I felt this was a little too "isolating" in the sense that her role would be very independent from the rest of the team. As a result could feel like she has no real synergy. I decided to combine them to make her active, and give her a new passive.
The dynamic of Nika is to give a bit more of a pacing character. She can utilize dead space, and busy moments in levels well. She can brake better if there are a lot of enemies, but she can also clear dead space in levels by either stacking her active, or boosting through it. The boost will also be nice utility if you want to get through levels fast for reasons like farming affinity, or trying alternate routes.
There are a couple questions about it. ATK SPD is more beneficial to some attacks than others. ie, it's ultimate combination would be Gatling, as it's so low-maintenance. To remedy the contrast between it, and Power Shot (Which is typically a 3-shot burst). The power shot WILL increase in speed in the exact same way as Gatling, however at certain thresholds Power Shot will actually shoot an extra bullet in it's burst. (25% = 4 shots, 50% = 5 shots, 75% = 6 shots, 100% = 8 shots). It's unlikely you will hit the higher end of these threshold, unless your against a boss you can sit there and farm on, but what this means is that if you were at say... 85% ATK SPD, with 1 long press, you will shoot 6 shots instead of 3. The point of this is so that you don't actually have to press any faster to keep up with the ATK speed increase.
This technically still leaves the question about Flame Wave and the next planned attack type. While there is no "extra" effect of that kind on them aside from the ATK SPD, I will continue to experiment with it and see how ATK SPD feels with these weapon types.
Let's move on from Nika's abilities. On to enemies.
I finished off some of the scripts I had been wanting to get done. First off... When the "rocket" and the hand come into contact they will combine. This restores their health and puts them into a new state. They share health, and will find an anchor point in your play field. They will remain there and shoot at you until they are dead. They will not go away.
There can be a maximum of 3 doing this at a time. If this happens a 4th time, the new duo will vanish. The best way to deal with them is to kill them before they combine.
Another is the drones.
Upon getting close enough to a drone they will drop their boxes. In an attempt to drop them on you. The boxes will also drop if you kill the drones. (This also comes into play later)
Now onto the next point was the "Wire" route, and it's transition point.
As you can see... in general... Nika doesn't fly too efficiently, so her ship kind of does what it wants... If you fail to shoot down the Hologram wall, she will bounce off it like a plushie toy. The point of contact is decisive point. If she hits... you go the normal way, if you destroy it, you go the wire route.
Nika instructs you to ONLY shoot Pink Wires. Shooting any other causes and explosion that will deal heavy damage, so be careful!
That being said, on this route, while dealing with wires, there will be no enemies to worry about.
We're getting there... Next point would be the final implementation of the boss' code, and animations. In these examples I have removed the mouth. I didn't like how it looked on the model to put it bluntly, but I may return to this in the future.
The point from this would be her eye tracking should generally be following the player now.
Small Flame effects have been added to a couple of her moves.
This covers a couple things... I was trying to show off the drones, but she happened to use the swipe... When swiping you can either go hard right and dodge the whole thing, or go left, and run from the hand that will continue moving in that direction.
The drones with blue boxes you see are the final phase of the fight. Once you have shot off Pom's clothes, you need to shoot the drones. When all 3 drones have dropped their static boxes, Pom will be stunned.
Shooting the machine will cause it to spin. There are a total of 3 speeds. This whole process will deal a damage over time to the boss.
Stationary. - No damage Slow - x1 Speed Fast - x2 Speed
Basically shooting the machine itself does not do damage, but the damage dealt to Pom is based on the speed of the machine.
The final thing this week was the implementation of the new slides for Catiya's cutscene.
Here's a look at some of them.
With that, I think I'll wrap up this progress update! As mentioned there is still actually some work to be done before this build is ready to go, but it shouldn't take too long, and should still be ready by the 1st.
The things I need to wrap up are fine tuning enemy placement in Neos, along with finishing off the level's transmission dialogue. I need to do the intro and outro sequencing for the boss. (Like her intro, and her dying phase). After that I will need to do a bit of connection work with UI.
I WOULD like to add Pom's assist functions, but I just might not have the time for that in this build. If not, I will look to have it in the next one.
Anyways! Thanks again everyone for the support! I'll catch you all on the 1st for the release of Nika and v0.6!
Hey everyone! Here for the weekly update. This week was entirely dedicated to rigging, animating, and programming the boss. Things are still a little rough around the edges. This boss is definitely more in-depth than the others, and requires a little more time to finish up. That being said progress has been great, and I'm actually further along than I thought I would be. The base rig is done, most of the code is in place, all animations are done, and many of the special effects are in place. Without further ado, let's look at the animations of the attacks!
First step was to rig the model
I did some simple auto-rigging with Rigify for this, along with some minor additions and tweaking.
Next was just setting up a Simple 2D face animation in AnyPortrait.
This will likely be expanded upon, and was mostly just so I could get stuff in place. I then set up a script to properly position these face components onto the face.
It will basically just rotate the components properly. The positioning and such will likely be tweaked in the future.
Then comes the animation.
Let's just try and show them off with the indicators in place when I can. Some of these gifs are going to be large, so they might take a bit to load.
We'll try and do things in a logical chronological order.
Pom has different attacks whether you are in front or behind her. Let's start with in-front.
These attacks require a bit more code to function so I will show the first few from the animator window rather than in-game.
First up is a simple swipe.
From this position, Pam will spin towards the character, and upon escaping, she may revert to the other side.
Another attack if you are in front of her is her fireballs. This one is still a bit in progress. She will likely have a different facial animation here, and the effects may be tweaked. In this form she will track the player.
Let's jump to what she's like when you are behind, and some global attacks. She may do these attacks while you are in front as well.
When you are behind she will likely have a straight forward sequence of Summon -> Slam -> Slice. With Slice resetting her angle to be facing you again.
Start with Summon.
During this she will summon Neos specific enemies to attack the player. Upon summoning 6 enemies, she will begin to slam. Slam is a low attack that you must go up to dodge.
And finally Pom will throw a explosive powder into the air, igniting her hand (effect not in yet), and slicing through causing a high explosion. This can be dodged by going low. As mentioned, this attack will reset her, and she will be facing you again.
and before you ask, yes you shoot off her clothes to beat her. There are red gems around her. One on each sleeve and stocking, and 4 on her leotard.
Which leads to the question... what happens when you shoot her clothes off?
This part's function isn't quite implemented yet, but some drones will hover in front holding some restraints. By destroying these drones, you can pin Pom. These animations once again will be back in animator view:
You can see where this goes.. A Machine will spawn behind Pom. Upon shooting the machine it will wind up. The more you shoot it, the faster it goes.
Slower Speed:
Faster Speed:
The faster it goes, the faster her health will deplete. This may take a couple cycles depending on how quick you are.
That pretty much sums up where we are at with the boss... there is still a bit of work to do, but given where we were at at the start of the week, I am happy with this progress.
Next week is going to be wrapping up the last components of this. Hopefully I can bang that off early on in the week, so I can finish up some other things that need attention before the Friday hits. The goal is to have the build completed by Friday, so we can get some testing in before it launches on the 1st, but there is a good amount to do overall still.
Anyways! Thanks again everyone! I'll catch you next week!
Heyo everyone! Here with a pretty productive week. Nika's conversation animations are a bit eccentric, and were fun to do. I had some extra time to tap into a few quick things I wanted to get in as well. I will start with the QoL/balance updates. Let's get into it!
Alright!
There are now indicators for your allies showing when they are technically available for use. This should help for clarity on characters like Pix and Nika. This is an extremely basic implementation, and may be adjusted in the future.
Next was implementing a indication overlay for when the purple claws latch on to you.
Once again, this is a pretty basic implementation, and will likely be visually updated in the future, but I did want more clarity for newer players on this end. Also to help the player notice in case one sneaks onto the ship without noticing.
A couple more small changes were to ship boundaries. The amount of camera leniency has been increase horizontally on "most" levels. It is still restrictive on the Titas, as there are segments that are built around the restrictions.
With this increase in camera distance, the player can now aim at more drastic angles. (Basically you can aim wider from whatever your current position is)
Another change and addition was in the "Hscene Room"
You will now start with more of an overview window, and of course an addition that has been requested.
When you click on their button it will also play their voice line asking for assistance along with some SFX.
Another thing you might notice is that "Nova's Hscene" will now play the cutscene/slides intro along with it.
