Another Billie Bust Up-date? ALREADY!? 😱

Well, howdy, gang! Your totally not evil sheriff, Sam, here!

We're midway through December and have some stuff to share, so let's chat. Get your drink of choice, a snack, and get comfy because it's Billie Bust Up-date time!

Chances with Wolves Progress Update

As you may already know, Dutch and friends are currently in the spotlight and the team's focus. Let's go through what we've done in the past few days!

To start, Jovi has been able to do an art pass on the main area of Dutch's hotel. LOTS of inspiration is being taken from Main Street, U.S.A from the Disney Parks and we hope that influence is shining through!

I think Jovi absolutely killed it, really nailed the vibes and atmosphere we're aiming for when it comes to the hustle and bustle of the entrance to Dutch's hotel.

Beyond that, Ash has been working on a funny little background scene that will take place in Dutch's chapter. For context, Aristotle has already previously tried to enter the Dutch's Razzle Dazzle Dream Hotel and in his attempts to get Dutch's gem... may have gotten banned. It remains a problem for them.

In this scene, Billie is talking to Dutch and doesn't notice the commotion behind her at all. A good bit of visual comedy, me thinks!

Every time I watch this scene it makes me CACKLE, it's so simple but watching Aristotle's emotional state shift 3-4 times during this really is the best. I can't wait to see it in game!

Speaking of storyboards, in our last update, Ash had completed the thumbnails for the intro cinematic of Dutch's song and has since completed the actual board!

Very dynamic and the characters really feel alive! Ash knocked it outta the park again but was anyone really surprised?

Now let's hop back into gameplay! Check out Dutch's moves!

Check out these moves (and more) with music! 

Think you can beat Dutch at his own game? ON home turf? Bring it on!

And here's some ideas Ash provided for other part's of Dutch's song that aren't apart of the actual dance-off! Billie will run to different areas and need to strike a pose in the spotlight!

Your first introduction to the one and only Dutch is sure to be special! Hope you don't have stage fright!

Continuing on, we recently got some new tunes from Adam to incorporate into the opening mission for Chances with Wolves. Katie popped it into fmod to get the adaptiveness of it all squared away for testing.

Click to listen and watch! 

We want each and every track to be adaptive in some way, if we can make it work, and this is no stranger to that. This track is going to be utilizing a method called Vertical Mixing where we swap between two overlaid tracks depending on set conditions.

This track will automatically swap depending on if the player is sneaking around and hiding or running towards an exit or away from guards.

Click to see it in action! 

It's been really fun to see this get implemented, we have some things to toy with still BUT we're liking how it's coming out.

Also, we now have the bats working! Still some reworking and testing to do but they're flying! Currently being tested in Claw Bay. While they're meant to be for Dutch, maybe we'll make them accessible here in the future? It's quite fun!

We have a few bat videos to share:

Bat Testing - 1 

Bat Testing - 2 

Bat Testing - 3 

And that's it for Dutch related things for NOW! Let's move on to some other stuff!

Miscellaneous

Amongst the work on Chances with Wolves, the team has been able to slip in time to do some work in other areas of the game be it story, animations, music, or even important back end work like...

SAVE SLOTS!

At long last, you can save your game! How cool! Feels like we're a real game now!

Ash has been working on various different scripts, including this one where Billie and her mom, Belle, discuss Billie's future.

Billie's journey is one that really resonates with us, excited to continue to share it with you all!

Let's take a break from all the pictures and instead take a listen to some music!

To start, here's a track from our first chapter by Adam for the Treasure Trove Trek mission. We wanted Adam to sneak in elements of Scrimshaw's song, tell us if you notice!

Next up, here are some instrumental tracks from Barnaby's boss battle song by Daniel. It's a really unique take this time around but I'm eager to see it all in action!

Snippet 1 

Snippet 2 

Now let's take a look at some animation work from Luke! We have...

Alpacas!

AND BIRDDD!

Luke has been killing it with the animations, it's always a joy to see him work!

Alas, we have come to the end of today's update. So before I leave, allow me to say one final thing.... We talked to Daniel about the next song! And it's shaping up to be quite fun! Here's one of Ash's doodles for some gameplay in it!

Oh and it's a Fantoccio song. Did I mention that? :)

As always, thank you all so much for your support! We love you all and, in case we don't update before December is up, I hope you have a wonderful holiday season!

See you next time!

- Sam ⭐