Wow, so apparently its been … three months since I’ve last posted an update for CoI! I do sincerely apologize for that but look at the bright side, that time was (mostly) spent working on the game.

That being said I am quite thrilled to announce that I have finally finished all 13 bosses for the game! The final boss still needs a little fine tuning but it is in game and defeat-able. There is a little ‘cut-scene’ before the final fight, similar to the games intro scenes which turned out pretty good. I was able to pull some parts of the story together that I was originally planning on omitting due to time constraints and just wanting to get this thing done.

What I’m looking at now, is getting the more detailed backdrops into the game, as well as getting the enemies, loot and various quests populated into the levels. Since I planned for this part ahead of time it is pretty much ready to be done barring any complications with the software. I encountered a little corruption in my source with some weird image linking problems for some sprites in game but I think I got it sorted out. Time will tell on that one once I release it to the people with beta access from the Kickstarter rewards.

I discussed with my Kickstarter backers as to how I should wrap this game up. Originally it was planned to have three endings, a good one, bad one and then a sort of middle one – depending on how you did in the game. But then I had an insightful talk with a fellow developer and he had mentioned that I should be wanting to tell a single story from start to finish. This led me to thinking about maybe I should take an approach similar to Final Fantasy X-2, where you get the same ending every time unless you 100% the game where you get a special bit extra at the end. This option seemed fairly popular with my backers and to be honest, its less work for me so I can focus on creating one good ending versus three perhaps mediocre ones.

As for stating a release date, I don’t think I’m ready to do so just yet. I have a good idea of what kind of time it will take (guesstimating two months) but every time I’ve announced it ‘officially’, something goes wrong and it blows up in my face. So, for now I’m back to taking the Blizzard stance on that it will be done when its done.  I swear I’ve been working on it so long it’s like my own personal indie Duke Nukem Forever. Heh.

Thanks everyone for your continued support !

Hey everyone!

Things have been going exceptionally well! I’m a little behind schedule still due to getting sick and general life stuff cropping up, but things are still moving forward aggressively! There are only four bosses left to complete, one of them being worked on now which I will hopefully complete this weekend. Its a pretty complex bugger so I can’t put a time duration on how long it’ll take to actually finish it.

I wanted to share a teaser video I made of it, but it’s a new boss that I haven’t shown yet so I will just be providing the youtube link in case anyone wants to keep this one a secret. You can view at your discretion if you don’t want to wait, but I must say I think this is my finest work so far (except the final boss maybe, that one is pretty fantastic too, heh).

Without further Ado: Obsidian Behemoth

I completed another boss over the weekend, (despite still being sick and too stubborn to go to the doctor, until I was more or less ‘forced’ to go because my coughing got so bad and I started blacking out ‘n shit…) leaving only six more bosses to finish coding. I got some great reports back from my test group that my boss encounters have been really enjoyable for the most part and they have suggested some fantastic tweaks/alterations to the encounters that should really bring them together.

I’ve been experimenting lately with some silhouette layers for the backgrounds that should make the levels a bit more visually interesting as well. I really like how the one I made for the ruins area turned out, so I’ve been working on some forest ones that so far I’m quite pleased with so far. I’ve hit a bit of a challenge in that I can only use two background layers deep due to some past in-experiences I’ve had with my original level design and the way MMF2 handles layers. I would be lying if I said I didn’t learn a metric F-ton from this project over the years. The way I see it, is deal with what I’ve done now to make the best of it, and use what I’ve learned to make my next game that much better.

My test group has been busy checking for loot bugs and whatnot, and I have to admit I’m quite pleased that they haven’t been reporting many at all. Mostly, at this point I have been receiving several suggestions just on how to smooth out the overall experience. Once I finish the bosses, I might bring on a couple more testers just to make sure nothing slips through the cracks before I start sticking baddies throughout the world.

Well I was hoping to finish two bosses this weekend, but ended up re-programming the same one twice. That’s got to count for something, right?

What happened is that I wasn’t happy with the flow of the battle on my first attempt at coding the AI in, so I scrapped that mess and started over which completely changed the overall mechanic of the boss. The original battle was a bit more randomized but in a way it was nearly impossible to find opening to strike on top of everything else that was going on during the fight. I must say though,  it turned out much better the second time around and proves for a much more entertaining encounter which is what I’m aiming for. Eh, maybe I’ll re-program it again tomorrow just for shits and giggles. heh.

As far as a progress report goes, I have completed all of the base artwork needed for each boss! That’s definitely a milestone in my quest to get the last bits of this game complete and all plugged together. I have five of the fifteen bosses currently programmed, but they may need some difficulty balancing  as having played this game for well, eight years. I’m not gonna lie, I’m pretty good at it.  So… the boss fights might not always be as easy as I think they are for some of the more casual players.

My goal is to get at least two bosses a week finished, on top of other miscellaneous things I am able to complete as time permits. There are still lots of various art assets and sprites needed that I can work on in the meanwhile though, mostly being projectiles for said bosses and detailed backgrounds for each area.

I’m going to try to make it a habit of posting every week, or at least every other week just to keep anyone interested in the loop. Until next time…

Ugh, this last week was a rough one. I got hit with the stomach flu, followed by a headcold/sinus infection/bronchitis flare up that I’m still recovering from… Not on my list of favorite things to be dealing with when I’m on a schedule. Work on the game (and life for that matter) has for the most part been halted due to this crap, aside from the build I was able to compile last night adding modifications to the loot system and how item drops are handled.

The previous system I had in place was allowing rare equipment drops be be far more common than the common drops actually were. Admittedly the entire loot system is a bit on the shitty side in terms of design and execution, but I blame the seven years ago me for not knowing any better at the time. Heh. It’s one of many things in Core of Innocence I’d like to go back and completely redo, but I’m at the point now where I just need to get this game done. I think as it stands now though, the replacement loot system that I have come up with will be much more balanced in terms of drop rates for commons :: rares.

The week delay due to being sick has set me back a bit, but I still think I should still be able to hit close to my mark for a May release.

Stay healthy you guys, whatever plague is going around suuuuuuucks.