Toasty: Ashes of Dusk Kickstarter concludes with $105,536 raised!
TOASTY: ASHES OF DUSK SUCCESSFULLY FUNDED OVER 400%!!
WE ARE FLOORED!! We would have NEVER thought we would've gotten this far and it's because of ALL OF YOUR LOVE AND JUST BELIEVING IN US. We truly appreciate it. We raised $105,536 for Toasty: Ashes of Dusk. We will be able to make the game that we want to make!
WHAT NEXT?
Most immediately, we're going to sleep for like 24 hours straight (believe me, we need it!) - after that, we'll begin organizing things like setting up the backer surveying and fulfilment tracking. This will likely come in the form of a service like PledgeBox or Backerkit, and we'll let you know more once we have a solution. And then, of course... making the game itself!
You'll be able to look forward to at least bi-monthly update posts on Toasty's progress and what we're working on, and you'll also be able to see more regular sneak peeks/clips of particularly cool or WIP things on our Twitter. We have no intention of disappearing, and with the production assistance/management that our friends at Top Hat Studios are providing, you can be sure everything will be done to make sure Toasty is THE GAME that lives up to your expectations.
For now though, once again - THANK YOU!!!
Toasty: Ashes of Dusk Dev Log - November 2021
Happy November Toasty fam! I hope all of you had a very lovely and safe Thanksgiving, and are ready to move into the December holidays. October was a bit of a slower month for development as we were addressing a lot of tricky structural things and there was not much to report, however, Faulty did prevail and we have moved onto play testing the first boss fight, Roxide! More details on this to come in just a few with other fun points we have also been up to. Strap in because we got some fun stuff for yah!
Here we go with the big deets. I will break up the update into 4 main categories this time: Art/Assets, Programming, Narrative/Concept, and Community.
Art / Assets
A lot of October’s work was based around art and asset work which also continued into November full swing. Brian and Ivy have been very busy whipping up both concept work, and finalized assets for Avarice City to be input into the game. Though there is still much work to be done, we made some great head way here including some of the following:
Started working on Avarice City outdoor & building exterior assets
Turning concept art of city NPCs into finalized sprites
Interior room work on some major scenes (Such as the theatre)
HUD UI assets for the Roxide boss fight
Programming
As mentioned at the beginning Faulty has had his hands full building the internal framework for the Roxide boss battle and getting multiple ingame mechanics to work fluidly so that way it will be easier for us to implement these mechanics into other areas of the game. So here are some programming details for the Roxide prototype:
Controls
[WASD] - Movement
[Space/Shift] - Roll
[H] - Shield
[J] - Sword
[K] - Knapsack
[L] - Hammer (even though you won't have that at this point in the game but just for funsies)
Control testing for both PC and Controller use
Mapping out the Intro & Death sequences
Knapsack adjustments - you can no longer collide with it which means you can no longer push or pull it, but you can lift up still. However, this may change in the future to allow for these mechanics to be used during this fight, nothing is final here. Getting hurt or doing any other action will cause you to either drop or throw the knapsack
Working out the combat sequences for the two stages of the boss battle
Implemented HUD UI changes
Narrative / Concept
So there have been two major pushes here when it comes to this category. As briefly mentioned, Ivy has been in full swing drafting up all of the concept artwork for the Avarice City NPCs and other artwork for our Kickstarter campaign. In terms of the narrative side, Justin has been banging out getting the dialogue and portrait images made for more of our beautiful Shroomville characters!
Worked on Avarice City NPCs, their art palette and emotions
Dialog box work and speech placement
Implementing portraits to the dialog boxes and bringing life to the characters in game
Community
We have had some things on the community front pick up a bit over the last few weeks! With our new Community Manager addition to the team, we have been working out how we can improve the community experience in a multitude of ways. Some of them you may have already noticed, but there is much work still to be done.
Reviewed and Edited the current Discord Structure
Added new moderation bots to Discord
Added fun Toasty stickers to the Discord server
Reviewing the editing the Steam storefront (This is in works but not yet completed)
Getting the Steam community forums up and running and getting the community hub up to date
In a nutshell, this is pretty much the gist of it without going into too much detail! Our team is really pumped and motivated to work on and improve Toasty: Ashes of Dusk in so many ways. Especially since the announcement of our Kickstarter campaign which is to take place in Spring 2022! We are almost at 500 followers on our Kickstarter page, and we cannot thank you enough, especially those who have shared this page with your friends and family!
Oh hai, hello! It’s Tanya here with a long overdue dev log for our marshmallow loving friends. I first wanted to start off by giving my sincerest apologies, I know many of you were reaching out asking about the Aug dev log and unfortunately, with personal life stuff butting in, both the newsletter and dev log did not go out. BUT, we are here now and I got the juicy info y’all have been waiting for!
Our kickstarter campaign’s follower count is growing like the shrooms in Shroomville and we CANNOT thank you enough for your support! It honestly means the world to us that so many of you want to participate in the development of Toasty: AoD. If you have not already followed and would like to join the list to be first to know when we launch, you can click below to follow! pocketllama.com/ks
Here we go with the big deets. I will break up the update into 3 main categories this time: Art/Assets, Programming, and Narrative/Concept.
