week 29 - sporadicus!

Welcome back to this weeks Dev Blog! This week I have been hard at work replacing the original character with the new Spine Character. I have to admit, it did take some time and tediousness to pull off, but I managed to successfully replace it. So, you're probably wondering why I decided to do this in the first place? Well, firstly, having a lot of sprite sheets doing their thing can really hinder the performance of a game, so instead, this spine character will only be using the one image which then picks which section of the image it will be using in which location and animate them accordingly. Not only does this help with performance, but it also makes it much easier to implement new character designs using the same skeleton, which is the perfect segue into the next thing I have been working on; Sporadicus!

Yes, I have been working on a new custom character to implement into the game, which players will be able to unlock with their new found currency. Sporadicus is a worthy spartan who has been tossed into the arena to do battle... well, to run from battle that is. Later next month I will be showcasing him inside the game running around and doing his thing, so I'm really looking forward to that! I've also been designing some more concept art for other types of characters with the help of the community! Really happy with how much input I have been receiving from the community about these custom character designs, so I'm hoping not to disappoint them... The community that is, not the characters.... I don't think the characters could be disappointed?.. Anyway, below you can see a short clip of each animation for Sporadicus. Enjoy!

...Here are some character concepts I had designed to implement into JSA. Let me know what you think, or if you have any suggestions, or things you would like to see, let me know!

And here are some of the ways in which I approach my character sheets...

Before the next Dev post, I'm hoping to have basically all of the starting characters implemented into the game, and have at least a few new backgrounds designed (I have some exciting mechanics lined up for these backgrounds as well, so stay tuned for that)!

Again, if you have any suggestions, or ideas you would like to see for the characters, please let me know either via comment section below, email, or even sign up to my Instagram, twitter, and/or Facebook! Or if you would just like to chat about game stuff, I'm happy to do that as well!

Until next time!

Thanks for reading.