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Wednesday 13 August 2014

The NightShade Chronicles: development update

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.....


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