Hello everyone, What a couple of months it's been! I honestly should have posted an update sooner, but alas, I have been head-down working on my next milestone; completing the background artwork for all 5 acts. Yes! That's correct, I have completed a total of 303 individual scenes for "The Abandoned Planet" (TAP).... with more to come as puzzle development commences. Maybe you're thinking, "that doesn't sound like a lot". Well, it is! While games like Myst and Riven, with their pre-rendered backgrounds, contained 100s (maybe 1000s) of backgrounds, those games weren't hand drawn. They were pre-rendered using 3D assets and then just moving the camera and taking snapshots. A huge task, for sure, but nothing compared to hand-drawing the backgrounds. On the other hand, games like Monkey Island or Day of the Tentacle offer around 100 backgrounds each. This is because hand drawn artwork is extremely time-consuming. For TAP, I draw each background. I choose each color from a pre-determined palette. Each pixel has to be precisely placed. So, 300+ backgrounds is a lot, especially for a solo-developer who also has to animate, do puzzle-design, program, and bug fix. Yikes! [h2]Preview of Scenes in Acts 4 and 5[/h2] Despite this huge challenge, It's been really fun! Getting to slowly see the story of the game come to life is really satisfying. Here are some backgrounds from Acts 4 and 5 that I haven't shared before: [img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//42468789/49782db9e9a94762555020de6e9b428ab4fa80ab.gif[/img] [img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//42468789/38b3484fbd8c5a28a3f71da907a19f98b12221b6.png[/img] [img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//42468789/55e4b92ccba9c63dc2eb9ccaead30425fc9e985c.gif[/img] [img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//42468789/3b7a6344b7321396296e237fc9d789f8e5343273.png[/img] [img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//42468789/8b860fbed57f04e74f99145021ee79d2d71dc87e.gif[/img] [img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//42468789/985584099d83840d111a4afffb504b53673915be.png[/img] As you can see, some of the backgrounds are static, while some of them have animations. I like to animate all the non-puzzle related animations along with the background. [h2]Puzzle Programming and Animations[/h2] But that doesn't mean I haven't done any of the puzzles or programming along the way. I do actually some of the animations related to puzzles and this leads me down the rabbit hole of programming some of the puzzles along the way. Here are two examples: [img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//42468789/ddb77d1e3b2d6b6e3aec3245271de33b4bf427fb.gif[/img] [img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//42468789/5cda2f6a3d3c0e5d6ca441506fafd1cab7a4ceef.gif[/img] In the first gif, the astronaut picks up a vial from the hand of a dead alien. I really needed to create this artwork and program the associated actions to feel like I completed that zone. The same is true of the second gif, since that animation is necessary for the context of the scene. Oh yeah... and I also do the SFX for these animations as a I go along, instead of leaving it for later. Don't put off until tomorrow what you can do today! I digress... as you can see in the above previews, the astronaut travels a long way from the crash site in the demo. She truly goes on an adventure that will change her life forever. [h2]Conclusion[/h2] I'm really motived and excited to complete TAP and get it into your hands by the end of the year. I know I previously said that The Abandoned Planet would be released Q3 2023, but it's going to be Q4. There's just no way I can complete it before then. I want to make sure I deliver a premium indie-game experience. Thank you all for your patience and for following along in the journey. Let me know if you have any questions. I wish you all the best. [i]Jeremy Fryc [/i] [url=https://www.dexterstardust.com/]dexterstardust.com[/url]