May 2013
1 post
April 2013
2 posts
March 2013
4 posts
Status Update 2013/03/01
Good day, followers and backers alike! Developer John here for another progress update.
Last time I showed you a little of what was cooking with the Auroran Overworld. We’ve added quite a bit of polish since then, and found just the right tune for the generator. The world looks quite excellent now and as ever will be different for everyone who plays.
The world will be quite large too, giving us plenty of opportunity to fill it with Stuff as time goes on. And even in the wilderness things won’t be boring by any means; time passes, day turns to evening and then night. You might find something hidden away in a deep forest, and you may just find that things aren’t as safe above-ground as you might expect…
Not everything is Out There, though! While the Town might not be as mortally dangerous as the wilds, there will be plenty to explore and experience at home. We’ve been designing and creating a bevy of domiciles and storefronts and all the little embellishments that really make a place come alive.
Right now we have a Game. Town, Overworld, and Dungeons. It’s early days yet, though. The amazing success of the Kickstarter has fueled us to fill the initial release with as much awesome as we can and still produce a product in a reasonable amount of time. We’re chugging away at it! We’ll keep updating as we get further and further.
Who likes techincals? I love technicals, so my last offering in this update is a little bit about how we’re doing character customization. While enemies and Special NPCs have one fixed set of animations, the player and generated party members are done a little differently.
The final image here is our Default Test Guy sprite sheet. We’re using it to debug and fine-tune the palette-swapping mechanism and character drawing. Each character is built up from individual pieces and then each piece is color-mapped when rendering. The character sprites you see on the world and town screens above are rendered from these pieces and the GPU does the color-correction.
The player will be able to create a character from a myriad selection of pieces and colors, and NPCs are generated randomly in the same way. Neat, eh?
See you next time!
February 2013
4 posts
January 2013
9 posts
So I am most likely just confused, but considering the goal for unlocking Borealis Wasnt reached, will it be implemented in any way other than "Princess B is from there"? I ask because Borealis honestly seemed like a great Idea, Perfect Countermeasure to Aurora. Plus, Princess B is Cooler than Princess A... Regardless, This looks to be a game well worth my and everyone else who finds out about its time... or at least, worth trying out.
We really wanna do Borealis and give B a presence in the game as well. Basically since the stretch goal wasn’t met, we hope to include it as a paid expansion pack rather than an initial part of the game. Denizens of B’s kingdom will visiting Aurora as well.
I know it seems like we’re favoring Princess A quite a bit. We’re still so much more used to working with her world at this point, since that’s the part of Princess Panic we’re still working on, plus all the general development work is being done with A and her fairy. We do love B as well, though. She’ll get her fair share of blogtime in the near future.
Do you have an official color scheme for A and B yet?
We’re still planning on having players choose from a few color schemes when the game begins, with the ability to unlock more schemes as you collect items and achievements during the game.
Personally, I actually like A’s green-haired scheme the best. But the pink-haired one is more or less her default one used in most of our art. I thought it’d be fun to include both in the sticker sheets.
-Josh
Will this game support same sex relationships? I'd like to see that implemented =)
Indeed it will!
If Dungeon Panic had an ESRB rating, what would it be? I'm asking because I'm thinking of giving it as a gift, and I want to know if it might not be appropriate for some ages.
RATED T FOR TEEN
Hello, Josh Lesnick. As someone who loves 2D artwork in video games, I have my own aspirations for making a game with 2D artwork traditional animation. I'm just curious, but do you have any past experience making 2D art assets for videos games? Do you have any experience in video games in general? If not, what's it like to be getting your feet wer with an indie project like this?
The answers, in order:
Nope.
Nope! Except for playing them.
Kind of terrifying, but exciting! I’ve said this a few times before, but really it’s working with a team that I’m enjoying the most. I’m learning new things every day!
Princess Panic is pretty much my main project, while my role in Dungeon Panic will be relatively minor, and I’m pretty thankful that the guys came up with the idea. It is helping me transition from comics to games a lot more than jumping straight into a huge, elaborate RPG!
