This is Crystal in Carnations Devlog #24
The year is drawing to a close and this is the second to last devlog of the year, before we take a christmas + new years break. I'm happy that I've been able to keep these up this year. I'm not so sure that many people actually read these devlogs, but I think of them like a diary, I can go back to in a few years when I'm despairing over the development of our next game :P It's also feels kinda "purifying" to write these as I'm unloading the progress of the last sprint before starting the next one ^^
It feels good to see your progress in concrete points. 10/10 Would recommend journaling to everyone! But onto the devlog itself:
Marketing:
💠Our wishlist count stands currently at 82 (+4) Slowly but steadily we climb. Even if I'm expecting that we get most of our wishlists only after we release our demo. At that time I'm also thinking of buying some reddit ad space, but we'll see.
Art:
💠I finished Adelheid's expressions. I'm not gonna tell you anything about her other than that she's (obviously) a villain. I enjoyed making her more unhinged expressions.
💠Finished the banner animation for our exploration stages. I'm a bit unsure if the text is hard to read. Might alter it later.
💠I painted this under water scene. For what purpose? I won't tell. You'll have to wait and see.
💠I made concepts for our game saving interface. It's kinda funny how the floppy disk has become the universal icon for saving, despite them not being widely used in anything anymore. Do the kids these days even know what a floppy disk is?
Programming:
💠I implemented a visual effect for when the player gains skill points after using attacks.
💠To communicate the four states that a unit can have (active, moved, acted, inactive) I implemented a system that gives the unit a colored outline corresponding to it's current state. This way we avoid the visually most boring option of coloring your units gray once they have acted. (and then having the player tear their hair when they can't figure out what unit hasn't acted (It's the emo character dressed in gray))
💠I did some code housekeeping to make it easier for other team members to use the internal tools for script implementation
💠I added a system that plays these cute pixel art emotions for characters! I love them so much. They add so much character for the pixel units <3. The emotes are from this public domain by the talented tiopalada
💠 I added small health bars to units that toggle on only while the player holds a button. This makes it easier to see the unit status on the field, while mitigating visual clutter on the game area.
That's everything for this devlog! See you next time❤️Have a great start to your December ^^
-Hanuli from Salmon Snake Games