Week #033: Community Impact, Transformed

Unfortunately, no, it isn't yet time to begin with the starters. I'm glad to see the poll getting enough hits to make it interesting, though, and I'm sure it'll just continue to pick up as we move along. You guys really seem to like the mythical starters! and it seems you really want to see the dark starters revealed as well.

What I am here to deliver, is what was asked about what I get up to when I'm not working.

Some weeks ago, I founded an "Alphabet Challenge" with a friend of mine. I believe this was just after I got over a cold and I was looking to ignite my artistic fire once more. The challenge was simple: draw a character for each letter of the alphabet, though we had the option of deciding on our own secondary themes as well (for example: for a bit I considered doing all Mega Man characters, and later considered all females).

These three are only the first three (A, B and C for those playing along at home) in the challenge, which are unfortunately all I've made time for so far.

If there's enough interest in these, I'll be sure to post the next three once I get back to the project.

In other news, there's a pretty amazing community movement happening over at the SEGA forums. Challenged by a developer from Sumo Digital, the studio behind Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed (which is a game you should really look into if you like racers!), the community has assembled a large cast of petitions in an effort to show their support for a strong DLC presence to be made in the game. If you're a SEGA fan, whether it be classic or modern, I strongly encourage you to get involved and sign a few petitions to show your support for characters like Vectorman, Ristar, Bayonetta and many others! The movement is doing well, but they're looking for it to do even better before it's December 1st deadline.

It should be no surprise that I support such a movement with how much we here at SND Games like to involve our own community!

That's about it for this week, but I'll see you all again soon.

Week #032: So Many Starters and So Little Time

Oh, hey, I remember you guys.

As I've been combating the rise and fall of my "art drive" over the last few weeks, I've been attempting to gear up for some updates I could actually post here. Last week (or so), someone asked if I could post some of the stuff I do in my free time as filler, so I'm looking to do both that and share some work from the project we're all hard at work on recently.

...which brings me to why I'm here, making this post! Unfortunately, I'm not ready to post anything just yet, but you know how I favor community feedback. Oh, yes, it's that time again...

COMMUNITY IMPACT POLL #003:

Project ANPO Starters - Who's On First?

My time has been largely spent polishing up the many designs we have (now over 140!) for use in the game. Some of these are as simple as pulling the designs from other artists into the one consistent style. Others are as complicated as taking something extremely vague and making something interesting out of it. It's a challenging job, but one that I volunteered for to show my commitment towards making the game as flavorful as we all dream.

As I had been working on polishing these designs, I knew that I would one day have to take the art (what you've been seeing so far on Sam's blog in that distinctive monochrome sketch style) and finish them with full ink and color. This hasn't been a priority since they wouldn't be used for much more than promotional purposes... but promoting the game has to start at some point, right?

I've only three more starter families to go before I'm ready to start that process. So what I want to know is, who you want to see first! Some of them may be completed as you saw them on Sam's blog, but others may see varying levels of redesign and some may be redrawn completely, so there's sure to be plenty of progress shots to see.

As always, you can find the poll for CIP#003 off to the right of this very blog.

I'm looking forward to getting things going again here. I hope you are too!

Week #031: Time For A Change Of Pace

Stage One - Loose Sketch

A few weeks ago, while I was working on the basic interface elements for PTD2, I came to Sam with interest in doing a fancy title graphic. I roughed it out pretty quickly, and thought it would be fun to show the stages of the process here once it was done. Unfortunately, I clearly wasn't thinking and rendered all of these with transparencies enabled, so they might be hard to see here. Sorry! I can't really go back now.

Stage Two - Refined Sketch

I fleshed it further out pretty quickly after that. I chose the five that I did based on the first pokémon to be revealed per generation, though in some cases I picked those that were more iconic. For example, I think Machamp was one of the first ever to be revealed, but it seemed wrong to not include Pikachu.

Stage Three - Inked

After that, I got caught up in the development of Project ANPO for a little while. It wasn't until I finally invested in a much overdue tablet upgrade this past week that I came back to it, aiming to finally finish it up. Below you'll see the final version of it as it appears in the upcoming update to the game!

