Hello rabbits!!
It's been a hot minute since I wrote a real dev blog. The last one was in... uhh was it really December...? Gosh, I need to make these things more often.
I've been drawing!
Mostly game assets for the DLC, but some other things as well.
I now have all of the character and enemy animations for the DLC done.
I also have all the playable character abilities and upgrades done; which means I can start putting sneak-peeks of them into these proofs of life dev logs.
But first....
Today is the 1-year anniversary of the game's release!!
It's truly been a wild year.
I won't go into too many personal details, but quite a bit has changed for me in 12 months!
It's all thanks to you guys, and I couldn't overstate how eternally grateful I am.
So again, thank you all so much for playing.
Onto the class preview!
I frequently get character class requests! And I do sometimes listen to them.
By far, the most requested class I got was "Gunner". The second-most-requested is a bit harder to pin down, but "Alchemist" was definitely up there.
So I combined those ideas into one class! Introducing the Grenadier Rabbit: a long-ranged fighter with unparalleled versatility.
The Grenadier Rabbit's base kit is very simple.
First, her Primary: A very quick shot that does a decent amount of damage. By default, her Primary has 6 shots before she needs to reload.
How does she reload? Well, her Secondary!
It's an "attack" that does no damage, and runs your GCD for 2 whole seconds.
Her Special is a thrown "grenade"!
She throws an exploding potion a fixed distance infront of her.
And her Defensive is just a quick duck for cover.
Nothing too special... though, it does have an additional effect of resetting your GCD; so you can use it to reload a little bit faster if you're looking for a little more DPS at the expense of your invulnerability.
Seems like a pretty simple class, right...?
Not quite! What really makes Grenadier Rabbit interesting are her ability upgrades.
Her Primary upgrades all turn her gun into a different "weapon".
For instance, her Sapphire Primary is a bit like a semi-automatic.
Her Garnet Primary is an electro-gun.
Her Emerald Primary is a rocket launcher!
Her Secondary upgrades... don't actually change her Secondary at all!
Instead, they further augment her Primary.
You can mix and match effects to get some wild results!
Her Special and Defensive work together the same way; with her Defensive upgrades affecting her Special, while the Defensive itself stays the same.
By taking upgrades for both, you can create some crazy effects.
All this wackiness was pretty complicated to put together, programming-wise.
But, I think the end result captures the "alchemist" fantasy quite well.
Pick a gun, pick some ammo, mix some potions, and get experimental! (When the DLC comes out, that is)
So to clear up any possible confusion, this is just a preview! I haven't updated the game or anything yet.
My original goal when I first decided to do this DLC was to get it out by the game's first anniversary, but making games certainly does take longer than you think. And, maybe this is all a bit more than I originally thought it was going to be.
But the only thing that could stop this DLC is me literally dying! You guys have truly changed my life and given me all the financial leeway I could ever ask for.
So I've got all the time in the world to make things, if you've got the patience to wait for them.
At my current pace, I'm hoping this all comes together around September or October; December at the absolute latest.
Current progress in detail:
New Stages: Just missing the music!
New Characters: Just missing SFX!
New Enemies: Animations are done, but I still need to make the fights (including their gimmicks)
New Items: I've written down a bunch of ideas, but haven't implemented anything yet
New Trinkets: Haven't started!
New Story: I've written a few things....
That might not look like there's a lot done, but the animations and characters are one of the big tasks, and that's now behind me.
In fact, I've already got it set up so I can "play through" a run of the DLC areas; the bosses just don't do anything yet.
I'm going to tackle the items and trinkets next, and hopefully get them all done by late-June. Then onto boss fights; which I think I can get finished by the end of August. And then there's the story, which I don't think will take too long to put together; I'm planning on it being a bit shorter than the one in the base game.
After that is just transations, testing and touch-ups!
See you all again in the next progress report, in a month and a half or so!