This week I worked on an overworld, allowing the player to access and unlock different levels across the map. The system was pretty simple, which gave me time to work on a first draft of what the map would look like using tilemaps and animations for the player.

Click 'Read more' to, as always, read more!

I made these two new characters a few weeks ago, but I just haven't made a blogpost about the two of them. On the left is the futuristic robot "Arti", and on the right is the sun-worshipping knight "Soleil"!

Find out more about them and their creation process by clicking 'Read more'.

This week was the week of menus, saving, pausing and loading. Not necessarily as exciting as the rest of the game, but a vital part. I had to learn about how to save the game by writing and reading data files, keeping 'singletons' throughout different scenes, as well as how menus work with different control setups.

This week, I spent my time creating a system that keeps track of the player's party. Since Viola is the RPG where anyone can join your party, it's more than a bit important. Another key feature of the game is playing music, so obviously, these two things have to mix with each other. If you have someone in your party, they'll come out as you play songs on your violin. Every possible party member will have a different instrument, so you can almost create your own band!

Click 'Read more' to find out a bit more about the code driving this system.

I've started the long, long road of writing music. I followed lessons through Art of Composition, practiced every morning and afternoon, read up on basic music theory, watched videos on video game music composition, tried out software and soundfonts, examined a ton of existing music to figure out how it all works...

It's a journey I'm only just now starting. I firmly believe that anyone can learn to do anything, as long as they put in the time and effort. From now on, I'll write music alongside the rest of the game design process, just like I'm doing art, programming, design and writing.

The way this blog functions, I'd have to cough up more cash to upload audio files, so there won't be a Read More this week. I'll leave you with just the video: