Minor Update

I've had very little time to work on it, latey, but I did manage to get this cutscene in game.

EDIT:  The narrator here isn't a native English speaker.  Hence, the lack of correct grammar :)

My Best Friend

So you might have noticed I haven't updated in a while.  Unfortunately it may be a while still. Max, my best friend/fursborn/producer, is in California being treated for cancer.  The good news is he has an 80-85% chance of cure, the bad news is Chloe and I really miss him, and since driving back and forth to the hospital takes a full day, that is what we'll be doing with our weekends.

I'm still slowly working on AV in the evenings as well as talking with various publishers about ways I can work on AV full-time, but family comes first, always.

Axiom Verge In USGamer Feature

Jeremy Parish, the perennial expert on Metroidvanias, interviewed me and a bunch of other indies for a recent feature on www.usgamer.net:

With Metroid, Indies Do What Nintendon't

http://www.usgamer.net/articles/with-metroid-indies-do-what-nintendont

It's a great article for anyone that's a fan of Metroid-like games!

Pixel Painting

Work in progress.

And now with bubbles.

Address Disruptor

Here's how it looks when you turn your glitch ray on enemies, effectively scrambling them.  What else would you like to see from this feature??

Inventory

This past week I've been working on the inventory screen.  I'm at the point where the number of unique items has made it cumbersome to give each one its own controller mapping, so I've switched the mapping to a Zelda-like interface with a single button for attack and another button for item.

To keep the action flowing, I've updated the quick-select interface to allow selecting a weapon or item by pressing a shoulder button during play, Mass Effect style.  The action pauses as long as the button is held to keep you from getting killed as you browse your arsenal.

If you managed to find the (ancient, moldy, outdated) demo that's floating around, you'll see that this is different in that it features two rows, as well as pausing the gameplay as you scroll.

Graphically, AV is somewhere between NES and SNES, so I took most of my inspiration from games of those eras - probably A Link to the Past more than anything else. But it's always tricky to try to balance these things. I may yet add button icons pertaining to the relevant platform, or a means to select a separate "chat" interface similar to Phantasy Star IV or Metal Gear Solid.  What do you think?

Slug Boss

Here's the first in-game screenshot of the slug boss from the main page!  I'd made the art a couple of years ago but it took me that past three weeks to program his AI and attack abilities.  He's also evolved visually since I made the original animation, mostly to make him more consistent with the rest of the game art.  The coloring is also different because he turns red as you damage him, but in order to goad him into firing his gun battery for the screenshot, I had to do just that.  If you look closely, you can barely make out Trace being hammered back into the cilia by the shoulder beam.

Enemy Creature: Pliaa

The creatures live in pools of acid - which they spit back out at you if you approach.

Enemy Creature: Prongfish

I made four new creatures this past week; here's one of them.  It lurks silent within pipes (and, occasionally, in areas that look completely harmless) and jumps out when you approach.  Watch out:  I died many times just trying to test it!

Axiom Verge in University of Nerd!

Check out this interview I did with University of Nerd:

http://universityofnerd.com/game-spotlight-axiom-verge/

This game is listed as one of the most anticipated Indie games to be coming out this year, and I can see why! With it’s dark music and extremely layered level design, Axiom Verge looks to be a huge hit on the Indie game scene. I sat down with Tom Happ, and talked about his brain child, Axiom Verge.