Art / Assets The months of July and August have been absolutely INSANE on our art front. There have been so many things tackled and completed that you would be shocked if you saw it happen first hand like myself! Brain has been like an art dev god and just ripping through their deliverables like they were nothing! It's cray cray y’all! Brian has also been streaming his artwork of Toasty:AoD on their Twitch channel (Twitch.TV/its_voxid - yes I plugged you Brian xD) Here is a little snapshot into their work for July & August:
ALL animations for the first dungeon boss have been completed
Completed all of the sprites for the collectible items available in the shops
Started map tiles for the ghost ship dungeon
Programming With Maya joining the ranks in the month of June, a lot of stuff has been getting done from our two programmers! Faulty has been nose to the grindstone working through backend code for the event system and ironing out all of that complicated alien code that I just don’t understand haha. Our lovely Doops (Justin East) has also jumped aboard the programming train just flying through some of the Shroomville stuff and more. He has even been streaming his work of Toasty through his Twitch (Twitch.TV/its_dooper - yes I plugged you too Justin xD)! So let’s get to the deets below:
Maya added the “important item pickup” state for Marshall
Doops condensed/revised Shroomville for better map feel
Doops created the rooms for the first dungeon in the game
Doops worked on the collision for the dungeons
Doops worked on a surprise change to the great tree? (No idea what this is myself)
Faulty revamped the transition system for travelling between rooms/levels
Faulty added a pause menu with functional inventory and world map
Faulty added some SFX & music
Faulty updated the dialogue system and fixed a few dialogue bugs
Faulty worked on backend code for the Event system that communicates between other internal systems
Narrative / Concept The script is pretty much finished and ready for review and revisions! With everything written out, it is just a matter of mapping out dialog and where they are supposed to go. Ivy has also finished ALL of the concept art for the game’s maps. Like...all of them haha.
Finalized the concept art for each of the towns and added in all details
Dialog box work and speech placement
This pretty much sums up the main things the team has been busy working on throughout the months of July and August! We have been continuing our work into the month of September and I am excited to share them in the next dev log to be released in October! Keep your eyes peeled for more Toasty things! And last but definitely not least, thank you to all of you for your continued support and love. <3
Until Next Month!
Your Toasty:AoD Community Manager,
Tanya - AKA Tannyerz
Toasty: Ashes of Dusk Dev Log - June
Hello fellow Geldians! We hope y’all have been having a great start to your summer and are staying safe. It’s yours truly, Tanya, here to give you the low down of what the team has been up to throughout the month of June!
As previously mentioned in the last development update, we have decided to hold a production Kickstarter in the upcoming future. The team has been busy with our publisher planning all the details and coming up with some really cool rewards for each tier. We are super excited for this and cannot wait to share more information on that. It would mean so much to us if you could follow us on Kickstarter. By doing so, you will be first to know once we launch! You can follow our Kickstarter page here: pocketllama.com/ks
Same as last time, I will break up the update into 4 main categories: Art/Assets, Programming, Narrative/Concept, and General.
Art / Assets Brian has been bustin’ out all the moves in the month of June with tackling some more exciting assets, and has moved into the realm of animation. Ivy, like always, has been working that brain stuff to whip up all different types of concept art. Some of the things worked on by these two are below:
Hammer (key item) action animations
Began animating the Phantern (key item)
Menu asset creation
Further dungeon designs
Creating new NPCs and getting their concept art down
Programming Faulty has been focusing on some technical details that have proved to be quite the challenge for him. But like normal, he has been thinking outside of the box to come up with those solutions. Our composer, Seii, is also now a part of our programming team! She has finished her schooling and is jumping in to assist Faulty with the many tasks ahead. We are super excited to have her join this side of development and cannot wait to see what she whips up! Here is a break down of what they have been working on in the month of June:
Improvements to the workflow of creating levels with the GMS2 room editor The workflow will now look roughly like the below: 1. Select which template to use (Overworld, dungeons, interior house... etc) 2. Create a child room of that template 3. Select what tiles to use 4. Place the tiles and objects in the room
Marshmallow health pickup (healing)
Began working on the many key item pickups
Working out the pause menu animations
Improvements to the depth sorting system
Narrative / Concept The directors have been having weekly brainstorming sessions to work out those important game details. There are many things that go into the making of concepts, and the points listed below have quite an extensive list of details to go through. June brainstorms include:
Brainstorming more dungeon details and ideas
How to work in the key item mechanics
General / Community With the revamps to all our social media platforms, we are brainstorming new ideas and jumping onto more exciting things! We have been staying consistent with the following:
Our June Pride issue of the The Geldian Gazette was sent out to our awesome mailing list friends! If you would like to join our mailing list, just click here
Social media channels have been having daily posts (with some exceptions of course), with new content and behind the scene sneak peeks
Our new and improved game trailer was released at the beginning of June, if you have not seen it yet, you can check it out on our steam page, right at the top
This pretty much sums up the main things the team has been busy working on throughout the month of June! We continue to be blown away by our community, y’all motivate us in pushing through the hard times so that we can all celebrate the outcomes together. Thank you for being a part of this community and constantly giving us your love and support, it means the world to us!
