Moving on to more exciting stuff. I think it's time to showcase what we're up to lately and share some screenshots and details about our new plan.
One of the stickiest points with this project (right from the start) was the actual hero. The general feedback we got was that his design felt quite unusual. In hindsight I have to agree with that. The old design did promote the fast paced gameplay we had in mind but it didn't have much appeal or charisma.
Following this point, several months ago, the talented pixel artist Koyott (you may know him from his excellent work with R3D project), came forward with a proposal for a character update. This was something that was actually planned already but wasn't done yet. After a brief exchange of ideas, designs and pixelwork between me and him, we had a new candidate.
Zoidy v3: the angry, badass elemental!
I think it's obvious, right off the bat, that this new design is a clear step forwards. However the bulkier shape and hands meant that he was less fit for quick, fast moving and maneuvering. Plus the new hero felt more like a 'villain' now. So this got us into thinking about the gameplay implications of such a change. After this brief work, Koyott had to attend to his other projects, so we kinda left it there.
In the mean time and working on the details of the new, featured story mode, we had long discussions with Erik about stuff we liked and stuff we didn't and how the character would fit in with what we had planned. After many proposals, turns and twists (one of which is the released, aforementioned prototype) it became more apparent that the optimal story mode formula would gravitate more towards a traditional RPG (something I was actually keen on doing from the Chaos Guns era).
Fast forwards to today, the complete Alarcity engine had been reworked into a faster, better and more featured version, allowing us to do stuff we couldn't do before. At the same time we had another, super skilled, professional pixel artist joining our ranks (a more detailed introduction about him is coming later, as he is also involved in other amazing Pixelglass projects to be announced). One of the first things we did was to decide the main hero's fate. It didn't took much to settle down to a more "down to earth" approach. Surely, a convensional choice, but -boy- so much more appealing! I think the new, draft result speaks for itself:
Unnamed, handsome human hero!
So that's one big change there. Inevitably this shift also has drastic implications on gameplay. While we plan to maintain the fast paced action, the new hero isn't gonna be as super agile as old Zoidy was. But he is likely to recieve new abilities like fast dashing and deadly melee attacks which will compensate for the lack of normal moving speed. In regards to the shoot'em'up part, the weapons(spells), god powers, elements and upgrading has also been reworked and refined to make better sense within the new context and story.
Speaking of which, another big change (or rather say addition) are the new RPG features. What Erik and I are currently working on is to expand the engine and include actual dialogue, interactions, npcs and in-game cutscenes. These are all still in a very early stage (so I cannot promise anything) but we're making progress and it's coming along nicely.
Before closing this post, here are a couple extra screenshots to see how the new characters (human hero and possible new enemy) fit with the existing artwork. I'll leave the rest to your imagination until further notice
Old screen, new characters!
New tile-work in the making!