Devlog #073: Design (Patreon)

As the title suggests, it's been all design related stuff this month!

The first thing I did was work on the story. As mentionned in the previous devlog I already knew the main story beats, but I made sure everything made sense, improved a lot of parts and how everything comes together, when and how new game mechanics are introduced, when and how new character are introduced, all this stuff. I now have a very precise and interesting version of the events that will occur in the next demo.

Once I knew that, I was able to design a bird eye view version of the areas I wanted in the next demo. That's also how I did it for Sablee at the time, and I find it to be a good way to approach things. I also had to keep in mind level design to an extent when doing that.

After some more thinking I had a good idea of the theme of each area and what they would look like. I then had to figure out new puzzle systems and interactable objects for each of these areas that would work with their theme. That part in particular was a lot of fun ^^

And finally, I designed an actual first version of the in game map for each of these areas while keeping in mind all of the previous points. I also tried to make it so even exploring these maps without any of the puzzles or story elements would be interesting, and I feel like I succeeded! The level design too was very fun ^^

And with all that taken care of, the next step will be to draw the actual objects and backgrounds of these areas. Of course it's highly possible that everything will keep evolving organically as I keep working on it, in the same way it did for Sablee and Sablee ocean at the time. In any case! This might not look like much in text form but it took a lot of time to get something I'm satisfied with. I'm very happy with how it all came out! Of course I won't be showing any of it until the demo comes out. What I will show in time is some of the chibis of the revealed characters once they're ready, and maybe some of the new shopkeepers NPC as well, at some point.

The reason I want to focus on the areas first however is not only because it feels like the natural way to do things to me, but also because I'll have something to show kulor so he'll know exactly what he is composing music for while I'm working on whatever is left after that.

So yeah, that's a lot of good stuff taken care of, and I know exactly what to do next.

I'll also post a new devlog monthly from now on! ^^