Summary

Visual revamp

Big revamp! I finally switched the whole game to full custom graphics. I first worked with a resolution similar to the proto character asset (see previous post 3 months ago), then tried smaller sizes to draw faster. Below, some character scale research:

Main character sprite scale research

From left to right:

  1. Tiny: fast to draw, but hard to show details like scars, sword erosion or body limb animations. Instead, it relies a lot on translations and FX.
  2. Chibi: I don’t like how this one turned out, it was supposed to look like Momodora I-III but got ugly and now it reminds me of the horned idol statue in Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis.
  3. Small: It’s a nice compromise, I’d go with this one if I had more time.
  4. Normal: The original sprite I’ve drawn, would take more time to animate, but I’d go with this one if I hired a pixel artist.
  5. Tall: A funny experiment with the “thin body - long legs” pixel art style found in indie games like Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP.

In the end I went for the Tiny art style, using references such as Time for Lunch (PICO-8 game) and Necrosphere.

Then I converted the other elements (boss, projectiles and FX) and added new elements (background, HUD) to fit in this style. The ice spike FX is very big so it was quite easy to convert (although the warm up animation needed some tuning), while I had to redo the fireball animation from scratch (and also recolored them).

Rebuilt boss level

I also rebuilt the whole level to something symmetrical with a few platforms. Kudos to the Lospec Pixel School which helped me tune the color palette! Using Aseprite, it’s quite fast with the Indexed Color Mode + Edit Color button.

First SFX

Finally, I added fireball spawn SFX. Instead of the usual sfxr (via jsfxr), I tried to use audio synthesizer Vital. I had already tested its free little brother Helm but was limited by the lack of wave modulation and wanted more features… Well, I got them, there are too many for me to understand now, so I just used a little bit of Vital’s features.

The biggest issue was Reaper + Vital plugin crashing on Linux which forced me to manually record the SFX from Vital standalone. I may eventually switch back to jsfxr or Helm because of this.

Since I was busy working on new graphics and plugging the HUD behavior, there is no new gameplay features in this update. I will work on improved boss patterns and main character moves next time.

Changelog

Level

  • Rebuilt full level as a small, one-screen room with 5 platforms

UI

  • HUD: plug main character & boss life gauges to their remaining HP

Visual

  • Main character sprites: Idle (1 frame), Run cycle (4 frames), Attack (7 frames)
  • Boss sprites (Tiny art style): Idle (1 frame)
  • Fireball sprites (Tiny art style): Move (4 frames)
  • Ice spikes (Tiny art style): Warm up (13 frames), Appear (6 frames), Active (4 frames), Disappear (3 frames)
  • HUD: Main character life gauge (discrete cells), Boss life gauge (continuous gauge)

Audio

  • SFX: Fireball spawn

Godot threads opened

For the first time, I’ll also post the list of Godot issues and proposals I opened since the last devlog. It’s pretty long because they span over 3 months, hopefully next list will be shorter.

I realised I spent a considerable amount of time debugging, isolating MWE (Minimum Working Examples) and posting them on GitHub, so tracking issues I have opened is a good way to motivate me: I’ve not been doing nothing that day!

For now it’s my main way to contribute to Godot, but I hope I’ll be able to send pull requests to contribute to engine code in the near future.

Issues

Discussions

Proposals