I just got back from vacation. I spent a few days in Las Vegas for my anniversary. I’m going to refer to it as a “Power Vacation” because I would get up at 10AM, do dozens of things and finally collapse on or around 3AM and then do it all over again. It was totally sweet but now I feel I need a vacation from my vacation…or I can work. I can do that too. Yeah, let’s do that.
It seems that the Team has gotten much done in my absence. The Animator / Art Director (or as he’s known henceforth, The ADA) has gotten me half a dozen new animations and worked out a consistent concept for the backgrounds. A concept The Ron has apparently taken to with gusto, having completed a huge chunk of the first level already. New pictures will replace the old pictures when I get them.
The Level Designer has also been busy it seems, getting a testing job (that I immediately asked about) and getting accepted to CSUSM too. I’m trying to figure out a good time to meet up so I can finally get him the tools so he can start getting some levels built too. I’m hoping that between the two of us maybe, just maybe, we can keep up with The Ron’s level of productivity. Either way, it’ll be fun to try.
For my part I need to finish the AI finally and get it working in some way. But a final working version isn’t needed too much for level construction. Bad guys go in and they do something at some point. I’m also thinking about doing another tear down of The Cliffs Level. It’s just not working. At the very least methinks that I may skip it and come back to it. The Hydra level in God of War was like that. Maybe something will click and just work, you know?
Finally, in my head at least, I’ve promoted The Animator, mostly on something he said, “Also, I’d like to be able to tightly oversee the background animations. Even though I won’t be doing most of them, I want them to look like I did(in a good way).” Add to that that he actually communicates with the entire art team on my behalf and I feel it’s appropriate. Of course, that means about 0 to anybody except when I do the credits again.
Today, Blocking. I’ll get blocking to work and make a Low Attack for The Thief character to test it. Right now I’ll just get damage prevention and depending on how long it takes I’ll create an Attack Stun for the PC. I’m thinking that if the stun is too short, then there is no problem to just keep attacking over and over unless you’re dealing with enemies that also Counter. Too long and you’ll get punished for silly mistakes. I think that if it lasts until an enemy does another Behaviour it’ll be just right. That will take some tweaking though.