What’s better than a lime-blasting power suit? An ultimate-upgraded power suit, of course! This upgraded suit, codenamed LXU, comes in parts that upgrade various capabilities to aid in Lyra’s robot-blasting goals. Air-dash maneuverability, a new charge level, and and damage-resistant plating are just some of the upgrades Lyra can discover hidden in the leftover LXU test sites among the stages.

A mix of concept art and the sprite rendering to be used in-game. The last screenshot shows some partial upgrades in-game. Since the upgrades are found in parts, you’ll slowly upgrade overtop of the regular LX suit.

Concept art courtesy of chickenwhite.

Sprite concept by ponynoia, in-game sprites by Urimas.

This GIF from our Intro Stage is a test that demonstrates just a few things we can do now with cutscenes: it has dialogue, portraits, and scripted character motions. You may note that Lyra is wearing something other than the full LX-suit. It’s a part of the beginning story where Lyra learns the basics before she becomes MegaMare X.

Putting our writing into the game has been a long-term goal for us, as it is the glue that holds the game together and keeps the battle moving forward. There is also a backstory written, should we jump into any side work as a means of exploring it.

Various platforms also make up the dynamic portions of the stages. From our basic falling and patrolling scripts, we’ll be building out more platforming challenges to mix-up Lyra’s battles against the various robot creatures you’ll face-off against.

Ka-ZAP, Ka-ZAP! Kra-KOOM! We earlier released a preview of our lightning-themed weapon, the Lightning Bit. Now it’s a usable in-game weapon following a few builds of adjustments to the effect and tweaks for the sprite. Lyra picks it up after an electrical encounter with our maverick take on Nightmare Moon.

For the first of our content updates, here’s some shots of our Intro stage for various sections. Although they don’t have backgrounds, you’ll see a theme throughout these, which sets the tone of a construction/industrial setting. These are only some initial tiles, but they add a pleasant touch to work with as we build on the initial lessons that we teach here.

MegaMare X Dev Update – May. 2016

The last day of May brings a late update, but with more to come! Over the next few days, we’ve got some follow-up posts for various improvements you have been hearing about from our alpha builds. There’s also some artwork to show off as part of them that we’re excited to share.

This month we’ve had not just our 100th alpha build, but our 101st in quick succession. In addition to some fixes to the bosses, one of our weapons is now complete, and we have platforms that fit many of the designs we’ve been working on in the stages. Enemies will get some changes over the month of June, since there are many spots we need to fill throughout.

Lastly and most excitingly, these two alphas bring us the ability to write our cutscenes and script the events that unfold throughout the game. We’re thankful to have a new writer make a review of our dialogue and are now putting our first draft of writing into the game.

Our follow-up posts will be coming soon, so check back over the next round few days!

MegaMare X Dev Update – Apr. 2016

April brings another update and a return to convention season. Another internal alpha is in our hands, and we have been working on new changes since. This one is our 99th, meaning the next marks our 100th alpha! We’re not sure what to do in celebration, but it certainly means something special.

Following our regular alpha playtesting and review, we’ve made some steady progress as a team towards improving our level design. As mentioned in our prior update, we are seeking to make fun and challenging stages. So, over the past few weeks, we’ve been exploring different things we can do in them. Part of this has been trying techniques for using the camera and effective enemy placements, but we’ve also gone into further explore our icy and water terrains. Mostly, these have been focused around specific *encounters* with enemies, which involve a specific combination of mechanics and enemies in a small area. Lately we’ve added some scripted platforms to these encounters, and will have those included in our upcoming build.

Meanwhile, we got feedback on that 99th alpha from a lucky playtester, who provided comments regarding difficulty, secrets, and visual cues. It’s always pleasant to get some hands-on playtesting where we can actually sit down and see what we miss. As expert players and the creators we have a skewed perception and always know what’s coming. In terms of challenge, we want it to be tough but fair, and accessible to a wide range of players and ages.

Over the next few months, the conventions are coming, but we aren’t making any official appearances. However, if you keep an eye out and catch the updates, you still might catch a chance to play. We’ll be sure to post where we’re headed and what to look for.

TL;DR: Almost at the 100th alpha mark, making fun challenges through stage encounters, and we aim to have the game interesting for experienced and new players alike.

A quick BABSCon note

We aren’t officially appearing at the con, however, @toastyjustice will have our latest alpha build along to preview to anyone who asks to play it. While at BABSCon, shoot our team a message on twitter at @NebularFusion or just ask him in person, who you may recognize by his Starlight Studios t-shirt.

We are not appearing officially at any other cons this year either, but will be attending several more.

Dev Update - Mar. 2016

It’s about time for another developer update, which brings quite a few good changes. Most of these have arrived nicely packaged in our latest internal alpha, which we have begun play-testing this week. Bosses are still works-in-progress which are getting ever better, with Nightmare Moon seeming to be the closest of the bunch to satisfactory behaviour after some recent attack updates. Our weapons still have some kinks to work out, but now we have the full list of them with new fixes that bring ammo depletion, refills, and overall improvements.

Speaking of refills, we now have those in-game as power-ups alongside pick-up upgrades, which are roughly placed (pick-ups being found items as opposed to capsules). These appear now in some updated versions of our stages, one of which features an initial set of tiles that really brings it to life.

The near future will bring a return to our artistic pipeline alongside some thorough design work to really make some quality areas within our stages. Creating the fun factor is sometimes challenging, but we have a few things to build off of. Our boss progress also means a solid need for the full move set of sprites for Nightmare Moon.

Finally, we have an ongoing call for new people to contribute, should you have the will and wherewithal! If you have either interest for designing levels or contributing to the artwork side of things, if you love MegaMare, MLP, MMX games, or just want to help out, do send us a note!

TOO LONG, DINNA REED; DIS GAME IS GOIN WELL AND DA BOYZ IS GON’ MAKE IT BETTA

Lots of love for Nightmare Moon

Looks like folks really are liking our Nightmare Moon concept. She’s next on the list to get fully sprited into the game, so we’re looking forward to showing off that in a future update! Stay tuned, we’ll have another Development Update coming soon and some more artwork in the pipeline.

Your queen who powers the night. Prepare for a blackout!

This newer version of Nightmare Moon is a thematic evolution of some of our older concepts, also revised stylistically to appear better in-game with her prototype.

Sprite by Noia, concept by ChickenWhite.