Beyond the Western Deep

The gigantic treewalker has been repelled! Not only has Quinlan saved the lives of everyone present, but I think it’s also safe to say–especially based on the absolutely incredible set of expressions Rachel has rendered in the last panel–that Quinlan has definitively proven his capabilities as an archer.

It’s honestly hard to pick a favorite expression here! They’re all so fun! Probably a toss-up between Dakkan and Rhosyn, but let us know your pick in the comments.

Obviously we’re excited to continue the scene in a couple weeks, but letting this beat sit for just a moment was hugely important for us–and Quin, as a character–so feel free to bask in the collective “OMG I can’t believe he actually pulled that off” energy.

We have some fun guest art to share this week, by the way!

Reader Fabled-Skies saw a comment on the page last week, specifically this one from reader Hariman:

“They laughed at him for practicing that type of shot to show off. They won’t believe him when he tells them it saved his tail.”

Well, Fabled-Skies thought it would be funny to imagine Quinlan smugly turning this around a moment after making the shot, leading to this incredibly funny piece of art:

Thank you SO much for the fun artwork, Fabled-Skies! Quinlan has definitely earned at least one witty bon mot to throw in Crim’s face X)

We don’t have too many new updates on things otherwise in the Western Deep world–save that work continues apace on War of the Western Deep, and we’ve been busy doing what’s called “grayboxing” the game, using temporary art assets pulled from the comic and elsewhere just to get the core logic and flow into the game to be replaced with final art later on (art being one of the easiest things for us to swap around in the game).

As you can see, everything in this scene is temp–even the incredibly janky collision (blue rectangles) and navigation mesh (the white line inside the colliders). The scene art is mostly just stubs from Quest for Glory and stock photos. Even the bandit character there is a temporary stub for another enemy type.

So why put this in? Well, the hard part is stringing this scene together with every other scene, and making sure all the logic for the game is in place. This also helps give us an idea about scene size and general layout for when Rachel takes a crack at the final art later in development. But things like “make sure this character appears when these three variables are active and goes away when they need to” is hard to test without actually having a character there.

In terms of the full game, you can actually play through about half of all the content in this very temporary, grayboxed fashion, with first pass dialogue trees written out and inventory puzzles all in place. Combat scenarios besides the bandit are still placeholder, but we do have a new enemy type we’re integrating into the game now, which is fun!

Anyway, that’s what we’ve got in terms of updates this time around. See you all in a couple weeks!