March 25 Monsters Preview

 Been a bit quiet with updates on the game lately. Still trying to figure out in my head how to redo a complete "story arc" of sorts that would probably take up 2-3 hours of playtime. We're getting there since I do have WIP tiles and a bit of a dungeon started to replace my original scrapped story beats. I'm also hyper focused on trying to finish a Mario side project at the moment, so Penumbra Crystallis is still "on hold" until probably the middle of April or so. That's about all I can give on game progress for now. The point of this blog post is not about my progress, it is about...

MONSTER GRAPHICS!

As usual, these are by the ever-awesome level2janitor! With these additions, most of the current placeholder monsters are now out of the game, so things are looking good! level2janitor's monster designs just fit so well with the overall aesthetic and tone of Penumbra Crystallis, so I'm always delighted to get new graphics from him. Anyway, what we have here today from left to right is...

Princess: The name of a tricerastegotops that resides within the Grandoise Amphitheatre. The player has to fight Princess at a certain point in the story to prove themselves. I told level2janitor to just make a dinosaur that had the head of a triceratops and the body of a stegosaurus, and I think he did pretty awesome with it. Princess is the first time this graphic will be seen, but it will also show up later in the game for the standard tricerastegotops enemy.

Rock Golem: This bad boy currently resides in the Salar Volcano, and the placeholder sprite that I was using was easily three times the size of what level2janitor designed. I am so much happier to have a graphic this size, because the other one was enormous, but it was all I had to use as an acceptable placeholder. This golem graphic just hits all the right notes. He's got a sufficiently grumpy looking face to intimidate players, a chunky body to denote good defense and strength, and just an overall nice design with A+ texturing! I love how this one turned out.

Guardian: I've mentioned in the past how Penumbra Crystallis has a lot of ancient temples that are short temples/puzzle dungeons that are similar to Legend of Zelda: BotW's shrines. Guardians can be fought in these temples if the players are careless. This sprite is also used for a boss in Hautley's Tower, so it will already be playing double duty. I told level2janitor that I love the way that it looks like the animated armor is magically controlling the sword through telekinesis. Very cool as always.

Anyway, these sprites are already in the game and have had the enemy formations that feature them realigned a bit to fit with the new graphics. I'll probably have screenshots showing some of the newer monster graphics in action, along with progress on my next dungeon and the slime ranch that I previously talked about, once I finish my Mario side project in another 3-4 weeks time. Until then!

February 17 Monsters Preview

It's been a while since I've made one of these posts, and I'm happy to do another one because I love showcasing the stuff that's been made FOR Penumbra Crystallis. Today I've got three new enemy graphics from the ever awesome level2janitor to show off.

On the left we have a monster that has been in the game for a long time now - the Bogaconda, which resides in the Trei Marshland! There will be new snake enemies appearing soon as well, so this was a really wonderful gift to receive. I really love the patterning on the snake body itself, and the face is really well done and expressive (well, for a snake face).

In the middle if the Fire Elemental, a powerful elemental enemy that dwells in Salar Volcano where it spawns from lava pits and chases the player down. I pointed at the World of Warcraft fire elemental model as my inspiration for this nasty fellow's overworld sprite, and I can definitely see the inspiration come through in level2janitor's graphic. Love this guy and can't wait to reuse him later for other purposes. Perhaps recoloured black/purple to serve as some kind of demonic energy elemental? We'll see!

Finally, and on the right, is the Gargoyle. This extremely nasty enemy appears only twice so far, once in a chest in Mount Houzell and as a possible encounter in the Grandoise Amphitheatre's Battle Wing. The gargoyle possesses a buttload of HP and has a very irritating attacks, and I think that this super charming "grumpy" gargoyle that level2janitor made really fits perfectly with the gargoyle enemy's attacks and such. I can't stress enough how much I love this fella's grumpy expression, it's just so perfect!

Anyway, that's it for this monster graphic update. Expect more updates soon, hopefully about the slime ranch that I'm really eager to flesh out.

A New Challenger Appears!

 new portrait who dis?

Avee finished this portrait for me today for a brand new character. Who is it? Well, that's for you guys and gals to find out!

Portrait Roundup & Additional Character Preview

 It's time to blab on about Avee's wonderful character portraits again, as well as tell you guys about three characters (two of which I have been completely silent about thus far). Let's start with the first character, who is actually no stranger to those who have been following Penumbra Crystallis' development so far. 

