And so it begins...

"A Transition week": The previous devlog was all about the end of our prototyping phase & the designs it provided us. While losing some reasonable amount of time due to the creations of a Techdoc, Artbible & GDD (Game Design Document) behind the scenes, we still ended up with some fundamentals art drafts like: a character design, a level design, a HUD design, some platform models as well as a functional parallax camera. Want to find out the specifics? https://nielsbernaerdt.itch.io/group-15/devlog/355260/2-prototypes-and-designs

Having said that; we did come short on producing a stable, general prototype proving our idea to be fun and accomplishable and thus did not receive a green light yet. (in order to continue into the production phase) Instead, we got this week as a transition week for the programmers to focus on completing the prototype and the artists to go into production already and start producing the art/assets. This is what we got:

Character Design  (Upgraded): 

A game consisting of squirrels racing up a tree wouldn't be a game consisting of squirrels racing up a tree if the squirrels aren't at least VERY adorable. Meet our little friends who will play the primary role in the game. Each wearing clothing & accessories in a distinguishable color, these cute little animals, controlled by a proficient player, can make quite a fuss.

HUD & UI: 

Last week we already gave a little glimpse of our intentions with the HUD, this week we expanded a little bit on top of that: The HP bar has taken shape as well as the foundation for the menu layout has been laid. (A little disclaimer: the HP bar shows a squirrel with a brown hat, this will be in the color of the player corresponding with the HP bar -> see the character design for a reference)

Celshader (Upgraded) 

The existing Celshader got upgraded from a 2-tone to a 3-tone to achieve even more control over the transition color-greyscale. This enhancement, in combination with the newly implemented platform meshes already allow us to peek at the desired style.

What's more

After wrapping up the extended prototyping, the developers too started typing out some final code. Firstly, they achieved a finished local multiplayer system providing the possibility to let players join after the game already started. Secondly, some of the special platforms have been realized. A "thick platform" denying the possibility to jump through it (black), a "slippy platform" resulting in a loss of control (light blue), and a "falling platform" which drops after a player jumped on the platform, triggering collision hits with the players while it descends. Because local multiplayer isn't visualized as easily as these platforms, you'll have to settle with a GIF of the falling platform :)).

Coming soon

• We await green light to go fully into production
• The parallax camera will be finalized, replacing the placeholder images with tileable alternatives
• HUD, as well as UI, will be completed
• A lot of platforms! Both visuals as mechanics.