Crowding the Sails (Patreon)

Hey fellas! Things are going swimmingly with our new project, I'm really happy with how the animations have been going. Out of the three playable characters, one of them has been completed, and I'm about halfway through the second. Here you can see the finalized designs for each of them, which hopefully gives some insight towards their personality! I love getting to work with the vast possibilities of seafaring adventure, so I've cast a wide net for concepts to draw from. Final details regarding characters' names and abilities are yet to come, but I have a general backstory and play style in mind for each to justify their place in a world of piracy.

Gameplay is progressing as well! DD and I have been having lots of conversations about how to well marry the aesthetics of the world with the mechanics of gameplay. As you can already see, the three playable characters are themed around the colors red blue and green, in the completed game you'll be able to track your hitbox on each sprite by watching for the central feature of that color. It's been a real challenge to keep each design easily readable, shoot-'em-ups are a pretty technical genre and readability is extra important. Hopefully mechanics like the bullet parry system DD is experimenting with will feel both intuitive and satisfying.

We've been slightly delayed from our projected completion date for this minigame as we run into some other life obligations (tax season anyone?) but we expect to wrap up before the end of next month to return to our lapine friend. Keep an eye out for more updates soon, and be sure to swing by our streams for a more regular peek at how the sausage is made! 

-Julian