The Color of Death (Patreon)

It's been a productive month! We're getting mortally close to that demo build, so here's a rundown of the visual assets that were created since our last post. Everything is coming together beautifully, and is creating a cohesive look that I'm really excited to show off. I spent some time this month researching color blindness to make sure our interface is able to be parsed instantly, which is a big priority for this game in particular. Here's an example of some coloring that I tweaked slightly as I learned how to make the colors maximally readable and stay visually interesting.

This is the finalized appearance of the timing scale. You might notice the colors have changed slightly since the concept phase, the scale is meant to communicate whether the player is early or late with their button presses in the quickest way possible. One of the methods we chose to use was color, but the traditional gradient from red to green can be hard to distinguish for those with certain types of color blindness. However, it's not a stretch to use blue instead, which fits in well with the gloomy scheme most of the game has already. In addition, the scale will wobble to the left or right, and the position of the plumb bob relative to the glowing center should round out enough factors to clue players in.

Other assets are moving along as well, such as this font for use in the combo counter. Some adjustments will have to be made to the typographical counters, as in-game they turned out to be too stylized to read properly. Otherwise I was very pleased with how they turned out and look forward to trying out more graffiti lettering further in development.

Here's our base three effects for when the player strikes a note, although the player will be able to customize them if they wish like many of the other interface elements. There's a different animation for each of the three levels of timing accuracy the player can achieve, another way for players to intuit how well they're doing at a moment's glance. Like the scale, I tried to keep in mind a color scheme between them that would make them each distinct in whatever color vision applicable. Although the style could be a struggle, it was great fun conceptualizing how the animations could rise in intensity, from a mysterious puff of smoke to a burst of flame to a spark of mental energy.

A final version of the life meter has also been implemented, requiring very few changes since it was first sketched into the layout concepts. A pointer has been added to the candelabra to mark the minimum goal for the player to reach in order to achieve the win state, and luckily the colors we had chosen for the flames already worked well under the color tests we performed. I was pleasantly surprised that my initial layout thumbnail was relatively unharmed when applying color blindness simulations and required only minimal adjustment. It'll be a consideration for design in the future, but I was able to save the distress of compromising my artistic vision thus far.

Finally, some concepts for more of the visual texture I'll need to wrap up the main gameplay screen. Elements of the menus as well as the background will sport a lot of street art, helping to accentuate the modern musical sound and hint to the multitude of souls leaving their mark on the environment as they pass through. I'd shown some tentative ideas previously, and Imp was able to take my vibes and run with them in a great way. As I require a large bank of them to sprinkle onto surfaces, I'm very thankful to have help coming up with them.

There are a few more assets I need to finish for the demo-ready layout, but so many of the gaps have been filled by now that we're starting to see a real production coming together here. I hope you guys will like what I've put together! Stay tuned for updates on a demo release impending as well as DD's further announcements. Not too long now!

-Julian