Can’t have a hub town without wildlife!

I spent the past week adding birds (and you can see a couple mice too if you look closely) to the monastery town.

Programming bird and mice behaviors was actually a bit more difficult than I thought it would be, but overall I had a lot of fun with it! Birds have idle animations, randomly switch what direction they’re facing, and fly off in a random line whenever the player gets close enough to them. After a little while they fly back to their spot and slowly settle back in.

Mice are a little bit more simple and run in one direction until they hit a wall, then turn around and burrow away into the background at random, or when the player approaches them.

Mike has been doing most of the art for the game but I’ve been helping here and there where I can to speed things up. Most of that has been small background props, but this week I actually did all of the art + animation for the birds and mice sprites.

OH and I almost I forget to mention the dog! He’s a reused sprite from our award-winning game jam game Fairy House from earlier this year. We thought it would be fun to include him to add some vibrancy to the town (and yes, he will be pettable this time around). Mike did a great job animating his joyful movements.

We hope this sort of attention to detail and atmosphere draws players more into the world and story of our game. I can’t wait to show more of the town’s colorful characters soon!

-Trent