Facing Different Directions

      One of the harder sprites to do was the front facing template pony. I spent most of the time staring at it and wondering what little detail was off about it. After a bunch of trials and referring to Bobby's pony sprites, I got something that looked just right. From that, I could make sprites facing the opposite way.

     I also put together a few other sprites for idling and talking. All of which were saved as templates to make spriting Clover, NPCs and even some enemies a lot easier and faster. I was able to dress up the template to look like Clover and I should b able to upload the video of what she looks like in motion tomorrow.

Status Report #27

     This week has been great for setting up Unicorn Quest. I spent all week making final sprites for Clover and coding basic movement. I also revised a few things in the design document and came p with two more ideas for the game's story  (I'm writing them all down then deciding on the best one later). I aim to finish Clover's walking by the end of the day. There's something magical about putting the final white outline around the sprite and just looking at it...

Find the full status report after the break.

Pony Walk Cycles

     I found some really good pony pacing sprites at pauliewx.deviantart.com. I used them as a reference when aligning pixels for my own, much smaller pony sprites. So far I have the trot down perfectly. I'll have cycles for trotting, walking, and running in 3 directions. Just up, down and side because I can flip leg sprites to have movement in the opposite direction.

     I put the animation in Unity to test it out and tweaked it to perfection. I even added a subtle bouncing for the trotting sprite. That combined with the smooth moving camera and flowing directional controls gives the game a really fluid feel, which is exactly what I want. I need players immersed in the game, not worrying about how awkward it feels playing a big game on a tiny phone.

You can take a look at the source code behind the pony bounce past the break.

Choosing Heart Sprites

    I was torn between using Pixel hearts and Smooth glowing ones for the HUD in Unicorn Quest and so I decided to just use both. Players can toggle between them. Now it's a matter of deciding if it should be a given option or something you obtain through gameplay.

    When thinking about ways to display enemy health, I chose to have 4 dark hearts above them, each heart representing 25% of their HP. It can help players know how much they're hurting a tough baddie or a boss. I also made pink hearts to use for friendly things with HP. I have vague plans for a situation in the climax of the story when an entire town is in chaos and a few allies help you in battle. I could also use pink hearts to demonstrate the shield and decoy spells' vitality.