Week 4 - The Real Enemy

As tasks were reorganized coming into this week, most of what I accomplished was largely art-related again this week, ticking off items from UI, enemies, and designing the big bad boss himself, the Ashen Vessel.

The Boss

When drawing the boss as a character, I took large amounts of notes from previous group discussions we had about its identity and abilities. We knew that the boss would be called the Ashen Vessel, and as a result of progress in Level Design, knew it would have some form of regal, high-and-mighty appearance.

At the beginning of the drawing process, Jonathan suggested that the flames of the Ashen Vessel should be blue to contrast the player, which I agreed with and incorporated.

I also made revisions to the original concept drafts, such as turning the boss's hammer into a staff that can transform into other weapons, not only to better demonstrate its strength and mastery of combat, but the make the most of the contrasting red/blue flames as a symbolic element of the fight. In addition, I altered its build to be taller and lankier, in order to make him look taller in comparison to the player.

Figure 1. Image of the Ashen Vessel, along with a sample flame and color palette.

The Clock of Flames

In addition, I also drew out the needed assets for gameplay UI, which only consisted of the health bar. However, I added a flame as a secondary indicator of life just to make the UI feel less static and more responsive. To minimize unnecessary work, we've decided that most of the shell menus will just use raster elements instead of unique assets.

Figure 2. Health Bar, with flickering flame to indicate health/time left.

The Opposition

This week, I also went ahead and drew out animations for enemies for the starting area. We had already previously decided on their properties during LD meetings, so it was mostly about bringing these creatures to life.

Figure 3. Ash Bat. Attack animation will only consist of sped up flight, which is why a separate animation isn't necessary.

Figure 4. Hogash Walking Animation.

Figure 5. Hogash Attack Animation. His startup, active and recovery animations are all in this .gif, with his active animation (dashing) drawn to be loopable to cover more distance if needed.

Figure 6. Small Golem Animations. Walking and Throwing animations are all within this .gif, with both of the phases being loopable.

Reflection

Overall, substantial progress was made this week in art. Moving into next week, my role will be slightly reduced to compensate for other assignments, but will likely consist some, if not all of:

- Boss Animations

- Other Environmental Assets

- Playtesting and Gameplay Refinement

...in addition to helping out elsewhere whereever needed. That's it for this week!