Week #030: Gemstone Dwarfs

Promotional concept artwork of Hugo and Trixie, the gemstone dwarf poster children.
Images represent a game currently in development.

Brave and burly, the Gemstone Dwarfs hail from cities of crystal grown on the water's surface. Using their mysterious ability to crystallize liquid matter through touch, they intricately craft their cities, expansive underwater mines, and can even walk on water!

Height roster in the game's discarded pre-alpha hand-drawn graphics style.
Images represent a game currently in development.

My philosophy while designing the dwarfs - as it is with anything these days - was breaking the mold. I feel that it's important for any media today to grab the viewer's attention with original ideas, and while games can also do this through unique mechanics, I feel that it's still important to explore these options from an artistic standpoint. I frequently feel that I wouldn't be doing my job if I wasn't.

Variations on dwarf appearance including hairstyles.
Images represent a game currently in development.

With the dwarfs, I sought to do this through both visual and character design. Most will still recognize them as the beloved stout warriors at a glance - like several of you did even from the early teasers. But when you dig deeper than that, you'll find that they're different from the usual mountain-dwellers.

Modeling sheet for the gemstone dwarfs.
Images represent a game currently in development.

I hope everyone enjoys this preview of the Gemstone Dwarfs coming soon to HTD! I'm currently looking into other methods of further exploring their background and just who they are as a race, so I hope you look forward to that, too.

Week #029: So Hum A Merry Tune

Development on ______ has been going slowly but steadily. It's a tricky thing, breathing life into a whole new race. Creating the human race for HTD was one thing, since there's really only one way to do humans in a game like this. But with other playable races, such as ______, I really wanted to find a way to make them new and exciting, while maintaining what everybody loves about the ______. This can be a difficult balance to strike, and I'm personally pleased with the results so far.

I'm really looking forward to working with some of the other race ideas that Evan, Josh and myself have had further down the line, too.

With progress breaching a third of the way complete on my end, I wanted to mark the occasion with an additional teaser. I won't keep this up too much longer; since I'm no longer creating the assets themselves, I really could have revealed the ______ a week ago. But where's the fun in that?

One thing I want to stress, as I mentioned, is that these progress trackers are only following my own progress, on the conceptual and character design levels. They don't speak for the development of the actual character models or in-game assets.

If you think that I've surely been up to more than this, though, you'd be correct. Sam has also brought me on board to build a cleaner interface for Pokémon Tower Defense 2! He plans to talk about the new interface this week himself, and I got clearance to offer up a preview to go along with it.

Images represent a game currently in development.

For those of you excited for PTD2, well, you should be! It isn't my place to reveal the details, but from what I've seen and heard, it should blow the first game away.

Oh, also, ______.

Week #028: Off to Work We Go

Week #027: Meanwhile, at SND Headquarters...

It sure has been a while. Again.

You can more or less prefer to my previous post on why things have been so slow lately. We're still hard at work to catch up to where we were before, but from what I've heard and seen, things are coming along nicely!

I was personally very happy with the vast amount of creative ideas everyone came up with in regards to pets. We haven't even had a chance to start going through to pick our favorites yet, but I can tell they're going to be a ton of fun to work with. But that doesn't mean that we're not still open to more ideas! Just be sure to direct such ideas back to that previous post, or wait for our next big call-out, to ensure that your ideas aren't lost in the shuffle.

Meanwhile, I thought I would take the time to share what the art team (we're a team now!) as a whole has been up to over the last few weeks.

Before Bill took his extended vacation, he was happy to lend his love for creatures to HTD. Sharing in my philosophy in regards to originality, however, he wasn't happy doing anything that might've been done before. This little guy unfortunately comes from before we decided on the change of direction in regards to the game's graphics, but the design will still see some life.

Images represent a game currently in development.

As for me - in between assisting Evan with the development of the new graphics - I've been working on creature designs of my own, including but not limited to the Reanimated Hero here. Most of the other things I've been working on are far too young in the development stages to be shown just yet, including my own "Project Endless", which is a story for another time...

