2 updates in a row..... impressive...
That Mario Day comic ended up taking up several days. I wish stuff like that wasn't a time-sink or I'd try doing it more often... But thankfully I put a lot of time into Pocket Adventure this month.
Early I decided to start Chapter 4 obstacles. Shown here are drill-switch platforms, moved via Poppin's drill, and TicKeys, a type of robot that follows them around until opening a lock. Chapter 4 pares back the rate of cutscenes halfway in to focus on a larger area, with a ton of puzzles and obstacles to deal with, so expect more to come along these lines.
The real centerpiece this month is the Pachinko minigame! It's been ages since I posted about it, but I finally had the inspiration to complete it, and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, with the physics, aesthetics, and it not being too generous (I had to re-record this gif 4 times before getting a win).
It's a bad way to make money, but I think it adds a lot of character to the world, and if you feel like dumping all your money, it's a pretty fun way to do it.
I'm pretty happy with the room for it too, Brine's Bar. I really focused on it feeling seedy compared to Salty's tavern at the end of chapter 1. Coincidentally. the pachinko machine occupies a similar spot to those cardplayers sat at in the tavern...
I rounded the month out by working more on Chapter 3's construction area. I thought I could complete all the cutscenes and progression up to the boss, but ended up identifying and fixing a lot of bugs and working more on the enemies.
For example, Bin here will now track PnJ's platform height, and align their attack with that floor level.
I also made some progress on cutscene assets. Seems like all the robots this mining/construction company are real troublemakers.
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Moving's coming up at the end of this month. Thankfully we have a lot packed up already. Hopefully the rest goes smoothly, but understandably it'll take up a few days to complete.
What I'd like to do next month is finish up the construction area's cutscenes/level design/progression, complete chapter 3's boss, and follow-through on the remaining Chapter 4 obstacles.
I keep thinking about roughing out Chapter 4 soon so I can get a real idea of how much it takes up the map space, but it also helps with feeling closer to the mid-point of Pocket Adventure's main story. Makes completion of the game feel not so out of reach. Plus, it's fun see the world map slowly flesh out.
Once I get around to the optional areas that flesh out the central part of the map, it'll start to really look like a metroidvania. Maybe by next year, I'll have something closer to that.
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