Devlog #31: Ayumu's POW

It’s been a better week than most, and it feels like I’m finally out of my rut. I got a bunch of random stuff done, audio, dialogue and back end stuff I’ve been putting off for a while, which doesn’t make for an amazing devlog, but I did finish what I promised last week at least-

Ayumu’s POW

Ayumu’s Power move is a “mow ‘em up” to match his sickle, like Rina’s “wash ‘em up” matches her gourd. I’m trying to keep the minigames to the same time limit of 20 seconds, and the same goes here-

Ayumu starts at a specified tile within a maze-like lawn, picked randomly from a group of handmade layouts. He controls a lawnmower than travels in a straight line until it hits a wall in any direction, and each movement uses a section of petrol. Every grass tile he mows is added to the grass meter on the right, and every 12 tiles mowed becomes a full bag. Each full bag is then dealt as damage to ALL enemies.

Each layout has exactly 80 tiles, and while some are harder than others they'll  take around  30+ moves to complete entirely. You might notice there’s only 15 petrol so finishing them is literally impossible, and it’s meant to be- at first.

Ayumu's skill tree will be scattered with POW upgrades. e.g. Starting with more petrol, less grass to fill a bag (10 > 8 > 6) and flowers that when mowed will add petrol. I decided to have one randomly placed flower from the start to hint at future upgrades. Each upgrade will make the possible damage higher and I hope players will look forward to the day they can finally mow the entire lawn.

Also I came up with an idea to add to all power moves going forward: bonus spots that rewards materials that can be used at basecamp. For example, Ayumu’s pow could reward leaves when going over certain tiles, and Rina’s pow could reward crystals when cleaning specific mud patches. This would both reward skilled play, and give players a reason to change their party when they need a specific resource.

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Video Devlogs

I mentioned last week I was contemplating a youtube devlog and I got the closest I’ve ever got to it- I wrote a script, did the voiceover, planned out each section and... ultimately decided against doing it. I came to the same conclusion I have every other time I’ve properly considered it; Editing takes a whole lot of time that I’d rather be spending on the game itself, and I don’t have any aspirations to be a youtuber so I would hate the obligation if it turned out to be a success. I just want to make my game and make it good, even if it’s not uber popular. The half finished devlog will be sitting on my harddrive if I ever change my mind closer to release.

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Goals for this week

I’m gonna mix it up this week, because more importantly than what I want to get done this week, the more pressing issue is- What do I want to get done before Tears of the Kingdom comes out?

The more I do in these two weeks the more time I can take off to play Zelda before the guilt of not doing game dev kicks in. So I’m gonna write 2 weeks worth of goals here, and next week I'll check-in on how it’s going:

-Xbox and Playstation controller support
-Yusuke fully in party (battle, upgrades, cutscenes)
-Ayumu/Momo/Wesley POWs in game
-Get as much done of the Northern area as possible (rooms, ghosts, cutscenes)
-Add a bunch of audio

It’s hard making these goals now that the demo is done, because I’ve got a huge pool of to-do to take from. My next major goal is the final area and the ending of the game (the northern area and beyond), because I want to make sure the main story is done if I ever need to cut back to get the game out without it taking another year.

Thanks for reading!