March & February Double Update & Devlog #2

Hey all, I hope you've had a good week, and I'd like to apologize for the lack of a February update. I had written out and scheduled an entire update for the 28th that I only just realized had never got posted, so I'm combining it with the March update into one megapost!

I have a lot to share, so let's get into it!

Over the past couple months, I've been spending a good chunk of time getting more familiar with Unreal Engine and pulling apart Velle and Alpha's internal code to make them less buggy and more responsive, and as a result, didn't have much visible change to show.

Essentially, my original plan was to show off parrying and combos in devlog #2 and environments/setting in devlog #3....

I had built up a simple system for character actions, and have even implemented a very early parry system as well:

I had a pretty decent amount of traction going with this system, I was at a point in mid-February where all I needed was more animations...

And at one point I realized that making animations was unfortunately becoming something I dreaded doing.

Why, you may ask?

Because, darkness my old friend, came to talk with me again.

The fucking skirt.

It just kept breaking and doing weird ass stuff that I couldn't figure out how to fix in the rig...so I've decided to wave my white flag and drop it from the design.

I really wanted it to work, and I still think it's a good design, but it got to a point where it was just more effort than it was worth. Both Velle and Alpha are going to need upwards of hundreds of animations for this game, so the last thing I wanted was to dread animating one of my protagonists. That's a project-killer.

The skirt was originally conceived as a way to convey secondary animation on my character, but I honestly think the ponytail is more than enough.

So, I decided to take a break from what I was doing to avoid burnout and work on other things for a bit.

With my excitement for animating fired back up after this decision, I'm more eager than ever to get back to animating combos.

But during the time I took away from the codebase, I was learning something I'd been excited to start working on for months: environment design.

I could type a whole ton about my journey and discoveries in this area that I'm still new in, but that's all going to be in devlog #2.

Speaking of...I don't have an exact date yet, but devlog #2's script is nearing completion and the video should only take a couple weeks to record and edit from that point, so, tentatively, Soon.

In the meantime, here's some environments and examples of what to expect from the general Vibe of Blood Crisis.

Additionally, after learning a lot about environment design, reconsidering my stance on the skirt, and finally getting excited about animation again, I decided to make a new enemy to animate in order to knock some of the rust off.

Enter: Foundry Knights!!

These funky dudes will be some of the more common enemies in blood crisis in the early/mid game. I was originally considering using the droplet enemies I'd already made, but those are going to require some more bugfixing and polish before they're ready to animate. 

The soldiers will more than likely be the enemy i end up testing combos on, so whenever the first beta test is out you can expect to be fighting a LOT of these guys!

So concurrently, in order of priority, I'm working on:

1. Finishing Devlog #2

2. Commissions

3. Finishing the animation set for the Solider

Once those are done, my next projects are going to be

1. Finish cinematic #1

2. Minor Velle Redesign

3. Polish Velle's Animations

4. Combos

5. Devlog #3

I know I'm still backlogged a bit on some of our earlier patron goals, and despite the lack of news/updates, I am indeed still working on cinematic #1!

Here's a screenshot :3

I know the past couple months have been a bit of a dry spell, but I hope this stuff at least acts as reassurance that I am indeed grinding away hard at the project.

Thank you everyone for all your continued support, I hope to see you at next week's stream, and I hope you all have a great weekend! Thank you!!