Commit 98b86b0
It’s the day after Christmas.
Quite a bit of time has passed since the last update. In addition to starting this game this year, I ALSO started my own software development company called Redbrace Inc back in March. My company is primarily focused on web and mobile development so I don’t work on BattleCrypt during normal hours.
Being an entrepreneur (twice over in many senses) is difficult. I’ve traveled a lot over the last few months. I also hired my first employee at the begining of September. My main client is an entertainment-industry company. I did a big cloud architecture project for an electric car manufacturer. I worked on a video game for Miller Coors. And I built some server-side stuff for The Incredible Baron. I also have worked with another business to craft responses to several RFPs.
So BattleCrypt has taken a back seat. But I HAVE been thinking about it a lot and working on it as I can.
I’ve been consistently unhappy with the art I’ve created. It doesn’t look like a professional game. I’ve spent a lot of time trying different styles and most of my past efforts haven’t been real “pixel art”. They had unlimited pallettes, soft edges and were drawn with regular brushes, not hard-edged pencil, in photoshop.
I’ve spent a lot of time looking at other artists’ work. I particularly like a pixel-master, indie game dev named Konjak. I paid a lot of attention to how other artists layer their work. How do you make backgrounds interesting and dynamic without them being too busy?
With that in mind, I overhauled the characters, tiles and other art. It is now pixel art with a lot of tile detail and new characters in progress.
Note: I wrote a pretty nice little summary of everything I’ve done on BattleCrypt on my personal blog too. This has some unique content and information about my struggles with art and game design. It’s worth reading if you are enjoying following the game progress.
