I’ve got everything finished with the mini-boss. I spent a while trying to find a sprite I could use since I wasn’t satisfied with the blockiness of a single image with scrolling text. I think I’m going to end up just using whatever I can find on Google Images for sprites, and once I have a playable prototype of the whole game, I’ll go through and use stupid little hand-drawn animations (traced over the google images if I have to).
I ended up using the sprites from the Gameboy Advance Samurai Jack game for the mini boss, and it actually looks pretty good.
I was tempted to go back and color his robe to match what I had for the dialogue box image, but I feel that that’s more work than what’s really warranted at the moment. On the agenda now is to work on making a Player Death routine, finishing up all the events and whatnot that go in the level prior to the mini-boss, and some sort of health-replenishment drink. I haven’t decided if I want them to be something you carry around and use when you want, or just use when you pick them up. I might play around with both ideas and see which I like better.
I also recently purchased a laptop that will make my stuck-at-work-just-sitting-around-on-my-ass-because-there’s-nothing-to-do time a little more productive. I used my college-student status to purchase Photoshop CS6 at an ultra-nifty price, which will mean I’m no longer relying on *cough*pirated*cough* software to make my game. The laptop itself has a solid-state hard drive, and I’m excited to see how that will work out.
Also, since I seem to have gotten into the habit of leaving behind relevant links on each post, I thought I’d point you towards the creator describing the design process behind Dust: An Elysian Tale. It’s pretty neat, reading over it and drawing parallels between his game and mine. It’s a little bit of validation, making me feel like I’m on the right track.
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/180520/postmortem_humble_hearts_dust_.php