I can't remember if I mentioned it last week, but I also reduced the plant boss' tentacles health from 1500 to 1000. Tentacles will now die faster. Overall this is to quicken the pacing of the boss, and make multiple cycles feel less bad. I also made some changes to the player laser. The player's laser would often collide with obstacles instead of hitting enemies if they occur on the same frame (most prevalent on the Plant boss on Molbon). I made some hitbox changes a while back to avoid this, but it's proving to be insufficient. I have now made it so when a laser collides with an obstacle, instead of colliding with it, it will simply flag itself as such. After running through all other collision instances, if it has not hit anything else (ie, an enemy), it will THEN collide with the obstacle on the next frame.
Something else I *started* doing was implementing the new input system. While it's still very much in progress, it has started. Many controls will now use it, though it will not be noticable at all (except maybe some gamepad controls). Once this has been fully implemented, keybinds will be on the table, and gamepad controls will be much more consistent/practical.
Finally, SOME headway was made on the recurring save issues people are having between builds. It seems this only happens on specific systems. It seems it's due to the serialization/deserialization of the binary formatter with new data. (It's odd that some systems handle this totally fine, while others do not.) From what I have read online, I am a big dumb head for using this system for saving anyways. I may look into implementing a new save system if I don't come up with a solution soon. If I implement a new save system I will do what I can to ease the transition, allowing people who have functioning saves carry their data over seamlessly.
ANYWAYS! Let's get into the conversation animations! I almost forgot that's the main highlight of this post.
Of course what you saw at the head of the post was Nika's Idle animation. (No particular emotion)
We have our Happy Intro, and Happy loop:
Here's her Smug:
Shock:
Angry:
Sad (Basically just a variant of Angry):
Of course there are clothing toggles as well.
I believe that is everything I have to report on for this week. These next couple weeks are going to be a bit intimidating, but we're gonna give it everything we got.
Neos boss will begin.
I gotta rig this sucka up, animate the facial animations, and add the proper effects. Here goes nothin'!
Thanks everyone! This was a long one, but I'll catch you all next week with a lil' bit o' pepper on the boss.
Heyo everyone! It's time for the weekly progress report! Before diving in I would like to throw out a reminder that the current poll for "Hscene type" still has 21 days left on it, so make sure to get your votes in! The current standings are as follows:
With that, lets take a look at Nika's 2nd Hscene! Some of these animations still need a bit of polishing (like Aether's leg movements and some clipping), but are mostly done.
I'll skip the meshing, rigging, and control parameter images this time around, and go right into the animations.
Starting from the top, we have our Idle:
Which then goes into a tease.
From here, as you see, it branches. Aether can either take control, or get on his knees.
If you take control there will be a deeper loop. Testing her flexibility :P
and finally a faster/hard loop.
.
There is another loop if you go "Eat Out" route, but there is still some things I need to do on that one.
And of course there are the climax animations.
Before I close out I just want to mention that I recently got a Steam Deck. This helps with testing multiple things easily, and regularly (like gamepad support, optimization, troubleshooting with linux based systems, and alternate aspect ratios, etc). Naturally I tried Starbreed on it, and found that even though it looks great on the OLED... it's almost unplayable due to the lack of support for gamepad/control scheme customization. At the very least, this has given me a strong incentive to focus on this factor sooner rather than later. I may not get to it this build, but it is a bit higher on the priority list than it was previously.
With that, I will be focusing on animating Nika's conversation art next week, along with writing her dialogue.
Thanks everyone for the continued support! I will catch you all then!
Heyo everyone! It's been a busy week, but with the way the scene was set up, I decided to try some interesting things, as you can likely see above. Shortly after this I will be posting some Hi Res art for the high tiers. I actually believe I missed Siren's Hi Res post in the last build (probably due to the public build making things a bit hectic at the time), so this one will work as a double for Siren and Tanya.
Let's jump right into the report!
To start off, I did the standard: breaking up the images, and importing it in a new atlas. The generated atlases this time were actually pretty inefficient in terms of space, but whatever.
It's always strange seeing the size differences via perspective when looking at an atlas.... anyways!
After that I did all the meshing necessary.
I then rigged everything to bones.
Once completed I set up some morph control parameters.
Because I had the idea of playing a bit with perspective, I wanted to give her head full motion in a couple angles.
For anyone unfamiliar with how these parameters work. Each "Key" (in this case I made a key where each white dot is)
I will manually morph the vertices of every mesh involved with the movement, and map them to each key.
This way I simply need to move the knob/values, and and ALL meshes will morph in the way I previously set up. This makes animation a lot faster and streamlined.
When I experimented with angle change, I decided to start messing will a bunch of things. I swapped out the 2D, static background with a fully 3D set.
With the scene having a pretty forced perspective, the 3D set was... a complete mess at almost any angle that is not what it was intended for ahaha.
Considering the angle change is so small, it almost literally felt like the camera was moving a bit, so I decided to try making so the POV is an actual camera in the setting. With that I thought it might be fun to have the Hscene projected on the screens throughout the city, as you can see below
With the 3D world in place, and the perspective changes in the rig, I was able to play with the camera angles as you can see in the post header. Most animations can be done at both angles, though there may be some exclusive ones... we'll see.
Simple Idle:
Main Loop:
Fast:
And climax animations:
Some other news that's come in is that AmHidden has finished the intro cutscene art/colors, so I will see if I can get that implemented before the end of this build
Here's a look at a couple things.
Anyways! That should sum up the jist of the work this week. This next week is going to be dedicated to Nika's 2nd Hscene! I'm actually just as excited to try this one. I think it will be fun to animate.
Thanks again everyone! Catch you next week with some motion!
Heyo everyone! I'm back from the trip, and have gotten some headway where possible. There are going to be a few first looks at things here, as AmHidden has knocked off a good amount in my absence. Before I get into the new mechanics, I'm going to say that alongside this post I am going to do the build's poll.
As there are no more characters to vote for, I will be doing a poll for a "type of Hscene". This poll will consist of options that typically wouldn't show up, or hasn't showed up so far. Another thing about the poll is that "when" it will come could vary, to ensure we are working on a suitable character for it.
The current hscene types on the poll will be: -Thighjob -Footjob -Light BDSM (tied) -Armpitjob -Handjob -Hotdogging
In this hallway you will be dodging many colorful wires. You will only want to shoot the pink wires. This will award you with affinity, and potentially help you in the boss. If you shoot or collide with any other color, an explosion will happen and you may take damage. This is the alternate route if you mange to help the catgirl and clear a path for her.
Another thing covered was Nika's passive and active. I'm still going to experiment with this a bit, but she does have a bit of an isolated combo.
Active: Playful -You will throw a piece of yarn into the battle field infront of you.
Passive: Reckless -For every yarn collected, the player will get +1% attack speed, but take +1% increase damage.
The idea behind this ability is that it's a double edged sword, but it is also an ability you can effectively use on downtime.
Alright with the new mechanics planned out, I'm going to cover whats coming in the upcoming weeks.
Typically we would do the boss fight next, but due to some circumstances, and the complexity of this boss, we are rearranging things a bit to give the team a more smooth time to flesh it out. This boss will likely stick you on a circular rail system. You will move around a giant hologram of the boss shooting off pieces of her clothing.
We want to give extra time for modelling, rigging, and animating her. Because of this, next week we will be working on our catgirl's (Who we will call Nika for now) first Hscene.
Nika has also been added to the Hub
and her "Help" animation was added
Alright, that should pretty much wrap up what we got here. I'll catch you all next week with Nika's first Hscene! Thanks again everyone, and welcome to all the newcomers!
Hey everyone! Sorry if this post seems a bit rushed, but I'm a bit on the clock here. I got as much of the enemy implementation done as possible in the last couple days before leaving for a week, but there is still some things to do when I get back.
Let's start with a brief list of enemies you will encounter on Neos:
-Neos City Drones -Hologram Hands -Hologram "Rockets" -Tram Carts -Brown Grunts (Appears in most levels to some degree) -Purple Claws (Same as you've seen in other levels
I'm going to start by showing off some small grunt clusters... the main reason for this is that I've made some minor balance changes. The Charge shot's blast radius has been increased along with it's damage (I can't remember if I mentioned this previously, but it's been overall buffed).
It will more reliably kill large/more spread out clusters, and also will kill just about any small enemy in 1 shot.
2nd Enemy I will show off is still unfinished, but they are the drones.
I will state that MOST enemies right now are fairly hard to see. This will be improved when we get to polishing, and apply proper shaders/textures.
Hijacked by the boss, she navigates these drones to drop their packages on you, so you'll likely need to watch out for this.
