DragonflyProject Update Feb2023 (Patreon)

Another good month, managed to take it slower while still making some decent progress.

Firstly, you can see the current state of the game in the above video, it's really starting to look legit and quite frankly I probably could make a playable version for here super soon as long as I can figure out a good way to distribute it at this point.

I'm specifically refining the visibility of all the game elements so that I don't need to think about it any further. It still needs a bit of work, if you have any feedback regarding visibility I'd love to hear it, specifically regarding the items against the darker bullets. I'm definitely prioritizing aesthetics over function with this game but if I can improve function without sacrificing aesthetics then that's preferable of course. Basically the evil bullets stay at ALL COSTS, nothing can make me remove them.

I've also been working on the UI, it's not finalized at all yet but I've got the vibes down pretty well. I'm a big fan of UIs that look like they fit in with the world. Never liked how most shmup UIs feel so disconnected from the game, they're mostly purely functional which works fine but I definitely need more aesthetics. I want this particular UI to look like a machine that's keeping you alive, really like how the lives and bombs are working out with it. I'd also like lots of dials and tubes that seem like they have a purpose but aren't labelled whatsoever but are actually used for super niche mechanics like poison meters and dps dials. Also the monitors flickering in this gif is actually the UI reacting to screen shakes in the game, another thing to help it feel more connected with the game.

Also finished a background for one of the bosses. This one is more of a true 2D background compared to the stage one I have right now and I'm really happy with how it turned out, probably doesn't need any changes. I kinda want backgrounds to have lots of little details that you most likely won't be paying attention to while playing. In this one the two eyes in the background constantly look at you and occasionally get distracted. I'll probably use these backgrounds for when I upload music tracks and stuff to youtube so the details would be more noticeable there.

This last image shows the current curved lasers which were not hard to implement at all since the engine came with them but the sprite is custom of course and it's using alpha blending which kinda looks awesome in motion, like worms crawling around the screen. Also this kinda shows the UI in full, gives an idea of how I want the game to look like overall, once the UI is filled with all the details I want I think it'll look great.

This next month I'm gonna also focus hard on getting all the visuals finalized as much as I can so I can feel good about posting about it on twitter and stuff. I'll also focus on getting a playable version on Patreon so you can play ASAP, just don't get your hopes up about sounds or music yet cause there's none of that at this point. I am gonna keep taking is slowish tho, don't wanna stress out too hard about it.