Let's Take it Back to 2017...
In June of 2017 I launched a Kickstarter campaign with the hopes that it would enable me to dedicate more time to working on The Ovate Order and less time spent at the day job.
It was a success! ...Kind of. The campaign itself was successful (thank you to everyone that backed it!!) in the sense that I reached my set goal and that the money raised DID help me focus my efforts on The Ovate Order. But it only lasted for a few months. I was swiftly sucked back into the struggle of living paycheck to paycheck.
However, those two months of focus gave me the much needed freedom to explore some new ideas and expand on my abilities.
Updates
One of the major changes I had wanted to make, and now could with some of the relief I was getting from the Kickstarter, was updating player animations.
The Ovate Order is my first voyage into pixel art and animation. I have been learning a LOT over the past 3 years and it really shows looking back at some of the earlier assets from 2015 and 2016.
Player Animations
The new player animation can be seen on the left; the old on the right. This singular update made a huge improvement to overall game quality. While it took a large investment in time, it was worth 100% of it.
Card Menu UI
Other general improvements include in-game menu UI, as seen above. The new UI can be seen on the right while the old UI is on the left. I wanted to incorporate more of "card game" feel to The Ovate Order so I turned the menus into a "player handbook" of sorts.
Player HUD
I also spent some time re-designing the in-game HUD. The original design was very 8-bit, and while I enjoyed the idea, it took up a lot of the screen and looked archaic. The new design is more modern and allows the player to see more of the world and any possible dangers which may lie in wait.
The old design can be seen on the top, taking up nearly 1/4 of the screen. The re-designed HUD gives a better view of the player's surroundings. (It has been further developed to look more polished than in this early comparison!)
In addition to these updates I've also been hard at work making new environments and giving pre-existing environments a face lift. I could do a whole post on the environments in TOO, so maybe I will in the coming months!
The Future!
For the next couple of months I plan to continue working on locations and environments. I still have a handful of different 'biomes' I want to get into the game before moving on to a different task...
...Which would be music! I have spent a lot of time thinking about the kind of feel I want to convey through the music, and I'm really excited to start experimenting with the ideas I have. I don't want to give too much away, but I'll be sure to share any clips or rough drafts I come up with!
That being said, be sure to follow me on Twitter and Facebook to get all the juicy tidbits as they happen real-time!
Thanks for reading!
-Joel-
