Hello everyone!

It's Monday which means it's time for the weekly devlog! This will be my 12th devlog which would mean I have been working on this for at least 12 weeks since v1.01, and that's honestly pretty surreal. Honestly time feels it's flying by so it honestly doesn't hit me that I've been working on this for that long, but the results show that I've been putting in the effort to make this game better than the previous version, and what better way then to show you then by introducing the designs for Chapter 2: Toxic Trails.

Toxic Trails

Toxic Trails will be another forest biome in Grace Land, except the forest is heavily populated with purple trees called Gentem Trees. The Gentem trees have leaves called Gentem Leaves that possess the ability to heal all of the status conditions that a character in game possesses. According to Binologists, the Gentem trees are a decedent of the Elixir Tree, the biggest and oldest tree in the world. The Elixir Tree has the ability to produce infinite Elixir , which is uses to spawn a variety of life in the forest, creating a diverse and balanced ecosystem. The ancient ruins surrounding the Elixir Tree suggests that the Tree may be centuries old. What is the secret to it's vitality? Could knowing that secret also threaten the delicate balance of the forest? You will have to find out in chapter 2.

Designs for Toxic Trails

For the design of Toxic Trails, I wanted to give the scene a certain ambiance that they were inside a thick, mysterious forest, with the light barely piercing through the dense leaves . Like I mentioned in previous devlogs,  I was thankfully able to accomplish this by means of adding 2D lights to my game. One additional thing that I added to this game was particle effects. The particle effects help make the level feel like they were in a forest filled with BINARY energy, creepy critters like fireflies, and it just overall enhanced a lot of the scenes that it was used in.

I am pretty happy with most of the designs that I have for this chapter so far, and that's really all thanks to the assets by GIF. They have really amazing sprites and assets over there and because of them I have been able to visualize and realize my game in a way that I could only imagine before.

I have also added collision boxes, books, signs, and portals for all locations in Toxic Trails with the exception of the portal that leads to Mystic City (the city has not been created yet. After testing the game thus far, you are successfully able to traverse from the player's house all the way to the edge of Toxic Trails. There might be a few quality of life changes I may need to add later, but I think I am almost completely ready to move on to the next phase.

So far the following scenes have been designed:

• Toxic Trails Route 1
• Toxic Trails Route 2
• Toxic Trails Route 3
• Toxic Trails Route 4
• Toxic Trails Route 5
• Toxic Trails Route 6
• Toxic Trails Route 7
• Tower of Elixir Floor 1
• Tower of Elixir Floor 2
• Forest Home

I believe this will be all of the scenes I will add for Toxic Trails for now,  just because it already feels like it is a pretty large level.

All in all, Toxic Trails feels like a completely different place than Tiro Town, visually and tonally. I think the story will benefit greatly from not only the sprites but the effects in the game.

The BINARY Organization

In this chapter, you get introduced to one of the main antagonists group called the BINARY Organization. I have a specific design for the BINARY Organization grunts and other characters who the players will meet in Toxic Trails, and thanks to GIF for creating the Extedned Character Package, I now have the ability to customize my own characters in the game. I also want to get in the habit of creating some of my own character sprites in the future, so consider this a test run.

Weekly Goals

Last week I said I was going to focus on NPC naturalness for Tiro Town characters and Toxic Trails designs, and if I'm being honest, I completely forgot to work on changing the dialogue for the NPC's and was working solely on the new chapter scenes. In my defense, they look really good, I couldn't help myself.

For next week, I want to focus on adding that dialogue change for certain NPCs, as well as designing the character sprites for BINARY Organization members. I think I want to start working on the cut scenes for Toxic Trails after I have made all the sprites for the characters first. Besides, I think it will also give me a bit more time to brainstorm how I want things to work.

Summary

I want to say that I am really happy with how this game is turning out. It won't be perfect, but I'm happy knowing how much I've improved since the first time I decided to take on this project. I can't wait to share the v1.02 with you all.