Deadnettle Creek [Nano2019] [Solarpunk] [Urban Fantasy] [Demo Complete!]

[azaraih]

Another background done! I also worked on more sprite expressions so I’m almost completely done with the first part of the intro. Now I’m working on the second part where Dedalos first appears, and it’s going to be a bit complicated so I’m going to focus hard on making it as polished as possible so it has more impact. So I won’t worry about starting chapter 1, I’ll just try to have a short but really good intro.

[azaraih]

Just wanted to give a quick update since we’re getting close to the end of Nanoreno! I’ve been working hard on the second half of the intro and have a lot of things partway finished (like this bg of Maez’s kitchen). The writing for the second scene is probably 80% done and all the backgrounds have their layouts and sketches completed. Next after that will be doing more sprites and effects, and I’ll see if I can fit in some time to work on adding sound. A lot left to do, but hopefully I can finish in time!

[azaraih]

Here’s an updated version of the screenshot I posted last time, since I like how the colors turned out! somonastic is going to help out with finishing up the last 2 backgrounds so I can focus on the other stuff. So my goal is to finish the writing and editing today and get pretty far on the remaining sprites and effects.

[azaraih]

It’s April! And the game is not 100% done, but it’s very close! I’ll be working on finishing it up in the next day or two and will for sure make it in time to meet the deadline on the itch.io jam page.

The main thing left to do is more sprites, since I decided to have a couple different background images where the sprites are interacting with the actual environment (like this screenshot). So that requires separate sprites for each location for each character. Everything I’ve completed is looking good though, and I”m very excited to show everyone how it turned out! Almost there!

[Wight]

I'm liking the style, and it's cool to finally see a clearer look of Dedalos.

Nice work getting real close to completing it! Even if it's now April, you and somonastic must have made quite a lot of progress.
Good luck on the finishing touches! Hang in there, you got this!

[azaraih]

I'm liking the style, and it's cool to finally see a clearer look of Dedalos.

Nice work getting real close to completing it! Even if it's now April, you and somonastic must have made quite a lot of progress.
Good luck on the finishing touches! Hang in there, you got this!

Thank you so much, I appreciate the encouragement! :] I'm glad to finally have some art of Dedalos out there, I've drawn 1 million snakes this week (it feels like it anyway) so you'll definitely see more in the actual game. We're working on the last bit right now so if everything goes well we'll release it tonight.

[azaraih]

Just a couple hours before the deadline, the demo is complete! Please check it out, we had a great time working on it and hope you will like it.

https://azaraih.itch.io/deadnettle-creek-demo


This is the first game I've worked on that has been released publicly so I would love to hear any feedback you have! It was a lot of work but I'm excited to have something completed and out there for people to try. I'm hoping to continue working on the full game, but first I'll take a break to catch up on life things (and play some other people's Nano games). :]

[Wight]

"Disillusioned millenial gets possessed by a nature god" nice tagline, harrr.

I like the look of the interface, such as the speech window, the animated background background for the menu/title screen, and the hand-drawn letters (my handwriting is too poor for me to attempt that sort of thing, I can hardly read my own handwriting sometimes).
The first backgrounds of the outside have a simple look, but I still like that. It works for things like buildings and trees. The later backgrounds for the interior have more visible, smaller objects for more detail which also looks good. Seems like a good artstyle to use to be able to pull off both looks well, so I'd say it works. Definitely has me looking forward to seeing more illustrations, I'm really digging the art.

Polishing the impact of Dedalos's first appearance was definitely worth it! That looked really cool and intimidating!
The effect for the headaches also looked nice, really vibrant and pops out, and so does the soft glow coming from Dedalos.
Seems like a good introduction to Dedalos: scary impact with initial appearance, ominous words about regaining strength, demonstrating how weak it hass gotten and what it can do compared what it claims it used to be capable of. I'm also looking forward to more "micro teevee" moments from Dedalos.
Also an interesting note to end it on, I'm curious to exactly how Lupita is going to react. She seems to be very close with Maez, so I wonder how she'll react if Dedalos starts being troublesome or intimidating to Maez in front of her.

Well done! Enjoy your well-earned break!

[azaraih]

"Disillusioned millenial gets possessed by a nature god" nice tagline, harrr.

Yeah, that was my joke/placeholder tagline but somonastic told me I should just use it haha.

I like the look of the interface, such as the speech window, the animated background background for the menu/title screen, and the hand-drawn letters (my handwriting is too poor for me to attempt that sort of thing, I can hardly read my own handwriting sometimes).
The first backgrounds of the outside have a simple look, but I still like that. It works for things like buildings and trees. The later backgrounds for the interior have more visible, smaller objects for more detail which also looks good. Seems like a good artstyle to use to be able to pull off both looks well, so I'd say it works. Definitely has me looking forward to seeing more illustrations, I'm really digging the art.

I'm glad you thought the artstyle worked well! It was a bit experimental for me since this is the most digital art I've done in a while and I've never really used textured brushes before. And my handwriting is actually not as good as it looks in the game, there was definitely some font tracing involved to get the spacing right :p

Polishing the impact of Dedalos's first appearance was definitely worth it! That looked really cool and intimidating!
The effect for the headaches also looked nice, really vibrant and pops out, and so does the soft glow coming from Dedalos.

Thank you! I was really hoping we could get that scene to be dramatic and impactful, I think it was worth it to spend the extra time after the Nano deadline on it. Looking back I should've managed the time a bit better since the interior scenes were so much more complicated. But I think it turned out well anyway.

somonastic did a great job on the headache and glow effects! I did more of the art overall, but she did a lot of cool parts of it, like the effects, snake pose ideas, and interior detail design.

Seems like a good introduction to Dedalos: scary impact with initial appearance, ominous words about regaining strength, demonstrating how weak it hass gotten and what it can do compared what it claims it used to be capable of. I'm also looking forward to more "micro teevee" moments from Dedalos.
Also an interesting note to end it on, I'm curious to exactly how Lupita is going to react. She seems to be very close with Maez, so I wonder how she'll react if Dedalos starts being troublesome or intimidating to Maez in front of her.

Well done! Enjoy your well-earned break!

I'm looking forward to writing more Dedalos scenes, it's such a fun character to write. Since it's just a short demo, I didn't get to do much with meaningful choices and character development, so I'm excited to have Dedalos and the humans interact more and learn about each other. Introducing Lupita to Dedalos is going to be interesting for sure!

Thanks so much for playing and for all your comments!

(btw, I played part of your game and like it a lot so far! Once I'm finished I'll put together my thoughts on it and let you know!)

[azaraih]

Hey, I wrote up a postmortem for the demo, you can check it out here!

https://azaraih.itch.io/deadnettle-cree ... postmortem

Overall, I had a great experience with NaNo this year! It was a lot more good than bad and I'm happy with what we accomplished. Last year for my first NaNoRenO I didn't manage to finish a project at all, so I've come a long way since then.

We started doing some brainstorming and planning for the rest of the game, but it's a bit early to have much of an update on that. I'll post some updates once we're farther along in the process!

(Also, not sure if I should keep posting updates in "WiP: NaNoRenO" since NaNo is over, or create a new thread in the regular Works in Progress category? I'll keep updating here for now, but if I should be doing something different let me know!)