Notes from the build

The music, and all twenty-two models

A second round of footage, filmed on Oct 20. It tours the new music, each track in the place it plays, and then the drop: the camp from angles the player can never take, every model standing in a row, and the golems falling over, one element at a time.

Twenty-two models is seven dogs, seven golems, seven slimes and a cat. The cat is on the right path. It is not there yet.

The Corps gets a website

You are reading it. The Corps would like it noted that we have not yet checked what lives at this address.

Slimes, a camp that lives, and a first Cat

All seven slimes are in, Common to Phantom. Fire has a steady heartbeat in its core, Thunder crackles, Water is shaded like water, and every slime has its own way of melting.

The camp got real doorways in the bus and the office, and the roster that lives there now uses them. Creatures walk around things instead of through them, visit places, hang out together and take naps.

A first Cat has been filed. Opinions are pending. The Mech has a direction: a junkyard robot.

Golems, from stone to light

The golem family is complete: a Stone Titan for Common, and a variant for every element. The Water Golem drains away in blocks when it falls. The Light Golem is an opal titan with a crystal crown and a gem in its chest, and it warps in from the sky. The Earth Golem is built of soil, with seams drawn by a shader and moss and vines growing over it.

The dogs got an entrance too: a bark, as they arrive.

Sound for every screen

The game now has sound. There is an intro, a study loop for the archive, a theme for the camp, battle music, and a scanner track whose mood follows what you are holding. A hostile creature brings something looming. A creature you just won over brings something gentler.

Short stingers and sound effects fill in the rest. It is a first pass. The dogs are no longer very quiet.

Friends, and a proper bedroom

Friendly creatures now work the way they should. One within reach of your rank can be befriended, and one out of reach has to be fought. A full roster opens a swap screen.

The opening got a modelled bedroom, lit and furnished with props and posters, set against its sharp wireframe twin. And the Saturation got its static: a grey sweep and burst across the camp and the arenas outdoors. Cause: unknown.

Dogs in every element, and a photo mode

The dogs picked up their elements. The Thunder Dog crackles with static and discharges in bolts, the Earth Dog sheds crumbs as it settles, and the Phantom, Light, Water and Fire dogs each got a look of their own.

The arena also gained a photo mode. The dogs were not consulted.

NetCreature2 is kind of a thing

The first footage. Five minutes of the real game, a power ballad, and a running commentary on how unfinished everything is. Every shot is the real game as it was that week. The seals were placeholders, and the dogs were three of seven. (The dogs have since caught up.)

Every move gets an effect

Moves now play effects, in nine styles. Fire is a faceted fireball, water a wave of pixel columns, thunder a right-angled bolt like a circuit trace, earth a lobbed boulder of cubes, light a beam, and phantom a corrupted stream. Common moves throw a V of pale shards, physical moves show speed lines, and status moves show chevrons rising for a buff and falling for a debuff.

Each effect leaves the attacker’s ring and lands at the target’s ring, and the target’s hit or dodge starts the instant it arrives. There is also a far city now, at the end of the camp street.