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Monday; January 24th, 2011

So, it's officially been a month of development time now, and I actually have a decent amount of content to show for it; well, I will. I have spent quite a bit of time working on Project CAS this week, but until Wednesday at the latest, you will have to take my word for it. On Wednesday, I will have a surprise of sorts for anyone who reads about Project CAS.

Anyway, to detail what I have done this week. First off, Jack Yeates (Nekomage) has created two small pieces of WIP music. We have decided on a piano intensive soundtrack and I believe that it works wonderfully with what I have done so far. Uploaded is a short teaser song located here; it hopefully will give you a taste of what the game will sound like overall. Other than this musical teaser, I did promise a rather large update today, however, that update will be pushed back to Wednesday. There is however a few smaller surprises for today! This is a conceptualized title screen of Project CAS. The title will be completely dynamic and you will have complete control of Lily while at the title. A small level will serve as the title background and new "title maps" can be unlocked (or purchased?) while exploring the world in the game. Other options for the title screen will also be unlockable via exploration, but for now, those options will remain secret (to you and me both). I am looking to create about five or six "title maps", each about 960 by 360 pixels in size. Every "title map", being explorable in a sense, holds a secret, what these secrets are will vary from map to map; it may be an item of some sort, or it may be knowledge, nothing is the same. Every secret will slightly influence the game and/or serve a purpose.

In addition to this title screen concept, I have created a concept of another level location: a cavern. As usual, nothing has been animated and the entire map is rather static, but Lily can walk around and so far, everything works rather smoothly. This map will incorporate some cool effects such as animated bats that fly away if you get too close or just if you make to much noise, rolling water surfaces, animated fishes and enemies (not sprited or designed yet) and even some particle effects for atmosphere. Compared to the outside, grassy plain location... ...which also lacks any animated features (fish will be animated, water tops, flowers that sway in the wind, etc), this location is far more cramped and the music will be designed to fit. Both of these areas can be easily integrated together in the same map without detriment and without screen transitions, but whether or not I will do this often depends on lag and other efficiency issues with animation and map sizes.

It has also been decided that Lily's sprite will be gaining arms soon. She kinda looks like a duck right now and I feel like arms would help out quite a bit honestly. Other than that however, not much in the engine has changed, just artistic changes have been incorporated. Look forward to another level concept for next week as well as some new story/design details and ideas. I do appreciate feedback if you have any at all because I am new to this spriting thing and I'm not sure if my levels look as nice as I think they do. Personally, animating things will help quite a bit, but as is, what are your opinions if any?

But in conclusion, Wednesday, large update. Look forward to it!

Total Time --> 5 hours
Posted by Ryan Huggins at 4:32 PM