Happy New Year! Big progress on completing Red and Blue arcs!
almost 4 years ago – Fri, Jan 01, 2021 at 11:49:29 PM

Hey all, Akabaka here, before diving into these updates, I need to quickly share some bad news: 

Right at the end of 2020, I very suddenly lost both my granddad and my dog back-to-back, and I went from easily and regularly working 12-15 hours a day to barely managing 2-5 hours if I manage to get out of bed at all, so my progress has been slower than usual.  

That aside, I had set my sights on finishing Primadonna's and Quentin's stories in their entirety, and that's my next big goal.  Fortunately, quite a lot has been done in that regard! 

Visual Update: Quentin!

Quentin and Primadonna are the only two (besides Leroy, who is being saved for very last) who haven't gotten a visual update since the original demo first came out.  It's high time that they were visually brought up to speed with the rest of the game's art, now that I'm more comfortable drawing clothes, hair, expressions, etc.  The sprites have all been updated and implemented in the game, and should retroactively apply to the original demo AND the upcoming completed arc, which will be released in conjunction with completed red.

If it hasn't been made absolutely clear yet, yes, I am trying to kill you with her cute-ness.

Visual Update: Primadonna!

P also got a nice update that's already been implemented, where I mainly improve her hair, colors, and gave her two modified poses (compared with her original singular pose) 

Her alternate sprites are still awaiting revision (wearing towel, IRL form), and honestly might wait until much later since they're not too critical.  As for now though, this visual update adds 30 updated sprites to the game.

Visual Update: Rage Cage!

The rage cage got a fresh coat of paint as well, and is looking much more hype than ever before.  

Look at that battleback BG art.  Elle also made a slew of monsters for this zone that you'll be seeing soon!  

Speaking of this zone, there's some brand new boss music posted in the discord under #dev-WIPs that will play while you're fighting a particular enemy....

Progress: Red and Blue: Level 2, Hangout 2, and Finale

The next update will include the level 2s, second hangouts, and finale levels for both Quentin and Primadonna, as I'm trying to hoof it to get at least an alpha of the full game done before I switch to Sucker for Love  to keep the lights on.    I estimate this update should add between 2 and 4 hours of gameplay.  Here's a peek at what I've been working on! 

As always, I keep my twitter and discord up-to-date with what I'm working on, or you can just watch for these updates which come out at a pace of once a month or two.  

Stay safe and take care of yourselves,

-Akabaka

MEGA UPDATE: Purple Demo now available!! And a whole lot more has gotten done!
about 4 years ago – Sat, Oct 17, 2020 at 04:49:12 PM

Hey all, Akabaka here with an exciting update: 

The first chapter of the Purple Arc has been finished and is available for download for those with beta access!  For those without it, you can get it here.  For those with access, it's in the same beta access only folder as last time.

NOTE: Due to many new features and GameMaker's major update, there may be new bugs that I didn't catch while doing internal playtests, and so I would wait a little while before streaming playthroughs live, to give time for bug reports to be filed and patched out.   The files have been added to the same Beta Access folder as last time, message me here, on discord, on twitter, or at my email [email protected] if you have trouble finding that folder again and you have purchased beta access!

This signifies a big moment in Chromatose development, because now every single character is meetable, and their worlds have all been implemented!  The 10-piece puzzle that is Chromatose has come together, and I hope you'll enjoy experiencing the final piece to the cast -- Mercy and her Punishing Panopticon world! 

This leg presented some  time-consuming new challenges because of major new additions to the project, including:

Horde battles, Master Engram battles, Custom Monsters and "Phoenix Lite" battles: 

There are only a couple fights in the Purple demo, but still added several new features to the combat system: 

•  Horde battles now allow for you to fight multiple enemies at once! You can switch between enemies with [Shift].  This feature stumped me for the longest time, but is now implemented! 
• Custom monsters have begun to be implemented, starting with Galvatyr's Crossed Guard! This creatively designed monster has an all-new and totally unique "Red light, Green light" mechanic that looks and feels really cool.  As we go on from this point, keep your eyes peeled for more Custom Monsters!  As of now, there's three more!
•  Master Engrams are like the 'Final bosses' of each characters' worlds, and Purple and Yellow are unique in that you get to meet and fight both of their final bosses at some point within their respective first levels! I don't want to spoil what the fight entails or who it's against, but the new combat mechanic unique to Purple's world is what I'm calling "Phoenix Lite", which will require you to do mid-combat deductions based on evidence you've seen throughout the level!  Oh, and there's a freakin incredible battle theme to go with it, which you can find in the dev-wips folder of the discord! 

