No new alpha this weekend

On the off chance that someone is obsessively refreshing the page waiting for the next alpha version, I wanted to announce that it will not be out for this weekend. I've been too busy for the project lately, and I want the next alpha to have fixed up enemy behavior and hopefully some more content and features. So probably the weekend of the 14th.

Why does Albero give you Fire magic?

It occurs to me that because alpha #1 doesn't include any of the backstory, I should explain just why it is that the evil tyrannical wizard Albero is nice enough to leave the Fire magic lying around for you to pick up. Briefly, he was originally a good wizard and a good ruler, but his heart was captured by evil and desire for power. But long before that, he was wise enough to recognize that one day he or a successor might succumb to evil. So that the people would be able to fight against such evil, he left many magical items and powers scattered around the land. (His greatest magical item is the eponymous Wings, which allow a hero to fly to the floating tower that is the center of his power.)

(I may rework the story to make the villain be Albero's successor instead of Albero himself. Haven't decided for sure.)

Week 35: Alpha testing begins, Griffin takes a nap

I mostly took a much-needed rest today after working pretty hard to get a decent alpha #1 put together. I'm pleased with how it's going so far, but I have a lot of work to do.

It's become clear -- I was feeling it as I finished up the alpha version, and I've already gotten some feedback agreeing -- that the enemy behavior needs to be smarter and more aggressive. Currently, they all just move randomly. I thought that would be enough, considering that I do want these early enemies to be easy. Well, if this were a game where touching an enemy hurts you, then randomly moving enemies might work. But in this one, not at all. They're just not interesting or fun. So this is my #1 major task, even ahead of adding the rest of the planned content (of which there is a lot left to do).

Seems like there were other things that I wanted to ramble about, but I can't remember them and don't really have the energy anyhow. I'll leave you with a video of various clips from a playthrough of alpha #1.


Wings of Albero (action RPG): clips from alpha #1 from Griffin Knodle on Vimeo.

Alpha testing open!

I've released the first alpha testing version of Wings of Albero. The alpha test is open to the public and everyone is welcome. The alpha testing page with the game download is here.

It's missing a lot more than I would like, but it's got enough that I'm (barely) comfortable releasing it for alpha. The main gameplay is there in something like its intended final form, even though it's short, with most of the planned game not open to the player yet. More details tomorrow.

Onward

Forging ahead. Here's my hasty but passable art for castles and caves, because I felt like sharing:

Week 34: First area done (pretty much)

Major crunch time here. Did I mention that art takes a long time? It does. In fact, everything takes a long time. I'm going to have to scramble to get a sufficiently semi-complete game together for alpha testing next week. So I'm cutting myself off in this post. That's all. Goodbye.

Well, first, here's a video of the first area, complete aside from some gameplay details that need to be changed or filled in.


Dev 5: Forest path (first area) from Griffin Knodle on Vimeo.

Week 33: Art takes a long time

So yeah, art takes a long time, even though I'm just doing pretty simple colored-in outlines. For the player character, it ran me about half an hour for each frame. Now, being the player, that was unusually complex and I spent unusually long fine-tuning details, and I'm sure it'll get faster as I get more practice and nail down my workflow ... but it's taken a long time so far. I'm now trying to figure out all the ways I can cut corners on art requirements (e.g. rather than a typical character having one standing frame and two or three walking frames, maybe I'll just have two walking frames always cycling (the classic NES RPG "guys walking in place")).

I'm pleased with the results so far, at least. It won't win any awards, but it's quite adequate.

There'll be a video along soon as soon as I get the first area all presentable. To hold you over, here's one of my art files for a sample. Yes, you're a standard spiky-haired hero. Why mess with success?