February Status!!! News & New Update!

First of all, the new update is finally done!!
https://www.patreon.com/posts/goblin-layer-0-7-150174297

The main story continues as the gang attempts to deep dive into the Protagonists dreamscape. This is update is highly, hm, cinematic! Next time I'll focus on game play!

The update ended up taking longer than I planned...

Part of the reason is I got sick as hell (sick as in diseased, not the cool type of sick), and the other reason is I got carried away when making the animations for the new update and experimenting a lot with different methods and such. I also got a better computer now, so I kinda wanted to try pushing some limits. It's perhaps a bit similar to how George Lucas got a bit carried away with the fancy CGI when making the new (at the time) Star Wars prequels??

For reference, Chapter 2 got 6 separate "animations" (a pre-rendered video file), which are mainly shorter 4-6 second loops. This time I ended up with like 14 separate ones which are like 6 to 14 seconds long. Kinda ended up being a mini-anime episode.

Screenshot from DavinciResolve (video editor)

Well, it's not like I haven't been productive, or that I don't think these cinematics makes the game more fun, animating takes this, so for the future I think I'll try to restrain myself, streamline things, and focus on the core important stuff, to speed up development :-)

Behind the scenes, I've also been working on building up an animation library (mainly SPICY, but also a bunch of every day poses and idles.) Animation in this context means reusable animation data that can be used with any of my characters. So it will be useful for all current and future projects. I also ended up experimenting a lot with "toon shading". Basically trying to make 3d for 2d. People do mention every now and then that the switch from 2d gameplay to 3d scenes can be a little unimmersive, so been trying to find a compromise there.

And uhh, yeah. That's pretty much it. Otherwise, it's business as usual, working on the next update, which will be game-play focused. So will hopefully get it done a bit faster than this one!

Actually one more thing, I might switch to EUR instead of USD for the patreon? Exchange rates are kinda fucking me lol. But haven't decided yet. I need to check how it affects pricing and such.

Also, it's completely unrelated to the game, but I made this (by hand) (the shitty face replacement, not the whole animation).

Go watch the Road to El-Dorado if you haven't already.