Hey, thanks for stopping by! In this instance of Beast Baby Dave updates we'll go through some of the new developments that has been happening on the game these past few days since our last update.
Light
We feel that light is important; even to the simplest of 2D platformers lighting can have a big impact on the feel of the game. Partly because of that—but also because it's fun to play with light—we decided to invest some time into getting our 2D-sprites take part of the ambient and dynamic light sources scattered throughout the scenes.This incidentally caused an immediate bump in atmosphere and presence, so we made sure to re-work everything to embrace this new dimension; Muzzle-flashes, grenade explosions, signs and sparks will all do their best to add some light to items, enemies and, of course, the player.While this first step was exciting and had a rather large impact on the game, it'll be even more fun once we get around to implement normals maps for the sprites... Can't wait!
Head over to Youtube for Fullscreen 1080p in 60fps glory: Youtube
Animation
Two weeks ago we posted some updates shining light on our new character sprites and animations. Today we've got more of that; Tweaked running animations and added halts, jumps, falls, crouching, firing. Oh boy, while the animations by no means are final yet, Beast sure knows how to move about the levels. In addition to the main character animations, we've also made some progress on enemies (and their AI, but apparently that's a big hush-hush for now...), we'll be sure to share more about that in a subsequent update.
Sounds
What's gameplay without sounds, right? Beast is now aware of his surrounding environment, playing different tunes with his feet depending on what they are touching; Metal, wood, water or dirt. Slap on some environmental, atmospheric sounds and some reverb zones and we're getting some early feel for how the game should treat the player's ears. Low-fi, retro-esque explosions? We've got that and more covered for sure!
Camera Improvements
To help gameplay feel more solid, we made sure to make some evolutionary improvements to our camera controller; Handling bounding boxes, offset multipliers and camera setting zones to name a few of the new additions—And the level-designer seem to be enjoying his new tools. Awesome! Aside from being liked by the team, they also introduced some new gameplay possibilities to explore (and you can be sure we did just that).
Closing Thoughts
Levels, props, textures, concepts and ideas—There have been so many new things happening these past few days that we can hardly contain our excitement for the game and what it is becoming. If you too feel like there's something here, be sure to follow the project and/or ask questions (we love answering questions, by the way). We'll do our best to keep everyone up-to-date about what's going on and what's to come.
Thanks for reading!
Sincerely,
The Vividice Team
