What's new

Long time since the last blog update... but I didn't stop working on Cape Bleue. Here's what's new:

- A new design for the main character, with better colors. Because of this, I had to edit every animation (more than 300 frames...). It was a good opportunity to add a few new animations ("idle to run" transition, for example, or climbing) and rework some of the most important (like run, attack, etc.), so I did this.

Here you can see the sprite design evolution.

1 is the original sprite.
2 is a redesign in a mock up of Cape Bleue made by Mathias.
3 is a try I made to adapt Mathias' version in the current style & size of the game.
4 is the new version, taking some ideas from 2, adapted to the game's general graphic style.




Below you can see some of the new moves : double jump (salto) and strong attack.

- Secrets & hidden passages. A few pics to show the process in game:

- New tilesets & backgrounds.

- Enemy AI has been entirely redone, for a better enemy behavior, and making it easier to add new enemies later. Nothing to show about this, but it will be a huge enhancement in the development process.

Spider

Here is the last thing I made, a spider, walking like a boss. Currently working on the whole animset for this character. 

The process of making a golem

I've made big progress in programming the monster AI and player character's moves lately. Now I want to add new enemies, especially huge ones I could use as boss, mid boss or just tougher-than-usual monsters.

Designing new characters is hard! I can't do it in one step. So I draw a character, and make successive new versions until it sucks a little less. Below you can see the document I'm working on, with tileset and background from the current version of the game, which allows me - hopefully - to draw new things in the same ambiance, atmosphere or color scope (this is hard but extremely important).

3 tries of new monsters.  A rough draw of a golem, a blob and a spider. Blob and spider are in their third or fourth version, but not finished yet.
Let's focus on the golem. Below is the second version where I add a light-emitting heart and redraw the sprite (the previous version is used only as a shape) with 3 brown colors.

 Below is the next version, adding one color and refining shadows and lights.

Here is where it's useful to work on a document with other elements from the game for reference : I change each color (mostly about saturation) to have a character better fitted in his world.

The result is below :

Next thing to do : animate this pile of rock.

boar running & karateka

I'm currently reworking some graphics and adding a few new elements. Here are some of the WIP new stuff.

The boar, an enemy without IA : he just runs from one side of the screen to the other. The player will have to jump over or slash it.

A karateka, friendly NPC who unlocks player's abilities in exchange for gold.

Chara designs

The chara designs I made so far, for my 2D platform-action game.

I began with the player character (character in blue, on the first line). I wanted a style simple enough to be handled by a non professional drawer, and chose to try a pixel art style like Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery (which I haven't played yet. But I found the screenshots amazing). So, no black borders on sprites, and a one pixel width for arms and legs.

Sprites scaled x3

Sprites original scale

The second and third lines show enemies. The "fat" enemies  (second and third) don't respect one of the rule (one pix width for arms & legs), and I must admit they are the one I had the most fun to draw and animate. So if I had time, maybe I should redraw all characters with that style, I don't know yet.

On the fourth line, I put some friendly NPC, giving advices and selling stuff to the player. They will have simple animations, like this one below.

The football kid NPC. Guess why he's named like that...

Feel free to comment if you have remarks or advice, or just to say if you like it or not !