Next, as you saw in the back are the hologram hands. The digital world begins to mesh with the physical world. Typically these hands will come out with 2 attack types. They will wind up for a punch, or open up for a slap.
The punch will typically be much quicker, but cover a smaller area. The slap will be slower, but cover a larger area. It will generally be best to dodge punches, but shoot down slaps. (Unless you have some serious firepower, or counters, like the Barrier... which does a lot of damage on collision).
Next are the Rocket Holograms... yes they are rockets. (Don't mind the flickering green window. Shader layers haven't been properly set yet).
What happens when a hologram hand meets a hologram rocket? We'll have to see.
And finally are the trams.
These will be opening fire as they pass by, and will likely be slightly repositioned and be faster.
You will face all these enemies through the level. It's all still a bit scuffed as I wasn't quite able to finish/polish things up in these couple days, but alas, my time to leave for the week has come. I'll have to finish it up when I get back. I will be behind as a result, which is inevitable, really. Just means I'll need to double down on some weeks to catch up for the v0.6 release on Feb 1st.
That should wrap things up! Again, sorry if it seemed a bit rushed, but I've grown a bit short on time here. Next post will be on the 22nd, and unfortunately it might also be a bit scarce, but I will do my best to have at least SOME stuff to show. I might actually push the post back to the 23rd or something just so I have an extra day to crunch to ensure there are things to showcase, but we'll see how it goes.
Thanks again everyone! And welcome to all new patrons! Scheduling and work flow is normally quite consistent here, but this week is a bit of an exception. I appreciate the patience!
Hey everyone! I hope you all enjoyed v0.5 (Titas, and Tanya)! With that build wrapped up, we are moving right onto our Catgirl, and the Neon City. Just before we get into that, I want to just bring up something involving the polls. Normally on the first week of a new build I would open a poll for people to vote on the next character. This isn't exactly the case anymore, as the alien is the final ally and will be the next build regardless. Due to this, the poll will involve something else. The team will be discussing the contents, and I will likely put the poll up in a couple weeks or so. The poll may involve either types of scenes/positions for an Hscene, or potentially something else.
Just as a quick recap for anyone new, or if they missed previous posts. The ally featured, and unlocked from Neos is the new catgirl.
With that covered, let's talk about Neos. While the aesthetic isn't quite complete, the base idea is here. Lets get into the rundown, shall we?
Ideally there will be more variation in billboards, and few more colors, but beneath the player will be a smog with lights simulating aerial traffic within. You will be weaving within this dense city's architecture to reach your goal.
What is your goal? Well let's cover the setting. The illuminated city is under a cyber attack of sorts by a particular AI, who has been infected by a virus. This AI is well known throughout the city, and with the help of your new cat friend, you are out to quell this threat.
Who/What is the AI? It's our first female boss.
First question many of you will likely be asking: "do we fukk?"
In this build the Hcontent will be focused on the catgirl, but we mayyy have more plans for this boss. An idea we want to push forward with this boss is something along the lines of cleansing the virus, and she will become the AI interface for your hub ship, and possibly give instance support (much like Rob64 did in Star Fox). She likely won't have as much Hcontent as the main ally roster, but we do want to give her some if we go ahead with this.
We will dive more into this boss in a later week, but for now I will jump back into the layout for the rest of the level.
You will come across these rails after the first section. The city's tram systems have turned against you as well, and will have rail cars cruising by and shooting at you.
Shortly after, the boss will taunt you on a large display. Only to have the building detonate from the inside. Flying out from the explosions will be the catgirl. I will go more into details for her in a later post as well.
You will fly over the ruins of the building into a tram-way.
You will be faced with more Trams on rails here, but with somewhat limited space to maneuver.
Upon exiting the tram-way, you are faced with the game's 2nd instance of route split.
By default the rail will bring you left here. The catgirl will ask you to clear the way for her (On the right will be a closed entry way). By shooting open the way, you will be following her into the passage on the right. There will be some give/take depending on the route you choose.
By going right, you will gain affinity for the catgirl, and be put through instances to gain further affinity, and potentially give you an advantage against the boss.
Going left will likely give a bit of Aether affinity, but will also yield many more enemies. This means it will be easier to get a higher score if you go left. (Likely to be more relevant when function for gold medals is implemented).
I'll start with the left route.
After going through a small, more open segment you are faced with a tramway in your path
Forced to duck beneath this tramway, you dip into the smog
While in here, there will likely be a few enemies to play with visibility, but ultimately this section will be very brief.
After emerging from the smoke, you will be facing off with the boss of the stage.
------
Now on the 2nd route:
Entering this way is going to put you through an area that sports wires/cables as obstacles. While the wires are not in yet, I will explain the point of them.
As mentioned, there won't be many enemies on this route. It will mostly be a dodging game, however you CAN shoot these wires. You will be instructed to only shoot wires of a certain color. Shooting the right color will result in affinity with the catgirl, and potentially a debuff of sorts on the boss. Shooting the wrong wires will likely result in a small explosion, or shock to the player, causing damage.
There isn't too much to show on this route, as the wires and such will be implemented in the "mechanics" week.
After this section, you will fight the same boss as the left route.
Overall it's seeming like this will technically be the longest level so far.
That should pretty much do it for the base layout of the level. There will still be work done on some of the aesthetic side of things, but next week is going to be dedicated to implementing the enemies.
This is where I will follow up that next week's post will NOT be on Friday. Unfortunately I will only have a few days to get the enemies in, and I will need to do the weekly progress update on Tuesday. Due to some personal life reasons, I am going to be away for a week. We will be working to ensure we meet the weekly quota around this, however.
With that said, I think I will wrap up here, and I'll catch you all on Tuesday with a breakdown on some of the enemies! Thanks everyone!
Heyo everyone! Here with the release of v0.5! As mentioned before, all the new features outside of Tanya and her level were actually finished and squeezed into the public demo in time, so this v0.5 won't have much in that regard, hence the changelog will actually be quite small, but here we go!
Changelog:
Major Changes:
-New Level: Titas -New Ally: Tanya -2 new Hscenes with Tanya
Minor Changes:
-Raised damage of Charge Shot.
Changelog between v0.4 - v0.4.4:
- Added function to the Shop, and credits. - Added voice acting for all in-game segments (Excluding Titas + Tanya), and most Hscenes. - A few balance changes involving damage, and health. - Added a few more SFX - Added Barrel Roll upgrade - Shrunk player ship by 30% - Weeble's beam is now Blue (To follow the game's color coordination.) - Added Icons to party select's Actives/Passives. -"Alternate" weapon loadout didn't work properly upon starting a New Game. It should work now. -Fixed some layering issues in Siren's Hscene
Alright everyone! Enjoy! I'll catch you all next week with a first look at the Catgirl's stage!
HOTFIX:
v0.5.3
-Fixed a bug where the final checkpoint of Titas would cause you to soft-lock. -Fixed some physics issues with the boss of Titas
*I am currently investigating an issue some people have been having with Saves. Some people are experiencing their saves being shotty, and not being able to select party members, and having issues with credits. If this is happening to you, any insight would be helpful! I will make a hotfix as soon as I find the solution.*
Heyo everyone! As some of you may know, the public demo released earlier this week. It is the same version that is currently on Patreon. v0.5, however is just around the corner for Patrons. It will be coming on the 1st. It will feature Titas(Desert Planet), and Tanya the Merchant. I'll keep this one fairly short, as there is not much "new" to show, so much as some final things just being tied up. Let's start from the top!
Transmissions were added, along with some smoother transitions between sections.
Enemies were given proper weapons and were added into the appropriate positions during the boss fight.
You will need to make sure you keep the enemy vehicles under control or else they will continue to increase in number and fire at you.
After that, I added all the necessary components for Tanya in the hub including her hub art, party select, and her level in the level select.
And of course her conversation art and animations.
Another thing that needed to be done was finishing off some of the animations in her Hscenes including the climax animations, and states.
Finally I had to do some pretty big adjustments to the level to fit what I felt was necessary. I actually extended a couple of sections of the map, which kind of added to some of the workload.
As a result I wasn't quite able to finish everything up this week.
The last things that are left is finishing up those couple sections I extended, and doing the intro/outro camera pans, then we are good to go!
The public release kept me a little bit busy, but with that said, I'll catch you all on the 1st with the release of Tanya and v0.5!
Heyo everyone! Here again. This week was dedicated to Tanya's conversation animations. I also did the final steps of getting the public demo ready. I have Itch.io and Newgrounds pages ready to launch as soon as I click the "Publish" button. The things I am waiting on now is Steam's review process. Hopefully this will come back with positive results in the coming week. While the page being up on Steam isn't "essential" I would really like the page to be up and running before I launch the public demo so people can be directed into the places they feel necessary.
