Devlog: Cogito Colony, a Sci-Fi metroidvania with some unique mechanics

[Thalanor]

Looking back on the holiday season up until now, I can say that tons of progress have been made!

Melee combat overhaul!
Melee animation slow-mode
Aurora borealis background shader - procedural and non-looping!

Next week I will start my new job, so dev speed is a bit slower compared to holidays and university before, but I will keep at it

[JeffNevington]

Bloody nice. Looking very professional

[Caradìlis]

Wow, this looks really cool...

[Thalanor]

Music time again. This time, a boss theme - the first 80 or so seconds are intro, after that is the looping action part

https://soundcloud.com/thalanor/methusalem-20/

[Caradìlis]

Wow, that sounds great...

[Jubal]

What composing software are you using, out of interest?

[Thalanor]

DAW: FL Studio 12

Instruments:
- Hauptwerk (Organ)
- Soundiron Symphony Light (Choir)
- Not in this track but where it applies: PianoOne (free), FL Sakura, Soundiron Brass Solo

[Jubal]

Cool I should do more composing... I did a couple of the tracks for my game, but it's a long time since I did much music, not helped by a lack of instruments after moving country.

[Thalanor]

I bring to you... water!

https://gfycat.com/TimelyValuableGrayling

[Jubal]

Looks really nice! The water-shine is done super well

The only thing that looks off somehow to me is the player sprite appearing to be at the back of the water rather than "in" the middle of it, not sure why...

[Thalanor]

It doesn't just appear to be that way, it is that way due to uh technical limitations :p Basically everything belonging to the "tile" layer (= everything interactable) is drawn after entities (in a single draw call). My engine has a manual draw order and as such doesn't use depth testing (to avoid transparency headaches and the like). If there start to be sufficient reasons to also have a back layer belonging to the tiles (and not the background) I'll probably get around to that at some point

[Thalanor]

Music time again! Trying out new samples (trumpet, trombone, tuba, strings) and updated an existing boss track with it: https://soundcloud.com/thalanor/methusalem-25

[Jubal]

Nice! A lot of it feels relatively slow for a boss fight, perhaps...?

[Thalanor]

It will fit the specific boss While there are planned to be several very fast-paced "twitch" bossfights with corresponding music (fast piano ballads, etc) the final one is supposed to have a different pace with a bit of an apocalyptic eerie feel to it - it'll take a long time until I actually get to show the fight though

[Jubal]

Ah, OK, good! I like the idea of not all the boss-fights being jump-all-over-the-place-fests