Strom vs. Rokas, v0.3.0 CONCEPTS (II)

Hey hey people,

How's everyone doing? How's your week shaping up? We're all good on our end, and we're thrilled to see the game gaining more attention by the day. To give you an idea, we're currently sitting at the 9th page on F95's best games (based on ratings). While our ultimate goal is still a ways off, we're stoked to be holding our own in terms of recognition, at least when it comes to player ratings. Once again, massive thanks to all of you!

Today, we're diving back into some concept art. This time around, our focus is on the character Rokas, undoubtedly the major antagonist for Amy, especially in the events of the seventh update.

We wanted to show why he's feared as a boss even by someone as tough as Strom. That's why we dedicated an entire scene in v0.3.0 to a duel where Rokas emerges as the overwhelming victor.

The first step was to give Rokas a bit of a rework, as we mentioned in some earlier posts. It wasn't just about making significant changes to the duel, like tweaking his beard or beefing up the size of the dagger and his hands.

For this scene, we decided to use PNGs that would be animated within RPG Maker itself through layers, just like we've done in other scenes (think Amy sleeping on the street or the rundown spa, for example). The concept design for the three phases of the scene once again came from Atom.

The showdown between Strom and Rokas was the first scene integrated into the version. This time around, Space adapted the original concept into pixels using three PNG layers: the background (crafted specifically for this occasion), Rokas, and the sword.

Salamin's initial idea for this scene was to present a very anime-style battle, complete with sword clashes. Based on this concept, Atom came up with this second design...

...which Space also adapted into three pixel layers, one for each character and the third for the background (this time, a much more abstract backdrop).

When we envisioned this fight, we wanted to make it crystal clear that Rokas was the powerhouse. Hence, for the third phase, Atom drew this finishing move, which served to further humiliate Strom in his defeat. Did you know that Atom is actually quite the martial arts expert? If somebody applied that hold Rokas' using on Strom to you, it would undoubtedly be incredibly painful!

This last IMG was integrated much later into the scene. In fact, the scene was pre-assembled for a few weeks with this partially finished image.

Space once again used the background from the second phase as an underlay. We took advantage of this to make the main drawing shake during this part of the scene. He also outlined the silhouettes of Rokas and Strom to add more impact to the drawing.

Even now, you may still see a couple of changes for this scene in the future, specially the part where Strom and Rokas run towards each other, since Atom had some feedback to give after we finished the current version.

The battle concluded, and Strom was defeated once more. While he tends to his wounds and awaits another chance to face Rokas, we'll continue working hard on the next version, which is taking shape more and more each week. But hey, we'll save that discussion for the future.

Thanks for playing, supporting and also reading! Your support mean the world to us...

Stay cool, stay happy and see you in the next post,

Ropo