01/09/24 - Devlog (Patreon)

Howdy Everybody,

Sephra here for another update; been a little bit, though it has been full of work from all of us at least! Tib will take this one for the most part but I thought some animation previews were in order, show you a couple of new things I've been working on:

This guy has gotten an update, with the plan being to have him as an enemy you want to avoid, ideally; with the AI being able to pursue the player, search around and generally be pretty threatening I thought we'd need an enemy that really makes you think twice about going down a particular corridor, or maybe find some way to dispatch them before proceeding; otherwise they can be quite nasty:

I now notice some faults with that one, but to distract you from that here's this walk cycle that I got very into getting as correct as I could with the gun:

I do love making these enemies I must say; we also have our planned expansion of the story underway, with a certain mouse getting some more animations too:

There's some more story-related ones I'll save for the course of the cutscenes but still, more hot mouse action on the way too!

Lot of animating overall, which has been enjoyable but as with anything like this it can start to get tedious after a while; to that effect we've been spending some time in addition to working on the 2D stuff to trying our hand at an expansion of the 3D stuff too, maybe make it more than a fun little thing and have it be a playable side-story of sorts that lets us spend a little time learning different game making things and taking a break from the usual; turns out 3D map making is something I can quite easily lose hours in, and this way you (hopefully) get a cool Furry Cyberpunk-ish thing that offers something a little different from the usual and we get to shake things up a bit and have a new set of toys to play with when we need a rest.

Anyway, Tib has more details so I'll hand it to them; have a good day everybody and I'll speak to you sometime soon!

-S

Hello everyone! It’s me, Tib, and I thought I’d share a few updates! First, I want to apologize. I’m still learning how to organize projects, keep deadlines, and properly estimate how long things will take. I also mentioned that we’d do more frequent posts, but clearly, that didn’t work out either. However, I’m starting to discover what works better for both me and Sephra. Right now, putting out a single, big Devlog near the end of each month seems to be a much better plan than trying to force something out every week or every second week. That’s what we’ll aim for from now on, as it’s a much more achievable goal than scrambling to rush something out weekly.

On another note, as Sephra mentioned, I wanted to talk about our new “direction.” Don’t worry, Predation, the 2D platformer/beat-em-up, isn’t going away at all. In fact, we’re still working on the AI and populating the rest of the Chapter 1 maps to continue its story. However, both Sephra and I realized that burnout is a huge issue. I’m still learning how to manage it, but I’ve found that working on something different for a bit helps. However, working on personal projects felt wrong. The idea of a retro shooter mixed with a few other genres, set in the universe of Predation (with neon lights, some loose cyberpunk elements, and a dystopian future), has recently captured my interest, and Sephra agreed. So, instead of working on something entirely different to avoid burnout, we decided to expand the existing 3D aspect of Predation and build an entirely new storyline and gameplay on top of it. We’re still developing the story and determining the plotline, but it will take place before the events of Predation, serving as a sort of prequel. The gameplay will be a mix of classic Doom-like shooters and puzzle elements inspired by the Condemned series.

VIDEO PREVIEW HERE: https://youtu.be/KXfo-1zB6kg

The idea behind this decision is to avoid burnout, as I mentioned earlier. We can work on the 3D parts for a few days, and when we’re ready, we’ll switch back to the 2D aspects. We’ll create some assets, I’ll do some more coding, we’ll test a few things, and when we need a short break, we’ll jump back to the 3D parts to keep things fresh. Forcing ourselves through it all just won’t work, and it took me a while to realize that it only made things worse.

If you want and can, please let us know what you think of this approach going forward. While we do what we do because we love it, we’re able to continue because of all of YOU, our lovely supporters. We’d love to hear your thoughts, whether there’s something you think we can change or any ideas you might have for us! Let us know in the comments here or, even better, on our Discord server! ( https://discord.gg/hornedlizardstudios )

Thank you again for all of you, and I can’t wait to share more of what we have in store for you all <3

-Tib

(Sephra at the end, I've uploaded that video in the youtube link as an attachment too just in case, hopefully that avoids any problems in watching it!)