Images represent a game currently in development.

As for the new graphics (can you tell I've been practicing my segue skills?), Evan has been hard at work getting the human males ready for action... again. It should be noted that this is a pretty early work-in-progress that was all I could grab at such short notice. For example, the final in-game graphics are still planned to be cel-shaded, and, you know... textured.

Images represent a game currently in development.

Another testament to my philosophy of originality comes from our newcomer, Josh. Spiders are one of those generic creatures that just makes me want to gouge at my eyes, and not because of arachnophobia. How out of ideas do you have to be? Spiders? You would never see giant flies as enemies (even though that would, by relation, make them an original idea). When Josh had the idea of a half-spider-half-octopus, though, of course I was quick to jump on board.

We hope you enjoyed this sneak peek at some of the ideas we've been working on for HTD! Hopefully once the new graphical system is in place, I'll be able to start bringing you more regular updates once again.

Week #026: By Popular Demand

(05-12-12) Update: We've been getting so many great suggestions that I decided to keep this open for another week before we start narrowing them down for a poll. Keep 'em coming!

It sure has been a while. On Thursday, Dan filled you in on the graphical overhaul and why things have been so slow for us lately. It's certainly been a busy, chaotic time.

But I'm happy to say that I feel more positive about this project now than I ever have. You shouldn't let this speed bump worry you, because things are looking up! I should also be sure to mention that there are absolutely no hard feelings from me in regards to this change of direction; I do not feel that my job with the company is in jeopardy, and I do believe that this change is the best for everyone.

Just what does it mean to you, the player, though? It is sad to say that very few of my graphics will be appearing in the final game now, but you should expect the same overall style regardless of this new direction. Dan and Evan seem devoted to sticking to that style, and you can be sure that I'm devoted to making sure everything maintains the same (or improved) charm.

This brings us to the purpose of this blog. I have no plans to discontinue it, but the amount of final assets you see may wind up being limited. What you can look forward to seeing is more concept art and test animations for characters and creatures alike. I'm planning to make a post highlighting just what myself and the rest of the art team (we're a team now!) are working on, but I didn't want to clutter this homecoming post and distract away from what everyone's really interested in...

Community Impact Opportunity #002:

Pets! That's Right... Pets!!!

Images represent a game currently in development.

OMG is it finally time!? It is. As you can see above, this little fellow is what I have in the works as HTD's first out-of-combat pet. The fun, of course, won't stop here, and we felt it only proper to let you, the players, decide on what kind of pets you want to have with you in HTD. Leave your demands in the comments and we'll sort through them, decide on what will work and what won't, and I'll create a poll in the coming weeks to narrow the choices down!

Please be sure that you're logged in to Blogger when you leave your suggestion, so that you can be properly credited if it comes down to your idea winning.

Until next time!

Week #025 and a Half: April Fool's!

For those of you that didn't figure it out, yes, yesterday's post was an April Fool's gag. Gotcha! There are a few things worth keeping in mind, though, of course, and that's why I'm here tonight. I didn't want to flood the post yesterday with all of this and wind up ruining the illusion.

- The real title screen is in fact under development. It just isn't high on our priority list at the moment. I'm still looking forward to sharing it when the time comes, and I assure you it's something completely unique, and not parodying any video games from the '90s.

- The complete flood of "first" posts yesterday was the result of me writing the post just before I had gone to sleep, and therefore couldn't approve any comments until I woke up. I always publish them all so that you can have an idea on how close to first you actually were, and so that it doesn't look like I'm playing favorites. Any comments throwing around obscenities in regards to people "lying" about being first (or in regards to anything, really) are unacceptable and won't be approved (unless I'm not paying attention). As before, since this is an unscheduled post, the First! Comment Scoreboard will not be in effect today.

