2024 Development News

Game Development Monthly Check-In: March 2024

Hey Everyone, Ryan the Art Guy here! This is a short update about what we have been doing for half the year. Adam the Code Guy has made strides cleaning up some hairy bugs with enemy pathfinding and movement, and I’ve made significant progress completing many of the more difficult animations for the demo.

Nad Greentail the Tanuki Bandit Leader

My first showcase my animation list is the boss animations of the tanuki bandit leader, Nad Greentail.

As a deserting military archer, Nad is good at keeping his distance and maintaining space away from Cole with his Bow, Arrows and Dirty Tricks.

While Nad is more mobile than the Fox Bandits, his movements aren’t enough to prevent close combat encounters. Nad will do what he can to get enough distance to fire arrows.

Finally, Nad can stand still to block Cole’s Attacks. Cole must wait for an opportunity to for Nad to be vulnerable between his shots and catch him unaware. If Cole stays in Nad’s face too long, he’ll counter with a tail attack!

It’s enough actions for Nad to be a basic run, jump and shoot Robot Master style boss. The plan is to have an intelligent “player sized” boss who’s have many strategies and patterns that the Player needed to interpret and counter. There’s more that can be added as we playtest and get feedback, but for now I’ll leave him be.

Mongo The Grizzled Clubber Mini Boss Animations

This was a tougher task, but I managed to complete the the animation of this giant bear mini boss named Mongo.

Mondo is a formidable mini boss, who lumbers through the field. Should Cole fall in his site, Mongo with rush him down to crush Cole with his thorny club!

Final Note

This past few months have been uneventful and we been busy making proper progress on this demo. Sometimes, I wonder if it’s better to keep out heads down and say nothing more until we announce the demo. Between our dayjobs, we discuss each others progress and I have a good feeling this year will be out year! It’s simply a matter of doing the work!

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