Gravitar chibi reveal + Devlog #096 + Dev poll (Patreon)

Gravitar chibi!
I still like her design a lot! She's one of the earliest monstergirls I drew for BEW ^^
As usual I tried to make her personality come through the chibis, I wanted her to be upbeat and expressive despite her facial expressions being somewhat limited. I think I did a pretty good job! Translating her helmet into chibi form gave me quite a bit of trouble, but I managed to make the details fit ^^
Just like Fairy, Gravitar floats above the ground instead of walking!

If you remember the last devlog, I needed to finish a hard cutscene set. This particular set included a lot of very specific requirements, graphics and animations, as well as the single longest cutscene of the demo. It took quite a bit of work, but it turned out great! There's only one cutscene set left to do which might actually prove even more complex because of the events that unfold in it, but I wasn't ready to delve into that right away. So I instead went through all the previously made cutscenes again, fixed a few things here and there, and made sure everything worked right. I needed to recharge my cutscene motivation before tackling the last one, so I switched to a few other things.

First of all, this was a good time to draw another 2 sets of chibis (the Gravitar one and another) which was a great change of pace! I missed drawing. I'm super happy with the results too, I can't wait to show the next one ^^
There are actually only 2 high priority chibi sets left to draw now! Getting there, slowly but surely.

After that, I switched to the new rooms. I'd already made a few while working on the cutscenes, and while making rooms is now the biggest task left, it's still incomparably faster than making cutscenes.
Might as well explain the process a bit! I bypassed a few things when I made rooms for some cutscenes, but I had to actually take care of that stuff now that I'm aiming to make the rest. Obviously, I need to figure out the map of each area first! I already had a first version of these from a while back, but these were pretty old and mostly existed to help me figure out the design and general idea of each area so I would know what to draw, so I made another pass on each map and updated them. There's always a chance I'll make small updates here and there later, but other than that the maps are now finished, and the overall progress logic the player will go through is finalized. I know where puzzles are, what they unlock, how to access secrets, in which specific room each cutscene triggers, etc. After that came the boring but necessary part of numbering every room and labeling them so I can remember what each room is for later, as well as creating 2 scripts per room. The first script contains every object that fills the room and a bunch of variable per object, like the x and y coordinates, the x and y scale, stuff like that. These were relatively easy, because the rooms are currently empty! The second one contains a bunch of general information, like what background to use, where that room is located on the map, and more. Among these is also whether a path exists in each direction (up, right, down, left), and if so, which room it leads to. Linking the rooms together may sound simple, but I need to be meticulous with that stuff! So yeah, a lot of very tedious stuff. With all of that done, I was able to start making new rooms! ^^

So yeah, once the rooms are done I'll finish that last cutscene set, and then it's only a bunch of smaller tasks left! In particular, implementing the new monstergirls, making new spells and making new shapes. I'm thinking of starting the beta testing after that while I finish whatever's left! ^^

Finally, I mentioned in the last devlog that I'd make special dev polls for you to decide whether or not some (or sometimes how much) some features will be present in the Patreon release. One of the easiest examples is "Should there be item descriptions?" If the majority chooses no, then the Patreon release won't have item descriptions, which will serve to reduce the amount of dev time (meaning an earlier release). Anything that's not done in the Patreon release will be implemented later in the public release, of course.
I like the idea of these dev polls, they both gives you some control as patrons over what the Patreon exclusive demo will be like, and also takes a weight off my mind since I'll know what is chosen is what you want (or, well, what the majority wants, but that's the best I got).
These dev polls will start today in the Discord server and last about 5 days each! They'll replace the character polls while they're happening.
The first one is about room variety! I'll have more info about this in the Discord server directly.
I'll also post a recap of the dev poll results in the next devlog, and some of the TO DO list will be updated accordingly. In the meantime, I've added a note next to some of the tasks that may be affected by dev polls.

Here is the TODO list:

-̶ ̶D̶r̶a̶w̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶n̶e̶w̶ ̶a̶r̶e̶a̶s̶

-̶ ̶D̶r̶a̶w̶ ̶n̶e̶w̶ ̶c̶h̶a̶r̶a̶c̶t̶e̶r̶s̶

̶-̶ ̶D̶r̶a̶w̶ ̶p̶o̶l̶l̶ ̶N̶P̶C̶s̶

- Draw a few more NPCs (Or maybe not! Will be determined through a dev poll.)

̶-̶ ̶D̶r̶a̶w̶ ̶ ̶p̶r̶i̶m̶a̶r̶y̶ ̶c̶h̶i̶b̶i̶s̶

- Draw  secondary chibis (aka important NPC chibis)

- Draw  tertiary chibis

- Draw chibi ranks (Or maybe not! Will be determined through a dev poll.)

- Draw new items

- 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

̶-̶ ̶U̶p̶d̶a̶t̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶r̶o̶o̶m̶ ̶e̶d̶i̶t̶o̶r̶

- Create the new exploration rooms (currently working on this!)

̶-̶ ̶D̶i̶a̶l̶o̶g̶u̶e̶ ̶s̶y̶s̶t̶e̶m̶ ̶u̶p̶d̶a̶t̶e̶

̶-̶ ̶M̶a̶n̶y̶ ̶o̶t̶h̶e̶r̶ ̶c̶u̶t̶s̶c̶e̶n̶e̶ ̶r̶e̶l̶a̶t̶e̶d̶ ̶u̶p̶d̶a̶t̶e̶s̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶i̶m̶p̶r̶o̶v̶e̶m̶e̶n̶t̶s̶

- Implement the story cutscenes (95% done, only one cutscene set left!)

- Create the shape waves and balance everything

̶-̶ ̶F̶i̶n̶a̶l̶i̶z̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶s̶t̶o̶r̶y̶

̶-̶ ̶P̶r̶i̶m̶a̶r̶y̶ ̶d̶i̶a̶l̶o̶g̶u̶e̶

̶-̶ ̶C̶u̶t̶s̶c̶e̶n̶e̶ ̶s̶c̶r̶i̶p̶t̶

̶-̶ ̶C̶h̶i̶b̶i̶ ̶p̶r̶e̶p̶ ̶w̶o̶r̶k̶

- Secondary dialogue (Or maybe not! Will be determined through a dev poll.)

- Tertiary dialogue

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

- Probably more stuff I can't think of right now (actually maybe not, I'm getting there)

And that's it for now! ^^