Devlog ~07: The Result - Voting. Choosing

Hellow! Vichelyna's here. How are you fellas?

Me? I’ve had so much trouble with internet connection lately. Ugh.. It’s like I’ve been in the middle of cave in the mountain nowhere -,-“

Ehm! Back to the topic. I’ve brought some news for y’all. First one, we’ve got the title for [anuStar]. We’ve named it, Stellar Arms. *SFX: clapping hands*

Why "Stellar Arms"?

We’ve done voting to choose the title (literally).

There was 5 choices and we’re getting narcissists enough to choose the-one-with-‘stellar’ in the title *LOL-ing*. And the ‘arms’? I don’t think another part of our body can do better than “arms”. Stellar Head? Stellar Belly? Stellar Armpits? Errrgghh.. Should I stop now?

Long comments directly from Lazcht:

We had weeks to gather title candidates to replace [anuStar] codename. I myself had to think about the universe and background story for this, then look for a suitable, memorable words and unique enough for this project.

I was thinking Sol’s weapon name, or something related to fire and water/ sun and rain, radius, umbrella, weapon, or name of the place the game sets on. I proposed some latin names like Solis (latin for sun) which hipondisliked because it sounded like chemical things haha. My favorite idea was Solis Arms. Arms stands for the term for umbrella-weapon Sol’s using.

Clea said “Whichever the name we choose in the end, it wouldn’t be as good as anuStar.” So actually he didn’t really gives a fuck, but he has good point.

Hipon proposed Sword & Scattergun, Solis Edge, Weapons of Umbra. Solis Edge was quite interesting, but sounds too close to Soul Edge, haha.

While Reijubv proposed some words translated in different languages, coolest one is Exilio something. But then again it’s sounds too “foreign”.

At last day we decided to make the title fix, we brainstormed once more, and get Stellar Arms.

Then moving on to logo. This was hardest game logo i have made so far, hipon was asking for a logo which focus on typography and he gave me references like these:

I personally don’t like a symmetrical or bended/stretched both sides likeGradius. I have posted this previously though, you can see all of my attempts on this:

and above was an idea sketch from Reijubv. he cleverly used the two fingers and a thumb for L and A, lol, but unfortunately it lacked “action” and seriousness i want to project.

Hipon kept on saying it was okay but didn’t quite like it and didn’t play with typography much, almost frustated, he then said, "Well maybe the references i gave was not your style after all, so do what you think is good."

Then i came up with the last logo, then i pixelled it out (why? because i want this project full of pixel!) and gave it little bit of colorful touch.

concepts i want to maintain was: fingers (for goey fingers), umbrella and jellyfish. I want them to look kind of sporty, simple, futuristic and funky. I’m now quite satisfied with the result! :D

now go back to Chel, i got enough space hijacking on this devlog.

Okei, at last but not least, we would say thanks to Cem, Aditya Sumantri, and Rendi Kristyadi for the fan arts. We’re quiet surprised with all of the fan arts. We love you, bros! :D

That’s all for today. Thank you for reading and the supports! And for the hijack-post by Laz ;)

[anuStar] devlog ~06: Enhancement

It’s been a while since the last devlog, yeah March has been a busy month for us, we’re working on multiple projects at the same time and it does affect our work on #anuStar. But it’s been around 2 weeks since the last devlog, so it should show some updates right? let’s get into it.

New Ability

We have tested and played this game for thousand times and we felt that we need to add more ability to our hero, Sol. At first, I didn’t agree with this idea because it would break the balance, but since the idea was quite interesing, I gave it a try.

So the new ability is called “Gallop”. It’s basically a dash move like megaman, the difference is that it does some damage and knocks enemy back. it is a multipurpose ability that could be used for dodging and breaking goey chaos.

It’s quite hard to implement this ability and it also needs a lot of changes until it feels right. It’s time consuming but it fits the gameplay well and it feels good knocking back enemies with this move.

Boss Rush

Project #anuStar concept is high-intensity action sidescroller with some comedy. This game is more like Gunstar Heroes or Contra 3, if you expect highly platforming action like megaman X you wont find it here. #anuStar has very minimal emphasis in platforming, it’s boss-heavy game like Contra 3 where every 2 screens a boss appears.

We have been working on 2 minibosses so far, I personally quite satisfied with the result. As the boss designer myself I tried to add some elements from classic games like pong and tetris in designing boss patterns. Why did I take some elements from classic games? Because classic games usually has very distinctive style and it only uses simple movement, it’s easy to make and feels unique when mixed with #anuStar.

can you guess the reference?

Phew, that’s already a lot to share. I didn’t expect I would write this much..

Until next time!

~hipon

[anuStar] devlog ~05: Goey? and news

Another weekly report is coming~
Last week, Hipon still tweaking the game balance, level design etc. Some things are getting better now. The mechanic become more solid and the dynamics are getting greater. The spawner system comes so satisfying too. But we still discussing for the balancing. Quite hard to finish dat one! Phewww~


But anyway, we're going to make it chaos and lot of humor! You'll find some unique motions from Goey. Like this one ;)

Again, Reijubv must make another sprites for Goey, and Laz still fixing some particle. Clea must compose draft for sfx + bgm stage, and Hipon should implement sprite and next-map-transition. SO much things to do!

Hope everything will done perfectly soon! And see you next week!