The Production Blog of Sword 'N' Board
 
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I've been hard at work lately reanimating Sidd for the game with his redesign in place, as well as redesigning the top UI for the game whenever I get tired of animating Sidd (which happens more often than I'd like to admit)

I realized a while ago that the mechanics of the game and combining items to create new mechanics for the items was great and all, but the current UI had no way to show the player if those 2 items would create a new mechanic or not. 

Not only that, but while the old UI was something that I really liked, it was very much heavily inspired by The Legend of Zelda, and I'm currently trying to get Sword 'N' Board away from that. While its still obviously heavily inspired by The LoZ,  I really want it to be something more, and to carry the overall theme of the game through beyond being just inspired by another game. I want people to see the game and the theme that I have in mind, that this is a kid going on an imaginary adventure!

There's still a lot of work to do between now and Casual Connect, and I have my work cut out for me. I want to get the animations for Sidd done, a good portion of the Dungeon together and working, as well as an intro animatic to really get the idea and story behind the game across to the player. 

Lots to do!

 
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So within the last couple weeks I've been hard at work on Sword 'N' Board, really tryin to get things finished and polished. While I have a working demo, I really want to get the animations for Sidd done before really showing it to people. Because frankly, not having the ability to attack in 2 directions really impacts the way the game plays and I want people to be able to play the game the way its intended (for the most part).

During the time that I've been working on the game, I've also been looking for ways to fund the game and get it attention beyond just Facebook and this development blog. I've gotten a lot of great advice from several people and so I've reached out to a few people I know. 

Well, Sword 'N' Board is going to Casual Connect as part of the Indie Showcase! You can find the page here: http://www.indieprize.org/games/index.html

So, I will be attending Casual Connect at the end of July, and demoing Sword 'N' Board there for the public. Around that time (hopefully within the same day or so) I will also be launching a small kickstart to help fund the game further, and try and get it in front of even more people! The Kickstarter will be for about 5 - 6 thousand dollars or so, and I'll be announcing it when it is finally up and active!

As of right now, I'm still animating Sidd, and it's coming together rather quickly, and a lot of the things that I was struggling with before are finally coming together! A lot of the bugs that I had with the money previously are now taken care of finally working, which I'm really happy about!

Anyhow, I better get back to work! 

 
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Well, we have a working demo for Sword 'N' Board! Sure, there are still some things that need to be better programmed, and a few features need to be added. 

Currently, within the demo you can venture around a very small portion of the Overworld, fight enemies and use bombs to search for secret areas on the map. But a lot of the functionality that is needed for the Beta is really all there! It's just a matter of getting a portion of the Dungeon put together and making sure you can easily go into shops (and use them, something the current Demo doesn't have) and travel betwen the overworld and the Dungeon itself. 

Things that are needed for the Beta:

- Working Overworld/Dungeon maps (It's blank in the current Demo)
- Item drops from enemies (enemies will drop money and additional bombs)
- Sidd Redesigned
- 4 Directional Attack Animations
- Working shop with items you can purchase

And that's really it! Currently the game has very basic enemy AI, and very basic enemy animations but I feel they're fine for a Beta run through. Currently the most important thing I feel right now is getting all of Sidd's attack animations finished. I had finished his left and right animations before I decided he needed to be redesigned (to be a lot less "Link" like) and so he currently can't attack up or down, which is pretty annoying!

But, as it goes right now, there is a lot of stuff done that can be used for the Beta, most of the functionality for the game is there and can be played with. I've made some adjustments to the camera, it's a bit less Zelda like, but I think it really works, and really helps keep you in  the game. I always felt like the transitional screen scrolls the original Legend of Zelda had kind of took you out of the game at times, and so I'm doing what I can to eliminate the things I disliked before. 

The game company that I'm doing Concept art for, Hashbang Games is really on board with trying to help me make the game a reality and is going to not only help me find funding for Sword 'N' Board but also help me publish it as well!

You can check out a video of the Demo by watching the video below, and I promise to start updating again more!