I’m 99.9% settled on an art style now. I’m 49.9% sure I can pull it off. I still haven’t finalized a workflow from sketch to game. I’m bouncing between a lot of animation programs again, trying to find the one which suits my style the most. This is more frustrating than it sounds.
I’ve been studying a lot of other shoot-’em-ups and paying attention to the little details which contribute to the way the game feels. I want to nail the feeling of what I’ve got before adding any more new stuff. I want to get the artwork a helluva lot closer to the goalpost, too (as you can see above, it ain’t even close). The problem is I have the best ideas for new stuff when I make it a point not to add new stuff.
Here’s my end-of-month budget report:
$18.99 Gamemaker (purchased during last year’s Humble Bundle sale)
$14.99 Aseprite (already owned it, but haven’t used it in earnest until now)
$0.99 A bullet-hell script (which may not make it to the final version)
$69.00 Spine (also may not make it to the final version)
$5.00 Some generic laser sounds (almost definitely won’t make it to the final version)
$108.97. Not bad, I’d say.