SlimeGame Devlog 5: A New Coat
Screenshots! And lots of design questions!
In this post I get to show off some screenshots and see if I trigger an existential crisis.
First, I created a neat small system that lets me take in-game screenshots with F12. It’s just a simple PNG still at this point but that’s really all I need. A main function of having this screenshot feature was so that I’d be able to work on improving some of the color schemes in the areas by loading them into a pixel editor for easy changes.
I’m not sure if I’m totally sold on it exactly as-is right now, but here are a couple of examples of areas before and after:
The keep (all that’s changed so far is the background tile, but I think with some more tweaking this will be an improvement.)
So there’s a lot of screens. Enjoy!
I’ve also been looking at a slight speed change to see if slightly slower movement will still feel good as a player, and a new ability for our little slime that will let her fit into some smaller spaces. Hopefully that second one will up being a bit more than “Haiku the Robot at home” when I’m done with it.
I’m getting a mite trepidatious about one other thing. I’m not sure how to make combat interesting. Another piece that probably requires consideration is whether the screen size itself needs to be bigger. I really like the look, but I’m not sure 320x180 is really big enough for this game. I think it might be better to give the player a bit more time to see what’s ahead, even if means redesigning some rooms accordingly. This may also help solve some other problems—like exactly how I want combat to work—and I’d better get on those problems quickly if I want to get the demo out for the current Metroidvania Month Super Edition like I want to do.
Okay, this is getting heavy. Time for a screenshot break. Here’s more slime pits revision:
And more slime pits:
Anyway if I look at the set of implied design questions, especially in that last paragraph, I can do one of two things:
I can have an existential crisis about how I’ve been spending my leisure time
I can do my best to provide a satisfying answer to them, come what may
OK that last part sounded a little dramatic. I’ll end with another couple of areas I’m workshopping for—one is just a workshop on recoloring an existing area, and another is and area that might not be in the upcoming demo at all, at least not more than a screen or two. I really like the first but I’m not sure I’m sold on the second yet.
(That last areais definitely on the docket for the “smallest triangle” version of the full game, though.)
If you want to see more, you can: