Mud elemental chibi reveal + Devlog #092 + NPC poll #04 is on! (Patreon)

Mud elemental! :B

I'm very happy with how well this chibi set reflects her personality. As one of the first monstergirls I drew, she was actually in the old demo! I remember coming up with the idea of the leg vases, and these chibis illustrate how they work better than her battle sprite. They can fold like normal legs, and I even did an additional sprite where she entirely hides inside. Her head decorations, for lack of a better term, are actually the vases' lids! You also get to see one of her eyes in the 'fall' sprite. ^^

I also drew another set of chibis I'm especially happy with! I'll reveal that one next month.
Little by little, I'm getting through the chibi list! There are exactly 10 playable characters left to do. I've marked 5 of them as low priority since they aren't relevant early in the story. Even if they're done in time, they would at best appear as optional fights in the demo. Otherwise, they'll be missing in the demo until they're ready. So yeah, only 5 high priority playable characters left to draw! Plus some NPCs, but these are easier.

Before drawing the chibis, I finished working on the animation part of the dialogue system. If you remember, that's the same part I was tackling at the end of last month! I'm super happy with how it came out too! ^^
There are some new animation, some stuff that I've called sub animation that can happen at the same time as a normal animation, and I now have a lot of control over every variable I needed. I can also add new animations easily in the future, if I ever need to! And of course, it's perfectly fitted to work with the cutscenes. I considered making a cutscene editor, but after thinking about it I realized there wasn't really a point to it. There's way too much stuff to keep track of, to the point where looking at the code directly is about as efficient. The only thing I really needed was a way to visualize the x & y coordinates of the characters on the screen, which making a small viewer tool for was very easy.

And so, I'm now working on the cutscenes! I already had a rough cutscene system I'd worked on a while back, so there wasn't a lot of work left to do in that department. For the most part, I just had to make sure cutscenes could transition nicely in and out of exploration, fights, shape fights, the tutorial, the rank up menu... This kind of thing. It may seem like a simple thing, but normal battles actually took a bit of extra effort since the result screen is made to transition directly into exploration. I found a nice balance though, and now everything is working as intended!

Also, I improved a few fight related animations and particles. It's a bit hard to describe, but it basically feels way better to hit shapes an win fights now.

So yeah! My goal is now to translate the cutscene dialogue I wrote a while back into actual cutscenes. That's all I'll be doing this month, so the next devlog might be a bit shorter... We'll see.

Also! I mentioned last time that I was looking for a second composer. And I found him! RRThiel is now working on BEW's OST with kulor! ^^
Feel free to follow him on twitter!  :B
https://twitter.com/RRThiel

Finally, the NPC poll has begun! There will be 2 of these per month. NPC polls let you vote for the species of to be added NPCs!

Once more, here are the results of previous NPC polls:

NPC poll 01

NPC poll 02

NPC poll 03

Here is the TODO list:

-̶ ̶D̶r̶a̶w̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶n̶e̶w̶ ̶a̶r̶e̶a̶s̶

-̶ ̶D̶r̶a̶w̶ ̶n̶e̶w̶ ̶c̶h̶a̶r̶a̶c̶t̶e̶r̶s̶

̶-̶ ̶D̶r̶a̶w̶ ̶p̶o̶l̶l̶ ̶N̶P̶C̶s̶

- Draw a few more NPCs (Maybe 2 or 3?)

̶-̶ ̶D̶r̶a̶w̶ ̶ ̶p̶r̶i̶m̶a̶r̶y̶ ̶c̶h̶i̶b̶i̶s̶

- Draw  secondary chibis

- Draw  tertiary chibis

- Draw chibi ranks (might not happen for the demo)

- Draw new collectables

- Draw new shapes

̶-̶ ̶D̶r̶a̶w̶ ̶a̶d̶d̶i̶t̶i̶o̶n̶a̶l̶ ̶c̶u̶t̶s̶c̶e̶n̶e̶ ̶g̶r̶a̶p̶h̶i̶c̶s̶

̶-̶ ̶G̶e̶n̶e̶r̶a̶l̶ ̶a̶r̶t̶ ̶c̶h̶e̶c̶k̶

̶-̶ ̶E̶x̶p̶o̶r̶t̶ ̶a̶ ̶l̶o̶t̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶s̶p̶r̶i̶t̶e̶s̶

̶-̶ ̶I̶m̶p̶o̶r̶t̶ ̶a̶ ̶l̶o̶t̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶s̶p̶r̶i̶t̶e̶s̶

̶-̶ ̶I̶m̶p̶l̶e̶m̶e̶n̶t̶ ̶e̶v̶e̶r̶y̶t̶h̶i̶n̶g̶

̶-̶ ̶V̶a̶r̶i̶o̶u̶s̶ ̶s̶m̶a̶l̶l̶e̶r̶ ̶i̶m̶p̶r̶o̶v̶e̶m̶e̶n̶t̶s̶ ̶(̶T̶u̶r̶n̶s̶ ̶o̶u̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶r̶e̶ ̶w̶a̶s̶ ̶a̶ ̶b̶u̶n̶c̶h̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶s̶e̶,̶ ̶s̶o̶ ̶I̶'̶m̶ ̶g̶o̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶l̶i̶s̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶s̶e̶ ̶b̶e̶l̶o̶w̶)̶

̶-̶ ̶I̶m̶p̶r̶o̶v̶e̶ ̶a̶m̶p̶l̶i̶f̶i̶c̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n̶ ̶a̶n̶i̶m̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n̶

̶-̶ ̶T̶u̶t̶o̶r̶i̶a̶l̶ ̶m̶o̶d̶e̶

̶-̶ ̶N̶e̶w̶ ̶s̶e̶c̶r̶e̶t̶ ̶m̶e̶n̶u̶

̶-̶ ̶A̶l̶m̶a̶n̶a̶c̶h̶ ̶s̶h̶o̶r̶t̶c̶u̶t̶s̶

̶-̶ ̶M̶a̶n̶y̶ ̶f̶i̶g̶h̶t̶ ̶r̶e̶l̶a̶t̶e̶d̶ ̶i̶m̶p̶r̶o̶v̶e̶m̶e̶n̶t̶s̶

̶-̶ ̶P̶a̶s̶s̶w̶o̶r̶d̶ ̶s̶y̶s̶t̶e̶m̶

̶-̶ ̶M̶a̶n̶y̶ ̶o̶t̶h̶e̶r̶ ̶s̶m̶a̶l̶l̶e̶r̶ ̶i̶m̶p̶r̶o̶v̶e̶m̶e̶n̶t̶s̶

̶-̶ ̶P̶u̶z̶z̶l̶e̶ ̶m̶e̶c̶h̶a̶n̶i̶c̶s̶

- Create the rooms

 ̶-̶ ̶D̶i̶a̶l̶o̶g̶u̶e̶ ̶s̶y̶s̶t̶e̶m̶ ̶u̶p̶d̶a̶t̶e̶

- Implement the story cutscenes

- Create the shape waves and balance everything

̶-̶ ̶F̶i̶n̶a̶l̶i̶z̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶s̶t̶o̶r̶y̶

̶-̶ ̶P̶r̶i̶m̶a̶r̶y̶ ̶d̶i̶a̶l̶o̶g̶u̶e̶

̶-̶ ̶C̶u̶t̶s̶c̶e̶n̶e̶ ̶s̶c̶r̶i̶p̶t̶

̶-̶ ̶C̶h̶i̶b̶i̶ ̶p̶r̶e̶p̶ ̶w̶o̶r̶k̶

- Secondary dialogue

- Tertiary dialogue

- Implement the new music and SFX once they're done

- Probably more stuff I can't think of right now

The next NPC poll has begun! You can now vote for the monstergirl you want to be included in BE Witches in the Discord if you are a 2$+ patron!

The poll will be active until October 15th. A second NPC poll will begin on October 16th.

Monstergirl poll rules

NPC poll submissions 

Also, now is a good time to submit a monstergirl and/or modifiers if you haven't already as a patron! If you can't think of anything to submit, here is a list of ideas you can choose from.