Etheldia

Hippo

Week 7 of programming. First alpha is now up for testing! Been working on the game all day and most of the week so I'm pretty tired, I'll probably upload a bunch of screenshots here tomorrow.

While a lot has been done this is intended as an early alpha just to give a feel for the game, there's a lot of stuff still to be done The air tribe map in particular is very rough and there's no music, sound effects, cutscenes or animations yet.

The game itself is completed by defeating all six of the elder rabbits found in their respective temples. Most of the route battles are missing atm so to actually complete the game would probably take a fair amount of grinding, but it can technically be done.

I'm planning to put an updated version up every week or two leading up to my target release date of April 5th 2020, although that's still subject to change at this point. Back to work tomorrow morning so progress will slow again unfortunately, but I still think I can finish the game in time.

I'm sure there's more but that's all I can think of for now, if you wanna get in touch with me to discuss stuff about the game I'm on Discord semi regularly and I'd love to chat!

Download links can be found at this address: http://etheldia.net/pepper.html

Hippo

Here's a few screenshots of the game so far. UI still needs a lot of work, I'll get to that eventually...

Hippo

Week 8 of programming. Back to work so time has been limited this week. I fixed all the bugs I found in the Alpha version and added some settings for autosave functionality and three different encounter rates options for players to choose from. Created a couple more character sprites for the game as well. <img src="https://i.imgur.com/abTiFVj.png"></img><img src="https://i.imgur.com/Yk8Noqy.png"></img> This only leaves five more sprites to complete for the game, although I do plan to go back through and improve several of the older ones.

Today I worked on the opening cutscene, which should hopefully provide new players will some setting and an initial push to begin exploring the world. <img src="http://i.imgur.com/ZVaU2Sa.png"></img> I'm sure there's some advanced ways to handle cutscenes, but I just hard coded everything including all the character movements and dialogue. It took quite a while but I'm only planning on having a beginning and end game cutscene so it shouldn't be too big of a development issue. I also programmed it so that you can advance the dialogue using either mouse or keyboard input. Planning to add this functionality to the regular dialogue throughout the game as well next.

I haven't prepared an update for this week but I'm planning on putting up an updated version this time next week for further testing.

cybereality

Nice rabbits.

Hippo

@cybereality said: Nice rabbits.

Thanks! All the main characters in the game are rabbits, mostly because they're a lot easier to sprite and draw than humans. xD

cybereality

Yeah, well it works. I find usually when you set limitations on the graphics or whatever, then they can actually be strengths and make for a stronger final product.

Hippo

Week 9 of programming. Although I say a week of programming I probably spent more time working on graphics this week. Main programming change from last week is the option to give personal names to recruited characters. I've been slowly filling in the npc text as well to create an immersive world with interesting characters. Also started working on the final cutscene of the game but I've still got a lot of work to do there so I've left it out for now.

I've put an updated demo version up on the website at http://etheldia.net/pepper.html This version is much more stable with a lot of bugfixes and also contains the intro cutscene and quality of life setting options. Dialogue can now be advanced with spacebar as well. There's also a couple of music tracks in the game now, so don't be alarmed if sound randomly starts playing. Will be adding more as time goes on but no longer have access to the music software I did several months ago so I've downloaded Audacity to play around with and hopefully I can produce something decent there.

Sprites for all 60 obtainable characters in the game have also been completed as of today. Final character is a mythical creature and a bonus for recruiting all the other characters in the game so I'm keeping its true appearance a secret for now. <img src="https://i.imgur.com/MTvDynS.png"></img> Some of these sprites are pretty old however and I'm planning to redo at least five of them if not more. Very interested to hear everyone's opinion on this, which three sprites need the most work in your opinion and should be updated/replaced?

Next demo update will probably be in another fortnight. Still aiming for a April 5th release although that goal is seeming increasingly ambitious. I know that in order for the game to reach a wide audience I'm going to need a really eye catching trailer and with my current artistic skills that could take several attempts and two months or more to get right. Thanks for following the project. = )

Megalomaniak

Nice! I see the palm tree became an enemy in it's own right. ;)

For the rework, I'd nominate - not counting the blacked out one - the last(from left to right) columns bottom one, the Geodude/big arm one as the ones that look like they might be in most need of rework.