- Now for the bad news (this part is not an April Fool's gag - again, this is why I didn't talk about it yesterday). As of Friday my tablet pen suffered a most overdue death, and as my luck usually likes to domino, the back-up I had stored for just such a day isn't working either. Luckily, I did determine that it's just the pen and not the entire tablet, so it's a cost that doesn't hurt as much as it could have. Still, I've been forced to take an inconveniently timed vacation, putting me a bit further behind how behind I already was. Obviously, this means light spells won't be making it in this week. In the end, I want to take a little time to play catch-up, and will be postponing further blog posts until I reach that level of comfort once more. If the hiatus winds up lasting long enough, I'll be sure to have Dan say something on the main blog once I'm getting started again, for those that don't follow here as regularly.

Until then!

Week #025: Every Game Needs A Title Screen

I may or may not have slept through my alarm in regards to last week's blog post. I hope this week makes up for it!

A lot of you have been eager to see less temporary title screen graphics for Hero Tower Defense. Taking note of the demand, I shirked my responsibilities, priorities be damned, and devoted my time to just such a project. Today (after some struggling), I'm happy to finally raise the curtain on the final graphics. I hope they don't disappoint!

Week #024: The 23 Hour Day

March 18th Update: As I mentioned, I will not be making a post this week due to my just-ending vacation. I planned to make a post only talking more about these references and where they were from, but no one knows! In the best interest of the sport of obscure trivia, I am not going to ruin the fun by revealing the sources myself. Tune in next week (March 25th), when I'll likely be talking a bit about the development process involving the first tier of light skills.

I've a lot in store for you this week! One would think I'd plan ahead more often with results like these.

First up, we have the requested and sometimes demanded cursor redesigns. With our little speed bump involving last week's release, I had a little time to finally catch up on these, both redesigning the old and coming up with some proper grabbing frames for any drag-and-drop functionality. Hopefully these are a bit more fitting.

Second, it should be known that I find weakness in wasting countless hours reading up on meaningless trivia on Wikipedia. Thanks to this, I have a great appreciation for our own HTD Wikipedia authors doing their research when it comes to references even as small as the source of my avatar. So I thought I would share a few of the in-game nods I have in store for HTD.

Some of you that have been around since the beginning may have seen these two assets before in various previews of the Fortuitous Cave. The Treasure Lord's hoard itself is home to several references that any 2004 raider should be able to spot one or two of.

Just recently - another side-effect of last week's delay - I created this weapon for use in the game (stats not final) based on something I saw in a recent addition to Netflix.

Images represent a game currently in development.

I haven't yet talked to Sam or Dan involving any sort of reward for spotting all of these references... but I'll be sure to make note of those who can!

This week may be a slow one, as I've thrown around the idea of taking the week off. As such, next week's blog post may be a quiet or completely non-existent one, but I'll be sure to check in to judge reference guesses as well as answer any questions if nothing else.

Week #023: One Week Earlier...

If I had known that these graphics weren't making it in just yet, I would have shown this off last week. As far as I know this interface is slated for release this coming thursday, but you're getting a sneak peek anyway!

Images represent a game currently in development.

A few things I've yet to fully implement are of course the final graphics for the figures, and the hero preview area (the big one). This will likely just house a placeholder for now, but will eventually be a bit more polished and dynamic.

You also have water spells to look forward to this coming week, although I unfortunately don't have much concrete to show there just yet.

Week #022: Newcomer - Bill Cass

Due to the nature of interface design that I've spoken about recently, it was rather easy for me to outright forget about making a post last night. By the time I remembered, I wasn't even really sure what to go about posting.

With the addition of Bill to our team, I thought I'd take a bit to talk about him and just what he'll be doing for HTD. I've known Bill for well over a decade, and knew from the word go that he would be the one capable of matching my style without even blinking. My goal is to have him focus on what I don't necessarily excel at, and vice versa. Therefore, I'll still be handling all character animation myself. You won't have to worry about later animations looking slightly off as if they were handled by someone else or anything.

Images represent a game currently in development.

One thing he can definitely excel over me at is creature design. This is a part of the application process we put him through; to design an enemy creature for use at a later point in the game. To be clear, this is not something we're looking at including anytime soon, but are definitely filing away for a later date. I was personally really blown away by this design and some of the ideas Bill had, and I'm eager to push ahead and make it happen.

