Cake Time? It's 2 in the morning

I'd like to formally introduce two new characters to our witch line up!  In addition to Dream Witch (who is transitioning into her new more appropriate name of Light Witch), we now have Time Witch and Cake Witch.  This post will showcase a little bit about each of them.

First up is Time Witch:

Time Witch is a shy girl who reigns over time.  She can freeze time at will, and doesn't particularly like to fight.  She attacks her enemies with both a swinging scythe and bullets she manipulates with time.  Her domain is a maze-like Clock Tower riddled with deadly pendulums and Tick Tock Toads.  Tick Tock Toads are enchanted creatures that chase after Time Witch's enemies and explode in order to keep outsiders away from her.   

And Cake Witch!

Cake Witch is a young lady who thinks of herself as a fancy dame.  She has the power to create the most exquisite of cakes, and uses these to deal with her foes.  She herself has a nasty sweet tooth, but can not enjoy what she creates without consequence.  When she eats her own cakes, she blows up like a balloon.

  

In a way, she is cursed because she cannot stay thin and eat cake.  But she sure as hell can crush her enemies beneath her.    

These two lovely ladies are on their way to the turnaround stage so that they can be modeled...one day.  We have other things to do before then!  If you are interested, you can see additional concept art of Time Witch here, and more of Cake Witch here.

Updates and changes and bears oh my

In this post, I would like to briefly go over how we have changed our approach in designing this game.  Originally, we were going to make a game comprised of 4 dungeons.  Each dungeon was to be a 10 minute experience, giving us 40 minutes of gameplay.  In addition, there was going to be a final boss once all these dungeons were cleared.  As each dungeon also included its own boss battle, we were going to have a total of 5 bosses.  This was our goal for a couple of weeks until we sat down and really started digging deep into the design of this game.  At around the same time, we were coming up with different witches, and it sunk in that we needed to pull back.

We decided that instead of aiming for 4 dungeons, that we would aim for 2.  These dungeons would each be comprised of 5 to 6 challenges for the player to overcome and a boss battle.  We would therefore only have 2 bosses, the 3rd final boss only if there is enough time for it.  In addition, we are shooting to have a tutorial level, which is currently in development and should be ready to show off in the near future.  

So far, the tutorial is shaping up to be a forest environment, as originally planned for one of our environments.  The other two environments are going to be based off our new witches, Time Witch and Cake Witch.  Both the tutorial and Time dungeon have more or less been designed and need to be refined and built.  Design progress is rollin rollin rollin like prices at your local *** store. 

Short, texty post, but we're working on the visual now, please be patient.    

If I could turn back time and my name was Cher

We're not dead.  Yet.  We never really tied our progress from last quarter into a nice bow, so this post will do just that.  I would like to share with you what we were able to accomplish last quarter.  At the end of November, we delivered our Alpha build.  This included the basic functionality of the game, as well as some very basic art assets.

We were not able to completely finish Dream Witch as planned, but got her in the game with a placeholder texture.  Below, is Dream Witch from concept to model, to model with texture.      

We hope to finish her in a couple weeks.  Maybe by then, she will be ready to be animated as well.  In addition, we managed to finish some basic props and an enemy.  

These are all in engine, though not in our actual build.  This was an art test of sorts, which made it painfully obvious that we've got a ways to go if we want this game to look good.  We've got a better grasp of the art direction this quarter, and we can only get better from here, especially when we add lighting.  

  

Here is a shot from the beginning of the level of our build.  We cranked out about 5 levels, though only managed to sprinkle the first with some crude art.  But you can play the game, and that's all that matters.  

Pretty cool trees, dude!  Cowabunga

And here is the lovely Meiosis in action.  We actually managed to get these guys animated and they look pretty cool!  

Looking back, it doesn't seem like all that much.  We've got a long way to go...