Hello hello!
Well, 5 more powerful, electrifying days have passed & myself, matsuringo & others have been working very hard! When I say others, I'm referring to some wonderfully talented friends of mine who have kindly lent us their skills in music & sprite creation/animation. With these contributions, alongside the efforts of myself and matsuringo, our little game is shaping up in a way that continues to surprise and excite us!
I am writing this at the end of day 10, with the end nearly in sight. It's been 5 full working days since I last posted an update. As such I'm going to have to force myself to be extra brief. That being said, I hope a lot of the pictures speak for themselves. I'll also put up a video to show the current state of gameplay!
(Also, as a side-effect of me taking the responsibility to write these dev-logs, as well as the fact that Matsuringo's time is mostly being spent on scripting, the majority of the entries in this update will focus on artwork/visuals completed by myself or our 2D artist contributor)
Day 6:
Small 3D Objects:
I created models for small objects to be scattered about the game environment. This inclides bottles, scrolls, books and a candle!
Level Redesign:
On day 6 we went through redesigning the layout of the game space. By this point we knew that there would be only one scene, even if there were multiple difficulty levels. As such, we moved objects about the scene to emphasise freedom of movement & minimal obstruction, allowing the player to focus on high octane alchemy rather than navigating around obstacles!
Recipe Book Scripting:
Matsuringo spent some time on the 6th day getting a functional recipe book in the game, a key part of the build necessary for testing to be done by people other than ourselves.
Day 7:
Combining Table:
From day 7 the 3D modelling of key game utilities/scenery began in earnest. One of the first objects I modelled was the combining table. I do all of my modelling & retopology (making the models game ready) in Blender - then bake, paint and build up textures in Substance Painter. For the objects in our game, I will be relying heavily on SP's brilliant pre-created smart materials, as I woudn't realistically have time to create all the ones we need from scratch. That being said, I almost always make some alterations or recreate the material myself with some slight changes.
Dry-Store Shelves:
As well as the combining table, I got the shelving unit for the dry ingredients modelled.
Animated Character Sprite:
Though myself and Matsuringo are the official development team for this jam, we were keen to extend a hand to talented friends of ours who showed interest in the project & could offer us some of their time/skills. One such person is my friend Henry, who made us a wonderful looking main character sprite and this hilarious running animation!
Small Objects Textured:
Day 8:
Dry-Store Shelves:
Textured and looking fine! I'm quite pleased with this one. It's so simple but really satisfying. I like the shelf brackets & general proportions. I had in mind the idea of Primary, Secondary and Tertiary shapes for this - and subsequent models made! The idea being that there should be 3 catagories of form in a piece. The primary, large forms are the main outline - the outer bound of the shelf. The secondary forms, then, are the shelves themselves, the trim as it reaches the floor. Tertiary forms are the finer details, like the aformentioned shelf-brackets!
Walls:
I spent some time creating this wall, to be used throughout the level & give it a nice varied surface. There are 4 colours of brick in here - and it is one of the sets of models using materials I made without presets in SP (all the brick models in the scene use these neat little materials of my own)
Day 9:
Tower:
On day 9 I created a tower of bricks to be used in corners and to break up long, straight areas of uninterrupted wall.
Hand In Window:
The hand in window got the same masonry treatment - with a small wooden serving bar.
Day 10:
Panting Character:
Henry did more fine animation/sprite work with this panting sequence. Matsuringo got it hooked in such that the panting will last longer depending on how much the player has been running recently!
Bin:
For the bin, we wanted to get WEIRD. So, we imagined a mimic-style bin that was bearing monsterous teeth. I grinded this one out in a couple of hours!
Textured Cauldron:
