I’ve been busy spriting and coding enemies for the desert area. I enjoy and hate this process. But fortunately I should be done by the end of the week. Once that’s done, I have to build a few rooms, finish a couple of tilesets, and sprite and code one of the bosses. Once that’s done, I’ll be able to release the next beta.
This boar found a helmet. He is happy.
On another matter, I’m still struggling with how to solve a segment of the story, mainly because it’s intimately related to the item sequence. There’s no way to change the order in which you collect skills without altering the story sequence. My problem is that you have to remain “trapped” in the Valley until the end, but I don’t want to hard-lock the way out. Hard-locking basically means stopping the player from getting somewhere with a door, more or les literally speaking. Soft-locking, however, is stopping the player from getting there without the use of doors, but rather because the player lacks the necessary skills to get there. It also helps if the player doesn’t realise he will eventually unlock a skill that will let him get there.
An example of soft-locking is Super Metroid’s speed-booster: until you have it, you had no idea you’d be able to break through unbreakable blocks by dashing into them. And it works better than a door because this discovery is a surprise; areas connect when you thought they wouldn’t. Doors aren’t a surprise: you know you need a key to open them, and you know they’ll lead somewhere. But this doesn’t mean doors are useless. Doors are useful because they provide an objective to the player that soft-locking can’t do by nature. I have to play with this a bit more, but I’ll come to a solution eventually.
Lastly, I just recently found out Humberto won’t be able to stay with us, as he’s going onto making his own project. I wish very good luck to him! I’ll keep on taking care of the PR/Marketing aspects for the moment. Once they grow to be more demanding, I’ll look into finding someone to help me with it.
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