days 2+3:
yesterday i fiddled with gamemaker for a bit and started thinking about tilesets, so i made a few very basic solid-color tiles to mess around with for level design. i also got around to some of the organization and planning that i wanted to do, which helped me figure out a more concrete scope for the game -- it'll probably involve just a handful of maps. (for now i'm thinking no more than five, though a few of them will be larger or more complex than the others.) i was starting to feel like gamemaker wasn't a perfect fit for me or this game atm though. i do like gamemaker a lot!! but i think i'd feel more comfortable learning it for a project with no deadline.
so today i actually decided to switch engines to construct 2, and i feel a lot more confident! it's also a completely new engine to me, but i'm feeling more at ease and more comfortable with the pace at which i've been able to work on things so far.
as far as assets go, today i also started working on npc sprites! they pretty quick and easy to make given that they'll remain silhouetted (but when i do work on the pc sprite, i'm hoping to simplify the fox to have a similarly solid form? trying to avoid too many details, colors, or finicky outlines). i think animations and assets in general are still going to take up a lot of my time, but i also need to start thinking about the level design and get that hashed out in the next few days.
sprites!!
they're just stationary for now, but i'm feeling good about them! only the deer really needs to be able to walk, because the cat is a floating weirdo and the bird is almost always hitching a ride on the deer. if i feel like i have time later on, i'd love to do some simple idle animations for all of them.
tomorrow i'm hoping to get some layouts squared away, make a main menu screen, and keep working on assets and learning about the engine!