Rat King's Blog

Friedrich:
As already mentioned, our intern Hänno drew a character with a few emotions, and he even wrote a short dialog for him. Of course due to coherence of the art style of our characters we will decide later if the character will actually be shown in the final game. Still, we hope that Hänno had a good time.
I updated the project to the new Godot version 4.7, which went smooth as butter; and thanks to the new offset transforms for UI elements I could finally fix a tiny glitch with the dialog animations. Furthermore I added two settings for tweaking Mops & Mobs' retro style: users can decide to scale the resolution down (this is now turned off by default), and even disable the dithering (which can help with video compression). Unfortunately I also got a bit depressed this week as I wrote down a quest line for the next chapter last month, and only now I realise that my plans are not really feasible. Which means hurrying back to the drawing board.

Jana:
My main focus this week was the final level. It's considerably smaller than the previous ones, at least when it comes to the additional dungeon areas in this chapter. To prepare, I started putting together a mood board with images that capture the atmosphere I'm aiming for, while also sketching the rooms I'll be building over the coming week.
I also designed a new race of creatures you'll encounter. Since they inhabit the deepest parts of the dungeon, we want them to feel stranger and more alien than the monsters you've met so far. I'm not quite happy with their design yet, though, so they'll probably go through a few more iterations.
Apart from actual game development, a large part of my every week is spent filling out submission forms, contacting YouTubers, and creating short videos for social media. It's all important work, but it never feels quite as rewarding as building the game itself. At least there are a few tools these days that help make those tasks a little less tedious.

Patrick:
The last two weeks I spent some time in the swamp level again. Last time I made some trees and this time I created some lianas but not really in 3D. Most of them are billboards (2D textures faced at you) that trick you into thinking they have a volume. Pretty cool! Besides that, I filled the swamp with more walls so that you can't see through the game, and I started to make some straw huts for the inhabitants of level 4. But their houses still look very wip.
To be honest, I kinda like that I do now more organic things like plants. Because I also like them real life! … So much even that I can't even move around safely on my balcony anymore, because there are plants everywhere (tomatoes, chili peppers, etc).

Friedrich:
Chapter 3 is now "complete" - i.e. it has a beginning and an end, more or less. And it became long enough that I want to break it up into two. For now this would be an internal change, affecting only the names of some variables. But in the release version it'd be cool if there were title cards, telling the player the current chapter.
Other than writing quests I fixed a softlock in the first level (before that, a lever could close a door from the wrong side), and I added a little easter-egg: a dialogue for the painting in Odette's crypt (created by Ludwig Hanisch). Last but not least there's a new entry in our credits - our intern Hänno. During his two weeks at Rat King he invents and draws a new character for the game.

Jana:
The German translation of the demo is ready and tested! Since our game is mostly written in English, it was a real treat to translate it into our native language. At the same time, it was interesting to see how much longer texts can become in German (it is known), and how some lines lose a bit of their punch compared to the English version.
Alongside the localisation, I also made some minor changes, like adjusting the mysterious symbols in the demo/first level. Hopefully, they are now easier to distinguish from each other.

Patrick:
The world of the inhabitants of level 4 is quite old. So old, in fact, that you can even find fossilized sea creatures embedded in the walls. Maybe I'll add a few real 3D models of such fossils to the level later on. We'll see. I've also added some 3D beams with ropes to the higher wooden walkways. Otherwise you might fall off, and that could end badly!
And I've also crafted a few ghostly fossilized trees for the swamp. Slowly but surely, the swamp is taking on its muddy, beautiful form. Next to do are the swamp grass and vines.