Progress

For the next step in A Crooked Heart’s progress is to have a fleshed out, early access beta for release on Steam. In order to entice people to spend money on a beta, it’s advisable to at least have 20 minutes of gameplay. As far as research and gamer feedback I’ve collected. I blocked out 31 new rooms that’ll take place in 4 levels. I’m not adding art until I have the objectives, obstacles and general game flow worked out. Then, I have 31 backgrounds to draw. I was able to use several rooms 2-3 times. But the rooms will still have original art and stand apart from it’s structural twin.

Demo_NextBetaBlocking

New poster and menu image

I’m in the process of setting up my Steam shop so I can upload my demo and get even more people playing with Lulu.
And it’ll allow me another avenue to build a following so more people are aware of A Crooked Heart when it releases next year.

This is the new poster image and start menu that’ll be in the next demo update.

 

Main Splash

Major update to the demo

Check out the pinned post to download the new, updated demo.
Updates:

1. Added a Control and Credits button to the Menu.

2. The Pause menu now has a Quit to Menu option.
I’m having a hard time getting the Skip Movie to work so for now you have to sit through the 30 sec animation.

3. New health image that doesn’t look like the enemies.

4. I took out the door in the Second Room. It felt like I was forcing the obstacle because I worked hard on animating the door in perspective. I also added a couple of enemies.

5. Pox’s projectiles now have a blurred, red circle to help distinguish it from the dark environment.

6. Increased the size of the button collider in the Bunker so it’s easier to activate the little movie.

7. The boss level updates
• Created a new background that makes it a little more
interesting.
• Changed the ending that removes the title because
for some reason it was crashing the OSX version.
• Tweaked the health and collision on some of the
enemiesButtonsControllerCreditsGreyHealthPath DoorRedResumeSecond Room

Bone head

Bone head

A friend tested out part of a boss level for me and pointed out some very important errors that, in my bubble, didn’t see.

The issue was that Saevus’s exposed parts didn’t the player any reason to feel accomplished when trying to destroy them. It’s like, “Cool, here are some parts that beg to be destroyed but why?” His suggestion was to have something there that gave the player feedback and a sense of accomplishment no matter how small.

So I came up with this shield that’ll give the player a kind of, “Hell, yes.” “Gotcha mf!” sort of moment when it’s destroyed.