Red's Wrap-Up (January Edition) (Patreon)

Hello everyone! I know I'm a little behind on this update, but I've been working up to the minute to solve some particular issues with the latest build of Pod's New Program, and I want to be able to say with 100% confidence that it will be available today, instead of only being able to say "soon."

It's the first build of the year and it's been a while so I'm going to make this build available for all patrons, and then the web version will hit NG in about a month or so. Keep an eye out for a separate post shortly after this one.

Another big time sink last month was completely rewriting my storyboard for the whole project. This better reflects how the game is arranged now, my plans to develop it, and will also be a way to show you where I'm at and how things are progressing.

There aren't a lot of visual changes between this and the last build one, but there was a ton of work behind the scenes. Most notably on the dialogue system. You might notice that the text animations look quite a bit more polished. I'm still experimenting with the exact look I want to go for but overall it's looking way better than it did before. More importantly, it's sooooo much easier to work with which is essential for expanding the game's content in the near future.

You may also notice that I fixed a bug where both actors would slide into "active" position before the system decided who's turn it was to speak. This was one fix that took me a lot longer than expected, but I did finally solve it! :)

This build will give you the chance to play around with the camera zoom/pan function. It's still pretty basic right now and I'm not sure what the final implementation of that is going to look like, so I'd love some feedback there. Once it's more solidified I'll need to add it to the controls diagram as well, and add controller support for it.

Finally, the very last scene in the demo build shows the animation system working! Sorry there still isn't much to look at yet, but now that the basics are in place there should be plenty of movement next time.

For the next stages of development, here's some of the major additions I'm targeting:

• Additional enemy types
• Integrate animation control with the dialogue system, to auto advance between poses
• Edit boss scripting to allow for branching paths (for Hacking Level 02, 03A, and 03B)
• Including sketches for Game Over scenes

Other project status:

Quick update on Hilda's timelapse video: it's done!

I've added it to the high quality animation folder here:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1otJFn2IdL-wkD-bP-9IuVDta4QXGdJ3c?usp=sharing 

Samus is still being rigged but she's kind of on the backburner for a bit while I'm digging back into Pod's New Program. Once I make more significant progress there I'll revisit that animation. 

February's a short month but I'll do my best to do what I can! As always, thanks for your support, see you again soon!

-Red