June 2018 (Week 1)
+ Finished stage enemy layout
+ Slowly drawing out second mid boss
- Probably still 2 to 3 weeks out from finishing stage
+ Finished stage enemy layout
+ Slowly drawing out second mid boss
- Probably still 2 to 3 weeks out from finishing stage
+ Desaturated background for visibility
+ Almost done laying out and balancing current stage
+ Good chance I will get to the boss this week (or next)
- Still pretty slow progress and lots of art to refine/do
+ Stage layout is progressing at a rapid pace again
+ Project finally out of the redesign phase gameplay wise and the furthest it's ever been.
- Need to adjust colors for visibility
- Technically very behind my originally planned schedule
- Still trying to find time to play some DD20 demos
+ Did more to backgrounds for v02
+ Decided to halt polish work on backgrounds to focus enemy layout
- Ugly backgrounds for probably the next month or two
+ Second group of enemy sprites for forest stage
- Nothing but art/animations
- Still thinking about scrapping forest background and starting over
+ Began adding animations to background elements in stage
+ Finally at a point where I can feel alright with proceeding with stage layout again
+ Got great feedback on the rebuild from a limited demo release
- Feedback reports the rebuild is very hard for what is supposed to be Normal mode
- Backgrounds will kill me one day
+ Ongoing background art
+ Learning new gamedev skill
- Ongoing background art (pretty morale crushing to not be doing gameplay atm)
- No chance to make DD20 despite thinking I probably still could
+ Just about finished with backgrounds for stage
- Contemplating the ramifications of redrawing entire game in 16:9 HD line-art (and consequently adjusting all stages and patterns, and timings to accommodate the new resolution)
- No Demo Day 20 submission possible
+ Whole week has been drawing out background(s) and enemies
- It is a lot of art so stage progress has been suffering
+ Finished stage 02 mid boss patterns
+ Began spriting out next segment of stage 02
- Still haven't had time to try to make music
- Progress overall still feels really slow
+ Started process of animating mid boss
+ Close to finalizing mid boss attack patterns
+ Already planned out how the rest of the stage will progress
+ Laid out first segment of stage 02
+ Already sketched out ideas for mid boss fight
- Still no music or proper SFX
+ Redesigned stage 01 is completely playable from beginning to end (need testers soonish)
+ Redesigned Blue fight to be shorter
- Stage 01 still ugly and lacks polish
- Still might attempt Small World Jam despite time better spent on main
+ Broke some attacks here and there trying to rush to DD but ended up with some decent material for harder difficulties
+ Putting last touches on Blue's fight then I can move on
- Didn't make DD
+ Finishing the layout for final section of stage
+ Considering trying Small World as my first jam
- Long list of polish and 'want-to-do' stuff for stage and sprites
- Never done a jam before so I might be in over my head and should just focus my main
+ Most of mid boss animated
+ Complete mid boss patterns finished
- Laundry list of visibility issues to address
- Balancing art progress, stage coding/design and eventually music is rough on morale
+ Designed & balanced stage 01 leading into mid boss
+ Began work on mid boss patterns
- Behind schedule by a couple of weeks.
+ Started rough animations for Lore's bottle slam
+ Added ability to manually use Afterglow attack as long as you have gauge
+ Stripped down intro stage to squares and circles and started redesigning it based on finalized mechanics
+ Completed redesign of gauge filling mechanic
+ Combined and balanced burst shot types to lessen confusion during moth select
+ Cut as much 'dead' code out as possible
+ Have a clear, set schedule for completing milestones and tentative release window
- So much art to do
- Still a multitude of defunct code and variables littering the project
- The last half year has essentially been prototyping, testing, second guessing and redesigning trying to have fun with my project
+ I have finally made it feel fun to me and this is the final design going forward
+ Slow but steady redesign of stage for demo
- Breaking everything revealing how fragile the initial code actually was
+ Finalized mechanics of high damage mode (Afterglow)
+ Art assets for verse 01 revival
+ Ultimate training dummy Cube-san returned which forced a rebalance of shot types
- Rebalancing already setting things back
+ Finished moth customization screens
+ Animating spirit art wings
+ Adjusted animations across several small sprites
+ Blocked out Verse 01 new layout
- Should still be on schedule for DD17 but don't want to release if I am not satisfied by deadline since this is the third demo
+ Implemented burst selection for Lore
+ Reintroduced moth dust bombing for Type B
+ Working on spirit art type selection
- Lots of animation and art to do before DD17
- Redesigning stages from scratch feels bad but is necessary
+ Added homing shot type options to Lore
+ Reverted homing behavior to option shots created only during focus mode and the trade-off of speed for homing feels like a better balance.
+ Lore's main shot now very slightly curves towards enemies in focus mode
- Redoing burst system
- Need to add new universal score system
- Need to change/modify Sana and Blue's shot type
- Work on stage 2 halted for above changes