A Little Distracted

THE COW KNIGHT DEV BLOG

A Little Distracted

    Creating enemy encounters is not all that fun. You just create level appropriate enemies and then try to put them into interesting configurations. Then you play test grinding them out for a bit. Rinse and repeat. So far the combat on its own does not feel that exciting. But I also haven't given the player characters all their skills yet. I have basically all their skills written up so it would just be a matter of creating them in the game. Perhaps I should do that before I go any further so I can play test how it will actually be. As of right now I've only had a couple placeholder skills that aren't very interesting to use. Hopefully that will make things more fun and will give me a more accurate impression of what playing the game will be like.

Original artwork by Palxan & Verdibona

Minor edits made by me!

    Since enemy encounters have not been that exciting I have found myself getting distracted with other aspects of game development. Namely art. I have mentioned previously how I don't want to completely overhaul the artwork for my game but instead just work with the default assets (whilst also downloading a few RTP adjacent assets too). However I did want to at least make some minor changes to more accurately portray the main characters. I was going to put that off until later in development but I couldn't help myself and got stuck into it this week. It has been a lot of fun! I have been drawing all my life but I have never done pixel art. My efforts do look and feel amateur but I am enjoying the process nonetheless.

Original artwork by Palxan & Verdibona

Minor edits made by me!

    After making all my little adjustments I started thinking about what it would be like to make my own original artwork. I have made a small attempt and... well see for yourself haha.

RTP on the left, my "artwork" on the right (48x48px Sprites)

    Needless to say I need a lot more practice. That is also just one stationary sprite, I would still need to create the left facing, right facing, up facing etc. sprites. Then there would be new portrait artwork and a side view battler sprite sheet. And this is still just one character let alone everyone else and then custom tilesets too! That would be a lot of work. I will still probably dabble but aside from the minor edits I've made I will focus on creating the rest of the game. I think after I release then I will look at a "remaster" where I have all custom artwork.

    But will I ever get to a remaster? I'm already thinking of a spin-off title and a sequel. I've just jotted down the basic gist of them but it's exciting to think about. I mustn't get distracted though! Those games can't exist unless I finish this one first. But then I also thought about creating a mini-rpg that all takes place on one huge map and could probably be finished in a few hours. You know maybe just quickly pump that out so I can say I have finished something small and then come back to Cow Knight with more experience and fresh eyes. I say this only a month into development hahaha... oh boy.

    So things are progressing still but I am getting a little distracted. From what I've seen on social media, this is very common among game devs. Let's see if this next week will be more focused.

    Thanks for reading, please say hi in the comments and tell me which JRPG you think has the best artstyle.

Moo Moo,

    Phil