This week was a slower week of work for me, as I realized there wasn't much more for me to do in regards to the first playable. Since a lot of the art assets for it had already completed, I decided to focus my efforts on fine tuning the existing assets and adding ones that were needed and requested by the level designers.
Spike Tiles
The first thing I worked on this week was the spike tile to be placed as obstacles in the tower base level. I knew I needed to complete this going into this week so I started working on it relatively. I spent a day talking with the rest of the team and kept iterating the look of the tiles, pictured above. In the end, we decided to go with the darker red spike in the top right corner and the base tile in the bottom left. The reason for this choice is because of all the iterations, this combination was the one that would present the most contrast with the rest of the level and make it clear to the player that they would damage them if touched.
Small Thin Platform
The second thing I worked on this week was a request from Nathan as he was implementing the tiles I had created the week prior into the first playable. In addition to the thin platform tiles I had made last week, he wanted me to create a one tile version of the normally three or more tile long thin platform. This was presumably to accommodate for even smaller platforms in precise platforming sections I had not initially anticipated. This was a pretty easy request to fulfill however, as all it required me to do was splice the edges of the thin platform edge tiles together into one tile. After finishing, I handed the tile off to Nathan who proceeded to implement it into the first playable.
Preliminary Chozo Statue
Chozo Statue in Super Metroid. Image retrieved from https://metroid.fandom.com/wiki/Chozo_Statue October 13, 2021
The last thing I started work on was what the team has been calling a preliminary Chozo Statue. A Chozo Statue is a statue found in the Metroid series that holds upgrades for the protagonist Samus to collect. We knew from the start of development that we would need some kind of version of this statue to hold the upgrades in our game. As such this week I set out to create a preliminary version of the statue, not to include in the first playable, but in the tower base level after we playtest the first playable. Sadly, while I couldn't create a concrete concept that I was satisfied with, I did decide on a direction. Previously I had discussed with the team that the statues could be representation of those who failed to climb the Tower of Ash, leaving bhind new strength for the player to collect. Based on this idea, I've decided to try and make the statue out of parts of the Kindling's sprite, to allude that this statue is the culmination of the remains of previous challengers of the same race, as well as to hint that the Kindling itself has already tried to climb this portion of the tower and that it isn't their first time here. This falls in with our desired narrative approach of environmental storytelling.
Reflection
While this week certainly was a slower one for me, I know things our going to get busier once we finish playtesting our first playable, and as such I am going to focus my efforts in the coming week to what comes after that process. Therefore my goals for this week are as follows.
Finish a preliminary version of the Chozo Statue
Find playtesters for the first playable
Start work on sprites for upcoming levels
That's all from me for now, til next time.
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