Dev update - Matthew Woods

 For this week's playtest I needed to think about how to structure the way the game would be calling and referencing character skill data within their respective classes.

 Thinking about how I wanted to structure character data, I opted to break the character into multiple classes. Not only does this make handling large amount of character stats, skills, class info, and all the rest that will eventually be added clean, this also keeps the character data easy to manipulate during gameplay, but also and most importantly save and load game data.

From here I can continue to work on creating a skills database which the character class can then pull from and populate based on the characters class type (such as astronomer, explorer, medic, etc) and build from various stats, while there’s still work to do on this database to get it fully functional, there is enough data for now to let the GUI layer pull all required data for the on screen UI skill buttons for each respective character. This is something that will be worked on through this upcoming week, so stay tuned for more in depth details on behind the scenes on this next week!

Aside from my work on the game Simone and I took the weekend to visit the National Gallery of Victoria to check out a bunch of Egyptian artifacts in person and gather some more reference images for the environmental and prop art, while the selection at NGV is somewhat small there is still some really interesting pieces there, specifically being my favourite were the broken parts of stone walls that were covered in hieroglyphics. 

- Matthew Woods - Programmer / Art lead / Environment artist

Dev Update - Chris Smith

This week was spent exploring the design choices for the potential look of the enemies. Two main contributing factors to the designs are the lore behind the several types of jinn and combining of the design within the existing style of the overall game. 

To aid with this a style guide was made with several examples of features and hints that the different types of jinn could have. This also included different forms, poses and potential movements or animations. 

Through my concept designs I have been trying to create enemies with a strong and unique silhouette. Something that is easily readable from an easy glance. This I feel is especially important with isometric view point games where the angle is at a point that detail can be lost from that view. I have been finding that this has been more of a problem with the smaller enemies that are close to or cling to the ground. Small fast moving limbs could get lost within a chaotic level where there are mutable enemies moving over and on top of themselves. 

Although there are 6 current enemy types that have already been brainstormed I wish to attempt to complete 3 by the end of our first block.  The first we have called the Forsaken. Acts as a easy beginner level enemy with a minimal melee attack range and a slow movement speed. The lore behind the Forsaken is that they are getting towards the end of their life span and are desperate to find a new host. So for the design I am leaning towards bodies in various states of dilapidation with all of them having already lost the function of their legs. This means to get around they would have to drag themselves along the ground with their hands. Speaking in terms of trying to create a strong silhouette this enemy is the one I'm most worried about. being at the ground level other enemies will be position above it and may be lost under them. With their way of moving only coming from their arms. I was attempting to give more emphasis in that region with larger and more bulkier muscles and experimented with things like infusing the skin with random things that got caught on them during their creation within the fires or There bodies bandaged in an attempt to hold them together for a little longer.

Another beginner level enemy is the Humbled. this enemies is more fully formed and in turn faster than the previous. Still considered a more lower ordered enemy it also attacks with a melee hand attack. Its main trait is in its speed. Scampering towards its enemy at a fast pace to over whelm its pray with their large claw like hands. Due to a constant crouched stance my designs worked around the idea of in casing things within their hunched back in an attempt to create a distinctive silhouette.

The last design is the Efreet. This enemy acts in a support roll were it opens a rift to the jinn's plane of existence buffing friendlies around it. The idea of this unit leans its design towards the traditional popular idea of a jinn or genie being heavy magic users. My designs tried to encompass a slim or deformed body, Welding a staff and garnished in superstitions appeal for example a head dress. Also if there was any jinn that would float around on a cloud of smoke this would be the one but walking around on fully formed gangly legs is still a possibility at this point.

Along with the concept art this week I also completed and reworked the base 3D mesh. Upon completion the base mesh had over 10,000 tris. Far too much for what the mesh was to be used for. After some reworking I was able to bring that down to 3500 tris. But this maybe still too much and maybe reduced again. 

- Chris Smith - Enemy concept artist / 3D Enemy artist & animator

That's all we have for you this week! Check back next week for some exciting new progress, in depth breakdowns and behind the scenes of how the game works and is being designed!