Dungeon development diary entry 24

24. 18th November 2007

Not much progress for today, but the little that was done was real important. The previous candy land ground I starting to shape up with a way that fits the tileset perfectly. At this point I couldn't figure out a texture for the inside ground but that I can worry later (yeah, really WORRY, because the Twilight Park texture took a huge amount of space). Right now I hide the single colouredness with skillful application of rocks and roots. Looks like I am influenced of the magnificent Swamp of the Sleeping Jaguar and my dear own Islands in the Sapphire Sea :)

Today I didn't worry so much about the space problems. Especially if I keep the outdoor tiles in order and won't let them grow too many, there should not be any problems! I am doing really fine now and it feels good to continue from this point forward knowing that I am doing a whole lot of good work.

Dungeon development diary entry 23

23. 17th November 2007

I had the joy of creating eye candy today. The pillars I have in the tileset got now additional broken versions to make the feeling of an old place more believable. Also the diagonal chain for foreground layers was done and that ended up looking way better I had imagined in my plans. There is also a vegetated version but that still needs some tuning. As the third thing for today the dirt ground is now clearly darker, and now it fits with everything else in Dungeon, and doesn't look like you've jumped from Apogee's Monster Bash to Mr. Dark's Candy Chateau :)

Dungeon development diary entry 22

22. 16th November 2007

Howdy folks. This day's work included a lot of routine work with adding pole tiles to the Dungeon. Shocking or not, this was completed with copying the Twilight Park poles and changing the colors. The dumb wooden signs were changed to metallic or stoney, whatever one wants to think.

The concern about space is now even more increased. I am pretty sure that I do not have the space for everything I am planning for Dungeon. Actually I am 100 per cent sure, but there are things easier to forget than others. The question is, what to lose.

This day marks the day of first experiment with the dirt ground. Right now it is way too bright and its green grass is very much too green, like that of Sonic the Hedgehog. This leads me to change the 32 greens I have stored in Dungeon palette to more darker of grayish. Speaking of space troubles, I don't have the space to make the outeriors as detailed as I would like to. But let's wait and see how this turns out. Maybe it will not matter in the end. The whole idea of the dirt ground is to offer pauses from the dark insides of the Dungeon. I could probably achieve a atmosphere in which the player feels of going from a castle to another. That would be enough.

Dungeon development diary entry 21

21. 12 November 2007

I made the Prince of Persia spikes I mentioned earlier. Two versions to be exact. It is unsure if I should animate them also, that would be cool. I created more essential tiles in form of signs, but this first version was bad, as it was made of wood. How could there possibly be left anything wooden after people have left the place hundreds of years before? :) Finally, arrows for level makers to give directions were done with ease. They look nice, though.

As I finish poles and signs, I am starting to have all the essential tiles I need. What would I still need? Answer after looking a while at Twilight Park: Looks like I miss some good looking destruct scenery blocks and the vertical chains with a tile that would work with the hook event.

17th April 2008 note: Sorry pals, no picture today! But worry not, there are still like 20 screenshots to show.

Dungeon development diary entry 20

20. 10th November 2007

Today and yesterday the tiles for event 'vine' were created (for some reason I did not make a diary entry yesterday). They are chains and I am thinking of using the same chain theme for a vertical version and to foreground eyecandy as well. I am again pondering the 1010 tile limit I am having with Dungeon. This starts to affect everything I am doing with the source picture (I have always used pcx format (Zsoft Paintbrush) in this phase, by the way). How do I fit all the planned tiles in this small space. The outside areas! Eyecandy! The tileset's going to be stuffed!

Anyway, the vine chains work well. I created also the first iterations of spikes. I feel unsatisfied with them, because they are nowhere near the creativeness of like Twilight Park's spikes (The sharp gardening equipment). These probably will stay the same till the release, but for the wider ground I'll make larger spikes. Maybe swords sticking out of the bricks? Or while I'm at it, I could design some Prince of Persia influenced long, nasty looking spikes. Yeah, that must be the way. I could put a skull hanging in a spike, aloso. Yeah, that sounds cool :)

15th April 2008 note: I feel sorry for not making the hanging skull idea reality. However, in the final release there are no signs of anything that would be like remains of people, and for that reason the lonely skull would not probably have fitted the tileset that greatly.

Dungeon development diary entry 19

19. 8th November 2007

The progress today was small. I started to create destruct sceneries with ambition, but the start with copying the old blocks from Twilight Park and changing colors produced way too bright tiles. I have to darken these or make completely new ones. Now I wont, I lost all the will for now. The Blade signature tiles were done today. Some problems with that also, let me explain. At the moment Blade text sits on dark brick background making the text somewhat obscure. Otherwise this looks nice, and it could make it to the final release.

At first I thought that I would be leaving warp background out of Dungeon, but today I made a quick warp background experiment. With the current palette the warp background looks very raw with its colors, but the feeling I wanted it to have is present. I think that this new magenta background not only increases the desolateness and melancholic feelings of the tileset but brings long awaited color to the very gray mix. I have now decided to include this in the final release of Dungeon. I must admit there is some pressure of me putting warp background in my tilesets. For example people didn't seem to like the fact the Islands in the Sapphire Sea didn't have warping background. One problem remains. This magenta color is almost exactly like to one in Medivo2.

Dungeon development diary entry 18

18. 7th November 2008

Today I did nine tiles more of those vegetation covered bricks I mentioned in the earlier entry. In addition there are now green plants for the vertical and horizontal brick lines. And also dark vegetation for the background dark bricks. Simple but good looking.

Concerning the vegetation ready so far, I am thinking about completely changing their color. The current is pretty good, but I am not yet sure, is that poison green shade the best for Dungeon.

Dungeon development diary entry 17

17. 4th November 2007

Today I created a lot of vegetation and with awe I can say that suddenly the sterile dungeon transformed into a decaying, forgotten dungeon. This made me think that this tileset of mine is now well on the way. I think a release at the end of the year may not be so unrealistic after all. It is probable! My only concern on Dungeon now are its light colors. I think I will not interfere with that anymore, but now I am not so satisfied with all the light.

Next I will draw more vegetation. Right now I have nine different tiles of vegetation in the way that eight of them are walls, floor and ceiling blocks. I will need one more nine tile mix for variation. After this the drawing gets harder again. I will need to create the outdoor spaces which now feels like pretty huge challenge to me. Also essential tiles could prove to be a problem.