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Weekly Update - Maelstroms & Mausolea, SMECOF OST

4 years ago - Edited 4 years ago1,165 words

I've finished off some more stuff in preparation for an alpha test, though I'm still not there yet. Also, SMECOF OST. Whoopee.

Atonal Dreams Progress

I'm still working toward an alpha test by finishing off stuff on my To Do List, but it's a long list and each thing takes longer than I expect! So I'm not quite there yet. I did get more work done every day this week than usual, though, at least in terms of focused hours.

Most of the technical stuff I fixed or added isn't worth talking about, so I'll just mention these two big things:



Last week, I talked about a concept for something called maelstroms, which are multi-wave battles I could potentially use instead of big boss monsters. They make better use of the taming mechanic, since you're able to build a team during the early waves to tackle the later ones.

I've got these working, at least in a basic way, as you can see in the gif there. I'm still thinking of giving the monsters they spawn buffs, which I've not yet done.



The other major thing I did was make a building model for a mausoleum. As I think I've mentioned before, there are six of these mausolea, each devoted to an element. Originally they were planned to be sort of like Pokemon gyms, but as I developed ideas they ended up instead being places in which pairs of characters dream together on a bed-sarcophagus and experience a shared lucid dream where they take on forms as they're seen by the dreamer (eg the winged Savitr and Blight Wolves Collie, which I posted about a while back). Most are important to the plot.

Before I could actually transform that from an idea to an actual working game feature, I needed to make a physical mausoleum, which I've been putting off for months because making buildings is a skill I'm not exactly experienced at (or really interested in). I finally got around to it because it's one of the few things left that I have to do before I could start alpha testing.

I couldn't just whip out something I was happy with in my first try, so I looked at a bunch of other mausolea in Google images and on the 3D website ∞ Sketchfab ∞ for inspiration, so then I could distill the features that would make a building register as a mausoleum. Here are some iterative attempts:







This looked too primitive, and it felt like a Chinese restaurant or supermarket or something to me for some reason.






That's the one I ended up with at the end of my work week. The Eygptian pyramids are mausolea, I suppose, and apparently ∞ pyramid-shaped mausolea ∞ aren't uncommon. Adding the Spirit Eye symbol - which the Beyond Ponderers use to represent themselves - to a pyramid is essentially the ∞ eye of providence ∞, which has mystical/conspiracy connotations (illuminati etc), which isn't inappropriate for something in which characters experience symbolic dreams.

I tried adding it to the map at the last minute to see how it'd look in game (it's just plonked in the middle of an existing area where it obviously doesn't fit):




I'm not sure about that though. The... overhang - or whatever that bit would be called - covers up four of the six pillars, so I want to revise that. Hmm.

Though it doesn't look it at all, making that took up two whole work days, mostly due to indecisive experimentation. Much longer than I would have expected. It wouldn't take me nearly as long to make a human or creature, including animations and everything! But everything takes longer when it's unfamiliar. At least the plan was to use the same model for all six mausolea, and beyond those there aren't many buildings in the game at all.



Also, I saw this on Reddit the other day:




Just seemed funny considering a line of dialogue I gave Pierce in the intro scene which people took issue with. Makes me feel less insane for using that word in that way!

Music Album of the Week

Super Mega Extreme Cyber Ortek Flier 2005 X! My greatest game ever that everyone remembers fondly and which I totally don't forget and/or cringe about usually!!!

Link: [LINK]

I got this album out of the way this week largely because it's the last completely naive music left to add to Bandcamp, and because it's short so adapting it was far less time consuming than the last one.

I've written some notes in the Bandcamp description so I won't repeat them here. I do find it interesting though that the whole game only took like two months from whimsical start to "eh it'll do" release, and that was with school going on at the same time. So different to the more work-like approach I take to games now. I wish I could still be that carefree!

Other Indie Games

I was unusually busy this week trying to get Atonal Dreams ready, so I didn't have time to take note of any marketing/promotion-related stuff. I wrote a post about Hyrule Warriors Age of Calamity yesterday, which isn't an indie game but which I did play: [LINK]

I've not started a new game yet though. Any suggestions?

I do think I might at least give Kickstarter a try though, and I've been thinking about that a bit. I'll need to devote some time to researching how to run one before starting, and it seems to be normal to set up the Kickstarter weeks in advance of actually making it active. That'll come after I've done some alpha testing though. One thing at a time.

Also...

I mentioned Discord and site tweaks last week, both of which I've neglected again, also because I've been too busy. And depressed. That's annoying. I keep wondering whether to talk about it in personal posts, but I've been paranoid for ages that I'll just say something that'll annoy people or I'll get dogpiled or cancelled or politely condescended to etc etc... There's this constant underlying feeling that everyone who notices me at all - which is not many people - hates me and sees me as a joke, or if they don't yet, they will eventually. Feels like I have no outlet where I feel safe to express myself, and it's hurting my already poor mental health a lot. But I don't know what to do about that.