Hey, it's Veks! He also has a proper surname now at last. While Veks will not be a permanent party member, I do anticipate that he'll pop up every now and then to help the party out when they're in a bind. Veks currently joins the party twice, first when Vahn and Hans investigate the Branch Sewers and then a second time when Vahn and Vera head to Oaktown. I may give the player the option to have Veks permanently tag along later as an optional character, at which point I may make him controllable as well. We'll see! Veks deserves recognition as a "party member" though even if he isn't a permanent addition simply because players will be seeing a lot of him and he will be a staunch ally.

The resident bad boy general from Blackmoon Prophecy will experience a change of heart throughout the events of Blackmoon Prophecy, but what will trigger him to switch sides? Well, that's for the players to discover themselves since I'm not here to give story details away. What I can say is that Braak's weapon of choice is the greatsword and his main purpose in battle will be shutting down enemies and creating weaknesses.

Wait a second! What game is this again!? You're seeing things correctly, that's Edric Csardim from Blackmoon Prophecy II. Avee redesigned Edric's portrait to make it fit in with the style he has used for the rest of Penumbra Crystallis' portraits. So what is Edric doing here? Well, he's going to be encountered by players just by playing through the game normally and he will still be a military man from Lenadia. That's about where the similarities end. Since Edric will be an optional character, I'll leave what he does a surprise to the players.

There is also one final character, an optional female character (who will be completely new and is not a holdover from Blackmoon Prophecy) that I have not commissioned a portrait for yet, but she will have some interesting gameplay mechanics and will have a unique equip screen that will look like this:

Body

Ring

Ring

Trinket

Trinket

Codex

Codex

Codex

Looking forward to the final character and working out how she'll play, but that's a story for another day!

September 13 Monsters Preview

 This monster preview is a bit different, as it's not random encounters! Instead we have a boss and a summon. First we have the Darksider boss...

Darksider is a big, mean skeleton capable of attacking the party several times in succession due to having four arms. He is encountered shortly after the end of the Penumbra Crystallis demo. He was a bit of a challenge to balance well because of his multi-attack tendencies, and he gave Thomas a good run for his money when testing, so I think he's right where I want him to be. Remember, I want the bosses in this game to push players far more than bosses in any of my previous games!

And with Bones McGee out of the way, we have the first summon sprite from level2janitor, and it is Chione! Demo players will remember her being acquired at the end of the Water Shrine. Here is her new permanent graphic:

I think that level2janitor did a good job with her. The placeholder that I used previously, while decent looking, just looked like a regular woman wearing white. level2janitor's version of Chionne looks properly elemental and "spirity". Having this graphic is also is a huge plus now, as it means that summons and monster graphics are consistently the same style.

Anyway, that's all for now! I should have some stuff to show off soon myself. Even though the "hiatus" is over for the game, I didn't do much work over the last few days as I was distracted by Final Fantasy XIV, doing small fixes/updates to Triple Triad: Tournament of the Elements, and real life responsibilities. I should have some stuff to show off in the coming days, hopefully in the form of the new party member Kassandra!

August 12 Monsters Preview

 Time for another monster preview! Today I have two of level2janitor's monsters to show off.

On the left we have the Stalker enemy, originally called the Hunter. It is a hyena-like scavenger that inhabits Salar Volcano. It is the only enemy in the volcano that does not have fire-based attacks and instead relies on biting and rending enemies with its claws and fangs.

On the right is the Dillodude! What's a dillodude? Why, it's a cool armadillo! level2janitor asked me if he could give him a skateboard, and I decided that it would work in the game's setting if it was primitive looking. Since about half of the enemies in this game are semi tongue in cheek, it just works anyway! I told level2janitor that he looks like he's about to tell a group of kids to say no to drugs, which level2janitor replied was exactly what he was going for!

Corporal Veks Reporting for Duty

 Have a Veks portrait! While not a permanent party member, Veks will be joining temporarily to assist Vahn and Vera on a small mission. He'll still be controlled by AI, but you'll be able to change his equipment if you wish. 

Avee also mentioned that he's absolutely free for further commissions. He will be hearing from me again, as I want to have an optional character's portrait redone (hint: it's a character that he made a portrait of for a previous project), and I do have a semi-secret optional character in mind as well.

August 3 Monsters Preview

 Every now and then, whenever I receive new monster graphics from level2janitor, I've decided that I'll "preview" select monsters here. So, today we're looking at three monsters that level2janitor just created graphics for.

From top to bottom we have the skeleton, bowbold, and drake.

The Skeleton is exactly what you think it is! Weak to fire and holy, these undead baddies haunt ancient ruins and not only swipe at you with their rusty scimitars, but also throw bones at you!

