Little Nemo pre-GDC update
about 1 year ago
– Tue, Mar 15, 2022 at 11:59:47 AM
Hello dreamers!
We apologize for being silent the past few weeks. We've recently had some run-ins with COVID on our end but are all recovered and back to it. We've also been keeping our heads down getting game development stuff done in anticipation of the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco as well as some other upcoming opportunities. The good news is that the time spent focusing on development has really yielded some great progress!
Gameplay updates
As we've said before, after the campaign last year, we started rebuilding the characters from scratch into a more final and stable form. If you've never put together characters in a video game before, making the art, animation, collisions, and all other technical parts of 1 character is tough, let alone 4! We're glad to say though that Nemo, Peony, Flip, and the Princess of Slumberland with their different platforming and combat abilities are finally in the game in their more finalized and stable forms, along with a radial menu for swapping between them at the press of a button.
While there are some small-scale refinements to make, we have also started to flesh out the design of our levels. We've built out Nemo's house and most of the Night Sky, with production on the Mushroom Forest beginning in earnest soon. We've overhauled and tightened up the story and will begin work soon on our scripting system. We've also laid the groundwork of our enemy systems, so expect new monsters in these previews soon!
On the artwork end, I'll be working on characters in the coming weeks as well as continuing to flesh out our levels. We've also started to finalize our audio asset list with our composer, so look forward to updates on the soundtrack soon!
Fulfillment update
Regarding reward fulfillment, we're starting work on that process now. We're going to begin with some of the gameplay-relevant digital content like backers with custom interactive characters (at the Silas tier) first. We're also going to be adding everyone's Discord roles soon. We'll start reaching out to backers with VIP (animated and non-animated) rewards as we put in all the levels later this year so that we can find a good place for everyone in Slumberland.
If you're testing the game for us ($75+), look forward to news on that soon. We're still finalizing plans, but our hope is to get demos in the hands of backers soon for testing!
Physical rewards will take a little longer, as we're still working on the game itself and we want the content of those rewards to reflect the whole project - art and music for the whole game - and not just preview materials. We'll keep everyone updated though as we continue the process!
Social media
If you want some of the absolute latest on the game as it happens, don't forget to follow some of our social media channels, where we update with screenshots as we are working. The game's Facebook page can be found at this link. You can also follow Ben, Adrian, or I at our Twitter accounts (lined in this sentence on our names.) Here, we share some of the rougher "work in progress" stuff as part of indie game dev hashtags like #ScreenshotSaturday. Finally, don't forget to check the Slumberland Discord (I can send a new link later this week), where we also share the latest art and gameplay updates with the community!
Many thanks!
Chris and Team Nemo
