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[Mesa]

Hey, I liked Cogmind when I played it, I should definitely follow that. That ASCII art is looking glorious.

LORE FUN FACTS!
After the war vast majority of the weapons were destroyed (which is why you've only got SMGs, shotguns and bows, as far as guns go), and most people treat them like deities of some description. In fact, "Goddamnit" was phased out in favor of "Gundamnit". (it'll be hard for me not to reference Vlambeer's Gun Godz with this, although that wasn't THE main inspiration for this concept)

There are two varieties of the Hand Missile - red and blue. While mechanically they're indifferent from one another and the change is purely aesthethic, there are two factions of birds and frogs who believe that their missiles (blue for frogs, red for birds) are superior and will fight each other to death until one of the factions gives up. They've yet to get to that point.
(This one is based on a little forum fad that's been going on around Awesomenauts forums where people would (and still are) argue that one of the Missile items (you have the red Missile and the blue Another Missile) is actually superior to one another. A little shoutout to those guys.)

[tompliss]

[...] and bows, as far as guns go

:-°

[Mesa]

[...] and bows, as far as guns go

:-°

Okay, I know bows are not really guns, but fall in the same weapon category...
*shrug*

[Mesa]

Sorry for the lack of *ahem* updates recently, but I've been kinda focusing my attention on other things.
Today I tried to draw a GF comic, but instead I ended up drawing a new logo for it, which looks quite awesome I would say, if different from the rest of the game's artstyle.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I may still change it, or even go back to the old one, but I really do like how it turned out, but I also want to hear your opinions about it.

[My Name is Immaterial]

I like it.

[Mesa]

A random design update appears!
And this time it's quite big, since today I'd want to touch onto the game economy a little.


See, previously the game had no set currency beyond generic "gold", which I've then realized would be quite useless in a post-apocalyptic setting, all things told. On top of that it would add an extra resource that the players would have to seperately manage.
So, I've decided to switch things up a little and add an extra layer of strategy (if thin) on top - your ammunition is your money. So there's some balance going on - try to breeze through the levels with your (rather-powerful, I suppose) guns or use melee&explosives to save up and be able to buy better gear.
There'll be shopkeepers (because those people still do exist) who will either ask for a specific type of ammunition (and each race has a preference towards specific ammunition - bullets for humans, shells for frogs and arrows for birds, respectively, although they can all ask for every kind of ammo) or any type of ammo (in bot cases the amount is specific) - for example, frog shopkeeper may ask for 15 shells and 10 of any ammunition - it could be 9 bullets and 1 arrow, another 10 shells, 5 shells and 5 bullets, you call it.

Ammo may be slightly more common now than I planned. Not like it matters yet, but I originally wanted to make it uncommon-rare, but it only makes sense for me to make it more common and give the player a choice of using it for running and gunning or being conservative.


I've also redesigned the melee weapons since I wasn't quite happy with them and they didn't really fit the theme all that much.
SO!

Say goodbye to the knife and riot shield (sledgehammer stays, I guess), and meet the new and redesigned melee arsenal - the slashing Chainsaw, the bashing Sledgehammer and the stabbing Harpoon.



(I'm not entirely happy with this one, so it may change very soon)

I've simplified the melees now as well, and they no longer have stupid quirks like they used to (they still have some quirks but they're less strange) - the chainsaw is fast but deals pretty low per-hit damage damage but has very short range and a delay before it can attack (but once it starts going it can really shred you up); sledgehammer is average in speed and damage and knocks the target back on hit and the harpoon is thrown, piercing through enemies and retracting to the user.


So yeah, this should shed some light on the plans regarding the "economy" of Gun Francisco. (and it seems like a decent system to me, but it may need tweaking still)

[Parsely]

Been playing some Metro lately?

[Mesa]

Been playing some Metro lately?

No, but I heard it uses that system as well...
Coincidence, I guess.

I mean, it only makes sense that ammo would be used as a currency in a post-apocalyptic world, right? (but Fallout uses bottlecaps so what do I know)

[Mesa]

Now for something a little bit different!
This was mostly done as an experiment, but I've tried to come up with some sort of redesign for the birds (I've already changed the humans (if only so slightly) and frogs (with the hoods), and birds were always in a state of change).

And what I came up with over the last week (in my notebooks of course...yeah, I doubt my teachers're gonna like them now...) was a slight shift in their anatomy...
Because who likes to have their eyes below their beaks?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I would have colored it but then I realized I had the lineart and background on one layer so I sodded that idea. Not that I color my notebook sketches either.

This is merely an artistic experiment and the birds may very well go unchanged. What do you think?

EDIT:
I've also made a WIP sprite.


