Summer Update 2024

Hey friends! As we cross over into a new season and pass a new checkpoint on Moonshell Island’s demo production, the time is ripe for another progress update!

Heads up: This post includes animated GIFs which are best viewed on your browser!

Artwork Update: Timelines are motivating!

In my Spring Update I was just embarking on the Character Sprites milestone sprint, which I had projected to last until late October at my known pace. I had hoped to beat my projections by building momentum on one area of focus at a time, and I’m very pleased to report that was effective for improving my pace and workflows. This strategy (combined with some less fortunate day job cut-backs) has allowed me to complete the Character Sprites sprint 4 months earlier than initially projected!

Above: Updated Demo Art Timeline

The timeline above goes through a lot of revisions as priorities shift and task timing becomes clearer. For instance, I wound up adding Nomsters and Combat States to the Character Sprites category as the flow of things called for them sooner than anticipated (and they shoulda been there anyways!) This last category was fairly well-defined, but the rest of the timeline is likely to fluctuate a lot due to the conceptual nature of many of the tasks to come. I’m not sure I will stick to the order shown above, but I will keep you posted as significant chunks of progress are made!

Enough telling, though, it’s time to show the fruit of this season’s labour.

Milestone 3: Character & Nomster Sprites – Complete!

Let’s begin with the NPC cast of the demo, and all their states I animated during this sprint (excluding some that contained spoilers).

NPC Sprites

Above: NPC demo sprites by Crabby Sam (some spoilers excluded)

Ain’s been animating too! Check out this adorable idle state for the NPC she designed, Martha!

Above: Martha designed and animated by Ain

Combat Sprites

To make combat more satisfying, I’ve animated two new whisk attacks! One of these will even make it into the demo!

Above: Player 3-hit whisk attack sequence – Whisk! Whask! Whoosk!

Above: Player charged spin attack – WHIRLWHISK

Nomster Sprites

We’re also adding another enemy to the demo - Peapod, a nomster that shoots peas!

Above: Demo sprites for Peapod nomster

That’s everything so far! There will be some additions and exclusions to what makes it into this demo, but I’m feeling good about moving on to other categories of the demo for the next while.

I’m also feeling very good about this next announcement!

Technical Update: Moonshell Island has a programmer!

For a while there hasn’t been much to share here in terms of gameplay updates, but I am elated to announce that our team has grown and the technical development of Moonshell Island has resumed!

So please join me in welcoming Bryan Depuy (they/them) to the Moonshell Island Crew!!!

Welcome Aboard, Bryan!

Above: Moonshell Island’s new programmer: Bryan!

Bryan excels at harnessing the technical for creative expression. Just check out their website full of experimental video games you can play right now!

Bryan’s involvement in Moonshell Island actually started a couple years ago as part of the grant and mentorship program I was awarded courtesy of Weird Ghosts. Bryan’s generous contribution of coding a new cutscene editor and refactoring the original gamemaker build gave this project a new lease on life. Our collaboration took a lengthy pause after the program ended, but a few months ago we worked out our own arrangement to complete the demo. It’s been going very well so far!

In the first months back on the project, Bryan’s already made big improvements to the CUTESCENE Editor tool and has our new and improved combat system nearly demo-ready with dynamic AI behaviors and pathfinding. These new systems will also extend to bring non-enemy characters to life!

Above: Beginnings of Peapod’s implementation

Above: Pathfinding improvements in progress

The technical experience, creative passion and thoughtful communication Bryan brings with them are invaluable to this project and our team dynamic. I’m optimistic that we will have much more exciting updates to share with you this year with Bryan onboard! So stay tuned~

On behalf of the Moonshell Island crew, thank you for hanging in there with us on this wild ride!

Your friend,
Sam