Vilya's Workblog

There's still some random fixes I want to get done before the stable patch hits, so here's a bunch of those again!

First up, closing up the tree so it doesn't look like you can walk into it (I know this is a common enough problem in the game already!):

The optional Math Caves need its own entrance as well, which fits its aesthetics better than the current; hence the removal of the wood in favor of this more metal-y entrance:

Of course, in the final thing, there will be a few of those flaming goblets as well.

There's one of two more quests to add for the stable patch, one of them involving this drinking fellow at the Saloon. As such, it's fair to give him a bunch of new expressions:

And since you can't have a quest without a reward, here are two mysterious sprites involved in this quest:

Back in the Ghost Ship, it's time to clean up some stuff... And Make a cleaning room! Using the base from before, I make a bunch of cleaning sprites and water on the floor:

The idea is that the mops will be animated and that this room will be used as a battle room, the first of the 2nd floor!

Last week I made the entrance cave and the reward cave for the optional math puzzle sequence. This time around it's the actual math puzzle's turn to be made! In the GIF below you can see the basic process for the creation of each of these rooms:

And now we can take the same graphics and apply them for each of the difficulty settings (yes, the last one gives me nightmares too - in fact, most of these give me nightmares):

On top of these, there will be a set of wall- and floor variations so it won't look like you go through the exact same room every time. For the endless math puzzle version there's also this counter on the wall as seen below, which allows you to keep track of how many puzzles you've completed so far (we've capped it at 999 since we don't think anyone has the stamina to do any more of those... but maybe one of you will prove us wrong?):

It was a while since we had a meeting, but now it's time to start getting serious about the Ghost Ship, and design the 2nd and 3rd floors! Today we sat down and discussed what kind of things we'd like to see, and brainstormed various design ideas for how the floors could look.

We already had some basics down: we wanted there to be a kitchen and dining area for the ship's crew on the 2nd floor, and a grand ballroom, a set of cabins as well as the captain's bedroom on the 3rd. With this information in mind we made a bunch of sketches, quickly discarding a few of them.

Here's one of our ideas for floor 2:

A quick sketch for one of the "puzzle" rooms:

The 3rd floor:

And one of the versions we scratched:

As before, we're not quite sure about how some of the puzzles will look in the end, so I'll probably stay away from making backgrounds for those rooms until we have some kind of prototype, focusing instead of the more static rooms such as the basic battle rooms!

ALL RIGHT. Let's get on with these math caves. In the second cave system, this special entrance is where you need to solve a sequence of six numbers in order to proceed to the actual math puzzles. Here's the prototype used by Teddy at the moment:

And now it's my turn to transform this into something that looks more finished. This time around I made a video featuring how I made this entrance, as well as the reward cave that is unlocked after you've finished the math puzzles within:

Here's the finished backgrounds:

...why the reward room has another stairway leading below ground? Oh, that's so you can access another cave system which has a (literally) never ending supply of math puzzles!

...

...no, I'm not joking.

And now, some random additions, starting with the many variations of Charlotte's hair- and skin colors! Since she changes appearance based on what the player character looks like, I made a bunch of variations. The hair is a separate sprite put on top of her existing sprite in one of the three skin color variations:

We haven't forgotten fishing, of course! Brand new fishes will be available in the desert once it's ready for stable, and here's two of the new additions:

A sand shark and a Cactish (or some such)! We've also made a tiny model ship that will be available as a housing item, however this is a reward from a chest (or quest) rather than being fished up:

I might have spoiled this a bit in our Discord server, but there will indeed be more math puzzles! These ones are optional though, so you can relax - unless you're out to 100% the game this isn't something you'll have to worry about!

These puzzles are a bit different compared to the ones already in the game, as these will involve more actual math (including addition, subtraction and multiplication (OH GOD WHY)). Suffice to say testing these prototypes as someone who is a total disaster at math was... interesting.

In any case, you don't only need math skills to get through this, you also need some smarts, cause in order to actually reach the math puzzles, you need to solve a different kind of puzzle, involving numbers in a completely different way, and for this a set of statues with the numbers 1-6 had to be made:

Where will this all end?! I'm almost scared to think of it...!

More housing items incoming! Today I've been making the basic furniture that will unlock for purchase as you reach the desert areas, as well as a bunch that will be available for sale in the market area of Port Monnaie.

First up, the basic items, the usual set of tables, chairs, the bed, a window and some other random things:

These carpets will be for sale in the market:

And here we have some things available from the souvenir salesman, a desert poster, a card container with a fake card, and an essence replica:

Of course, all of these things need inventory sprites as well (which need to be a lot smaller, so I made a bunch of them and recorded the process):

And here we have the final set:

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