Whoops, haven't finished the title screen yet.


There is this, though.

So, before Blogger went down, there was a comment on my last post askin' me about progress. I guess that's a pretty fair question! I wish the maintenance whatever didn't eat the comment, but:


-The story is completely written. It's organized sort of akin to Mother 3, in a chapter format. Since it's a Metroidvania, this basically just means map states and instance presence. Doing certain things will roll the chapter forward, and doing certain things can revert the map, but keep you on the same chapter since you've already done stuff prior.

-The bosses have been designed. On paper and some in code, few in pixels, however!

-The items have all been made. I have to draw and write out a lot of files, though. As far as main map crossing powerups are concerned though, they've been done since about day one.

-The game's engine is done. Again. I dunno if I should ever call it done though, because of optimizing and removing redundant things and general streamlining that happens. Basically, it's playable and is being steadily improved upon.

-The overall map is not complete yet. It's divided into 12-ish sectors, each of which has multiple visual motifs that need another tileset, a 'scenic route' that connects two distant areas, at at least one 'dungeon' sort of place which needs a unique tileset. Since I've downsized tiles to 16x16 for the sake of space onscreen I've had to redo a bunch of tiles, for instance:


Ignore the stuff on the bottom, it's just title resources.

You've probably seen that tileset or something similar a couple times if you've been following Life+ for a while. It's still being remade. Aside from actual gameplay tiles, I have to make a tileset for the mode7-ish world map. I am plugging away at all of these, though! O

Speaking of the map, I wanna talk about an important aspect of it that'll be vital to beating the game. Nothing that you won't learn early on, so it's a basic of the game that I feel okay sharing. The things that will support you are robots. Super-robots, to be specific. I briefly mentioned a couple of them back in the art spam post. There are a total of three that you'll be running into, LIZA1, RISE5, and GEMIN8. So, I guess I'll introduce em in order of appearances.


RISE5
The first super-robot you encounter is RISE5, a defunct computer network spanning the entire island. He handled things like floodgates and the island's version of the internet, food production, power production, and general utilities. He has interface terminals here and there, but most of his kernels aren't working, limiting his functionality. Despite this, his terminal can provide you with some snippets of local information that'll help you solve any puzzle. Once he's repaired, he'll be able to provide you with everything from information to spaceships. RISE5 facilities can be identified by the presence of large glass eyes that come in five colors: Red, yellow, green, blue, and purple.
LIKES: Geothermal energy, gardening
DISLIKES: Moles, LIZA1


LIZA1
LIZA1 is the old onboard AI that served as a companion to people living aboard the Eliza Space Station allegedly orbiting the planet. Chunks of her and the station litter the ocean and mountains. Though a lot of her terminals have been vandalized, she can provide you with maps and files. Even more important than this, however, are her convenience centers! There is one in each sector. At them you can save, recover your energy, as well as teleport to any currently operational convenience center. She knows a lot of history, and is always happy to share everything she can. However, because she is a fairly old model super-robot she has no speech synthesizers like RISE5 and has to communicate by installed printers. If she's out of paper, she might just make a face and hope you get it. LIZA1 centers can be identified by expressive black and green spheres.
LIKES: Solar energy, debating
DISLIKES: Breakups, RISE5



GEMIN8
GEMIN8 is... Actually, let's not talk about this guy. It's bad luck. He lives in a very dark place and breathes lightning. You'll know when you see him. At any rate, nobody talks about him much. If you're really interested, I'm sure something's written somewhere. The island does have plenty of office space underground, after all.

The super-robots are all over the island. Just like their normal robot companions, they might not work the best as their systems are sort of neglected. Talking to them is almost never required, even if you use their facilities, but it's very helpful. You might walk past them sometimes even if something important happened and just carry on. No forced navigation room exposition stuff, but if you walk past LIZA1 she might frown. Anyway - Despite the presence of them on Love Island, some (read: most) places are completely cut off from them. Anyway, I forget what the rest of the comment was asking for as far as status was concerned... As always though, if you have any questions or comments feel free to leave some!