Arbiter - Monthly Recap - July 2022

OH WHAT A GLORIOUS MONTH IT'S BEEN~

I finished up Omen's transformation and started planning out work for the Final Form ™. I had a lot of momentum coming out of Omen, so once I finished I got started on rigging the last form almost immediately. With progress like this, I could even start animating the next form within the same week! Cool!

...and then I got COVID. 🤡

I didn't catch anything when my entire family got sick but you go to one little Thor movie and suddenly Panda Mike comes back with a vengeance. I couldn't sleep at all for the first night so I found myself up for like 40 hours before entering a drug-(aka Benadryl)-induced coma. That bit wasn't fun, but hey I'm a lot better now! Thank you to everyone who reached out on Twitter with kind wishes—my swift recovery is thanks to you, gamers.

Suffice it to say I took last week off and used it as a bit of a reset before I start properly working on the last form. But it's a new week and I'm almost back to normal, so let's get to it!

I spent the bulk of the month finishing up Omen and planning out the final transformation. While I did struggle with Omen's animations initially, getting him in-game was pretty straightforward and ended up taking much less time than I thought. All in all I'm very happy with how he's turned out, and I think he's surprised me as one of the most enjoyable forms to just play. His buttons feel good and his perfect charge mechanic feels rewarding to pull off. He can even make some pretty cool combos!

Once I felt good about Omen, I moved onto planning the next and final transformation. It's during this part of the process that I also make any last-minute adjustments to the character model before I start rigging and animating. In this case I made some minor tweaks, started planning out movesets, and got to rigging! 

...and then I got COVID. 🤡

I've been pretty transparent about each form up to now, but for this one I'll be doing something a bit different. The last transformation is very lore-filled and spoiler-rich, and I think seeing it in your own playthroughs for the first time would leave a much more memorable impression. So with that, I will actually not be showing/talking about this form as I work on it! It'll be worth the wait, I promise!

In the meantime, I'm not entirely sure what I'll talk about during the next couple of recaps, but I think I'll be going back over the previous transformations and doing some deeper dives into their mechanics. That being said, I'd be more than happy to talk about my inspirations for the last form and what you can kinda expect gameplay-wise.

Basically, this last form is the idea of balance. I'm hoping for it to be a culmination of all of the game's core mechanics, including subtle elements of the previous forms as well. It'll have a bit of Wolf's speed, Scarlet's fluidity, and Omen's flashy attacks—resulting in a fast, fluent form with enough tools to do almost anything. I'll be tentatively calling this form The Arbiter's Blade. Please look forward to it!

That wraps things up for this month! I'm going to pace myself this week as I recover, but if all goes well I should start animating the last form either this week or next week at the latest. Since I won't be showing this form, please let me know if you guys have any ideas for posts these next couple months (Q&A's, deep dives, lore dumps, etc.). I'm here to please!

Anyways, thanks for your support as always and take care everyone!

Cheers,
Jordy