Don’t Ever, For Any Reason, Do Anything For Anyone, For Any reason
Hey friends. This past week I was able to work a lot on Martian Alchemist and I’ve almost finalized the greenhouse! You’re now able to successfully harvest ingredients and have them appear in your inventory. You can then scroll in your inventory as it dynamically expands. And finally, you can now tab through the various parts of your inventory (though I haven’t built out the different panels quite yet. The basic script is there though). The next major thing that needs to happen is I need to make animations for the harvesting of each plant. And besides adding sound effects—which I’m going to attack much later on—the greenhouse is almost done!
Right now all my effort is going toward building out an MVP (minimum viable product). I’m hoping to get this built out by the holidays so that I can then build out the Steam Store page. But in order to have an MVP, I need a background, a potion making station, and a rover station. Since I am still unsure what I am going to do for the potion making station, I decided to work on the background.
So after watching lots of different YouTube videos, reading countless blogs, searching Reddit, I made another couple attempts. I think I’m getting warmer, though I’m still not quite there lol. At least not where I want to be. That is, until today! (Here’s a carousel of my previous attempts for your amusement. Also they’re different sizes because I’m experimenting with parallax backgrounds.)
I think I’ve made a big breakthrough today for the backdrop. I suddenly have a vision of what it’s going to look like and how my interior is going to interact with the exterior. Part of the big problem was that there was a massive disconnect: I had this interior with lots of details and it told a whole story and then I was just putting it in a vast wasteland. It didn’t feel right because it’s not accurate to how it would actually be (now obviously, we are talking about a fictional story, but stay with me here).
If humans actually did colonize Mars and there actually was a Martian Alchemist, there would be more than just this house in the middle of nothing. See, us humans, we are not very good at leaving no trace. Everywhere we go, there’s evidence of our settlement. And that was the big breakthrough for me! Instead of putting just a generic Mars backdrop, I needed to make it feel like this really was the exterior of the Martian Alchemists’ abode.
Even though the scene is not done at all and I've just barely started creating the assets, I wanted to share what I’ve done so far! This feels so much different than my previous attempts and I'm genuinely so excited to keep working on it. Which is a new feeling for me since I’ve been dreading working on the backdrop after so many failed attempts 😂. Most importantly, though, I have a vision of where I want to take the rest of the scene.
I know it might be hard to see, but this scene has so much potential and I'm so excited to keep working on it!!!
Anyway, I hope you have an amazing week and remember, as Michael Scott once said, “Don't ever, for any reason, do anything for anyone, for any reason, ever, no matter what. No matter where. Or who, or who you are with, or where you are going or… or where you've been… ever. For any reason, whatsoever.”