For his first assignment, Bill is hard at work on the first tier of water spells that are set to be added next week.

Week #021: Insert Clever Title Here

As I mentioned last week, things have been slow lately, to an outside viewer. There's a lot of fixing, refining, polishing and catching up going on involving the characters, and interface design is truthfully, not all that involved or interesting.

This week, I'm going to talk a bit about one of my own ideas I've been pushing to put in the game. What was once no more than a splash of presentation just recently evolved into something with purpose, and with our time being devoted to the interface lately, you'll likely be seeing some early bits of it in the coming weeks, even if the ultimate goal might still be months off.

Introducing

Hero Figurines

The original idea for figurines actually came to me in a dream when HTD was still very early in development. Belonging to a Jumanji-style game board, the tiny figures represented your heroes as they progressed through their skill trees, represented by the paths on the board. Expecting the heroes to be held responsible for the well-being of this piece of equipment during their dangerous travels was eventually deemed illogical, and the idea was canned.

Months later, we began looking at the game's pre-battle interfaces, and when I was tasked with laying out the hero management screen, the idea made a comeback. I started with a simple goal: that these supposed figurines would be less stressful for the engine to load in a timely manner than full-blown previews of your heroes would be. The hand-carved wooden figures would be unique to your hero's race, gender, and class to assist in quickly identifying your heroes, and clicking on them once would bring up a dynamic preview elsewhere on the screen, along with options to configure their equipment and skills. Dragging the figures to another area would allow you to arrange a party before entering battle.

The current placeholders that you'll be seeing soon in-game
along with some very early development of the final figurine graphics.

I initially planned that these figurines would also be painted to match the color of your native element, but we ultimately decided that this could be confusing or misleading.

Jump ahead to just a few weeks later, and only a week ago, when the new design dawned on me: What if players could find or purchase paints for a very small fee, and paint these figurines themselves to add extra, cosmetic-only effects to their heroes? Imagine flashy auras, a little extra flare for their abilities, titles and more!

It should be stressed that this idea is of course still very early in development, and none of these exact bonuses have been decided on, and probably won't be for months to come. These examples should be considered nothing more than just that; examples.

Regardless, it's an idea that I'm very excited about and I wanted to take the chance to talk about, being one of the first ideas that I came up with on my own to contribute to HTD. I hope everyone is looking forward to it as much as I am!

In the case of the next week being another slow one, I wanted to open the gates for another question and answer session. Let 'em rip in comments and I'll answer them next week or sooner.

Week #020: Now For Something Completely Different

It may look like I haven't really done a whole lot since we finished up Maximus and got him into the game. While I did take some time off for recharging after that, you can rest assured that we're still hard at work polishing the game up. You just can't always immediately notice it.

If you've been following the progression notes, you may have noticed my entry for "character fixes/polish". This is what I've been focusing my attention on for the last week. While everything may look fine and dandy with the characters at the moment, this is because they're equipped in their full armor sets. Beneath that there are numerous graphical errors that, while hidden by the equipping of a full armor set, would have become eye sores once the characters were only wearing a few select pieces of armor instead of the whole set. Instead of putting this off until such equipment management became possible, I decided to get it done ahead of time.

Again, this is unfortunate since it's mostly behind-the-scenes work that not a lot of people will see. Even Sam and Dan were sometimes at a loss in regards to what I was talking about working on! I tried to take some before and after screenshots to show as examples this week, but I felt they weren't doing a good job of expressing just what was going on.

Instead, I have this for you.

For those of you interested in what kind of stuff I draw in the little free time I allow myself for that kind of thing, I also posted my rendition of Cave Story's Curly Brace over on my deviantArt account about a week ago.

Week #019: Choose Your Arsenal

My plans for this week's post got a little messy when I realized posting works-in-progress of Maximus was a little silly when he's already in the game.

Not really sure what else to do, since I was kind of loving the idea of taking the weekend off (or at least easy) after finishing all of that up, I figured the best idea was to show some progress on the new weapons from two weeks ago, since I kind of left that hanging afterwards to talk about Maximus instead.