Seems nice so far if I do say so myself.

[My Name is Immaterial]

As sprites, they look cool. Drawn, not so much.

[Korbac]

It looks really cool, but it looks a bit too much like a grey person with a cap imo.

[Mesa]

It looks really cool, but it looks a bit too much like a grey person with a cap imo.

I kinda forgot to make the feathers not look matte on that one.
Either way, I may just stick to the original, less ridiculous design instead.

[Mesa]

Yeeah, I think I'll return to the previous bird anatomy instead. That way they still look like birds at least.
That doesn't mean I'm not going to be doing any changes, I'm just going to make a less drastic and more sensible change. Coming Soon™.

[Mesa]

Now is a high time for an update!

First off, have a random sketch I made the other day (which may or may not end up being remade by someone else...)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Secondly, recently I've been sketching the vehicles of the mutants a fair lot more. If you remember what I mentioned in the original post, the birds live on skyships high in the sky. Well, here is one such airship.



It probably looks a bit derpy and breaks all laws of physics by not flipping backwards with those giant turbines on the back, but I don't care about physics here! I'll probaly remake it later on, but for now, it's here.


I've also mentioned that I was going to change the harpoon melee to something else. Well, I decided to keep the polearm aspect while making it not sucky. The result is the Lance.

A plasma one no less!

Speaking of melee weapons, one issue I was struggling with was balancing the three aspects of them (damage-range-attack speed) in a way that makes sense but isn't a nightmare to keep in check. What I came up with was simply making all melees deal the same amount of damage per hit (say, 6) and only differing in attack speed and range, possibly some other gimmicks (like knockback on sledgehammer/shovel and spinup time on chainsaw).
It may make them slightly less unique but also less of a pain for me to deal with. So for the time being I'm satisfied where the weapons are in general, but I still got to think of upgrades for 'em, but that's something for another time.

Lastly, to reflect a change in my sketchbook drawings, humans have proper scarves now.


It's not really visible though, I guess... :V
Didn't want to break the "team" colors too much though...Ah well.


So that's pretty much it on the graphical and conceptual level of things. Not much, I know, but at this point you would have probably realized I'm a grandmaster at procrastinating.

[Mesa]

Right, time for another, ever-so-slightly bigger update.

First off, a new avatar I made for myself, roughly meant to represent a bird. Whether it does is a different matter altogether, but I think it looks cool.

Second off, I've changed a melee weapon once again, but this time it's mostly just an aesthethic rework - the sledgehammer is (possibly again) a shovel now. It still is a "medium-sized bashing melee weapon", but looks a bit nicer. Plus according to Game Exchange it's actually a pretty deadly thing...


The most important part however is a rework regarding the ranged weapons.

See, previously each of the weapons had individual maximum range values after which the bullets/shells/arrows would simply vanish.
Combined with attack speed and damage values, it kinda made them hard to balance right. I faced a similar problem with melee weapons but since they now deal the same damage per attack I thought I could apply a similar mechanic to the primary weapons as well - didn't quite work out.

What I've done instead is that the 3 ranged weapons now all have the same maximum range (probably a bit shorter than what it used to be for the bow, but still), but their damage ramps up/falls off depending on the distance between them and the target.
If you've played something like TF2 you might be familiar with the concept - most weapons deal higher damage up close and lower damage at higher ranges.

This also means that their base damage values are also unified but vary depending on the weapons' range scaling, and those are:
- high at close, average at medium, low at long range for the shotgun
- low at close, average at medium, high at long range for the bow
- average at all ranges for the SMGs

Now, you might be thinking "Dark, why do the SMGs deal flat damage at all ranges?".
See, the idea is that the SMGs will be at a disadvantage at the other two weapons' effective ranges but the most effective at medium range, because while they all deal roughly the same damage at medium range, SMGs' increased fire rate gives them an edge against opponents using the other two weapons.

The falloff/rampup numbers should be high enough to give the bow/shotgun users an advantage when facing an SMG user at long/close ranges respectively, and they have a few other, less obvious advantages (high spread for the shotgun allows to more easily hit a fast-moving target, for instance).
Of course this doesn't take into the account stuff like terrain, ammo management and other weapon types into the account, but I think it gets the general idea across - spamming SMGs everywhere will not only chew through your bullet reserves pretty quickly but also not give you many good results at all ranges, encouraging the use of melee and explosives weapons.


I'll be closing this with weapon pose sketches. Since I want the game to be relatively readable, making sure that you can immediately recognize your opponent's weapon and adapt is a big thing, so all weapons should look reasonably different from each other. Hence these:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Could they be better? Probably. Do I care? Probably not.
Until next time!