Arbiter - Monthly Recap - October 2023

Happy belated spoopers everyone! 🎃

I enjoyed minimal spoops yesterday (aside from the dog getting out) but it was a great Spooptober overall! I went to a party as a goblin and while the mask was arguably the most painful thing my face has ever experienced, I persevered. Could everyone tell I was in pain? Absolutely. But what are social gatherings if not enduring the masks we wear? To shed them is to lay the soul bare for all to see—to expose oneself for who he truly is: his authentic self. I would never burden the world with such knowledge, so the mask stays on.

...for about 45m until the pain was so overwhelming I could literally feel my mouth being pulled towards my ears like some kind of weird Joker origin story. So now I stand before you, naked. My soul laid bare—my mask removed.

That's all to say I'm ok with showing off a bit of the level now! Yippee!

Environmental Art Sucks and I Hate It

If it hasn't been made obvious from the past year's worth of updates, environmental art is my kryptonite, my worst enemy, my nemesis—my rival. It has been an insurmountable wall in my way for literal years at this point, but one I always knew I'd have to face head-on eventually. But that wall is beginning to crack.

I'm something of a fan of the enemies-to-lovers trope. It's one thing to build up a relationship from zero, but it's another thing entirely to build it from negative. At the start of this year, enviro-chan wanted absolutely nothing to do with me. She wouldn't look at me, wouldn't talk to me—she barely even acknowledged my existence. Back then I couldn't even fathom a life with her, I just knew it was something I yearned for. For about ~8 months afterwards, time and time again she continued to face me with nothing but utter rejection at every turn. But then, in the past couple months, something started to happen...

Enviro-chan wasn't looking at me with the same scorn she used to. I'd adjust a color here, make an asset there, and instead of the fiery wrath I had endured before, she started getting...gentler. Sure, I still get scolded on a regular basis, but it's different now. She's calmer, more reasonable, more understanding. I swear I've even seen her blush from time to time. We're still not quite where I want us to be, but we're getting there. It's getting easier :')

Ahem. 

What I mean by that is while the environments still aren't quite where I want them to be, they're a massive improvement over where they were, and I'm proud of that. I feel closer to my goals than farther now, and it feels great to show the spaces off confidently, even if there's still a lot I want to do (these colors suck! the darks are too dark! more foliage! more particles! etc., etc.). Still a ways to go, but I feel a lot more confident in what I'm able to achieve and more importantly, how to do it. Yippee!

As of right now I've finally started placing assets for the rest of the level. This means taking things from a grayscale blockout to more like the images above. I'm still tweaking the artstyle constantly (it's literally the first thing I do every day), but the severity of those changes has lessened over time. It's an ongoing process and likely one that won't be over 'til the game's finished, but reaching that ever-elusive finish line is starting to feel all the more possible. 

Conclusion

Next I'll be moving onto architecture and hero assets. I dabbled in the former a little earlier this year but now I get to make a whole-ass temple, so we'll see how that goes. I'm hoping to finish this level by the end of the year but don't hold your breath! We all know how fickle enviro-chan can be, so I appreciate everyone's patience in the meantime. 

Anyways, that's it for Spooptober! I worked on some other stuff too, but I'll be keeping that exclusive to Discord for the time being. As always, thank you everyone for your continued support! I'll be sure to win enviro-chan's heart one of these days... believe it!

Cheers,
Jordy