SNEEF SNEEF I SMEEL A JULY BILLIE BUST UP-DATE! 👃

Hooooooowdy everybody!

It's your favorite Patreon Sheriff, back in town, ready to feed the people! It's July which means it's been about a month since our last update (Woah!). So let's talk about what we've been up to.

Grab a snack, a drink, and get comfy: It's Billie Bust Up-date time!

ONE LAST PROLOGUE CONCEPT...

Here's one more draw over from Jovi (our concept artist) for some areas in the Prologue! We'll be adding some small details to our block out to help bring those areas to life more based on his notes. It really helps!

Draw over of prologue areas

Original block out

MODELS & NEW CHARACTERS GALORE!

Katie has been pumping out character models super fast as of late! We have a ton to show in the way of new NPC designs and models. Also some stuff we can't show as some Patrons and Kickstarter backers are also getting their characters in the game.

Basile

He was sniffing this post before! But meet our favorite Grumpy maned wolf who wears pants, Basile! He's REAL!!!

Hayes and Basile, the ultimate duo

Yes, they're friends

Birb NPC

A general NPC you'll see scattered about in the game to help bring some life! Claw Bay and Dutch's hotel!

Bear Hotel Guest

A new guest checks in! They'll be one of the NPCs you can encounter in Dutch's hotel.

Bear with Barnaby's legs can't hurt you--

Cat Hotel Guest

Even pirates need a vacation every once in a while! The cats will be in Dutch's chapter too!

Draw over of cat hotel guest

And modelled! I love their ear tufts!

Dog Hotel Guests

More guests! This time dogs will be showing up and staying at the hotel, be sure to say hi to them!

Billie's Mom

Billie has a mom, yes! We finally got around to modeling her since she'll play a crucial part in Billie's story, even making an appearance in the first, opening cutscene.

Otters

Guess who's back!? The otters! Long time patrons will know we once had otters in the game and we're adding them back, with a little upgrade to match the game's style better. Here's a preview, they're still WIP!!

Otter turnaround!

Model WIP too!

Percy

And out final finished model for the time being is Percy! Claw Bay's local blacksmith! I'm personally super excited about Percy, he's a fave model from the recent one's Katie has finished!

The things on his face are the planes for his eyes and mouth

I showed you my anvil, pls respond

Percy's rig in action! (Click here for the full video)

Paws...

Speaking of Percy, we just recently revealed his VA! Our very own Michael Kovach, voice of Fantoccio, will be lending his voice to Percy! In fact, when Percy was first designed, we all unanimously wanted Michael to voice him, it's the perfect fit!

Click here to listen to the reveal 

Upcoming Models

Guinea pig hotel guest... get it... wheek? Cause guinea pig's wheek?

Moon, the Fruit vendor

BACK TO THE GAME

Now that we've gotten through some of the many lovely characters that the team has been cooking up, let's get back to the game itself and talk about what we've been doing on that end!

Barnaby Nightmare

To start, I had a nightmare a few weeks ago that actually involved Barnaby! It inspired a potential section of gameplay in which you're walking towards a GIANT Barnaby as he looks around for you. The goal? Stay in the shadows, platform around him, and eventually get super close to him! 

After telling Katie about this dream, they asked me to try and block it out, so below is a rough concept so no programming, just to get the idea across.

If we end up doing the gameplay, you better believe we'll go all out to make it as nerve-wracking as my dream was.

Dutch's Razzle Dazzle Dream Hub

Recently. I finished blocking out a LARGE portion of Dutch's Hub! We wanted to give it a big Disney World feel when you enter, it's going to be a big hub! I hope it's as fun as Katie and Ash say it is! If you'd like a tour of the Hub, click here! Highly recommend putting some Disney World music, particularly main street USA, as you watch.

Boing! Boing!

You must be this short to enter! Featuring my son, Beets the Beetle!

The Birth of Claw Bay

Guess what's next! I'm rolling back to Chapter 1 right now and working on Claw Bay home to our pirate crew! We had a REALLY rough Claw Bay Hub but Katie wanted me to go back and redo it. So I've been having fun setting things up and I think it's gonna be a pretty big hub world too. I'm hoping to make it as fun as I can for you all, lots of platforming an bounce pads!

Merchant area WIP!

