Skip to main content

Indie game storeFree gamesFun gamesHorror games
Game developmentAssetsComics
SalesBundles
Jobs
TagsGame Engines

Team Hi-lite Devlog

A topic by leotimer created 36 days ago Views: 99 Replies: 2
Viewing posts 1 to 3
Submitted

Leo here from Team Hi-lite, its that time of the year and we're back with another entry.

I don't think I'll be as active making devlogs as the last few years, part of it down to not having as much free time and some of it not wanting to spoil too much.

that being said I wanted to show just a little bit of what we are working on and talk about what our plan is for the jam.

This year I wanted to make a game that had a strong exploration element, I was feeling a bit nostalgic about the Steel Love game we made a few years ago, it was an open world game which had its charm but it wasn't utilized very well.

This time we are making a platformer with a smaller more tight map but still have a bit of open ended design.


Pastoriche will be the main character and the idea is that you explore a shared dream between the Skremplets who have all been mysteriously frozen.


We are still blocking out the level with placeholder assets and a lot of art assets are still missing



We have about ~75% of the mechanics for the game ready as well, as you free Skremplets more mechanics unlock, making the world feel more alive as you progress.

So far we seem to be on track but there are a handful of things that I'm ready to drop if needed either for getting the game to the 25min time limit or if we run out of time.

I probably wont show off too much due as it would be too spoilery but I'll try to provide weekly updates.

Submitted

The last week has been pretty productive, We've been able to set up most of the mechanics needed and a lot of the assets, the main thing missing at the moment are a few characters which generally take a bit more time as they need to go through rigging and animation after modeling and texturing.


Level work is pretty much done aside from a handful of placeholder assets still in there that need to be replaced, there are a few things left like setting up the secret area where you pick up the DSD sweater but overall the game is playable from start to end, aside from cutscenes and a final bossfight encounter.

Here's a small preview of the level, its a small open map split into a few different areas, players can tackle the areas in different order but will need to clear the 1st 2 before they can access the rest of the map and then need to clear all areas before finishing the game.


This year Vacation T. Hessler has been making the music for our game, he's done a great job so far and I'm excited for everyone to hear it in-game.

The plan is to finish the main loop with everything except the final boss playable in some state with placeholder cutscenes by the end of the weekend and then spend next week replacing placeholders and setting up the bossfight encounter.

Submitted

So its the last week of the jam, I always try to get everything done at least a few days before the deadline to give us some time to polish and test the game.
We managed to get the game feature complete in the last few days, the only thing left is a few assets need to be replaced and some audio is still missing.

There is also some polish and nice to have stuff we are still working on that we are hoping to get in but overall the game is "done"

It took me a bit of time to figure out what to do with the jam theme, I didn't have any specific idea that stuck out, I just knew I wanted to make something that focused on what I enjoy about making games, creating environments.

Nightmare Valley is the name we went with, its also something I struggled to decide on but ended up going for something simple.


The game starts with all the Skremplets seemingly frozen, Pastoriche is the only one to wake up and needs to help his friends and figure out what happened.

Overall I feel pretty good about the state of the game, we did cut out one of the bossfights we had planned but the game is already cutting it close on playtime, its a bit open ended so some people might take more time than others but overall during testing we have hit between 20 to 25 minutes.


I would have liked to go into more details on development in the devlog this year but generally I didn't feel like there was much to say, overall things went pretty smoothly and according to plan.

I hope people have fun with the game.

Until next time.

- Leo