February update - background blabbering
Originally shared: 2021 February 16
I wanted to blab about backgrounds lol. For the sake of easy reading: old version refers to the version of DRL that is currently published on itch; new version refers to the version of DRL that is currently being developed in full which is not yet public. The old version utilized heavily edited photos pulled from miscellanous sites I couldn’t be bothered to remember which is, of course, an easy cop out, but it created a roadblock for my writing since I needed very specific things in the background. Some time after drafting and rendering the backgrounds for Cafe in the Clouds, I started practicing in preparation for rendering the DRL backgrounds and I’ve become quite satisfied with how the sprite style meshes with the bg style, not to mention I have a near foolproof way of getting them done quickly (draw fast). With that out of the way, here are a few side-by-side comparisons for what I have!I’m cracking my way through the backgrounds and it’s very satisfying to see everything come together, haha. They’ve almost all made it through the ‘geometry phase’ as I like to call it- wherein the perspective and main foundation are all established before proper rendering. The geometry is usually the most time-consuming part for me but once I’m over that hump, rendering takes no time at all. However, I wanted to get the dining hall fully rendered and thrown in first since the kids spend a lot of time in there.
The textbox also has some changes- a uniform gradient yellow along the bottom for Echo’s narration + dialogue, taller line spacing for easier reading, smaller window padding to include longer strings of text (because I kept finding single lines of dialogue with ONE (1) word on the next line and it was SO ANNOYING). I also realize that the box sliding in and out in the gif is rather egregious, but it’s mostly during character changes and movements- I just wanted to screen capture Art dimming and Missy moving to the center lol.
Yup that’s it for this update: weird blocky backgrounds; boring, minor tweaks; awkward gif. I’m taking my time with polishing the game off so thank you again for your patience as I drip feed these tiny, weird updates!