Vilya's Work-blog! (aka Pixel Ferrets behind the scenes)

MrChocodemon

MrChocodemon

Handsome Moderator
OCTOBER 05, 2015
Mt: Bloom: Living up to its name?

Vilya: Remember Mt: Bloom? It's the cave system I've showed some progress on way back, and it's where you'll be going once all the festivities in Evergrind are done!

If you remember what it looks like, you might also know that currently it doesn't exactly look like what the name implies:



Not a lot of stuff blooming here, right? So we thought about it and figured I'd try adding a few flowers to the scene, trying to make the area live up a bit more to its name:



I'm still thinking about adding more stuff, different kinds of flowers, perhaps bigger & more poisonous looking ones, as well as more vines, big ass leaves and stuff on the ground... Just trying to make the cave feel a bit more alive.

On the other hand, though, we don't want to overcrowd it, especially not with stuff you can't move over, making it harder to fight. We'll continue to experiment, I guess!

What do you guys think? More vegetation in Mt: Bloom - yay or nay?

Source of this article:
http://vilyaroo.blogspot.de/2015/10/mt-bloom-living-up-to-its-name.html​
 
Own

Own

Moderator
No flowers: A generic, overgrown cave.

Flowers: A beautiful, memorable area.

I don't see why adding flowers would make it hard to move around? Do they need to be unwalkable?

Though, on the other hand, small fighting areas aren't a bad thing either. Many fights in Secret of Mana against normal enemies were tense and difficult specifically because you were in a tight space. You couldn't just run circles around the enemies.
 
Vilya

Vilya

Developer
Staff member
Own said:
I don't see why adding flowers would make it hard to move around? Do they need to be unwalkable?
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Not all of them, when I said that I was thinking about the bigger ones I wanted to add! Glad you like the idea of adding flowers, I'll keep fiddling around with this and we'll see where it ends XD
 
MrChocodemon

MrChocodemon

Handsome Moderator
OCTOBER 06, 2015
Ancient Collector Girl


Vilya: This is a portrait I did while I was having a break, watching a random tv-show. I don't like having my hands still for too long though, so I started sketching a bit and before I knew it, it turned into a portrait we'll be using in the game!

So, there's no video for this, as I wasn't even thinking about the game when I made it, haha! Even the steps are actually taken after I finished the whole thing - I make new layers and paint over (or under) what I already made from time to time, so I could just remove a couple of layers to get the step-by-step effect.



If this headline and first sketch peak your interest, then you should definitly take a look at the rest of this blog entry:
http://vilyaroo.blogspot.de/2015/10/ancient-collector-girl.html​


OCTOBER 07, 2015
Festival Worker

Vilya: I thought I was just about done with festival stuff, but as it turns out we had to make a few new NPCs working there, and they needed portraits of course!

Here's the first one, a guy helping with setting up stuff right before the festival starts. I'm sure we'll meet him somewhere else too in the future!


Line Art

Look at that smirk. You want to know more about what he is up to, right? You can over at:
http://vilyaroo.blogspot.de/2015/10/festival-worker.html
​
 
Own

Own

Moderator
Looking at the newest blog:

faces.png


Is Candy a vampire or are her teeth rotten? Or does she have golden caps on her teeth? They look yellow-ish.

running.png


Oof... I never enjoyed 'Mash (button)' minigames in any of the Mario Party games, my fingers wear out easy it seems. Things are much easier to work with when they're two alternating buttons, since you can get into a rhythm. If it was "Alternate Z+X" or a Pet Taming Minigame system that only had you pressing Left and Right to advance, it would probably feel more elegant.

But I've not tested it out in-game yet, so maybe I'm worrying about nothing. :D Can't wait to test it out!
 
MrChocodemon

MrChocodemon

Handsome Moderator
OCTOBER 08, 2015​
The Photographer

Vilya: More portraits! This time it's the photographer, helping take pictures of people at the festival in Evergrind City :)


Line Art
http://vilyaroo.blogspot.de/2015/10/the-photographer.html
​
OCTOBER 09, 2015
Finishing Touches

Vilya: The festival is finally coming together! It's now possible to do all the mini-games, both in single and multiplayer, and as you may have noticed from the previous screenshots, Luke & Marino will be at the festival with you regardless of whether you play with friends or not :)​


Mr. Plott's pride: his running challenge!
http://vilyaroo.blogspot.de/2015/10/finishing-touches.html​
 
Own

Own

Moderator
@Vilya

Being able to draw and paint manly man is definitely my biggest challenge as an artist right now, as it's, you know, a pretty vital thing to be able to do. I'll probably go back and redo a lot of guy portraits once I get a hang of making them look manly. So I guess, in like 5-10 years..! u_u
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The guy portraits are fine in my opinion, SoG characters have a very anime-inspired artstyle. Anime doesn't do very many manly men, and when it does it exaggerates them ridiculously. :p See: Lieutennant Armstrong.

Luke has boyish charm, Marino looks like an effeminate noble - which suits his character well, Dad... looks kind of meek, but maybe that's not a bad thing. Starting the game and thinking "My dad is a wimp" and then seeing all the badass things he used to do might be a nice contrast.

Who do you think you would change to be more manly?

-------

And on an unrelated note, I thought of one more potential festival... thing.

