Now that I have a bit of time, here's a quick breakdown of the major progress made since the last update:
Menu System:
This being an RPG (or at least, a satire of one), it needed a menu.
When you first run the game, it shows a Launcher window for the game-within-the-game (complete with a sinister-sounding fictional developer):
Once you're logged in, press B1 to open up the menu:
As you can see, it's all nonsense since the numbers and equipment don't actually matter. The Quest Journal and Messages tabs do give some background on what's going on in the game world, and hints at some things that happened a very long time ago.
Gameplay:
- Once you figure out what you "should" be doing, it's up to you to decide what you want to do.
- To get to max level, all you have to do is complete your current quest to get the experience, but is that really what you want?
- Maybe you prefer to relax by the fire! Press B2 (action / attack button) with the mug equipped to take a warm sip of coffee.
- Or just hang out with your doggo. Play fetch with Garth by picking up and throwing the bone in the backyard
- Hint: doing this might help advance the game -- if that's what you want to do...
Graphics:
- Finally got around to adding a fire in the fireplace. Just a quick 5-frame sprite that I freehanded. Not sure why it ended up as 5 frames, but I stopped when I was happy with it. Added orange and red lighting with some step code to expand and shrink the radius so it has a nice warm glow.
- Flushed out the animations, including adding a running animation for Garth (as seen above).
- Added some furniture, and a window on the upper floor.
Audio:
Thanks to the deadline extension, I was able to greatly improve the game's audio.
All SFX came from freesound.org and was chopped up & edited in Audacity. Everything came out great, but it was a lot of work to get done.
The background audio has some code to adjust the gain based on the player's location:
- The noise of the crackling fire gets louder as the player approaches the fireplace.
- The outside noise fades in and out as the player transitions from inside to outside the cabin.
Beyond this, the only part that was a chore to get working right was the footstep audio. I used timelines to sync the sounds up with the animations, and step code in the character object to switch to different footstep sounds for stone / wood / snow.
There is one music track which appears at the end of the game: Stars in Her Skies by Scott Buckley (www.scottbuckley.com.au).