The Bowbold, originally called the "Sniper", received this name today. It's a combination of bow and kobold. Bowbold! Bowbolds live in the desert outside of the town of Arcania and take deadly aim at their enemies. Their "aim" attack is a guaranteed hit with a moderate chance of inflicting critical damage!

Last, the Drake. This fellow inhabits the plains and forests outside of Arcania and can also be found inside of Salar Volcano. Possessing higher hit points than other creatures in its territory, the drake bites and scratches foes. When it's feeling particularly troublesome, it can also belch a fireball at unsuspecting victims!

Update to Card Design

 Slight update to the visual look of cards after my previous update on how I'm changing the gameplay of the card game a bit.

So, the cottontail is a level 1 card. This means that it has an attack of 1, and can only attack left or right because this is where its arrows are pointing. The appearance of a card will also change based on its level:

More Updates Coming Soon

 A neat little shrine that will feature in an upcoming cave and the following volcano dungeon. The candles will flicker and glow for a nice little lighting effect. You will also be able to interact with these shrines to restore small amounts of HP and MP.

And apologies for not having much more than that at the moment! I spent the last week doing a side project, the Blackmoon Prophecy Randomizer, which you can grab here. I wanted to get it out of the way ASAP, which is why I was able to finish work on it within a week. Now that I've finished working on that, I'll be focusing solely on Penumbra Crystallis again. Expect more updates soon. 

Enemy Sprite Samples

 More and more enemy sprites are being churned out by level2janitor, and I am absolutely loving all of them! They are helping to give Penumbra Crystallis more and more of its own unique style, and they're meshing wonderfully with the assets I've made myself so far.

So, here's a sample of level2janitor's work so far!

From left to right: Bat, Slime, Cottontail, Hobgoblin, Goblin, Veks, Darius, Chopodile, Scorpion, Flare.

Chopodile Monster Design

 The third redesigned monster by level2janitor is the chopodile! These big guys can be found predominantly in the Branch Village Sewers, but can also be encountered in the Water Shrine.

Water Shrine Tile Progress

Now that I have finished my sewer dungeon, all that stands between me and starting work on the Water Shrine is a short cutscene in Branch Castle, so it seemed like the time to start work on my shrine tiles! Here's what we have so far. Does it look familiar?

I am drawing HEAVILY from the shrine/temple tiles from Final Fantasy V, and I think it clearly shows. I'm not just using them as heavy inspiration, I'm trying to keep the "feel" nearly identical while still being entirely self-sprited and original. The pillars and other bits of scenery in the Water Shrine will feel more original, I just wanted to make sure that the floor, wall, and roof tiles resonated strongly with players of the first game.

Also, dear Squaresoft...

Hmm...

 What's this supposed to mean... ?

More Card Game Information

Little bit more info on cards.

The strength of cards will go from 1-9. There will be no A value. I'm also making sure that there are different borders based on the type of card, similarly to in FF8. I did not do this with card borders in Blackmoon Prophecy II, so it's a nice little visual change to bring into Penumbra Crystallis. Common cards will have the left border, strong enemy/boss cards will have middle border, and character cards will have the right border.

The card game can be played with specific NPCs. I haven't designed a sprite for them yet, but there will be a "card player" sprite. If you see these NPCs walking around in towns, you can talk to them to play cards.

I'm also aiming to probably have 100ish cards. We'll see!

Card Game Preview

 No name for this card game yet, but it's another Triple Triad. I'm also going to relax the rules in this incarnation. The "Open" rule will always be in play except against "boss card players", and there will be no plus/same rules in effect at all. I'm going for basic strategy here.

Anyway, here are a few cards. In order: Bat, Cottontail, Goblin, Hans, Stinger, Tanglewind, Vahn, Veks, Vera.

Uh oh...

 You know what this means.

Branch Castle Tour

 Just a little tour of (most of) Branch Castle. A few rooms are unavailable during this walkaround, and two major NPCs (Branch's generals) are not presently in the castle.

30 Minutes of Gameplay

 I haven't done as much work on the game as I would have liked in the last few weeks, but here's an update of sorts.

Three errors in the video that I fixed in real time:
1. Lydia starts sentence with lowercase letter at one point ("oh!" instead of "Oh!")
2. A chest disappeared after I opened it in Branch Village.
3. Charm Bangle added +1 defense instead of +1 luck.

Branch Castle Preview

 Say hello to Penumbra Crystallis' Branch Castle! It is relatively unchanged from Blackmoon Prophecy. Well, I mean, aside from the graphics being original.