Another month, another progress update!
As usual, a pile of work got done and here’s a summary of all the stuff we’ve been chipping away at for our upcoming twin-stick shmup: A Quiver of Crows.
Music
One of Alice’s many gamedev hats is the music hat. In between building levels and gameplay programming she’s managed to find some time to churn out a couple of tracks for the game’s official soundtrack. Here’s a sneak peek:Gauges
Back in April we were working on the gameplay gauges to showcase health, ammo, current weapon, etc. Since the last progress update, we finalized the gauge designs. Check it out:
Finalized the gauges this week! http://t.co/cX7R4dvr6e – A Quiver of Crows – #screenshotsaturday #indiedev #gamedev pic.twitter.com/S1kCULK3Se
— A Quiver of Crows (@AQuiverOfCrows) April 25, 2015
Upgrade Orbs!
In true shmup form, we decided to go with floating orbs to deliver weapon and health upgrades. Some of these are placed throughout the levels while others are dropped from dispatched enemies.
Worked on health & weapon upgrade orbs! http://t.co/cX7R4dvr6e #screenshotsaturday #indiedev #gamedev #shmup pic.twitter.com/KnOxV8nLad
— A Quiver of Crows (@AQuiverOfCrows) May 2, 2015
Alpha Testing!
We were super excited to start our first friends and family alpha test this month. Feedback and bug reports are rolling in already and we’re already making improvements, all thanks to our alpha testers. We’ll probably do another round or two of closed alpha testing before we starting thinking about doing a public alpha or beta test.
Check out some of the tutorial artwork that went into the game for the alpha test. The first image there shows the controls you can expect for the game. The second image shows some in-level tutorial billboards we’re experimenting with to help provide instructions without pausing the game.
Temporary controls screen for our 1st alpha testers! http://t.co/cX7R4dvr6e #screenshotsaturday #indiedev #gamedev pic.twitter.com/jKeOUwfUNH
— A Quiver of Crows (@AQuiverOfCrows) May 9, 2015
Experimenting with tutorial billboards. Shoot cage, rescue crow! http://t.co/cX7R4dvr6e #screenshotsaturday #indiedev pic.twitter.com/9MEH0VTppU
— A Quiver of Crows (@AQuiverOfCrows) May 16, 2015
Building Levels
Level building is one of our biggest todos at the moment, so there’s a lot of that going on. Danny’s designing new environments, Alice is putting them together into levels, and Chad’s implementing the necessary level features. Here’s a video of some spooky environments being put together:
Stay Tuned For More!
That’s it for this update! If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us at crows@sheado.net or start a discussion in our Steam community hub. And don’t forget to follow us on Twitter @AQuiverOfCrows for more frequent updates!