Yesterday, yesterday

So, as a couple of you probably already know, Monday, yesterday, was our first major Milestone date. Here's the description of the event in the schedule:

Showcases basic player movement and early environmental effects, esp. grass growing

So that was our aim. Have the engine worked into the level editor so that we can run around, jump around, and grow grass, man.

That probably sounds pretty simple, and in the grand scheme of game design, I'd venture to say that it is. But simple does not always equal easy. In our case, simple equals hard. Hard also equals hard. And so does medium. Basically everything is pretty hard. Here's a look at everything that went into being able to run around and grow grass:

22 hand drawn things like these

20 hand drawn frames of this

27 beautifully animated growth frames of this.

And that's only the art that made it through our scrutiny. We have piles of assets and character art that just didn't make the cut.

And then, that's just the art. On the coding side of things, we're talking a from scratch engine, including a gloriously simple and easy-to-use level editor, animator, and system test tool. The thing is a beaut. I remember a long time ago looking at a video of a Braid level being built and I thought: well, that's outside our budget. And then Matt blew me away with his tool. It is really something. You'll get to see it in action pretty soon (tomorrow, the day after?).

This is seriously getting exciting. I am just so over-the-freakin-moon about how beautiful the game looks and how smoothly it runs. From here, I think, things are only going to get more and more impressive!

Stay tuned everyone!