Sequence Assets & Gamemaker 2.3

As I mentioned earlier, GameMaker Studio 2 had a MAJOR update that I just pulled the trigger on, and along with some all new features comes some unpredictable bugs.  One of the biggest things that the new update adds that I've already implemented is Sequences, a brand new in-engine Adobe After Effects, basically.  Which lets me do really over-the-top animations in-engine without needing to import frame-by-frame GIGANTIC animation files, like what I was previously using for the in battle effects.  This save a huge amount of space, memory, and loading times.  For now, I've disabled the secondary battle effects (the parts that say Time Up and X cleared, for example) so you will have to rely on the primary effects pictured below.  Fortunately, I designed them to be pretty expressive and small file size, so they will be staying while I sequence-ize those big animations that was causing some people's battle systems to crash via memory.  Speaking of, now that they've been removed, battle loading screens have been reduced from up to 12 seconds down to 4 seconds or less.

Dynamic lighting and sound 

Pretty straightforward.  I used the light and sound system that I implemented for Sucker for Love, that Eldritch Smoochin' simulator that I released a couple months ago, and now lighting looks REALLY GOOD.   I'm probably going to retroactively apply it to old sets because it's pretty drag and drop.  

HELLA CGs 

Seriously, this time there are soooo many backgrounds, CGs, and misc art for this zone alone, since this arc is the most "VN-like" world.    

As development continues, I'm continuing to grow as an artist, which means more CGs as we move forward!  Will also be giving a couple CGs to previous scenes that I wanted art for but wasn't prepared to draw myself, like meeting P and Quentin.

And speaking of those two, I'm updating their portraits now that I've learned more about how hair and clothes work, and I'm really happy with the progress!

It is likely that due to the unique challenges that COVID and this year in general has presented to our small team that the game's release will be closer to Summer 2021 than Spring 2021 as originally expected, but regular updates and builds will continue as usual, which brings me to the exciting update that we're moving on to finish Blue and Red!

The next set of updates will include an additional level, hangout, and finale for each of the demo'd characters that you've met, for a total of 2 levels, 2 hangouts, and 1 finale level for each character, which comprise each color mark's complete "Arc".   Exception to the uncolor characters, Izzy, Lilith, and Isaac, which will generally have mostly hangout scenes.  

That's all for now, please enjoy Purple Demo!  As always, be vigilant with bug reports so I can iron them out while we're still in beta, and take care of yourself.  

Cheers, 

Akabaka

Progress, Updates, and Sucker for Love!
over 4 years ago – Thu, Jul 23, 2020 at 11:40:28 PM

Hey all, Akabaka here with another set of updates:  

COVID-19 has kept things kind of crazy with our team, with most of the members returning to work on Chromatose imminently.  In the meantime, we've made a lot of headway on Purple that we're excited to share!  

ZONE REVEAL: THE PUNISHING PANOPTICON

A 'panopticon' is a controversial type of prison where prisoners' cells are built in a ring around a central guard tower, their cell doors facing inward to allow continuous surveillance of any and all prisoners by unseen guards in the tower.  The constant threat of scrutiny forces prisoners to act as though they are always being watched.  This is the theme of the purple world!

The whole zone has a rainymood Noire aesthetic to it as you traverse the mind of Mercy, the purple mark.  You will have to collect evidence to prove yourselves innocent of crimes, real and imagined.  

Speaking of Mercy, she's the final addition to the cast: a hard-boiled yet motherly Police Captain whose guilty conscience has turned her own memories against her...

...and locked her up with every memory she has of herself that she regrets.  

This story runs parallel to Imogen's world, so I am excited to show you the parallels between their arcs.  

My updates on this arc were delayed due to the recent tragedy of George Floyd's killing.  As a black developer, I was not only upset and distracted, but deeply conflicted about posting about a police officer character that you are supposed to like and sympathize with so soon after what had happened.  After I ran a poll on twitter in which many of you were supportive of delaying updates, I decided that it was best to hold off on updates until it felt right in my gut to do so.  

In the meantime, while my team recovered from losing their jobs thanks to COVID-19 shuttering their businesses, I developed a game in a little over a week for the Dread X Collection: Sucker for Love! 

Smooch an eldritch horror in this spooky entry in the Dread X Collection Volume 2!  Follow DreadXP for updates and release info , and get the collection of 10-12 games in early August!

With the money I was paid to make this project, I've nearly 100% bridged the gap needed to add voice acting to Chromatose!   

We've had a very productive couple of months, here's to another productive couple of months!  

Stay safe yall, 

-Akabaka

Pink and Green demo now available! Making great progress despite quarantine!
over 4 years ago – Thu, Apr 09, 2020 at 09:03:42 PM

Hello all! Akabaka here. 