Images represent a game currently under development.

Unfortunately, we had a lot more sword suggestions than we were hoping for, and since we agreed that we wanted to add other kinds of weapons to the game first, we had to be choosy about this batch. Many suggestions I made mental notes of for later (I realize there are many different kinds of swords, we just love being diverse), and some I just combined into one idea (but you can't see that one yet, hah!). Admittedly, I think the two-handed sword of my own design might have a bit of unintentional Buster Sword influence to it (and Max looks incredible dual-wielding them, FYI).

Something to always remember is that most work I show here, unless otherwise noted, should be taken as a work-in-progress of an incomplete idea. I say this mostly in regards to that mace which I'm not at all happy with yet. Kind of looks more like a street light than a mace...

Even though it was two weeks ago, it should be noted that we're always open to your suggestions and ideas when it comes to weapons, whether you have some basic ideas you'd like to see or some of your own designs you'd like to see in the game! Right now we're still looking for melee weapons, preferably not of the sword variety, for now.

Week #018: Bitmapize!

Around the middle of last week I decided it was time to get around to designing the beginner leather armor set. But I wanted to do something different. Something more than just posting a quick sketch and calling it a week.

Prior to coming on board here at Sam & Dan Games, I had messed around with the process of doing live streams for some of my more extensive sketching sessions. This never struck me as viable for the blog, since it would be hard to contact people when deciding to do one on a whim, and I wasn't keen on doing them on some kind of schedule. Time lapses sounded like a good solution!

I had the filming under control, but had trouble figuring out how to go about editing the footage. Windows Movie Maker just doesn't cut it, and I still haven't found a versatile, free and legal alternative. Eventually, fed up and frustrated, I contacted Gon and he suggest we just film the session from inside a time warp. He's capable of such things, you know.

Direct Link

Big thanks to my friend Cassie for giving me a hand with the leather armor design while I was occupied with the shadow ability graphics and a few other things this past week!

Images represent a game currently under development.

So there you have it. I'm really curious how much interest there is in stuff like this; if there's a lot, I'll be sure to try it again in the near future (although things like equipment and spell creation might not be the most interesting to watch). Be sure to let me know!

Just a reminder that this week's post coming a day earlier is not an error; I've pushed the usual post date from monday to sunday to ease off on the tension of getting a post together on my already-hectic mondays. It already feels much more comfortable to me, although that may be thanks to having this post ready since thursday night...

I'm also hunting for versatile, free and legal video editors for a potential future in "The Making of HTD" videos, if anyone has any experience on that front.

Week #017: Multiple Maximus

Due to some personal problems (I can't catch a break, can I?), we unfortunately had to delay the development of a few things, as you may have noticed in last thursday's update. While I'm not comfortable stating an ETA on anything, I can assure you that I'm prioritizing the completion of human males and shadow abilities (surprise?) for their addition to the game as soon as possible.

Many of you wanted to see Maximus geared up in various ways other than full plate armor, so I wanted to be sure to bring that to the blog this week. I've been pleased with the overall reception regarding the new Max so far, and I continue to assure you that if you had something different in mind, that we'll have you covered with the design of future races.

I also wanted to include some development shots of how Maximus' animations are coming along, but thanks to a major speed bump involving the side view, that stuff is a total mess right now and I don't think anyone could make any sense of it. I'll try to get something like that out next week. Unfortunately (I know, I know, this post is kind of a real drag...), that same speed bump will cause the completion of males to be pushed back by at least a week, and that isn't even including the equipment yet. Sorry! I'm doing what I can.

Enough of these downers, let's move on to some fun community impact activities. First of all, I'm sure some of you noticed that I extended the length of CIP#003 to determine the order of the remaining three elements (with shadow obviously being the second). Since I can't edit a poll once it's active, I couldn't modify it to reflect this extension. Just try not to let the title confuse you. Since shadow has already been decided on, feel free to change your votes to help decide on the next three if you wish.

As for our first Community Impact Opportunity (CIO), as I teased last week...