With that, let's get into Tanya's conversation animations shall we?
Idle:
Happy:
Before I continue on, I'll say that BY default, Tanya's visor will be on. At the moment, like other clothing options, you can disable/enable it right out the gate in current builds. In future builds you may need to meet prerequisites before taking off her visor.
For the examples from here on, for showcasing's sake, I'll show her non-visor versions.
Happy:
Smug (Basically just a variant of Happy in this case):
and finally her "shock"
Due to Tanya's nature, one of her staples is her smile. It is nigh impossible to intimidate her, and she is familiar with a rough environment. All that said she is almost always positive. Because of this there is no "Angry" animation unlike the rest of the cast. Try as you will... she will laugh it off.
As always she will have clothing states.
She will also appear quite a bit taller than the others in the conversations
Another thing I whipped up was her hub dialogue
The start of the week also had some final touches on v0.4's public build. They are mostly just some bug fixes, and touch ups. I will post the updated build here as well upon the release of the public build. (v0.4.4).
Alright! With v0.5 just 2 weeks away, I still have some things to cover. In the upcoming week, I am going to be trying to completely finish the build. This means:
-Tweaking Titas' timeline (Some enemies spawn a little too early or too late), -Writing Titas' transmission sequences. -Adding Titas, and Tanya's point to the Hub. (Her idle sitting art, and her presence in party/level select menus) -Adding the final touches to both Hscenes. (Basically just fixing up bits of the animations, and properly charting the scene's buttons/progression). -I actually wasn't able to complete the full boss sequence. Even though his AI is all written, it actually still isn't stitched together properly. -Obstacle colliders, and fine-tuning the enemies' weapon timing.
This should all easily fit into a week's worth of work, which will leave the final week of November open for final bug testing, and maybe a little head start getting things ready for v0.6's development.
That should pretty much do it! I'll catch you all next week! Thanks a ton for the continued support. It means a ton to have all of you stick with us despite the genre being so different from SpunkStock. Stay safe out there!
Heyo once again everyone! As mentioned, this week was dedicated to Tanya's 2nd Hscene. I won't be too wordy with this one, but before we jump in, I want to quickly announce the winner of the poll. The character coming after Tanya, and her level will be the Catgirl!
The reality is, her level is likely going to be the most intensive yet. Our plans for her level was a good amount more ambitious that the others. (I was low key hoping we would do it after the alien, BUT... It's showtime ahaha.)
Her level is going to be a Neon City aesthetic, and the main trial for this stage in a development sense will likely be the boss we have planned. More on that when the time comes though! Let's get into the progress update!
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At the start, as usual, I broke up the image, and meshed it all. There wasn't too many layers this time around, so it went by relatively quickly.
Once everything was rigged, and the morph parameters were set up, animation begun! As you see above, there's the idle animation.
Just a heads up, I record gifs in 15fps now instead of 30, as 30fps gifs are massive in size ahaha.
Next is the basic main loop.
There is the routine "Fast" loop.
A Grind
And a lick variant of the fast
There's the basic climax animation
I was experimenting with a bit of extra BJ animations as well, though I'm unsure if I will use them.
I will likely want to substitute Aether's legs if I were to do this, as they were colored in with limited visibility in mind.
That pretty much sums up the animations. Next week is going to be committed to animating Tanya's conversation art and writing her dialogue.
Thanks again everyone, and I'll catch you all then!
Heyo everyone! With this week including the push of v0.4.3, it's been a bit of a squishy one. Without more further ado, let's just jump into some of the animation.
Most of these are rough still, and will likely be polished up, but here's a first look. As you see above is the simple Idle loop.
Here is rough look at the main loop
And a first look at the Faster Loop
There will likely be some more work on morphing to minimize clipping which is apparent in areas, and also to add some jiggle. I'm going to see if I can shape things up over the weekend here.
There will be a couple toggles in this Hscene. One is the visor.
And the other is the pube stubble.
Ontop of the v0.4.3 release, and this animation, I was also working on some optimization for the WebGL version. While I am still not quite content with it, some good ground was made. I'm going to be doing a bit more testing, and fixing up before I find it to be ready for the public release.
With that said... I should get some sleep. Sorry if this one seemed a bit brief, but the v0.4.3 post covered practically half of this weeks progress update. Thanks a ton for the support again everyone! It's really awesome seeing the game coming together how it is!
Next week will be dedicated to Tanya's 2nd Hscene!
Heyo everyone! Mid-week post to follow up on the discussion previously. v0.4.3 features the following additions:
- Added voice acting for all in-game segments, and most Hscenes. - Added function to the Shop, and credits. - A few balance changes involving damage, and health. - Added a few more SFX - Added Barrel Roll upgrade - Shrunk player ship by 30% - Weeble's beam is now Blue (To follow the game's color coordination.) - Added Icons to party select's Actives/Passives.
The initial v0.4 post has been updated to reflect the latest version. You can access it there.
NOTE: v0.4.3 does not include any of the Desert level(Titas), or Merchant(Tanya). Those are still in development for v0.5
v0.4.3 is likely to be the build that is represented in the public demo. The Free public demo will hopefully be available later in the month, as I want to do some attempts at optimization for WebGL(browser version).
Alright! I won't go on much more. I will be back this Friday with the scheduled progress report on v0.5! Until then, I hope you all enjoy the VA work! Credits go to:
LamiVA: Aether KumBomb: Lana Kova JellyfishJubilee: Siren/Grunt Gina Galore: Pix Leo Greystone: Saber/General McNorsk: Pigman/Weeble
Heyo everyone! This week has a bit of good news, and a bit of bad news. The bad news, to put it blunt is that only about 80% of the work got complete for the boss. I was not able to complete it this week. As a result I likely will not have much to show. The good news is that all the voice work for v0.4.x is implemented. This took me a good amount of time to organize and get into the game (It's part of the reason I was just short of meeting the weekly deadline on this boss). I wanna give a huge thanks to all the VAs who had a part in this, and Lewd K for processing, and levelling all the used takes.
Of course I really want to show off some of the voice work, but Patreon doesn't support uploading videos directly on here. I would need to go through a streaming service which is... not too practical given the adult nature of most things we post :P. That being said, v0.4.x with the voice work should be launching next week. I will see about posting a couple clips in the discord for first looks, but if that is not available, you will be able to see it all next week in the new build.
With that covered, I am going to go over the outline of the Boss. Unfortunately, as mentioned I won't have quite as much to show. While the coding, attack patterns, and mechanics are there, they aren't quite connected properly yet, so it was tough for me to get footage that isn't completely scuffed.
To start, you will be faced with what you see above. He will have a simple attack of shooting the chain ball at you. Upon dealing significant damage to the ball, the boss will summon the convoy to his side. With several other vehicles also shooting at you, things get a bit cluttered. After dealing the last of the damage to the ball, it will fall out leaving just the canon. The boss will turn to his ace. It will begin to run over nearby vehicles in the convoy like a lawn mower.
(As mentioned... it's not the best example, as it's an isolated environment, but the sequencing isn't there yet for me to give a proper visual recording.)
Using it's shrapnel, it will fire a shotgun of otherworldly bits at you. This will play on a mechanic you previously experience in the level when inside that Blue zone. It will shoot a mix of blue and green objects at you. Green will be destructible, blue will not be. Use this knowledge to get through the attacks unscathed.
It sounds a bit weird given how little there is to show, but I should be able to have this boss completed over the weekend, as it's realistically almost finished.
THAT being said, there was actually a couple other things done in preparation for the v0.4.x.
-Starting with a small adjustment, I actually made the player 30% smaller. This is in hopes to help with visibility, and allow the player to maneuver through tight areas easier.
-Another small thing was that I changed Weeble's finger beam color. It is now blue. The previous color was reddish, and I didn't want to give the impression that it can be barrel rolled.
-One neat thing was finally the addition of icons. It's not much, but I do think it adds a bit of extra "pop" in the party select.
With that, the next week will be focused on Tanya's new Hscene.
And is planned to have an alternate, no mask version
Thanks again everyone! I'll catch you all next week with v0.4.x, and the next progress update!
Heyo everyone! This week was dedicated to some of the new features along with some experimentation and troubleshooting with the WebGL build for the game's public demo that will come soon. I'll dive a bit in to it during the update. Let's get in to it!
