New Game Project: Zathira (Working Title)

I’ve decided to start a new project. The call of game development never leaves my mind so I decided to try again with a game idea that’s simpler than Jet Dancer but more complex than Flight of the Stratos Guardian. So I’ve decided to work on a shoot-em-up (shmup).

A fellow deviant on deviantART gave me the idea to put my Random Practice Babes to use and I’ve been taking that idea to heart. I’ve already added one to a short Jet Dancer comic a month or so ago, and now I’m using another, albeit one that did not appear in my 100 RPB Art Book.

Her (tentative) name is Zathira.

Like most of my RPBs, I didn’t have a plan when I first drew her, but now, I’m thinking about who or what she can be. My basic idea for now is that she’s a cosmic level super heroine coming to save the day from a hostile force of celestial beings.

Zathira isn’t the only one I plan to add to the game. Five women from within the RPB book are on my short list of planned boss enemies in the game. But I won’t say much more until I have some solid progress to show.

Naturally I’ll be developing the game using the Construct 2 engine, and I’ll be using Clip Studio Paint and Flash to make my sprites. I’ve already made the Zathira sprite although I plan on doing a great deal of editing before she’s finished.

Zathira sprite parts.
The parts of the main character sprite rig. Believe it or not, this is more than enough to come up with virtually any side-scroller animations I may need for the character. Save the excessive amount of hair and fire animations, I built the Jet Dancer sprite in a similar way.

My game development progress has just started, but I have the basic movement and shooting working along with a scrolling background. But I don’t want this project to end up like the Jet game–I want to make sure I actually plan this out and build a solid structure before jumping in and coding a bunch of stuff that isn’t going to get the game finished any faster.

I’m even maintaining a development diary of sorts, like I said I was going to do with the Jet game but didn’t…maybe finishing this will motivate me to pick that other project back up and do right by it someday. But for now, I need to work on something a bit more…controllable.

More to come, stay tuned!

Jonathan