Same pic, too bad for you! Things are really getting into gear here. I've added a whole stack of new people to talk to since the last sneak peek (all important - I'm still not making bystanders), and two new kinds of enemies, and a slew of new area, progressing the gameplay along. Actually, with the addition of some quests and stuff, it's actually going in a different direction than it was - literally. The gameplay was supposed to proceed left/west from the Terrible Tundra, but it turns out there's a rather large detour to the right/east first, where you get your first bits of actual plot.
That's something I'm happy with - the plot is no more intelligent than the one in the first Loonyland, but this time it's at least
there. You get bits of it as you go along, through quests, and it culminates in a finale that ties it all up - while of course leaving some loose ends for sequels. Seems like in Loonyland, you got "Save us please, but from we don't know what" at the first moment, then nothing until the very very end when you meet Bonkula and discover he had an evil plan. Not much of a villain I suppose. In this one, there are several villains of varying degrees, and though you don't meet the ultimate one until you face it (with good reason!), you'll get to know the others a bit and it will tie together well. Much more of a dramatic arc. But still senseless, which is fine. I play RPGs for the gameplay and exploration, not the story.
So it's really getting in a groove, a nice fast-moving one. The big job I'm not looking forward to is making the tiles for the cliffs area. That's gonna be a big ugly job. I just hate making tiles, and that's all there is to it.
In the areas I have been making, there's ice (it's centered around a frozen lake). The ice works differently from Supreme and such - when you step on it, you slide straight until you either bounce off something and slide back, or hit land again. So it's a lot like Rafts in Supreme. There are only a couple 'puzzles' for this, and they are extremely short and simple. This is not a puzzle game - the whole thing is just an excuse to level up and blow up monsters! Incidentally, jumping onto the ice (you can't jump when already on it) has just the effect it should - the ice breaks, you fall through.
That reminds me, water is different here too. Since you can jump, I couldn't just bop you back and hurt you like in Loonyland, and I didn't want it to just be fatal, because that would be annoying. It's kind of annoying in Supreme, but it's suited to that game. In this game, it just wouldn't be fair. So how it works (as I type this, I realize it's a mind-numbing tiny detail that nobody cares about, but I've already typed this much, so let's proceed) is that if you fall in, you get hurt and teleported back to the last spot where you were on solid ground. Same goes for crashing through the ice (which, oddly, doesn't leave a hole in the ice!). It may not make sense, but it's good clean fun.
