Time has really flown by and we're only 2 days away from showing off the final build at Play NYC 2022! Since the 3rd deliverable, we have made a HUGE turn around in level design and gameplay logic. 

We have characters! Abuelito and the spirits were concepted and are now fully modeled, animated, and functional. Our concept artist, Xana Prudencio, also made comic book style storyboards for the intro scene of the game, which we are really excited for people to see.

Our music composer, Ryan Dodge, sent over all the final versions of the music themes and stingers inspired by Puerto Rican folkloric sounds and rhythmic bomba and plena percussion. Soon, we'll have them implemented properly and triggered by game events.

Now for things we fixed. One of the things we got feedback on was how bright and distracting the grass looked. It's hard to get things just right when you're using a combination of art assets from the marketplace. We edited the texture and material of the grass blades and the terrain to do a better match. It looks alright for now but we will make more changes for the final build. Lighting changes were also made to tone down warmth and brightness.

Another things we addressed were the hills. We wanted to figure out a way to use tree assets that could cover the ground and make the backdrop look lush and green. But just by placing trees, we were having issues seeing gaps through the trunks and straight into the horizon. Instead of the forest looking full, it was looking patchy. We got the idea of using shrubs to fill in these gaps. Using Foliage Mode, we painted on the trees and shrubs at random scales, rotations, and angles. We also painted soil/ground texture around the trees to add dimension.

We did a first pass on modifying a quest and dialogue system really recommend the Narrative Quest and Dialogue Editor plug-in. It's user friendly and very well documented. It is a bit expensive but honestly worth the investment. Now that we own it, we look forward to using it for other projects in the future. 

We decided to remove the toon/stylized shader from the post processing that was previously making the world very flat and saturated. We chose to add the stylized shader to our characters only and keep the environment with standard materials. In this way, we can still have a slight stylized look inspired by games like Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild but still keep the depth the engine creates with shadows and lighting.

We weren't happy with Yara's (our main character) idle animation, which we downloaded from Mixamo so we ended up searching again for a different pose and modified it to make it look more natural than the one we previously had. We also added an 'attack' animation to her so she can scare the spirits and a cloud particle effect for when the spirits 'poof.'

Last but not least, the mask crafting is shaping up with UI art made by 2D Artist Gabriela Soto Massol and a new grid style interaction format. We aren't finished just yet with adding category labels, color palettes, and pattern styles but you can see the direction we are going with in the system we currently have. When you wear the mask, the camera settings change a bit and a new UI widget shows that displays a magic meter, which allows you to see the spirits. Once that meter reaches zero, you'll need to make a new mask.

That's all for now! The final build will be ready soon and we can't wait to share it with you all!