Backgrounds and settings

After starting the test stage I realised that I'd want to focus on art assets first instead on the tech side of things so I went ahead and added a background loop of some trees and clouds so it's a little more interesting than just the floor and a white background.

They are a little basic but I kind of feel like that lends to the feel of the game. Maybe the trees need updating but honestly they seem to be adding too much clutter to the scene. I might have to get a woodcutter in to deal with it...

I also need to have some prompts on which buttons to press to move the character since they aren't traditionally 'WASD' by default, they're arrow keys which is just confusing to us gamers.

Building the level

Now I have my character design sprites in place, I've gone ahead and started building a test level in Construct 2 to try and understand how the program works. It seems incredibly straightforward but I'm sure I'll find a way to struggle with it. It runs on conditions and if statements, much like Visual Basic (I did computing in college) but in a more user friendly manner and not just lines of writing code.

For the time being I've gone ahead and made a grass floor sprite so Ella has something to walk on when she's in the game world. The idea is to have some floor sprites with gaps in them when they're covered in paint which aren't solid so Ella can fall through them, thats for a future patch though.

Here's a first draft of the grass: