Not so Incy-Wincy

I finished the spider boss today and he looks a little something like this:

Now it's just a matter of animating him. Considering the alternating pistons and saw I was thinking of replacing the saws on his hands with clasps of some sort, almost like pincers. Anyway, this image is just meant to show how he would look as a whole. In reality each arm would also be its own actor, the duplicates just offset by multiples of 60 degrees.

Dissection

Recently I've been working on producing the base of the spider boss whilst partaking in Mark's efforts in sound design. So far what I've managed to produce looks a little something like this:

These of course would be pieced together but I wanted to show the way we intend to construct this metal monstrosity. Each arm would be an individual actor, as would his main body. this means he could rotate to follow Voodude around the map easily enough. Any rotation can be set from the image's centre because all the actors will be drawn relative to the scale of the actual map. Each arm will be easy to animate because I'd only need to do it once, then it's just a matter of duplicating the actors with code.
With these images up it is also easier to comprehend my earlier comments about the boss making cameos. The first time he appears only one of his arms would be attached and he could attack the player in a basic motion then leave. On his next assault he has two arms available to make things more complicated under the player finally collects enough souls to encourage his final form (refrained from making a Dragonball Z reference). From this point onwards the boss would be the only thing on-screen and upon his defeat the player wins the game.

Got Wood?

This one took a long time. So far each of the other sprites I've been doing have been only one or two bits moving but this had so many, and the perspective wasn't playing nice.

Hopefully it looks good in Stencyl. The saw dust... rrrrgh the sawdust. Well at least now I get to focus on a giant steampunk spider. And I'm totally okay with that.

Surprise! Bonus Frames

Just an addition to my storyboard;

With these additions, I would consider my storyboard to be a good map of my ideas. I can tell a lot of shots I get on the day will be improvised based on the situations and environments we are placed in, but some sequences like the photography one I will definitely try to capture.

The Chopping Block

It was the interim today for 243 and based on feedback from the tutor our game needs to get intimate with a blade of sorts and cut down to something achievable within the time frame we have left. Talking individually with them post-presentation indicated that it would be better if we were able to produce a shorter and far more polished game with one level and everything functioning, rather than a longer game with numerous moderate quality levels. Personally I prefer the suggested path as it means we can bring in one of the bosses. Given we have three weeks until the beta is required then I should have plenty of time to get the boss illustrated and animated and if Andrew nails the code for the obstacles then it would only be a short step to get the boss's AI functioning. The specifications of our game have been cut down to the following;
One level; Deforestation
Obstacles:
- buzz saws
- log
- hole
- single arm boss cameo
- double arm boss cameo
Environment:
- background panes
- lanes
Boss: Spider
- tracking saw arm
- piston stomp
- projectile saw
- heat up lane
Mask:
- earth style (temporary invulnerability)
Music:
- war drums remix
Sound Effects:
- lots
Menu:
- cut-down stage map (start game and settings)
Cheers facebook.
Yes, it's disappointing we won't be able to incorporate all our original ideas into the final game but we were told this was going to happen so here we are.

An Interview With Rosie

Here are frames to my storyboard for my interview with Rosie;

Considering my style of interview is going to be a "day in the life of..." it's quite hard to plan exactly what is going to happen. These more or less show techniques I plan on using. The technique that comes to mind the most often when I visualise this project is a lot of B-roll with voice-overs. I like the idea that the interview may give the audience a glimpse into Rosie's mind and having her disembodied voice talking to them directly could suggest they are being presented with her thoughts directly.

Bring the Beat

Well I've found a kickass potential soundtrack for our game;
https://soundcloud.com/achmadfauzisahri1/logaritmo-war-drums-phunk
Something like this has the pacing as well as tribal war drums we envisioned with some awesome techno thrown in there as well.
I've also managed to embed a couple of images into the stained glass aesthetic since Chris was able to put up some environment art.

It will be cool to see some of this stuff implemented in Stencyl.