But I'd also caution you that its real tempting to perhaps keep tweaking if not outright redesigning from scratch artwork to the point of detriment and sometimes you just have to call things done so as to get the project released.

Hippo

@Megalomaniak said: Nice! I see the palm tree became an enemy in it's own right. ;)

For the rework, I'd nominate - not counting the blacked out one - the last(from left to right) columns bottom one, the Geodude/big arm one as the ones that look like they might be in most need of rework.

But I'd also caution you that its real tempting to perhaps keep tweaking if not outright redesigning from scratch artwork to the point of detriment and sometimes you just have to call things done so as to get the project released.

Thanks for the feedback! The palm tree is the final boss of my journey to finish developing this game. xD

I'm definitely aware of the perfectionist trap and I'm doing my best to avoid it. I think one of the toughest parts of game development is balancing the desire to do everything as well as possible with the consequences of putting too many resources into achieving it. Without enough time spent improving things the game wont turn out well but too much and the game will never be released. It's a tough one.

Hippo

Week 10 of programming. This week I focused on the main town. Since it's the first area the player will visit after leaving their home, I really wanted to make it feel like a vibrant and alive place. All the characters in the town will now move around according to an in game cycle which lasts about two and a half minutes and then repeats, and when they're not moving around the map they'll be able to be found inside their individual houses.

Since the narrative of this game is told mostly through the player seeking out these npc and what they have to say changes and evolves as you progress through the game, I wanted to it to feel rewarding and interesting to find them, and to give them more character through their habits and tendencies. They'll also stop and turn to face you when you're less than two blocks away from them, which I think further adds to the immersion.

Outside of that I've been slowly adding in the dialogue to the game and building up the world piece by piece. It's nice to see the game progressing along week by week, I'm making good progress but there's still a long way to go. Hoping to have another alpha demo up next weekend with a beta version that's basically the final game without the polish ready by the end of February.

meuch

Hey. Here's a fan art. I stretched the neck a bit. It looks more like a mini baby dragon than a lizard I guess. But I liked the design so I made something similiar to the spiky creature you made.

Hippo

@meuch said: Hey. Here's a fan art. I stretched the neck a bit. It looks more like a mini baby dragon than a lizard I guess. But I liked the design so I made something similiar to the spiky creature you made.

Hey that's really cool thanks for sharing it! It's the first ever piece of Etheldia fanart so I'll definitely remember it. The character is called a Seltiks, if you wanted to know.

Hippo

Week 11 of programming. Finished the cutscene for the good ending this week. There's still the cutscene for the ideal ending to go but the first half is the same as in the good ending so it shouldn't take too long. I got the code for bookshelves set up, so if you visit a house while the occupant is out you can read a letter on their bookcase. This will be a way of adding another layer to the world building, and also for handing out little clues to the mystery that's the key to the central plot.

Other than that, I worked on a bunch of little things. I added some post game content in the form of elder rematches at high levels, and also programmed the legendary characters to be 10x easier to recruit post game. While technically possible to get them during the main game, the recruit rate is set so low that you'd have to either be very committed or incredibly lucky. Also worked on some screen transitions for wild encounters, which worked out surprisingly cool when I added them to the game. <img src="https://i.imgur.com/z1aAuuw.gif"></img> <img src="https://i.imgur.com/sIO9wxc.gif"></img>

Finally, I resprited the mole character. <img src="https://i.imgur.com/OzKNF9g.png"></img> I think I'm going to do another two characters and then leave the rest before I spend too much time.

Not going to put up a new version this week, however next week will probably be the last alpha version before the following version at the end of Feb is a beta and I get serious about testing. That's all for now. = )

Hippo

Alpha version 0.3 of Etheldia Pepper is now available! Download links can be found here: http://etheldia.net/pepper.html

This week I ended up spending most of my time on the "isyr" variants for each character. <img src="https://i.imgur.com/Yb8KQcl.png"> </img> --> <img src="https://i.imgur.com/2VTIIVw.png"> </img> These are rare easter eggs for players to stumble across. Currently 1 in 50 characters found will be an "isyr" variant for testing purposes but I plan to decrease the odds to around 1 in 5,000 prior to release.

