I think this is what you call "pre-pre-alpha"

(Maybe a little less extreme, but I needed a comparison point of two things on the same console)

But then I think about how they need to be next to each other sometimes, and I'm at a loss. Do I make a third texturing style for when they're in the magical pet-raising dimension? What about if they ever went into each others' worlds, would they have to have whole new textures just for that or would making them look distinctly out-of-place be a good thing??

Because like, the whole point is that they're supposed to feel like they came from different games, so thematically it works very well. But visually?? Would it just suck?? Would it even be feasible to make that many alternate textures just for the sake of commitment to the bit???

Whatever's around the corner, it can't be a person... after all, everyone in the city disappeared without a trace, not long after Stella moved in with her family...

(It's probably something robotic but I'm still sorting out the enemy types)

Realized I should probably post my primary art of the Traveler, Stella, Palette, and the default Riftling in isolation rather than being attached to the entire pitch for their game

Not a bad idea! It honestly hadn't occurred to me since I never investigated the new Communities feature and didn't know anything about how it worked. I don't think I'll make any posts that are exclusive to the gamedev community (since I want everything to be visibly collected on this blog), but I can always reblog them to it!

Here's a whole bunch of concepts for the spells that the Traveler can use in the game with the help of the Riftlings! It's most likely that not all of them will make it into the game, and I may come up with more spells to use later on, but I'm really proud of the variety I was able to come up with all at once.

The goal is for each spell to have both a combat and a puzzle utility; for example, summoning a large rock that falls from above can do solid damage, but it also creates a platform that you can climb on or use to hold down switches, with the caveat of only being allowed one rock at a time. Maybe you could even use it to block enemy attacks?

This might look like a ton of spells to work with, and it is, but you can only have up to four of them available to you at once. Remember, these spells are enabled by your Riftling companions, of which you can only bring two with you at a time. And a fully-evolved Riftling can only have a maximum of two elemental types, meaning two spells it can grant you.

There'll be lots of places to swap out your Riftlings, so it's not too much trouble to try out different combinations on the same area, but it's not so convenient that you can just do it from the menu. I want people to be experimenting with multiple builds, rather than just swapping between items at the earliest convenience like in traditional Zelda.

That being said, below is a transcription of my notes in these pictures just in case they're hard to read:

Some super basic HUD concepts for the game! This was mainly just to get an idea of how I wanted to proportion things on the screen, and it's all still open for adjustment.

In the first image, we have the Traveler accompanied by two Riftlings; one in its base form, and one that's evolved into the Stone-type element. Their icons are displayed underneath his health bar, which I made all swirly since he specializes in wind magic.

By contrast, Stella's health bar is sharp and accentuated by a big heart, since she has those featured prominently in her design. Palette gets a health and mana bar, too, though I haven't decided if regular Riftlings would or not.

On the bottom right corner, you can see how much money and element pieces you've collected. Each character has different elements they can collect pieces for; wind, water, stone, and darkness for the Traveler, while Stella gets fire, wood, electricity, and light.

It's these pieces that you can use to upgrade Palette and your Riftlings. You can think of them like skill points for Palette, and like Chaos Drives from SA2 for the regular Riftlings. They're the primary resource you're going to have to manage, and you'll get them mostly from defeating enemies, or by interacting with the environment.