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Greetings fellow Sparks!
We have reached an exciting point - a launchpad, really! This post kicks off the first of many blog updates about the game I am currently developing. The game is called “Echolite” and I have high hopes that it will turn out to be an amazing first game :)
Main Character
As teased last week throughout my various socials, I began work with designing the main character. So far I have two different designs ready, but more will certainly be added to give the player numerous options. Everyone seems to like both in some regard, so I will try alternating the display of them!
I also started laying the groundwork within the Godot Engine for this game. Having proper organization from the start will be the key to success from behind the scenes.
Basic Tiles
With the second week of development underway, I am starting to bring a bit of life to this project! This means the player needs a world to explore, and thus an array of different tiles.
As someone who struggles the most with art, I ran through multiple drafts. I finally settled on these “basic” tiles to construct the world:
In the editor, I just need a starting point, so saving the more involved map generation for later I opted for a rectangle of randomly-selected tiles. Here’s the result:
What really helps me with the art is having the right palette. Funny enough, these colors for the basic tiles are sourced from PixilArt. I have switched over to Aseprite for my pixel art work now, but the site still has a wonderful source of community palettes to experiment with! This is the specific color palette that I discovered, and it really is quite beautiful the way the colors blend: https://www.pixilart.com/palettes/sparkles-palette-140
The purple may not scream “underground” at first given the game’s setting, but with some lighting later and against the other colors of the palette, I think it fits the “foreign” aesthetic perfectly.
Walking Animations
Now to put the main character’s gears to good use by adding in some movement! I used this resource to set up the grid-based movement. The initial approach I used was working to a certain degree, but it lacked the smoothness I was going for. This kind of amazing help from the community is just another reason to love Godot!
To spice things up, I attempted some rough walking animations. I decided to be a little smarter with the design though! I figured that if all of the different player designs had shared features (legs, arms, single eye, etc…), then the side profiles are virtually the same. With this, I can continue using the same side animations while simply creating art for the front and back cycles. Here's the final outcome:
The system will definitely need to be smarter with loading different types of animations, but that sounds like a future development item!
What’s Next?
Over the next 2 weeks I plan to draft out some resource-based tiles that the player can stand on to collect items! Additionally, I want to start adding in some GUI components (visual for now) to start getting a feel of the game from the actual player perspective.
Thank you so much for taking the time to check out this update - I look forward to seeing where this game goes!