Wings of Glass
Mayfly new design
Working on next Wings of Glass game, new Mayfly design
This month I will make the new character designs for the next Wings of Glass game. I've decided that I want to tap more into the "monster girl" trope. The updated design for Mayfly tries to keep her recognizable but give her more of a fantasy flavor.
I've been thinking of giving Glass Wings antenna for a long time, since the naming convention is that they are named after bugs. There will be a gameplay feature for them too! I also gave her cute little horns because they don't really offend her silhouette that much but make for a nice little accent. I gave her little ears that are in a shape that resembles her wings, I think it'd be good for helping convey her emotion, especially from behind (when you cannot see her face). Finally, I gave her a tail. I was just thinking it'd make her swimming animation cuter.
Apart from that there were also a lot of general changes to the design in the name of reducing small details or promoting small details to bigger details. That's why the metal bits of her outfit are bigger, and the seam of her shirt is traded for a thicker accent. her Scarf (?) is given a simpler look and matches the neckline of her shirt. Lastly, Her wings have been simplified: In 2014 her wings had 3 ridges, in 2019 they had 2 ridges, and now they have 1 ridge. I think it will be easier for people to draw if they want to make fan art of her.
Nominate Wings of Glass if you like it!
Small Balance Patch
GameRome
Now for the bad news. I'm delaying Feathery Ears release again. It's just not ready. I am wholly sorry about these delays, but I'd like to explain myself if I may:
Of course, when I started FE, it was just supposed to be a quick and short FUN adventure. Something really basic with a story no more developed than SMB. Get Stars, Defeat Gems. But, it would just so happen that on a random screenshotsaturday, it caught the attention of the director of GameRome, and I was asked to showcase my work. Again I must stress that I am really excited and honored to be given the chance to showcase at a game conference for the first time, but this changed everything.
Because suddenly I got into serious mode. If this is a game that is meant to be showcased at a conference and thus represent the best that Eager Passion has to offer, then I needed to start thinking about it like a serious project. So I sat down to write a story about our two lead girls, Misa and Coral, and spent a month creating posed dolls to express that story. And of course, work closely in directing Naoya's great talent to make the perfect OST. I was not prepared to make this project this way when I started working on it.
Additionally, Naoya and I had to discuss trip plans, and I was also stressing out about getting a plane ticket for the event. But really what was causing me the most stress is just family related issues that I prefer not to get into.
Please forgive me for pushing back the release again. I always try to do the best I can at any given moment, and I intend to give you something fun, cute and nice!
Feathery Ears release date pushed back
Feathery Ears was just supposed to be a cute fun little action romp. I could have actually made such a thing in 1 month. But upon exposing it to the world on one screenshotsaturday, it got noticed by the director of a game conference and I was invited to showcase both Feathery Ears and Wings of Glass. On the one hand, I was really happy to know that people somewhere thought my game was good enough to deserve being showcased at any conference. But... it did throw a wrench into the development plan...
Because suddenly this had to be more than just a silly little action romp, it had to be more than fun it had to be great. It had to give feels. Soo, I made a more nuanced story, one that is primarily carried by 2D images of Misa and Coral highly expressive in face and poses.
There was also the issue of having to make sure all preparations for the trip to the conference are fully taken care of to have a nice safe experience (for me). Combining the raised quality of the game with making sure that trip details are well researched and taken care proved to be a lot more than I could handle while retaining the original release date, I winded up making some really great story poses, getting a lot of the trip details taken care of, but a bunch of built up stress between having to handle both.
At this rate I believe I should have the game ready on October 7th. I really think you'll like the improvements. It's a wholesome cute story with a message I think many people can relate to.
Feathery Ears 羽耳 Steam Store page IS UP
Everybody, the store page for the new game is up! And the game should be ready to be played in 2 weeks! Me and Naoya worked really hard on this! And the main thing left for me to do is make the animatics(?) for the story. Thank you for your support and thank you for being so patient.
I am slightly shaken up because on screenshot last ScreenShotSaturday my first video about Feathery Ears was noticed by quite a few people, and Naoya and I even got invited to showcase both Wings of Glass and Feathery Ears at a video game conference.
I am trying to figure out the details to see if I can make it, I really hope that I can!
Took a moment to think about Wings of Glass again
Mainly though, I am talking about the "crawl" mechanic. Crawling in this game is really REALLY OP. A lot of the otherwise really tricky encounters can be a relative cake walk if you're crawling. It makes it harder for enemies to see you, and they can't hear you since you stop making footsteps. But also, you can use it to avoid projectiles because you can crawl behind bumpy terrain for a shield. On the other hand, we have mechanics like the Jump-Attack. I personally have come to feel like it was a mistake to put that in wings of glass because it seems to distract players from the actual solutions to some puzzles as they try to Jump-Attack up and around their problems. I don't mind that most people didn't ever fully figure out how the dive and roll mechanic work, since unlike the sneak, some people did wind up using it.
Another set of mechanics was the snap camera and Zoom. If you touch the D-Pad the camera will snap to the corresponding side of you or zoom in and out. I have never seen anybody use them, but they are they if you want to get a better look at Mayfly.
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I was just thinking of little things that could be changed when I get back to it. Here are some of my ideas.
1) Easy Mode: the only difference is that this would give you a TLoZOoT like HUD which tells you what all the buttons do at any given state that Mayfly is in, as well as feature your stamina and HP as bars.
2) Change the jump attack so that it is a horizontal slash that does not affect your altitude, but lets Mayfly still be able to grab ledges.
3) Horizontal ledge climbing: Make it to where if you move the control stick while on a ledge, Mayfly will climb around the ledge in that direction.
I especially think that climbing/hanging animations could be enhanced if Mayfly is flapping her wings. In fact I have a few ideas for climbing animations based on how players played such as:
being able to climb up poles and trees, the addition of ladders in the factory and maybe on/in Mayfly's house. Maybe even being able to climb up ANY surface similar to TLoZBoTW.
4) Perhaps instead of crawling the command could be used to preform a TLoZ like roll dodge.
5) D-pad???? Perhaps it could just be used for bonus features like opening a little menu that lets you give Mayfly little emotes, or perhapse a mode that lets you use it to aim Mayfly's head to improve your photography.
Anyone have thoughts on this, leave a comment, I'd love to read them!
Feathery Ears 羽耳 Steam Store page in the works
Been working on the Steam store page for the new game all night. I think y'all'll love this game. Handles similarly to Wings of Glass but with sword beams instead of spooks. I'm personally quite fond of being able to use the [羽] character in the title for both games.
Update on Feather Ears
I've been working hard on the new game.If you would like to follow me more directly, you can always find me on twitter @SayuriArtsy
I will also be making a youtube video about it soon.
I have some bad news though. My dev computer died. Sooo for the past 2 days I have been trying to transfer all my important files to my emergency computer, which is not exactly made for the kind of making video games. It's the UMPC called the GPD Win2. It's basically a Nintendo 3DS that runs windows.
I should be able to get back up on my feet pretty soon.
Oh yeah, how do you like that screenshot? Not even kidding, the very first thing I did when I created a non-enemy NPC in the game was create this composition.
On the right we have Misa, and on the left we have a new character, Coral. Coral. Coral is a Knifin who also sports cool bat wings.
Seems after Salty, a lot of people think that Knifins are cute, so I think you'll enjoy being able to see one up close that's not dead.