Mr.Fabulous's Fashion Fiesta

Mr. Fabulous constructs a costume judging competition in town during the festival. All you have to do is wear something that matches one of the different themes and talk to him, changing your equipment after confirming each entry with him. Every Hat/Facegear would need a hidden value added to it that players couldn't see, like "[x]: Scary" or "[x]: Gross".

Examples:

"I want to see something that will scare the life right out of me!"

Theme: Scary. Pumpkin Helmet, The Scream (Unless this would work better as a purely hat-based minigame.)

"I want to see something truly divine, something befitting the Goddess herself!"

Theme: Divine. Pope Hat, Halo.

"I want to see something that inspires a love of nature, the flora and fauna that fill it!"

Theme: Nature. Apple Hat, Chicken Hat, Archer's Apple, Big Fish.

At the end your score is tallied up and you're awarded a prize based on how many conditions you met. If you don't win it, it could get added to Shady Merchant's shop to buy for an enormous price. :)

This seems like it would be a good way to introduce the mechanic of 'Hats As Sidequest Triggers / NPC Dialogue Changers' that @Teddy has in the game already, if he wants to do anything more with it than he has now.
 
Vilya

Vilya

Developer
Staff member
Own said:
Who do you think you would change to be more manly?
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There's nobody in particular, just small details on a lot of characters that seems to be easily mistaken for girls! Then again, I know a lot of fellow artist who like to draw more feminine men have the issue regardless of how well they depict their masculinity, so I guess that confusion might never go away so long as I don't remake everyone into Lieutennant Armstrong :D

As for your Fashion Fiesta thing, we actually have something similar planned for the Arena (or had, we talked about it so long ago that I don't know if it's still planned), where you'd take part in "fashion shows" and get scored based on different things, where one would be the rarity of your gear! :D

Of course, that would be an all-year-round event and not specific to the festival :)
 
Own

Own

Moderator
October 22

Oh god, I feel my allergies acting up. There's plants everywhere, an orgy of pollen all around. This is a worse fate than Winter on Beast Mode. KILL ME :(

http://vilyaroo.blogspot.se/2015/10/plans-for-mtbloom.html

Challenge #3: Poison Gas Room
This is a room filled with poisonous gas, which hurts you continuously! How in the world will you get through here alive? We kind of want to make it impossible to simply run though the room, instead we want the player to break things and/or battle enemies in order to get health orbs to sustain their journey through. Balancing this to make it challenging enough without it being too difficult for our more casual players will be interesting!
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This is an interesting mechanic I wouldn't mind seeing explored in Arcade, but the fact you take guaranteed damage ruins that. What if poison didn't actually take away your actual HP amount, your remaining red HP bar just gradually filled up with green and when it filled you died - or you were considered essentially at 1 HP, taking damage then is guaranteed death? Or you die after # seconds of it being filled. I think it would be neat if, for example, you were at 500/1000 HP and it was halfway filled you would be considered to be at 250 HP instead. Makes those hits from monsters especially dangerous.

Finding fresh air pockets (or flowers with bulbs that release a one-time mist of fresh air) to reset the poison meter (ala Sonic the Hedgehog underwater bubbles) would still make poison a tense mechanic, one that could be used in Arcade. :) Hell, use an increasingly frantic sound effect the more your HP bar turned green and it would be just as panic inducing.
 
CatBug

CatBug

Rabby
Own said:
October 22
Finding fresh air pockets (or flowers with bulbs that release a one-time mist of fresh air) to reset the poison meter (ala Sonic the Hedgehog underwater bubbles) would still make poison a tense mechanic, one that could be used in Arcade. :) Hell, use an increasingly frantic sound effect the more your HP bar turned green and it would be just as panic inducing.
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YES!

Please add something like this ^^, dreaded it as a kid and still do.

 
Own

Own

Moderator
October 23

Looks like the Black Ferrets actually learned something from all my times being a ballerina on their heads in Arcade, because they're not as useless as a crackless butt anymore! They can WHIRLSLASH! :D Spin2win, baby!

http://vilyaroo.blogspot.se/2015/10/the-black-ferrets-battle-prototype.html

Spin.gif


They grow up so fast. It brings a tear to the eye to see them twirling like a pretty anime princess during her stock transformation scene. ;_;
 
Own

Own

Moderator
October 26

Looks like Ivy really should have invested in some ferret insurance, or at least shatter-proof windows. Sucks to be her!

http://vilyaroo.blogspot.se/2015/10/master-ivys-office.html

A shiny coin to anyone who can figure out what the one item missing from that office is. I'm not sure what makes it important above everything else. But I suppose it could be the next artifact we deal with.
 
George

George

Green Slime
Looks like the red crystal on the bottom left table? Also, the skull with red horns from the bottom right. At first I thought it was the smaller skull near the desk, but that one looks like it came from the left shelf.
 
Own

Own

Moderator
October 27

In which meatball-head gets a demotion and several people commit fashion faux pas by showing up to the party wearing the same outfit.

http://vilyaroo.blogspot.se/2015/10/collector-story-changes-aka-what.html

I'm not sure if I'm a fan of Morgan and Sally becoming generic looking Collectors. It was nice that they stood out, they took the exams with you, they're the newbies. I always thought those blue coats were something you had to earn or something.

Though if they don't contribute anything to the overall plot and really are just background decoration, having them fade out by looking like all the other supporting cast makes sense.
 
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