Well well well, this week has definitely been a doozy.  Between trying to get through the steam review process and building out the remaining levels, we've got a lot to cover so let's get into it.

Art

So first and foremost this has been a magnificent week for artwork in the game.  Ref has been drawing the enemies for the remaining three levels in the game, and this week we made some seriously killer progress.  I'm pleased to inform you that we finished all the enemies for level three with this final enemy and he's a real baddy.

Behold the death goat

 

This enemy finishes the design of our plagued and burning farm land by being the hex conjuring fire started that fires flaming missiles after the player.  These cursed projectiles home in on their target with the express goal of burning you to a crisp.  I hope you have the skills to outmaneuver it.

On top of finishing all the level three enemies, Ref continued and produced some fantastic enemies for our molten tundra level.  Not only did we finish designing them, but against all odds we managed to implement all of these as well! So surprise twist, level four is also enemy complete!

The Wolf Rider

     

This orc is a fierce rider that knows more than just smash and kill.  Instead he lets his trusty wolf dictate his movements, and that means running away rather than at the player.  This is a trickier enemies to fight than the rest because unlike the other enemies in frenzied by the blood moon, this orc will slip your range and pepper you with molten axes from afar.  It's always best to run them down or snipe them when possible.

Beast Master

This beast master is the mothering kind, in an orcy kind of way.  She likes taming wild animal with her bare hands and unleashing them on the player.  She is a slowly, tanky character that doesn't pose much of a threat, but be warned that the second she goes down and lets go of the chains, all of her pets will break free and try to run the player down.

Trapper

The trapper might appear dinky looking, but never underestimate a black belt boy scout.  This guy isn't much of a fighter, but he knows how to lay traps for the player that lie in wait for you to walk right over them.  Think bear traps are scary? well how about molten ones corrupted by a blood moon.  I hear those have a little extra ouch to their bite.

Shaman

Any finally we have the orc shaman.  No gifs for this one unfortunately, but this guy loves his magic.  He's a bit plodding, but he's mastered the art of the laser beam and likes to attack the player by conjuring demonic waves of energy from his staff.  Be careful around him because the blast could fire for several seconds, cutting off your escape routes.

On top of ALL THIS, Ref has also started on the level 5 enemies (Told you this week was something special)  Although we haven't finished making them, here's a little teaser for what the truest, most twisted servants of the blood moon will look like.  I can't wait to bring these guys to life.

As you can tell, these will be true eldritch monsters, the real foes of the game.  I'm excited to animate them and put them in because honestly, everything up until now was just the appetizer.

Media

On top of all this, I somehow found time to make a trailer for the steam page! The trailer is visible on the main page so I won't link it here, but it was fun to do! I didn't put much effort into it because I really want to launch the demo as soon as possible to start getting passive wish lists and entering festivals.  Buuuut I'm happy with it and feel like it does a good enough job of showing gameplay.  I will hire an editor as some point to make a true trailer for the game's announcement.

The most important thing I did in terms of marketing this week is push the game through the steam review process. This was, as always, a lot more work than I thought.  Funny enough though, the only thing that got me in trouble this time around was that I had a URL link to Itch.io on my game's home page.  Unfortunately, this is a big no-no for steam, and it caused them to reject my submission.  I resubmitted it again, but it takes on average 2-3 days for them to rereview everything. I'm hoping it'll get approved next week cause I'm ready to share this thing already!

Programming

On the programming side I've just been fixing bugs and implementing all of the enemies that ref has been churning out.  It isn't the most fun thing in the world, but hey, at least I've gotten a chance to catch up on my podcasts while I go.  So far it's been pretty mindless, but fortunately I'm seeing that good tooling has made the busy work of building the game much easier than expected! Hopefully I can keep up with his pace!

Next Week

Next week I suspect will be more of the same.  Finishing enemies, and hopefully moving to the Elites and Bosses for the remainder of the game.  There's unfortunately 18 of them left to make which I suspect will be a serious slog, so the sooner we start the faster we'll finish.  Also, I've been trying to wrap up the evolutions for the post-demo powerups and they're coming along nicely.  This might become more of a focus because one of the key pieces of feedback I received is that I need more content and build variety.  Soooo I'm going to finish these evolutions and make them seriously bad ass! Then, hopefully, I'll still have enough gas in the tank to add a whole new set of 10 powerups I have in mind, this entails the Active/Passive and melee/projectile versions of each.  That's about 40 more powers for the player to enjoy.  It's a big stretch but I really want to pour everything I've got into this game now that I can finally see the finish line.  

Wish me luck!