Candescence

DAH BOOTH. Just note that the new demo has some awkward issues here and there, and trying to fix them has been utterly infuriating. I've only just updated the web player version with the last missing content, the desktop version will come a bit later. Most of these issues stem from the save system, try and avoid using it if you can, it's not that difficult to avoid dying anyway. But, yeah, enjoy! I hope I didn't break the game too badly with the changes.

Well, so I tested the Ranamon animations in-game, and... Well, shrunk down to the size it's supposed to be, it just looks like ass, to the point where she's practically unrecognizable. Well, that's awkward. And I don't have the time to try and experiment with pixel art, so... I decided to "cheat". Rather than a direct fight against Ranamon herself, she bails right before you enter her boss room (because Myotismon ordered her to, as he's genre-savvy enough to know when things are going south), and leaves you to fight two drones shaped like her hands while she mocks you with a gigantic hologram of herself. The hands themselves move into various positions to attack, such as rotating in a fixed position in a circle around you while firing projectiles (requiring you to watch where you're moving to evade), or aiming at you from above and firing downwards while moving from side to side after firing. Zoe/Kazemon is trapped at the top of the arena, and you can free her to make her a co-op/AI partner before the fight ends, but you have to manipulate the arms to hit the teleporters to turn them on in order to reach her. Still trying to work out an optimal setup for the camera, I might be inclined to just not have it fixed to any particular position, unlike other boss fights, since the arena is so big. Yeah, not nearly what I was originally planning to do with this one, but that's what happens when you're constrained by a lack of art assets.

I'm just gonna leave this here.

Happens sometimes with images on Dropbox. Just grab the link from the post, it should display properly in a separate tab. Edit: And now I can't find decent references of Ranamon's legs and feet at the angle at I want. FFFFFFFFFFFFF-

Alright, Heroic Battle Spirit's new demo has its basic layout done, along with some visuals and one of its main level gimmicks, though it doesn't look that great right now, still need to find a background to use for it. Also, something I'm trying to work on for the main boss fight. Since the boss I have in mind has literally nothing I can use in terms of sprites or animations, and nobody's helping me with art, I decided to cheat and use Inkscape to trace various references to create parts I can use to animate in Spriter. Say hello to Ranamon, fellas. This took hours, and it was tedious as hell. See, this is why I don't do art. This has no right to look even remotely decent, even if it sorta does. And I'll probably have to do it AGAIN if I want to do Calamaramon for the same boss fight, though, thinking about it, that might actually be too early, it might be more interesting to save that for a rematch in another stage. Considering the time I have to finish the stage, that's probably for the best.

Well, SAGE is coming up, so I'm renewing the call for help, I mainly need sprites for the miniboss and main boss for the new level I'm making for the new demo (and maybe some other stuff if there's time). It would really be great if I could get some help with that.

Finally gotten back to working on Heroic Battle Spirit, and before I work on my new level, I finally decided to properly fix the map system and overhaul it so I can be much more flexible with the level design. Most Metroidvania designs tend to be rigidly structured into specific rooms, considering what I'm going for with this game, I wanted to be able to make layouts that could look much less artificial, as well as dynamically display things such as items, enemies and obstacles, and provide players with other means of being able to plan their route, such as displaying jump-thru platforms.

Eh, sure. I think this is it, though it hasn't changed much, and is fairly basic.

C2 doesn't use per-pixel, it uses collision polygons, which makes sense, for sake of performance and physics. You don't get complex collisions anymore, but for most things, that's rarely necessary anyway. C2 also has custom movement, though it doesn't work quite like the Classic version, and you can't do selective collisions on a per-player basis anyway (for collision layers). It honestly might be easier to write up a custom plugin in javascript using other movement behaviours as a basis. The platform behaviour would be a good base, maybe integrate the bits from the bullet behaviour that allow it to bounce to find angles, among other things.

Actually, that's because of the exact same issues you described in the Classic version. And even then, C2 has had some impressive optimization improvements, I actually tried the incomplete engine on a whim and it ran at 60 on my four-year-old laptop, which has been running somewhat sluggishly. Still needs a complete rewrite, though, the function system wasn't meant for constant collision detections and the physics are janky in certain circumstances, even if the relatively new collision cells feature might have a factor in the improvements, it's difficult to tell.

The main problem is that only MMF2 and Game Maker have proper working Sonic engines for them. Construct 2 would be much more used by fangamers if there was actually a working Sonic engine for it. Same with Unity, really. But few people actually have the knowledge and experience to do it, and Dami's dropped off the map while in the middle of working on the Egg Engine. It's something of a chicken-and-egg problem, unfortunately. It's why I've avoided doing Sonic-related fangaming development lately, Sonic engines are great, but they are a massive headache to make, especially if you're using a framework that's incompatible with a good chunk of the physics guide.