Part 3: Prototyping and Assets

I've made quite a bit of progress with  Mint's Summer Bash since my last devlog. 

Combat

I figured out how to set up combat for the game. I created a variable for Mint to swing her baseball bat. I then turned it into a custom event that I can call whenever a scene is initialized.

 I also made custom events for random and targeted movement for enemies, although the scripts are too long for me to share here. Finally, I made a script for when Mint has been attacked, resetting the area environment so that the player can try again. 

As a result, combat is effectively fully implemented, at least at a base level. 

Following this, I also set about refamiliarizing myself with the variable system further in GB Studio, including using items to finish puzzles. It was a lot easier to implement, thanks to my previous work in the engine (also, I'm a smarter person than I was last year...probably). 

All of the above meant that I could start the process of actual asset creation. I'm not very good at creating when I don't have visual guides, so I simply began working on sprites and backgrounds. 

I updated Mint's sprite to match her 2.0 look.

Can you tell with that tiny pic? I think it's a pretty good approximation if I do say so myself.

I also made my first environment, the beach where Mint and Queen are having their picnic. 

All of my sprite work is done in Aesprite and Tiled. I used to be terrible with both software, but actually got pretty adept at using them after I started making maps for my tabletop sessions, heh.

Lastly, I created the starting cutscene of the game, to again remember how variable loops work. It was pretty painless once I remembered where the If/Else statements go...

One fun aspect I was able to build in is rotating dialogue that changes each time you make an interaction. This is done by setting a variable increment attached to a switch. 

Each interaction adds a new increment, which then changes the dialogue being spoken. 

As far as next steps, I actually plan to physically sketch out my maps, likely on grid-paper, so that I have a concrete plan when I begin to sprite them out officially in Tiled.