Perhaps the most obvious piece of progress is that I've started producing final environment art. As previously mentioned, the world in which this game takes place is itself undead, and as such I'm representing it as being composed of bones (and perhaps a little flesh). To this end I've modelled the pieces from which I intend to make my rooms: a vertebra, a skull, a femur, phalanx-bones, and a rib. Using some of those (and with some tweaks and changes as I went), I created two rooms, and placed spawners in the first.
This does perhaps go somewhat against my original intentions to leave "final art" for later in the competition. However, given that one of the themes that I've taken on is an aesthetic theme, it seems to me that it's worth assigning a higher priority to theme-related art than I might otherwise do.
I had previously intended a bone-white colour for my environment, but, inspired by a bug experienced by a poster on the GameDev.net forum, I decided instead to colour it a pale, dusty blue. I rather like the effect of this: cool, perhaps even a little chilly, in line with the slight touch of horror or tension that I intend for this game, I feel.
The other significant change is that implemented a second enemy: a ranged caster that throws three bolts of energy at the player in rapid succession. I've found that I'm rather more inclined to use my shield against these foes than against the melee enemy: the latter's attacks can be evaded by simply stepping back, while these ranged bolts seem to encourage me to block before attacking.
Finally, I made a few smaller changes: A health bar is displayed to indicate the health of a targeted enemy--I was finding it a little frustrating to not know how close they were to death; the player now collides with enemies, where previously one could simply pass through them; and the default key-bindings for attacking and blocking have been swapped, at the suggestion of a poster on the GameDev.net forum.
That's all for today--stay well, and thank you for reading! ^_^
