The demo's art is finally complete!!! And just in time for the holidays.  It's been a long time coming (much longer than I ever expected when I started) but Ref and I finally created and animated the final boss.  This is a huge milestone for me because it means that Bloodmoon Survivors is "technically" 40% content complete from start to finish.    Just to start with the fun stuff, here's a little showcase of the boss AKA bigboy

Big boy is the cultist's Preacher and chapter master.  Of course in the desert, religious ceremonies can only be conducted through blood so this step in his career is a lateral move from his previous posting as the tribe's executioner.  

Big boy was originally intended to be the final boss of the second level, but with the other bosses we've created, I decided to move him up as the first.  this was a bit of a radical shift because his attacks were intended to be tuned for 1v1 combat against the player.  But now he will be entering the ring while he has his minions around so his combat style will be more focused around showcasing the move set of the desert - Big blobby attacks that float in the air and rain down over time.  Big boy is fast and aggressive with his ax, but also likes to spew slime that lingers and damages the player if they step on it.  Over it seems like a great boss and I can't wait to finish tuning the move set and introduce him.

Music

There hasn't been too many developments in music but I was sent a sketch track for the second level.  It conveys the windy desert feel of the level and will have lovely vibe to slay hordes of enemies too.

Programming

On the programming side, I have finally, FINALLY, finished all of the lighting related work required to get the level up to snuff.  By the end of this week I well and truly learned that I hate working on lighting because there's so much artistic taste involved in the creation.  Personally I like my work deterministic so I'm just glad to be done with it.  However now that it's completed I'm rather happy with how it turned out.

Anyone who has played the first level might be surprised that the second level starts in the day time.  However, there's a little plot twist as I managed to incorporate a full day night cycle into the level which slowly transitions the day into a blood red sunset, followed by the deep darkness of a desert night.  

Part of the fun of making these lighting transitions is that I added little things to sell the feel of the desert, like dust blowing in bursts across the screen and little lights outside the doors of houses that turn on as evening comes.  Finally, and possibly my favorite, I took the time to add a Tumble weed system, which really adds to the desolate, squatter feel of this dusty plane.  Check it out!

Next Week

Next week it's going to be all hands on deck polishing the game.  I've identified a couple things that are high priority items which I'll need to get the game running and looking as nice as possible.  For me, this means bug fixes from dust till dawn, which I've been itching to get back too.  The introduction of so many particle systems has really lead to some unexpected behavior that I'm excited to fix.  It's been a long while since I've cleaned up the VFX.

As for ref and Juan, we're going to be doing a lot of Icons for all of the powerups and SFX work for all of the abilities.  I want 16x16 pixel icons that better represent all of the powerups and achievements in the game since currently they are placeholder.  As for the sound, this is still the weakest part of the game because all of the effects are stock at the moment.  Juan has assured me that he can conjure up some sfx at a very fast rate, so it sounds like I will be spending a large part of my week providing references for all of the icons and sounds so they and churn them out.