So I guess there's only one way I'm getting out of this
.....completion!
The latest build:
Draculator II July 28 Build.
There's been some progress, mostly thanks to the heroic efforts of Scarab over the past several weeks, and I've polished a few things up this evening. You can "play" the game up to *gulp*, but there are several things you can't do yet: bite the scientists, get stopped by light in the exercise yard (but you must use the umbrella or you'll crash the game when you exit the room), defeat the robot monster.... Many other things are lacking total polish: no music (not even some of the experimental tracks, sorry), missing animations, non-robust scripting (heading backwards through the exercise yard will not work), etc.
Precisely what we need to move forward is this: 1) Baron needs more free time!
2)
Merrick's skin needs to be tinted orange from beta carotene overload. Just the skin mind -I thought about tinting the whole thing too, but that would just look silly. (Completed by Buckethead)
3) Merrick also needs a side take animation -this should be pretty easy. Here are the relevant frames:
4) Merrick needs a BITING animation. I love Igor to death but I think he's too busy for this gig. Using the back-facing sprites above Merrick should lift his cape out to the side and dip his head menacingly towards his victim. This will probably have to happen in both directions (still facing back, but cape-lift/bite left
and cape-lift bite right).
5) The soldiers need to pose better:
Specifically they must face the menace behind the door.
6) The soldiers must also collapse after they are bitten. I envisage a two-three frame fall, starting from their door-facing poses (dependent on #6, above).
7) From their current positions, the soldiers must also shoot. This would probably just require a second frame for each of them with a flashing gun-muzzle and the gun inclined slightly: played quickly this should give the desired effect. Oh, here are the relevant frames all in one place:
8 ) If someone really wants to do a Merrick fall-and-die this would be your time to shine.
9)
Our small vampire-twins require talking animations. Just an open-mouthed frame will suffice: (Completed by Buckethead)
10) Still outstanding is a laser console for the surgery lab
11) Also still outstanding is a plan for the inventory/menu GUI.
12) Tabatha must also send some extra cockroach frames to get them implemented (PMed)
....and I'm sure there are still a couple things I'm forgetting, but I think the above will pretty much get us to a working beta. I myself will undertake the light in the exercise yard since it will be finicky (must correspond to shadow coding). Otherwise please post to tell the world if you are working on something.
Just one more big push!