More on Claw Bay soon! 🧡

Lou on the move

James has been working hard on programming recently and has finished the AI for Lou (& Lily too)! Hopefully, this will help guide the player in the Prologue as we teach new players the basic mechanics.

Look at him go!

Lou in the Prologue! Billie's animations broke (sorry!)

In the final, Lou & Lily will be leading you around the different environments for the first mission. They will wait for you at certain points as well to make sure you keep up with them as you take your time through the game.

Oscar Improvements

Oscar has continued to be a WIP as we improve his mechanics to make him more fun to play and control.

To start, we wanted to give more control over Oscar's dig. Now you can move at varying speeds and quickly turn while underground. No more auto digging forward!

Oscar digging upgrades!

You can also now jump out of a dig and easily reenter! Might be useful for traversing areas, especially when they're timed. Katie made a test map for fun!

Oscar is so fast!

Goodbye Ability Wheel

Unfortunately, we've made the decision to scrap the ability wheel, as cute as it may have been. This decision was made in favor of being able to simply tap a button and a quickly swap your load out instead. 

You can still change the power up hotkeys via the control remapping function though!

Quick and easy! Swap, swap, swap!

One last thing before moving on...

Here's a little treat from Dutch's song! The tap dancing segment! Click here to give it a listen!  

Look at Pom go!

More Concepts!

Beyond the Prologue, we've been getting some other concepts done for other areas of the game, from both Jovi and Ash!

Title screen concepts

Ash is in charge of our UI design so they started out by doing some concepts for the title sequence! We're in love with both of them, it's going to be hard to pick one to go with! What's your favorite? I'll label them A and B, let us know!!

(A) Side scrolling worlds, woah!

(B) Staring off at the current world, changes based on your progress!

Cosmetics

Check it! Once again, Ash worked their magic to make the UI for our cosmetics the best they can be. This is an awesome redraw of an old concept we came up with the basic elements currently in game for testing purposes.

The store's look will change ever so slightly based on the world and shop. This design doesn't have any particular world notes and is more a basic template. I like to imagine that Barnaby's world might have his eyes as the "o"s in the word "look"!

I can't wait to see it all done up!

The star of the show!

Dutch's Razzle Dazzle Dream Train(?)

Since Dutch's hotel is going to end up being so huge, Katie really wanted to add a train (size of Dutch's hotel unrelated)! You'll be able to hop on the train as it rides around the resort, walk around inside, or just watch as it passes by!

We're super excited for it, we've been wanting to add a train to Dutch's chapter for so long, we can't wait!!

The first car, the one that pulls! Ash says it looks like it has a face

Train cars!

Striking a balance between big and small, as guests of all sizes will be riding the train, has been a big goal with it! Thankfully, we'll be able make the train as big as we want with the power of teleportation and portals! Yay!!

Barnaby Concepts

We've discussed before that Barnaby's chapter will have multiple different Billies from alternate realities!

Here's some concepts pertaining specifically to the different Billies and Barnaby!

Cartoon house studies for Barnaby/Inkspot Billie's world!

This one is a fave of mine hehe

Are you excited for some more Barnaby? I hope so cause Daniel is also working on his song!! We can't wait, the lyrics are coming out great! Even without the instrumental, I can already hear the song in my head!

A meme from Ash!

Aristotle Plush WIP -- From Makeship

We aren't stopping our partnership with Makeship anytime soon! We're already working on our next plushie, Aristotle!! I've personally been really excited for this one, he's one of my favorite characters hehe

Initial turnaround from Makeship

Notes from Ash for improvements

Current state!

We're REALLY loving how this one is coming out so far!! We sent back for ONE minor addition but other then that, Aristotle is about done, design-wise. 

What do you think? Are you excited for Aristotle? Cause I'm gonna buy like a million of them, so excited!!

Finale~

You did it! You made it to the end of July's Billie Bust Up-date! I'm proud of you!

From here, we'll be finishing up some of our last few models and continue blocking out our various levels and missions. We're really happy with our progress so far and I hope you are too!

Just want to go ahead and thank you all for your continued support! It's been a real boost to hear from all of you and your kind words really motivate us to keep moving forward with the project and give it 110% to make it the best it can be!

Next update will be just as packed, I'm sure, look forward to it!

Much love everyone, have a fantastic rest of your week! Much love!

Cheers folks!

-Sam ⭐