First day was actually pretty simple. I implemented the Merchant's (Who I will now refer to as Tanya) Passive, and Active abilities.
-Passive: Resourceful
This is a simple one. Tanya will give 25% more credits upon the completion of a level. (This will not increase the actual score that you acquire, only the credits received).
-Active: Barrier
Tanya will provide a barrier around the player. While active the player is completely impervious to every damage type (Even obstacles. This means you can actively stay in obstacles while it is up) . The barrier will also deal severe damage to any enemies who come in contact with it. (This is more of a small perk, as the radius is rather small to be used in an offensive manner)
Another small change I did was something I found important, but might seem a bit strange, and is a bit technical:
The way the player's laser aim works is that it will read if any Enemies are in your close green square. It will prioritize anything in there, and snap shots onto them. If there are no enemies, then it will read if any enemies, OR obstacles are in your far reticle. The reason lasers snap onto obstacles is to give the players a proper estimation on their aim at varying ranges. (Similar calculations are run in some FPS games for projectile type shots) In this game it is almost critical, as the source of your shots are are all over the places (as you move a lot). That being said, if there are NO obstacles, or enemies in either reticle, then it will shoot your laser to whatever point is 125 units away from the player. (basically the almost the longest relevant distance in this game.) This is all important to give the player a strong idea of where they are aiming even through they are not seeing through the source of the projectiles (Think hip firing a gun rather than aiming down the sights). There was an exception however. This was the Wave shot. Considering the Wave shot pierces through obstacles, it actually has a fundamental reason to NOT snap on obstructing obstacles. In some instances of this game there are enemies that are behind obstacles, and the snapping would completely butcher your ability to effectively shoot them.
TLDR; Wave shot's aim, specifically, will not snap onto obstacles, to help with aiming. They will be designed with the player wanting to shoot through objects in mind.
(Yes you can technically shoot the guy that swims under the pass... though I doubt you could actually do enough damage to kill it.)
ANYWAYS.. that was kinda long winded for such a small change, but some people might find it interesting.. i dunno.. lol
Next was actually making Credits properly save, and adding a base for a Shop System
At the moment the only options are Pin-ups and Upgrades. There may be a couple other categories depending on how things progress.
Next was actually something that I just wanted to make a bit of ground on while I had the chance.
I finished breaking up Aether's art, and meshed it all. I also set up come control parameters for sliders.
There are a few other things I did up on this end, but there is still a good amount to do before I put these functions in (So they still may not appear for a while).
Now in the next day, wheeling back to the shop, at the moment the only upgrade available will be a new... mechanic?... It's an upgrade...:
Barrel Roll Mk2
This section will likely also include other defence types, or weapon types in the future.
Barrel Roll Mk. 2, as you may have read in the image: all deflected lasers will now be directed at nearby enemies.
While in many places it's a small perk, in other places it is incredibly powerful
Frustratingly, a whole day got consumed this week. I spent a whole day troubleshooting the WebGL (WebGL is essentially the browser build to be used for the public demo) build. There is an issue with the WebGL version where the game will have lag spikes at certain intervals. I did extensive research onto the issues shown via the profiler. Unfortunately I couldn't find a reliable solution. The issue is that apparently WebGL struggles to render specific shaders. I figured they were due to some of my custom shaders, but they were not. After much trial and error I found the biggest culprits were when a Unity shader included any Emission maps, and when a new terrain plane came into camera view for the first time. This is only a spike, as it's only when these things are first rendered. I was thankful to finally find an actual answer however the solution will be a bit of a doozy, as I will either need to remove emission from anything that has it, or do some "work around" methods to load these shaders at the start of the level. (No, apparently preloading these shaders via script won't work.. it's only when they actively rendered for the camera. Something to do with how the shaders are applied to geometry from what I understand.)
While the WebGL is still fairly playable with these lag spikes, I want to minimize this where I can. I did some patching, but there are still a few more areas I need to flesh out for this.
Alright.. that covers the brunt of this week. Next week is going to be focused on the boss.
Thanks again everyone! I'll catch you all next Friday with a breakdown on the boss!
Heyo everyone! Pretty standard week this time around. As mentioned I got the baseline of the enemies in there, along with most of the obstacles in the dome. Let's get right into it!
Right out the gate you will be met with a small pod of all 3 truck types. They will leave light dust behind them, so when blundled up, vision starts to get tough. As you kill them, the dust gets lighter.
At the moment the ships do not shoot, but that will be a super simple add. They will be flying in from jump pads as well. Do note at the very end of this gif that yes, these cars can run into eachother. This group is naturally chaotic, and likes to go vroom vroom.
This convoy actually gets quite big at the later parts.
And to add to the chaos, they have their finale.
After this last assault you will be pushed into the entrance of the dome. Upon entering the dome you will be faced with obstacles and new "enemies"
It will be like an obstacle course of sorts. The green blocks represent things that can be shot (this may change), whereas the blue are things that cannot be destroyed
I may expand on this zone a little bit more, but I will likely decide this upon establishing the boss.
Along with these we have some more of the merchant's art. Here is where she will be in the hub
And her intercom portrait
I have also finally implemented the last of Lewd K's new SFX. (A bit tough to showcase this on Patreon as there is no way to embed videos with audio.)
Not too wordy this time around, but the next week will be dedicated to adding new mechanics (Merchant's Passive and Active), along with the first steps on implementing the VA.
Thanks everyone! I'll catch you all then! Once again, as a reminder, the Poll between the new alien and catgirl is still active! It is extremely close right now. https://www.patreon.com/posts/v0-6-character-90508836
Heyo everyone! I hope you enjoyed Pearlus, and the new features! This week has been focused on setting up the base of the desert level, and planning out the sequence. Before we get in to that though, character announcement time! The poll this month will be with our alien, and the new catgirl!
These characters do seem to be the polar opposites. The poll will be posted alongside this for those of the applicable tier!
Alright! Let's get in to the level layout!
So across the board, this level is going to be you, facing off against an armed convoy. These vehicles will move as a unit. They will fire missiles, shoot lasers, and use other tactics to try and take you down. Because of this, there will be a decent amount of open space as a playing field.
The convoy will be lead by the new boss. A bit of a crazed coyote.
This convoy will not be your only threat, however. The desert holds a couple more obstacles.
The first will be periodic sandstorms. When these come, you will need to seek refuge behind obstacles for your safety.
Remaining in the sandstorm with no cover will cause you to sustain damage over time. The convoy may still pose a threat during these times.
At a certain point you will come up on one of the massive domes in the desert.
Between here and the dome, you will be dealing with some more tactics from the convoy.
The caravan will likely use the boxes in the surrounding area as jumps, to launch themselves at you in the sky.
There will likely be other, much more "passive enemies" looming in the area.
These likely won't be enemies, so much as some mobile cubes. Some active mechanisms that wander.
Finally, upon reaching the dome, a sandstorm hits. With no cover, your character opts to enter the dome for cover.
This will bring you in to a form of "subspace" where you will be faced with some anomalies. (The specific looks of the obstacles and foes in this area are still something I will be experimenting with.) This section will be inspired by the white subspace you can stumble across in StarFox 64.
There may be a lot going on through the course of this level, so it may end up being a bit longer than the others, but we will see how it progresses!
There was a few other things I actually did, though there isn't too much to visually show here. It was actually just adding the code to play audio files during conversation (Just brief "Huh?", or giggles to fit variation in emotion) in the hub, and in Hscenes so we can add some VA work in there.
Alright everyone! That should sum up this week. Next week will likely be dedicated to writing the scripts for new enemies, and adding them to the level.
Thanks again everyone! I'll catch ya all next week!
Alright everyone! Here we are with v0.4. A decent amount to check out here. As I mentioned before, I was a bit late on starting the VA process, so it won't be present here, but I will be hoping to do an intermittent build next month which will have it implemented.
Here's this build's change log!
