Last (two-ish) weeks’ achievements

* Sent character feedback for Star (three outfits), Mina (two outfits), Misty (final), and Minori (round 3)
* Got a bead on what new things I can do in the four version updates of ORK that have been released since the last time I wasn’t working on 2D

Current focus

Getting back in the zone, wrapping up art, and the transition to 2D.

Sample stuff

From the left:

* Star, a mysterious girl whose powers and clothes change when she comes into contact with different weapons!

* Mina, an undercover Imperial agent! Her size-changing range exceeds nearly any other sylph, making her an ideal spy.

* Another version of the standard Imperial uniform. Mina wears the variant used by light fighters like martial artists, archers, clerics, and mages, and other light fighters while this other model wears the variant used by heavier fighters like warriors, paladins, and champions. The male uniform lacks a skirt but is otherwise identical. Although Sakura and Evelyn were also designed in their civilian clothing, they’re members of the Imperial ranks too and will be seen in Mina’s version of the uniform.

* Misty Yu, an ageless water spirit. She has control over vapor, ice, clouds, and all other forms of water, so don’t expect to simply freeze her or evaporate her!

Weekly goals

* Send (final?) character design feedback for Tango (and Minori if she comes in)
* Rework all fashion effects that can be improved with the new ORK setup
* Update the status menu’s equipment display
* Update at least three enemies’ AI to take advantage of new features
* Write bestiary flavor text for at least five enemies
* Figure out how to use 2D Toolkit (and other Unity assets if needed) to get basic top-down map movement functional

Comments

A mixed blessing and curse of making my own hours is that I could easily put in 10-12-hour days when I was in the zone, like while making enemy AI or balancing attacks, and that I can easily put in 3-4-hour days when I’m not, like right now when I’m just trying to figure out what in the world I’m doing with 2D by going back to Unity fundamentals that I originally glossed over.

I remember the intense nights when I was first making the fashion system, a project of its own that took several weeks, including redoing the stats setup, tracking down my input errors, and increasing the original number of fashion effects by about 50%. Though tedious, I couldn’t stop plowing forward because I did know what I was doing and what the end result should look like.

On the other hand, going through a struggle to understand Unity, following it up with a week off to plan for a trip, and then following that up with the trip itself has completely thrown off my flow and now I’m procrastinating and sinking time into the Super Smash Bros. 3DS demo.

I need to get back into the zone and thankfully I might know how. In the updated ORK, I can add enemy bestiary entries and improve my status menus, enemy AI, and fashion system. These have been some of my favorite things to do in the past (flavor text in the case of the bestiary entries), so back to them all I go. =)