Its been a little while since we've done a recap of our progress on A Dragon Named Coal. We have a ton of new information we're excited to share.
A Dragon Named Coal Updates
Interactive website and logo
We now have a full blown interactive website at Playadnc.com with our official logo. This took a few weeks for us to put together, but we feel like it was well worth it. You can also sign up to play test the beta demo on the new website.
Fading area transitions
When entering and exiting an area you'll get a nice fade transition now. It used to be that the screen just flickered to load in the next area. In addition, you can now walk completely off the screen to trigger the load. Used to be it would trigger automatically when touching the screen's edge.
Coal redesign and animation upgrade
Our story's hero now has a complete sprite rework. More people are now recognizing him as a dragon and not some other creature (someone told me they thought he was a "demon ninja cat").
Reworked combo system
We finally got around to reworking combat to be a bit more aggressive with his attacks. In addition the combo system is a bit more flexible than a 3 button mash. You can now include uppercuts and down slams. The next step is to make enemies more aggressive and add a variety of enemy types.
Sticky fireballs
Coal's fireball attacks now stick for a short period of time. We're hoping that this will better allow us to expand Coal's fire breath with the skill tree system. Allowing you to modify it for sticky bombs and other tricks.
Interactive button display
When approaching an interactive item you'll now get a button display above Coal's head. This will help you characters, switches, plants and many other items can be interacted with. You can now push boulders by pressing the interact button instead of running into them. We're hoping to expand this grab and push functionality out to several other items for improved puzzle solving.Note that the button display dynamically changes depending on the input layout of your choice (mouse, keyboard, and gamepad).
Several other additions
We're now at 20 minutes of playable content with over 20 explorable areas. For the remainder of April we're focusing on tightening up the first area and fixing some larger foundational issues play testers have pointed out.
Next Steps
Next on our roadmap is the following:
- Fleshed out graphics and vanity items for the Battlefield
- Interactive shop
- Finished menu system
- Improved puzzles / level design
- Graphic rework for enemies
- First dungeon
- Tons more I don't have time to list :D
