Weekly progress post #42: Charge shot!
I felt like I got a good amount of things done tonight, although in truth the total amount of added content wasn’t that high. Highlights include finally adding a flood fill tool for the level editor while also cleaning up the code somewhat, as well as finally implementing a proper projectile for this game’s equivalent of the charge shot. It’ll need finetuning, but the basis I have now is fairly promising. Also I’m very happy with those crackling electricity things shown in the gif!
I hate to be unpleasant, especially since I love your work and gladly bought ESA and will buy other games by you… But I keep wondering about the design of the main character? I know it’s not the first time you’re making the character constantly move up and down a little bit while standing, and I guess it kind of is a signature of sorts, maybe, but in this particular case it just looks so wrong to me…
Also on the subject of unpleasant (?) things, just a little question – have you abandoned Beyond the Black Hole entirely, or is there hope yet? That little demo and its music have remained in my heart for the longest time.
Criticism is totally welcome! The idle animation is definitely something that I apply to characters I sprite by default, and I should probably look at it a bit more at some point. However, I have some plans for updating the other animations and the sprite itself, partially because I’m not really happy with e.g. the walking animation. Hopefully the final sprite will be better!
BtBH is kind of abandoned at this point, yeah; the codebase is really terrible, and a lot of the game’s design is very awkward and unintuitive. I love the graphical look, the basic idea and the atmosphere in most of the levels (Johan Hargne’s music does wonders!), and kinda want to revisit the style, if nothing else, but BtBH as it is now wont most probably be finished. Sorry about that! I should release a version with all the levels I managed to finish before abandoning it, though…
re: the sprites, good to know! I’m in the middle of my third replay of ESA and the idea of the sequel is very intriguing. I wonder if we’ll get to see some more gods from the same pantheon.
re: BtBH, ah, too bad. But I totally understand. If you can find time, please do release the version you’re talking about, it’d be sweet!
Also, thanks for replying ^_^