Development Log 3 - Breathing Life!

Part three!

Lots to unpack here! Though it's nothing ground-breaking, the characters are starting to take shape and show a sparkle of personality. (Well, a little).

Let's start with the sprites themselves. Taken from the POP! Horror City sprite packs courtesy of Malibu Darby, I've taken the liberty of making some fine adjustments through adding blinking and mouths when they talk. It's barely noticeable when reading the dialogue, but I think it adds a little more visually. I achieved this through using Kage Desu's AnimaX plugin to add animation layers (talking) which is called through a common event  in each message window(which also adjusts the camera position too).

Message windows themselves well.. I'm not happy with the name box thing, or the lack of options for removing the hideous window around it, so I've decided to use labels instead to name the characters, and make it look a little tidier. I've given each character their own colour font, which again, was a pro-visual choice I reckon.

I originally was against using face images, as I wanted the text boxes to be small and out of the way, but for the visuals, I think having them is waaaay better now! No real adjustments, only that the face image alternates between left and right dependant on who starts the conversation. I also removed the background and window of the face images, personal preference ;)

I'm also implementing the Gab Window from Visustella, as I'm sick of being stopped for dialogue all the time! I think this'll point the player to some optional dialogue or side quests in the future.

Finally, added some interactive light-switches... Not sure what the overall purpose is, but I may implement some interactions between the player and NPCs should they decide to mess with the lights!

Phew! 

Bleurgh