Community Impact Opportunity #001:

Choose Your Own Arsenal #001

What else can we expect to see by the end of the month, you ask? How about some new weapons? What I want to do is get your feedback on what kind of weapons you'd like to see included in HTD. Axes? Maces? Can't get enough of swords? Maybe you have some really wild and unique ideas in mind? As long as it fits the theme of the game, we want to hear it. Here are a few additional guidelines to follow:

• Melee weapons are ideal for this opportunity. Since animations for ranged and casting weapons aren't yet complete, such weapons couldn't be added until a later date. I'll most likely hold a separate CIO when that time comes.
• You do not need to have a visual of your idea. A detailed description is fine (and I cannot stress enough that more detail will increase your chances). Lack of a visual will not hurt your chances, unless your description is just too vague to make sense of.
• While we can't include exact copies of a popular weapon (example: a Buster Sword, the Master Sword, etc.), we can create a reasonable facsimile. Feel free to include such suggestions and we'll see what we can do, but being imaginative and unique could go a long way.
• A poll will not be opened to choose between these weapons. Any weapon that I choose to design will be included in the game!

As always, we're looking forward to seeing what you come up with. While I won't promise to include every idea, I will try to add as many as I can by the time the option of changing your weapons in-game becomes available (no public ETA, you know the drill).

In closing, the last thing I want to mention is I will be moving my weekly blog updates to sunday night. Getting them together for monday nights is just proving to be too difficult for me. This may change again if I find that sundays don't work any better for me, so stay tuned.

Week #016: Maximus Joins the Brawl!

As I mentioned last week, I really want to get back into writing some - at least mildly - more elaborate posts again. What I couldn't fix with the simple solution of getting more work done, I fixed by getting started on writing the post itself well before monday night rolls around.

Monday nights tend to be pretty busy for me even without the blog to worry about, so there's a chance I might bump the post window to later (early tuesday morning) or earlier (sunday night or early monday morning). I realize posting too early in the morning will really skew the First! Comment Scoreboard numbers, so I'll try not to let it come to that.

First, you may have noticed the discrete addition of CIP#003 over the weekend. In case there's any confusion; this is to help us decide on the second element that we'll be adding into HTD. While I plan to get that second element into the game before the end of the month, the poll will remain open until the 26th, two HTD Thursdays away. This of course means that I'll be making a gamble by developing the abilities before the results are final. In the case of a tie, or one of the four making a comeback, I suppose I'll just have to buckle down and add both.

There's a chance that these results will not only decide the second element, but the order in which all of the remaing four are developed and included. I won't make a promise of this though in case something comes up to interfere with that.

Now for the goods. I'll just let the preview explain itself...

As I've made plenty obvious, I've been devoting this month to the inclusion of human males as playable characters in HTD. This has been a grueling process, mostly because it's not something I was looking forward to working on. It had to be done though; as previously stated, the amount of functionality that was added to the females rendered the males simply incompatible. Looking back now I realize that the two are barely even in the same style.

But is the new "Maximus" too manly for you? Rest assured; we've already decided on designing another race to fill the short, fat and all-around chibi quota.

Tune in next week for another look at the development of the human males, along with another new Community Impact Opportunity ("CIO", not to be confused with a CIP)!

Just for the record, I can't wait for work to be complete on the human males so that statements like this and the last will stop being made for the sole purpose of being taken horribly out of context.

Week #015: Interface Improvements Anonymous ...wait.

I really wanted to make an elaborate post tonight, detailing the process we went through to improve and polish the game's interface. Two hours of severe writer's block later though and I'm pretty much too cranky to care anymore.

Images represent a game currently in development.

I'll still leave you with this development screenshot. This is more or less what you should expect the interface to look like in the upcoming build, although probably not exactly, since this isn't technically an authentic screenshot.

Note that it obviously isn't 100% complete, either. We narrowed what had to be done down to what we wanted to get done first. Fat lot of good an inventory interface does before there's an inventory to manage, right?

Apologies for the lackluster posts so far this year, I'll try to pick up the pace next week.

Week #014: Welcome to 2012