Major Changes:
-New Level: Pearlus -New Ally: Siren -2 new Hscenes with Siren -New loadout options: Gatling gun, and Flame Wave -You can now use Aether Affinity for minor increases to stats -Added volume options -Added Sensitivity options along with a Y invert option. -Added Checkpoints
Minor Changes:
-Added an option to review Nova's Hscene via the SexPod -Some new SFX by Lewd K.(Only a few atm) -Added point indicator "pop ups" when killing enemies -Added a controls window (Though they are not customizable yet) -Overall made enemies and obstacles do more damage, and reduced the amount of health that health packs recover. (This is largely due to the fact that Checkpoints are implemented, and Siren offers a heal as her active.) -Changed how enemies aim at you. They now "Lead" their shots. This means enemies will be more likely to hit you. -Made "Power" shot (Your basic 3-shot burst), have 2 separate colliders. A large one for enemies, and a small one for Obstacles. This is to help give a generous hitbox while not having them be sensitive to hitting obstacles. -Ally's "Help me" sequences should no longer shoot at enemies if you fail to save them. -Added level "headers" when starting a level. -fixed some bugs with Molbon's boss. -Added a "Locked Aspect" to Hscenes. It should letterbox to 16:9. -Introduced "New Game" and Continue" from the main menu. "Start in Hub" has been removed. -Aether now gets affinity when finishing a level. -Weeble's position was bugged, he floated before... he shouldn't now. -Fixed a but with Affinity where if you blasted through conversations too fast you could miss out on some affinity gains.
Hope you all enjoy this one!
Catch you all Friday for the rundown on the new Desert level, and the merchant!
-Regulus
-EDIT- September 5th
v0.4.1 - Fixed a bug where party select wasn't functional on screens/aspect ratios wider than 16:9
-EDIT- November 1st
v0.4.3
- Added function to the Shop, and credits. - Added voice acting for all in-game segments, and most Hscenes. - A few balance changes involving damage, and health. - Added a few more SFX - Added Barrel Roll upgrade - Shrunk player ship by 30% - Weeble's beam is now Blue (To follow the game's color coordination.) - Added Icons to party select's Actives/Passives.
-EDIT- Nov 20th
v0.4.4
(I actually didn't log bug fixes in this build, as it was mostly just optimization for the WebGL build in prep for the public demo, but here's a couple I think I remember.)
-"Alternate" weapon loadout didn't work properly upon starting a New Game. It should work now. -Fixed some layering issues in Siren's Hscene -Fixed an SFX bug with Molbon's boss where the spin SFX could play forever if killing it's last tentacle upon starting the attack.
Hey everyone! This week was a lot of last minute cramming. The main reason for the rather late post here. I put in the base for several new features, though they are not well fleshed out yet. I've written up the full changelog which I will add at the end of the post. Well! Let's get into it!
I started the week off with some extensive polishing... a lot of things were still pretty messy. I added the healthpacks to the Ocean planet (Which I decided to rename to Pearlus at the last minute). I ensured all the scenes were properly connected.
I decided to add some little "silhouettes" to the catwalks to give off a better feel of the civilian population.
I added a bit of water splashing with enemies emerge from the water.
I added checkpoints to each level. Each level will have 2 checkpoints. One will be roughly half way, and the other will be just before the boss. You may restart from here after dying, or by selecting "Retry". You also have the option of restarting the whole level.
I added a little "Level Splash" at the start of every level.
With the implementation of Checkpoints, I felt that dying was less consequential, so I overall, raised enemy damage slightly, along with the damage you take when colliding with obstacles. I also lowered the amount that health packs heal, as Siren's active is a heal as well.
Along with this, I made it so enemies will "lead" their shots. this means enemies off to the sides, or at awkward angles will have a higher chance of hitting the player. This was mostly implemented due to the fact that the water bug enemies in Pearlus, being on the surface of the water would struggle to shoot "Up" at the player, as they would always end up shooting behind them.
I also added a simple "Loadouts" menu to the party select. There aren't too many options right now, but this is basically where you can choose between the new Gatling gun/Flame Wave, or the basic loadout.
I added a menu where you can now utilize "Player Affinity" (When Aether gets affinity. These stat points will give minor boosts to either health or thrust. They can also effect gender bend aspects further down the road.
I changed the "Flame Wave" visuals a little bit. They are still definitely placeholder, mind you.
I also added an option to review Nova's Hscene via the "Hscene Room" in the hub.
I made a change in the main menu. Instead of just going to the hub, there is now a "New Game" button and a "Continue" button. Be aware that if you select "New Game" your data will be immediately overwritten after selecting your loadout.
With the implementation of Aether's Affinity, he will now receive some for completing levels.
On top of that, several SFX were delivered by our sound man, Lewd K! Unfortunately They will mostly need to wait until next build, but I did put in a few of them which you may notice while playing through.
Another small bug I noticed is that if you went through conversations too fast, sometimes you wouldn't get the affinity boosts from the dialogue options. That should be fixed up now.
I added Aspect Locking to Hscenes, much like in SpunkStock. I ran into some similar issues I had with it in SpunkStock initially, but thankfully in my old "to-do" lists, I wrote down the solutions to any bugs/issues I came across, so I was able to make short work of that!
There was also a really strange bug that popped up with Molbon's boss rendering him almost unkillable (I really hope that was a bug that wasn't in v0.3 and I never noticed). Either way, it spawns it's tentacles in a bit of a different way now to ensure they are all functional.
The last thing I did was set up the Transmission sequences so that they can hold audio clips... basically they are set up and ready for VA implementation. It will just be a matter of slotting them in.
With that, I'll jump into the changelog before going into what's on for next week.
Major Changes:
-New Level: Pearlus -New Ally: Siren -2 new Hscenes with Pix -New loadout options: Gatling gun, and Flame Wave -You can now use Aether Affinity for minor increases to stats -Added volume options -Added Sensitivity options along with a Y invert option. -Added Checkpoints
Minor Changes:
-Added an option to review Nova's Hscene via the SexPod -Some new SFX by Lewd K.(Only a few atm) -Added point indicator "pop ups" when killing enemies -Added a controls window (Though they are not customizable yet) -Overall made enemies and obstacles do more damage, and reduced the amount of health that health packs recover. (This is largely due to the fact that Checkpoints are implemented, and Siren offers a heal as her active.) -Changed how enemies aim at you. They now "Lead" their shots. This means enemies will be more likely to hit you. -Made "Power" shot (Your basic 3-shot burst), have 2 separate colliders. A large one for enemies, and a small one for Obstacles. This is to help give a generous hitbox while not having them be sensitive to hitting obstacles. -Ally's "Help me" sequences should no longer shoot at enemies if you fail to save them. -Added level "headers" when starting a level. -fixed some bugs with Molbon's boss. -Added a "Locked Aspect" to Hscenes. It should letterbox to 16:9. -Introduced "New Game" and Continue" from the main menu. "Start in Hub" has been removed. -Aether now gets affinity when finishing a level. -Weeble's position was bugged, he floated before... he shouldn't now. -Fixed a but with Affinity where if you blasted through conversations too fast you could miss out on some affinity gains.
Alright! Next week will be a busy one. v0.4 will be launching on the 1st obviously, but aside from that I will be setting up the base of the Desert level. I'll also be trying to put in the rest of Lewd K's SFX.
Thanks again everyone! I'll catch you in a couple days with v0.4's release!
Hey again everyone! This week I may dive a bit more into some specifics on what to expect this build along with the progress report. Aside from that, the main focus was Siren's conversation animations, and her dialogue in the hub. Anyways! Let's get into it!
I'll start with what to expect in the build:
Due to me starting the VA process fairly late, voices will not be in v0.4 right away. I will likely put the voices in at some point next month during the development of v0.5. That being said, I will be looking to release a "v0.4.2" or something on Nov 1st which will just be v0.4, but with voices implemented. So this means (hopefully) that there will be an intermediary build this cycle.
Aside from that, v0.4 will add the same level of content as the previous builds: New character, and level, along with QoL/mechanical updates. Typically today would be the day I consider the build done, but considering there is still another week in the month, I am going to see what kind of things I can get in before v0.4's release in terms of extras. I'll cover the these things at the end of the post under "next weeks workload".
Let's get onto this week's progress update!
I broke the image up, meshed and rigged it.
Here are the different animations you will see from her.
Idle:
Happy/Smug (Smug simply has a slightly different facial expression as seen at the head of the post)
Shock
Angry. This one will probably seldom get used, but it's one of my favourites :P.
With her animations done, I also wrote up a lot of her dialogue. Writing her dialogue also allowed me to establish a bit more of her "character". I created a bit more "history" for her in her dialogue than the others.
Aside from the animation and Dialogue, I made sure to set some time aside to ensure I get some polishing, and touch ups done on the final stage.
-I added a "Controls" menu in-game, and in the hub. Right now, keybinds are not in, but it's mostly to give direction, as there was previously no way to tell what the controls were outside of the patreon post.
-I changed up a good amount of the transmission dialogue throughout the level. -adjusted spawn times to feel a little more comfortable -fixed some animation bugs with the waterbug enemies. -fixed some flaws in the Large enemy's canons. -Made is so large enemies will give Affinity for Siren if you kill them before they are able to open fire on the city's buildings.
