Sprout's Tale Over the Weekend

He runs, we work.

A busy weekend for Sprout's Tale! And it's just going to get busier. As we ramp up production in preparation for T-MODE, each of us finds our plate to be exceedingly full. Matt spent the whole weekend reworking parts of the engine to allow for a smoother grass breeze effect, and a way to fix some of the problems we were having with vines.

I'm happy to report he was incredibly successful. He also implemented the new jump animation, code for climbing (no animation yet), fixed the tree growth speed, added in all of our new sound effects, and generally just tightened everything up.

Murilo and I worked late last night trying to come up with the design for our first main enemy. It proved more difficult than I thought. In my head and on paper, the enemy design has gone through a lot of revisions. Initially nothing more than a few mutated plants, they began to take on a much deeper, heavier meaning as I checked myself to make sure the game stayed true to its source inspiration. We went from mutant plants to emaciated humans to skeletons to giants to blobs of poo-like substance.

We settled on the following. It's just an early concept, so it'll likely change a bit before we get it in, but it should give a pretty good idea of what to expect.

Sprout's Tale first official enemy design!

I'm really happy with it. Blending the light imagery of the main game with some darker overtones like this has always been a part of the plan, and I'm glad it managed to manifest itself in such a profound way. I can't wait to get this guy into the game. T-MODE is in just 11 short days.

This week I'll be creating some very cool custom swag for Sprout's Tale awareness at T-MODE and I'll be redoing all the layer masks on the terrain so we don't get wonky grass growing in goofy places. 

Stay tuned, a video is very very likely soon.