I'm pleased to announce that the 2 hour Pink/Green double demo is now complete, and available for download!  If you have beta access, you can get the download from the same link that I sent out for the last beta build.  If you don't have beta access, now is a good time to snag it -- there's now about 4 hours of beta-access exclusive gameplay already in the folder (including the Uncolored Demo), and a year's worth of content still on the way. 

The uncolored demo, featuring full scenes with Izzy, Lilith, and Isaac, is included with beta access!

This double demo lets you freely take the elevator between the Pink and Green worlds; the Precarious Penthouse, and the High Heavens. 

The Precarious Penthouse is an art gallery and apartment that rests unsteadily on the fingers of a colossal statue being sculpted by the person trapped there-- Sheer. 

The Precarious Penthouse introduces a new combat mechanic that pits you against your former self... I don't want to spoil what it is, but what I can tell you is that I've also upgraded the combat animations!  

Also, after beating her level, you get to spend some quality time alone with Sheer in her studio! 

Pink arc's music is SO good.  Great work yuzu.

In the cloudy High Heavens... well, I can't say without spoiling. 

But this zone will be a nice respite from the other nightmarish worlds, especially Imogen's Yellow world.  It's peaceful, harmless, and there's powerful ways to heal state of mind here!  There's a new State of Mind value unique to hanging out with Laslo! 

He is pure cinnamon bun, too good for this world. 

The Pink/Green demo has about 1.5-2hrs of content, and is selectable from the main menu under the "Demos" option! 

 Once again, please be respectful of others that have not seen the scenes yet!  To be brief:

• Keep spoiler discussion in #spoiler-chat on the discord
• Try to avoid making fan content (like art) about spoilers
• Let's Plays and Let's Reads are fine!

Also, now that I have a second to talk about PAX and Dreamhack-- they went great!!  Thank you to everyone who stopped by to play our demo!  I learned a lot from watching you all play the demo, and I've already implemented a lot of the QoL stuff that was asked for.  I'm glad I went-- I gained a lot of perspective on the indie scene and met a lot of supportive devs.  

On the topic of COVID-19: 

Shutdowns (resulting in mutliple Chromatose devs losing their jobs) and quarantines caused a few speedbumps during development, so it took us longer to get this demo out than we expected.  That said, we're on a roll and are getting started right away on the Purple zone. By being a remote dev team and having budgeted/prepared well, now that we're past those speedbumps, we are business as usual for development for now.  The kickstarter funds are hard at work, and we want to thank you for supporting development and making this all possible!  We'll keep you posted on any updates on our side.     

I'm always on the discord if you want more frequent info about what we're up to, or if you just want to chat about the game!  Alternatively, I also update the twitter at least weekly. 

Stay safe! Thank you again for supporting development!

CHROMATOSE wins for "Best RPG" at Dreamhack! Official Indie MEGABOOTH Selection! Pink demo complete!
almost 5 years ago – Tue, Feb 11, 2020 at 07:45:09 PM

Hey everyone, Akabaka here with a bunch of updates!  Updates you may have already seen if you follow my twitter!

First of all, I am excited to announce that CHROMATOSE won "Best RPG" for Dreamhack Anaheim 2020, and we've been invited to present in their indie section on February 21st-23rd!  

If you're going to Dreamhack or you're near the LA area, you should drop by and say hi! And if you're not from the west coast... 

...You can catch us at PAX East the next weekend because we also are an Indie MEGABOOTH official selection!  I'll be there on Saturday and Sunday (Feb 29th and Mar 1st), so drop by and say hi if you're going to either event!  I've been designing the booths for each event, and I'm getting more and more stoked every time something shows up.  Made some new splash art in preparation for the conferences, and got a Texas-sized banner to hang up!

The labradoodle is for scale. 

In terms of game development, I've also made a lot of progress on that front since the uncolored demo: the pink demo is done and ready to go!  I'm holding off on releasing it until I also have green completed so that you can experience both at the same time, but in the meantime, here's some teasers!  

This whole Precarious Penthouse zone balances and tilts atop a colossal statue's fingertips.  Furniture slides around, the horizon shifts, and other physical effects take place.  I added in some positional audio (not included in this video) and some additional screen effects to enhance the effect.  Yuzu is working on the OST for this zone now!

Added in some (WIP) special effects for pink card effects-- stopping time and preventing enemy attacks for a couple seconds.  In certain fights, effective use of pink and green cards can stunlock enemies from full health to death, take a look!  Points to anyone who can guess what game's special effects I referenced while designing this effect, haha. 

Also, the queen herself got some more expression portraits for her hangout!

Sheer's high school flashback form also got designed!

That's all for now, stay tuned for Green arc progress and convention updates!  Thanks for supporting development!