-I also finally actually added proper colliders to the structures/obstables (looking now though, I still haven't added the fade shader for when they get close to the camera. I'll add that to the list)
-Next was actually a change I had wanted to do for a while, and to me is kind of a big deal. I decided to add an extra "collider" to the player's lasers.
(Yes these colliders are big. They are big because the lasers move very fast. The biggest problem I had with increasing the hitbox was that it would also make the lasers easier to hit structures and obstacles. I added a smaller hitbox. The smaller hitbox is detection for obstacles, whereas the large hitbox is the detection for enemies. This way I can give a forgiving hitbox for shooting smaller enemies without making it easier for lasers to get interrupted by obstacles. This also helps in scenarios where you shoot things like turrets that are basically attached to objects. Sometimes the hitbox would prioritize hitting the obstacle the turret is stationed on over hitting the turret itself. I really felt this in Molbon at the time.)
-Next I added a bit of an "indicator" on the boss. It's not pretty, but I felt it was kind of necessary.
I added a teal box behind the cannons. Before, it was black. While that was the case, I felt it was rather unclear what your target was, as well as not really being able to see it that well. The cannons themselves blended in with the ship.
-I also fixed an issue where in "Help" sequences, if the ally was to shoot something after being saved, they would actually still shoot it, even if they were not saved.
-I fixed an issue where Saber's canons would shoot even if they were destroy. Now if you have destroyed 3 canons, and only 1 canon remains, only that 1 canon will continue to shoot.
-I actually decided to 1 more interesting thing. This is a new concept, but I actually kind of like the idea behind it. Considering the situation on Catiya is very similar to the ocean planet (Which I will be calling Sapphire), Siren feels much more ambitious if you have her in your party during Catiya. I added a rail where she will come in and help.
I originally opted not to have stuff like this, but after trying it here, I think it adds a bit of a cool dynamic to levels depending on your team.
I may do this a bit more often (where if you have a certain character on a certain level, they will come and assist like this). I will still likely keep it pretty seldom, so it is a nice surprise when it does happen. That being said I feel like it breaks a bit of the "x character is x level" feel, and gives a neat feeling of balance that the characters in your party are still very much a part of what you are doing.
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Next week I am going to be doing some touch ups and see if I can add a few extras. I doubt I will be able to get everything, but I will add what I can in order listed here:
>Checkpoints >Shop system + new weapon types properly implemented. >Aether's conversation art.
Anyways! Thanks again everyone! v0.4 is just over a week away, then we will be moving onto the Merchant and her desert level! Catch you all next week!
Hey again everyone! This week was dedicated to Siren's 2nd Hscene, which is a bit different than normal. I did say last time that I was going to spend the weekend fleshing out the final stages of her 1st Hscene, which I also ended up finishing up. In between animating her 2nd Hscene, I also made the final additions and adjustments to SpunkStock's translation (Release on that is still TBD).
First off I will just cover the climax animations for her first Hscene.
Next was the setting up process (breaking up, meshing, rigging, etc.)
Along with a look at some of the control parameters used in animations
With that, I'll move right onto some of the simple loops for her 2nd Hscene.
For these, I will likely be adding more "effects" to them to give them a bit more impact.
is the basic loop.
If you notice.. the character's head cuts off at the bottom... I actually need to go back and draw a bit more in on these images(as in parts that actively extend too far for the screen limits).
There are a couple more loops that I won't post as they kind of need these fixes to be in place. That being said the fixes, and special effects should be relatively quick to do, and I will be doing them over the weekend.
Now then, what is the plan for next week? I will start with priorities. Things that will be done this week is breaking up, meshing, rigging, and animating Siren's conversation art.
After that I will be finishing up some of the final sequencing on the Ocean level, writing Siren's dialogue, and connecting the scenes.
I may try to squeeze in a couple other things, but I will likely do the extra stuff in the final week.
There we have it. Overall this one was a bit less wordy than recent ones. I should get back to the finishing touches of this animation though. Catch you all next week with Siren's dialogue and conversation animations!! Thanks so much!
Heyo everyone! As mentioned this week has been dedicated to Siren's animations. On top of the animations I also got a few smaller QoL and mechanical options in. I did a couple other things to get other aspects rolling which I'll cover in the progress report. Without further ado, let's get into it!
To start off, I broke up the image (as usual)
Then meshed it up.
Rigged.
It's not too common that I use IK in these animations, as the movement is often a little bit too perspective based for a 2D rig. (I use a lot of morph, and scale adjustments). In this case I used it in a couple spots.
Considering Siren's hands are anchored on the wall, I set up an IK on her hands. In this demonstration(via the inspector), the bones frame updates are slow for performance sake. This is just for the inspector. In-game it will animate much more smoothly.
Anyways! Let's get to the results.
Idle
The base loop was shown at the head of this post, but there's a bit more.
Here's a hard version.(Looking now, her right arm's IK is over-extending... I'll fix that up)
An alternate (This one's dark just because it was taken from the inspector, not in-game)
With the base animations in there, there are still the climax animations which I will finish up today. Yesterday I decided to take a bit of time to implement concepts/ideas for some things I think were overdue.
They are still in-progress, and the visuals are still placeholders for the time being, but I have put in the scripts for alternate weapon types.
Starting with a gatling gun. This weapon is an alternative option for the Charge shot. Holding down fire will wind up, and unload rapid fire until released. (Right cluster uses normal primary fire, Left cluster uses gattling.)
The idea behind this is to open up a more accessible option for single target focus fire. While timing the primary fire's 3 shot burst for high damage is more of a legacy attack from games like Star Fox, it may be awkward for newer players to adapt to it, as it is a bit of an archaic system.
The gatling gun will allow the player to not have to worry too much about execution for optimal damage, and just unload on the enemy with full-auto by holding fire. Overall gatling will do high, single target damage, but will be slightly less damage output when compared to well timed primary fire.
If you use the gatling gun, it would essentially leave you with 2 single target attacks, and no strong way of AoE. To make up for this, there is another option for primary fire(can replace the 3-shot burst). As mentioned, the visual is just a placeholder.
The wave is a primary fire that has a slower fire rate, and overall low "DPS". This weapon makes up for it by having a few unique traits. It has a much larger hitbox than the lasers, but it will also pierce through enemies, and even obstacles. This can help you with clusters of enemies, and enemies who are in hard to reach areas.
Along with these things, I have added a visual message for points received by killing enemies. I feel it's good information to the player, and gives things a bit more of an "arcadey" feel
Finally, I decided to take a bit of time to break up Aether's conversation art so that I can mesh and rig it when I get some more time. I'm not sure if I will have it put in for v0.4, but if I can, I would like to. Either way, while I was doing this, I was playing around with ideas on how to go about some of the in-game customization.(This is an extremely rough concept I pieced together with random available assets from AmHidden(literally frankensteined), and it would likely be properly drawn in when implemented).
That should pretty much do it for this week's update. The next week will be focusing on Siren's 2nd Hscene. Her 2nd Hscene will be something that I haven't tried to tackle before, but it should be interesting. Here is a sneak peek!
If I get time in between her animation, I would like to add a small/quick shop system for the new weapon types to sit in, but we will see how the week goes!
Anyways! Thanks everyone for the continued support. It's really started to feel like things are going to be put into high gear for this build, so here's to hoping this momentum continues (please no random detrimental bugs that suck my soul lolol). Catch you next week!
Heyo everyone! Here we are again. As you see here, the winner of the poll is the Merchant, this means that the next level will likely be a Desert level. We'll be sure to cover her more when the next build begins development. Until then, let's plunge into the progress report, and a rundown on the new boss.
I didn't have quite as much time as I would have liked, as the work on SpunkStock's translation this week took a little bit longer than I expected, but regardless, the boss is finished. He just still needs a bit of polishing, but here we go.
The new boss's name will be Saber.
The captain of a ghost ship that haunts the planet on specific nights.
To start off, Saber will charge towards you, and submerge, shortly after surfacing will barage you with a pattern of cannons.
Chances are, I will look to brighten the cannons to properly show that they are the targets here. Upon destroying all 4 cannons, Saber will submerge again.
After emerging, he will fire blasts of lasers at you from a distance. Once he reaches 50% HP, he will once again charge at you and flip to his other side.
The left cannons act a bit differently. They will fire one at a time, but much more rapidly. Destroying the final 4 canons will bring Saber to his final, desperate phase.
Now hovering in the sky, he will fire sonic waves much like the large enemies that you will need to fly through. This one will likely need to have some more time in the oven to ensure it's balanced, looks readable, and still feels fair.
That being said, the final phase will feel like a scramble as you try to finish him off.
On top of doing up the boss fight, I put together a rough set up for the intro sequence.
(She will likely actively be getting hit here, and also shooting)
It's still rough around the edges, which I will likely be cleaning up.
That mostly sums things up.
I'm going to be working over the weekend to flesh out some of these cutscenes, and visuals. I also want to polish up timings in the level, and possibly add a few more enemies in sections. I'm hoping to really have the active level finished up before next week.
Next week's objective is Siren's first Hscene! I will be breaking it up, and animating it all. Here is a quick look at what will be animated.
With that, I will be getting back to it! Thanks again everyone, and I hope you all look forward to facing off against Saber, and recruiting Siren! Catch you next week with some motion on this picture!
Hey everyone! This time around is going to be a bit of a busy post. There is quite a bit I want to talk about. In previous weeks I have been talking about "things behind the scenes" that had been keeping me busy amongst trying to keep pace. I'll get into these one at a time.
Also, Alongside this post I will be posting Groupie's High Res art if you are in that tier!
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Starting with SpunkStock news:
I stated before this may not be too exciting for a lot of you (mostly because I didn't want people to expect new content), but the news is SpunkStock getting an official Chinese(Simplified) translation. It has almost been seen to completion, and is currently in a review period. It will still be a couple weeks, and possibly a bit more for preparation before it is put onto Steam, and Itch.io. If any of you are proficient in Chinese, and are interested in testing the early translated build feel free to send me a message! A few more eyes on the build would be most welcome!
This took me a little while because SpunkStock was not set up for localization/translation before. I needed to make quite a few additions, and changes to get things ready. The nice thing is that this could open things up to more translations with minimal effort on my end now that the project is set up for it. Before deciding on that fact though, I will be observing how the Chinese translation does.
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Next up is some management stuff. After some initial organization, our new Sound Designer is currently working on the first batch of SFX. We're looking forward to the new member on the team!
Alongside that, I had been looking around and getting some things organized on my end for VA casting. I have reached out to a small list of VAs who I would like to be a part of Starbreed! This process is still quite early, but I thought I would share that I am starting to get the ball rolling on this end of things.
The sections that will be voiced will just be the in-game transmissions. Dialogue in the hub will likely not be fully voiced. It would be nice to have some voice over in the Hscenes, but I may not address that until a later date.
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As for the traditional progress update:
As you can see at the top of the post, the Ocean planet's theme is now finished, and implemented! Thanks again Wishful Simping ^^.
On the development side, first up was the Transmission dialogue.
It is still a bit rough in places, but the base of it is all there.
Next is actually that the large ships properly destroy the catwalks.
As mentioned before, the objective is to destroy these ships before they get the chance to attack the buildings.
I also implemented the underwater passage sequence.
Animations are still a bit rough, but the water will rise while you are in there. You will need to boost a bit to get out of the passage before it fills.
What if it fills? The water is essentially treated as any other obstacle, if you are underneath it, you will take damage at the same rate as if you were colliding with a building.
Overall it is not fatal if you do not boost, but you will take damage.
Moving on is Siren's abilities:
Siren's passive is Bioelectricity.
The player is engulfed in electricity. You will electrocute any nearby enemies automatically. This will likely be more useful in some stages than others. The zapping animation itself is almost non-existent right now, and will be worked on in a later week. This passive will also likely be subject to rebalancing (The actual range will likely be increased by quite a bit to make it more practical).
Next up is Siren's Active, Heal Drones:
As the name implies... it's heal drones.
Simply hold Siren's ability, and you will consume thrust to slowly heal yourself.
With the base work done for the new mechanics, I started working on a quick Options menu for in-game.
Visuals are still Unity defaults, but they are all functional. You will now be able to adjust volume levels, and make simple control adjustments. Invert Y, and Look Sensitivity will be applied to both mouse and gamepad. (Oh! I also changed the pause menu to use the right logo... for some reason I never realized it still said "Star Lust" until now.... lol)
"InvertY" Essentially inverts the Y pitch. (Down on analogue means moving up). This option is for those who are used to the more traditional flight controls (like in StarFox 64).
That pretty much sums up the week!
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This next week will have a bit of SpunkStock work involving the translation, but aside from that, the main focus will be the boss of level. It will be a space ghost ship.
Considering this boss does not require rigging, I am hoping it will take a bit less time than the other bosses, allowing me to polish up dialogue, and some particles.
As always, I'll keep you all posted! Catch you next week with some boss action!
Hey guys! I am doing the post a day early today. I'm sorry for the inconsistent dates on progress reports, but it's been a bit of a scattered month. That being said, this week was dedicated to putting the enemies in place, and writing their AI/attack patterns. We also got Shark (we are going to call her Siren for now) transmission animations in.
Alright! Let's start from the top.
First up is the introduction of the water bug type enemies... as mentioned before, they are quick, but have very low health.
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The function to hasn't been added here, but the blue ring attacks will be destroying these walk ways... preventing these ships from destroying the walkways will get you affinity with Siren.
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This area gets a bit closed in as you have to deal with water bugs and turrets.
You will likely really start to notice things getting darker here.
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This leads to our "Medium" enemy. These guys have a moderate amount of health and will launch missiles at you. Depending on the situation they may move, and shoot differently
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Here is an example of that.
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These blue rings will likely be darkened quite a bit as they are blinding when layered, but the point here is that you can fly through these attacks, but hitting the outer edges will hurt you. These attacks cannot be barrel rolled.
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Upon a few more encounters, you are presented with the final stages before the boss.
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Now with the enemies and attacks laid out, Let's take a look at Siren's transmission arts.
(Name color may change, as it is kinda dark)
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We also put in her "Hub" art. Yes, Siren is actually naked by default. She is not very accustomed to clothes.
That pretty much sums up what was done this week. Timing has been a bit tight, but we are still on schedule. Next week is going to be a bit of a scramble, so it's hard to say where I am going to be at, but one thing I will say is that the essentials will be done. That includes any new mechanics (Level specific events, and Siren's abilities), all of Siren's transmission dialogue. There are a few other things that I will be doing behind the scenes, which is what makes the week a scramble. These things will be talked about in the future.
Alright everyone! Thanks again for the support! I'll catch you next Friday with the update on new level mechanics.
Heyo everyone! Here we are with the first look at the new ocean planet! Today I'm going to break down the plans, and general layout. The core of the structures are in place, but I still need to put in all the enemies, and potential events during the level. I am also going to show off what the next poll is going to be! I'll start off with that.
This poll will be the head to head of our Alien "girl?", and our merchant girl.
The cocka train didn't end with Secret(SpunkStock). The alien will be packing. With this, 5/6 of the planned allies have been revealed.
I will be posting the poll alongside this post, so for those who are in an applicable tier, be sure to check it out!
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Now, onto the progress report! A while back I showed off the shader I was experimenting with for the water.
It's mostly just so at certain distances you can see the buildings underneath the water to give things a bit more of an understanding that this city is mostly submerged, with only peaks emerging from the water's surface. (Don't mind the UI elements in the background lolll.)
Just as a little tech side note. I decided to do some of the scrolling in this level in a bit of a unique way. Because the water surface will span through the whole level, I decided to actually connect it to the "ScenicField" that I made a while back. (Along with those white mountains). This means the water moves with you, and scrolls to give the illusion of you moving over the water.
There will also be a very brief segment where you go through a tunnel underwater. I am going to try and do some neat stuff in here in the coming week. You will likely see some submerged ships outside the walkway, and I might experiment with maybe the walkway getting damaged, and start filling with water... we'll see.
I am thinking of having these walkways on the surface have some silhouettes in them. Civilians trapped amongst the battle. You will likely need to kill enemies that threaten to destroy these walkways in order to gain extra affinity with our Shark Girl.
There's going to be a couple segments where you will be flying through building pathways.
I got a little head start on the unique small enemy of this level. They will be ships based on water bugs. Their movement will be sporadic, but will have low HP.
But there is 1 more thing.... I mentioned before that I wanted to play with a "day/night" cycle right? Well, as time passes in the level, dusk will turn to night, and the last stages of the level should look something like this.
Ominous... I wonder what will come out in the dark nights of the vast ocean.
Still plenty of work to do! Next week I will be moving on to Enemy placement, and finishing off the level along with it's scripts.
I hope you all enjoyed v0.3, and Pix's scenes! I'll catch you all next week!
