They make you disappear from the internet unexpectedly!

SO HELLO AGAIN; chances are you have not noticed my absence/assumed I was working on this quietly (WHICH IS DECIDEDLY UNTRUE, AHAHAHAHAHAH OTL), but yes! I was recently in quite a lacklustre living situation that lacked lustre and a steady internet connection, but certainly did not lack arachnids (There was a palm sized spider living under my fridge, I shit you not. I never got it. It's still probably there.) But now I have officially moved to a REAL GROWN UP REAL LIFE APARTMENT with my gorgeous girlfriend (I almost want to link you guys pictures of her being adorable and playing N64 in her PJs buuuut... nah.), and I once again have a stable internet connection! I was also taking a bit of time off to get settled in my new job/home so I could feel all rad and stable, AND THIS HAS NOW OCCURED. Some of you who frequent RMW may also have noticed I resigned as moderator there, and that also had to do with wishing to get all settled and focus in on gam mak!

And now that I am feeling all settled and awesome, I've started back in on work with renewed fervour! AND I EVEN HAVE A GAME PLAN ON WHAT I WANT/NEED TO GET DONE AND EVERYTHING. B)

First off, imma chuck this lil' image of Piper's WIP face at you:



AND ALSO THIS GAME PLAN IDEA TIMES~

...which really I am putting up here more to motivate myself. I MEAN I THINK I AM PLENTY MOTIVATED NOW but hey, risking public embarrassment by failing to meet my meagre goals is as good a motivator as any!

First off, I wanted to finish compiling/making graphics I need. That is, I wanted to finish Piper's face and sprite so I can ditch the placeholders! I also wanted to cut off Rue's elf ears (done) and do a few quick edits to sprites and get some downed poses goin' on. Also gotta get me some battlers for some Tanis (SPOILERZ YOU FIGHT HER) and Auto (SPOILERZ YOU FIGHT IT 2). I have some for them, but they don't match the Thalzon battlers, so I'll either go



or pester Thalzon to make me some do it myself.

After that, I'm gonna go through and plug in the cutscenes for the first area and make sure the flow is alright! The battles are all balanced for the first few levels, but I don't have any idea how long that area takes, or what THINGS~ you are going to need as the player, or what else blah blah blah blah. Also I need to see if the area is actually fun to traverse or not! SO FAR IT SEEMS PRETTY ALL OVER THE PLACE TO ME; I may have to fix that. OTL I also wanna work in some way to teach the player about the game play things in a non-intrusive way, but I may be lazy and default to "HEY PIPER SO DID YOU KNOW YOU CAN DO THIS~". Tutorials will be optional, of course.

Finally, I'm gonna puzzle my way through the first actual dungeon (that is, map out some puzzles on grid paper; I already have the main puzzle idea thought out, I just gotta figure out how to implement it) and then map it out. Cutscenes in there should be cake, as it's mostly gameplay -- I will have quite a bit of balancing to do, however, and I'll need to plan out the first actual boss fight @___@

AND THEN AFTER THAT I WILL HAVE A DEMO (and a long-ish one, at that!). <3 I still have a lot to do, but luckily it is mostly in-editor building of maps and events AND THINGS so I'll be able to be all "HEY GUYS LOOK AT WHAT I DID TODAY LOOK AT THIS HERE~" in some sweet progress reports that may or may not come weekly! Depends on how fast I work -- I wanna have all the graphical stuff and the first area taken care of by the end of the week, at the very least, and preferably I'd like to get into getting my puzzle swag on by then as well. B)

And after the demo comes out, I'm probably gonna resume progress on Origin! I've made awesome progress out of editor with it, which I will update the lot of you who are subscribed to it soon. THAT MEANS I HAVE NO IDEA WHEN I WILL RETURN TO RIFTWALKER HERE but I'll probably finish it eventually -- it's a fun little project, and I'm quite fond of the little guy! ;w;

Anyway, that's it for now. Time to make some mad cool progress and catch you peeps later~