Hello Everyone,
The past month has been extremely busy. And I thought I'd provide a very brief update on the NightShade Chronicles, which is a title currently in development, and has undergone a couple of concept revisions since it was announced a few months ago.
The current state of the project is very playable and very functional. I had a pretty big smile on my face watching NightShade jump across the screen as she had been programmed to, with all the sprites and animations working perfectly.....
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| An extremely early in engine screenshot of NightShades Idle and Jump statuses. The red box is the player hit box. This is not representative of the final game. |
However I took a back seat and pondered if the current design needed any improvements, and if so, how these improvements would positively impact the outcome of the final game.
It was then I went back to the drawing board and made some interesting redesigns to the main character (version 1.0). I decided that version 1.0, while functional, was rather restrictive, and somewhat static. I felt it was a bit too basic, and prevented NightShade from executing certain in-game events and actions easily.
Below is a comparison between the old and new character design:
It took me a few days to get used to the new design (version 2.0). But as the animation commenced, the redesign was tested in a game context and began to show some really satisfying gameplay benefits. One of the many benefits of the new design is the inclusion of more joints, which automatically enables a wider range of actions and animations.
Looking back, version 1.0 was a necessary stepping stone to achieving much more mature and functional version 2.0.
Look forward to showing you NightShade in action (video).
N.B.: And yes, there is a story behind the game :-)
Thanks
Mr O. Shonibare
InnerSanctum Games (2014)
Twitter: @innersanctumgm
Google+: http://bit.ly/1sSSow4