In addition I cleaned up the game a bit, added a custom font, fixed some more battle system bugs and worked on the trigger for the ideal ending. Game is coming along pretty well, but a lot more work still needs to be done if I'm to make it for the April 5th release goal.

I'm aiming to move to beta for the next release and then really focus on polish and adding animations and music in. If you get a chance to test out the game, feedback of any sort is always really valued!

Hippo

Bit of a slow week in terms of progress this week but I did do a lot of testing and also worked on some of the graphics. Each rabbit subspecies now has its own avatar and I created some custom ui designs for menu frames and option buttons. <img src="https://i.imgur.com/tXzRQtk.png"> <img src="https://i.imgur.com/SA0MZUm.png">

Hippo

It's been a few weeks since my last post as I've been incredibly busy, but I've also managed to make a lot of progress on the game front. In order to show off this progress I've prepared a few gifs, some of which imgur refuses to upload as anything but mp4 so I'll have to link them.

The first one is just the process of finding a battle and then shows off some of the new ui I've been working on. The battle screen still needs a bit of polish. Battle: http://i.imgur.com/HL4wpLA.mp4

The second one shows off the post screen page where stat gains are displayed. I still need a little more code here to highlight characters which have gained a level in the prior battle but I think it's looking pretty nice! It's a lot of work to set all the animations for something like this up but it helps that I've done it previously with the online game so I was able to look over that code and finish it reasonably quickly. Post Battle: http://i.imgur.com/JxhYt2L.mp4

Finally I created an animation of sorts for the fusion feature. I think this is a pretty cool way of showing off that you can upgrade and change your starter character as you progress through the game. With enough Godot experience making things like this becomes pretty painless. <img src="http://i.imgur.com/1VIbxvB.gif"></img>

In other exciting news I've registered for Steamworks and so Etheldia Pepper will be released on Steam! I'll be working on making a promo video and setting up the store page over the next week so keep an eye out for that announcement! I'll also be making some free beta keys available for other Godot devs here willing to help test the game.

Finally, spent some time today working on a logo! <img src="https://i.imgur.com/1tcSimB.png"></img>

ChimaereJade

I remember the earlier version and have to say (beside the cool animation) that your interior improved a lot! Everything starts to take more shape and I hope to see more in the future. The technical stuff was amazing enought so far but the visuals start to come on a similar level - great improvement! :)

Hippo

@ChimaereJade Thanks! Things are coming along.

Hippo

Final polish week 1.

This week I completed the beastiary! <img src="http://i.imgur.com/TtP561q.png"></img> Character info and descriptions are unlocked when you recruit them. Due to time constraints I'm not planning on adding anything more to this but I think it should be a neat little goal for players to work towards and encourage exploration and experimentation with different characters.

With the completion of the beastiary all the big projects are now mostly done and so it's time for the million little incremental bits of polish that bring the game together. Some of those things I've worked on this week including re-importing some character sprites, setting up the map animations and working on more music tracks.

Still yet to begin work on a promo video but there's a few bits of visual polish with the battle system and maps I need to do first. April 5th release date is now only three weeks away so it's getting into crunch time territory! That's all for this week, thanks for following the project.

Hippo

Final polish week two.

Been working through a bunch of the admin side stuff towards getting the game released, which doesn't interest me as much so I find it hard to follow through with when I'm tired from life in general. It's getting there though.

Made a heap of battle ui and animation improvements through the week as well as a bunch of map and general game stuff. Hoping to be able to show these off through the promo video.

And speaking of the promo video, while I should have been working on it today I ended up doing a bunch of other stuff, including this: <img src="http://i.imgur.com/f53rzFV.png"></img>

When a character levels up an animation will make their card take on a reddish hue and there'll be indicators as to which stats have leveled up. It'll also display new abilities if the character has gained them upon reaching the level. Progress is progress right?

I'll have the promo video up by next weekend for sure. Promise.

« Previous Page Next Page »