Samurado Updates for July 2024

So before i give details, I'm looking for ANY and ALL feedback, particularly around the new art/stylization/shaders/particles etc. I have officially lost all objectivity I've looked at them for so long and need input!

Anyways, I'm REALLY excited for this update!!!

Since I got back from my time off in Ontario, Nikki and I fully revised the ENTIRE story of the game. It's entirely different from our original, and is broad enough to include everything we've already built for the game. I very much take a 'game first, story second' approach, and so we basically needed a story that fit all our weird little elements and put them together into something that made sense. And now we finally have it.

After the story was revised, we quickly realized what different 'areas' or 'realms' we would need for the game.

And so my task for the last couple of weeks has been to experiment as much as possible with Lighting/sprite and full-screen shaders/Post-processing/Particles and other VFX to get the MOOD/FEEL/TONE/VISUAL STYLE down as much as possible.

I gotta say. Shaders are one of my FAVORITE things to tinker with in gamedev, so It's been an absolute joy to work with all this stuff recently.

I have LOADS of little nitpicks and things that could be improved. I expect some of the black slimey/blobby things in the shadow realm need more transparency as they can obscure some of the combat. I'm missing something 'special' in the ice realm (though I am oddly proud of his little breath particles, ) and I'm not particularly happy with the fog effect, or the poison bubbles in the earth realm.

But in particular, I went a little weirder/more out of the box with the spirit realm/dark realm. So I'm SUPER curious to hear your thoughts. Is it too much? Is it too weird? I personally think it's cool but again...I've lost all objectivity.

Anyways, there's really no new gameplay to speak out just yet as all this visual stuff, as well as creating a system to load in each art style for each level proved to be quite time consuming!

But here's where we're going NEXT:

Upgrades. They're bland, and there isn't enough of them. I thought it was fine when we were trying to publish this in a short amount of time. But If I want a similar length game to 'Hades' (that's about what I'm shooting for BTW) then we need more powerups, or they'll get uninteresting real fast.

So there will be ELEMENTAL attacks added, can't wait to show that off once I've actually made it!

Cheers guys, and I hope you're all enjoying your summer!

P.S. You top tier peeps will be getting your build momentarily!