Aethermancer News

Another long day of development ends in the twilight hours. The air in the old cabin we rented for a work-vacation is still thick from all the discussions. I almost did not hear the faint knocking on the door with the rain thudding on the roof.
I open the squealing door to see… nothing. Nothing except a small package. I raise my head but cannot see a person in this dark, stormy night. I call upon my colleagues, curious about the contents of the mysterious package. We open it slowly, tensely and see what seems to be a monkey’s paw. Almost missing the handwritten note, I pick up the ragged tag lying next to the gruesome object. “This magical paw will grant you three wishes.”
I look around and see shock and confusion in my colleagues’ eyes but also… temptation. Before anyone can raise their voice, Anton shouts: “Wait!”, grabbing the paw. “I recognize this! This is a cursed object I’ve read about. This is not a joke, this is dark magic. We should put this far far away and absolutely, under no circumstance, use it!”
Being the only reasonable thing to do, we follow Anton’s suggestion and store the paw away, into a dusty old cupboard in the basement. Shaken and agitated, but still so very tired, we decide to leave this situation for today and go to bed. The night outside is stormy and dark and my eyes become heavy while I watch the rain pour down the window.

[h2]"A NEVERENDING ODYSSEY"[/h2]

Jorge could not sleep that night. He kept seeing the combat UI before his inner eye, which he despised. He wanted something so good, it would make players understand combat in Aethermancer instantly. But he just did not know how and he did not have the time to focus on it between all the pixel art he was doing. Jorge knew, he could not resist temptation. So, he walked down the stairs, quietly, to not wake anyone before his grim undertaking was achieved, all the way down to the monkey’s paw. And he wished for time to create the perfect new combat UI.

The next day Jorge woke up with a clear image of a new UI before his inner eye. It was as if it was right there! Jorge was happy, his plan had worked! He was so excited, he sat down to draft a new combat UI even before breakfast. Later, full of enthusiasm, he showed it to the others. But the first thing he heard was: “I don’t like that the UI takes up so much space now!” The feedback did not bother him too much, critisicm is normal, even appreciated. He would go back to doing UI tomorrow.

The next day Jorge woke up with a clear image of a new UI before his inner eye. It was as if it was right there! Jorge was confused and felt like having a déjà-vu. It was a look at the calendar on his phone that confirmed his horrifying theory: it was the same day again. “Ok”, Jorge said to himself. “Don’t panic. This HAS to be because of the wish. I will simply take the feedback from yesterday’s today and make a new draft and it will all be fine.” He ignored his sweaty hands, his seething worries and got back to work. Later that day, he presented a new draft to the others. “Hmm… players should be able to see all relevant information at once! This is too consolidated!” And another person raised their voice: “And this looks way too futuristic for our game!” Jorge got back to his laptop, but now that he had two things he had to change, he was not able to finish it this day. He went to bed…

The next day Jorge woke up with a clear image of a new UI before his inner eye. It was as if it was right there! “Oh no…” Jorge sighed, realizing he was still trapped in the very same day. He started to panic. He decided not to get breakfast, but directly start working on the UI, incorporating all previous feedback, hopeful he would be able to finish it this time. But again… “The icons are too small!” “Can’t we have this part animated?” “I don’t like that we have numbers here!” It seemed like slaying a Hydra. You cut off one head and two new ones emerge. He worked day and night, the same day, every day. But everyone had something to nag about every iteration he made. Days passed, weeks passed. So much time passed.

Jorge wished to have time to create the perfect new combat UI. Now he had time to work on it forever and evermore until it would finally be perfect.



[h2]"THE INVASION OF BUGS"[/h2]

It must have been around midnight, when Galina woke up with a dry throat. Thirsty, she made her way to the kitchen to grab a glass of water. As she was standing there looking around the dark room, her gaze lingered on the basement door. “I’ve been asking the dev team for more features to show for ages… Maybe I could use the monkey’s paw to wish for more content…”, Galina thought. And so, after making sure that nobody saw her, she made her way down to the basement.

The next morning Galina eagerly waited to see if her nightly adventure was a success. She didn’t have to wait for long. “I’m finally done with the lamps!”, Anni said and removed a note from the task wall. Shortly thereafter Basti also threw a note into the trash and happily announced that he finished the lighting overhaul. Not even the dark, stormy clouds outside could dampen their mood when they went on their lunch break. “Finally I can record some new footage!”, Galina thought to herself. Their joy shouldn’t last for long.

“Hey Anni”, Galina said, “There’s a problem with the lamps. They are everywhere and appear in all sorts of places where they shouldn’t be.” “Really? That’s strange… Let me see.”



Anni started working on a fix right away. Patiently waiting, Galina looked out of the window. What is that eerie glow? Is that… a lantern post out there on the hill? That can’t be… and yet… it is there. “I fixed it!”, said Anni and snapped Galina out of her trance. “Thanks!”, she said, but when she turned back to the window, the lantern was gone. So Galina started recording again. But she couldn’t even finish one video before she encountered another problem. “Hey Basti, the new lights you made are flickering all the time.”



“I’m so sorry, I’ll fix them right away.”, Basti said and started working. Galina went to the kitchen to make herself a cup of tea, when the lights in the house also started flickering. “That’s creepy.”, she thought, everything worked perfectly fine a few hours ago. As suddenly as the flickering started, it stopped again and Basti poked his head through the door. “It should be alright now. Anni just told me that we also have a dash move now, if you want to make a video of that.”

Galina looked at the clock. “I guess I have time for one more attempt today.” So she sat down in front of her laptop and started the game. “Oh, that dash move is fun! I’m so fast!” Galina played around with the dash move for a while to get the perfect shot. Then, suddenly, she felt an enormous pull from her core. It was as if someone towed a rope around her waist and attached it to a driving car. And as she was violently yanked away from her laptop, the room around her became blurry and disappeared.

About an hour later Anni and Basti came to look for Galina. But all they found was her abandoned laptop, playing a video:



[h2]"CREEPY CRAWLY SIZES"[/h2]

Adam’s bloodshot eyes slowly peeled open for the 100th time this night. Almost out of instinct, he grabbed his phone and started scrolling through Twitter to validate his sad, pathetic life with sweet sweet internet points. The latest monster reveal was just posted, and he was practically drooling thinking of all the praise. With shaking fingers he navigated to moi rai’s twitter page (@moi_rai_ please follow and like all of our posts please I need it) and let out and audible gasp once his eyes understood what befell them. Three likes… three. But at least there was one comment?



…

How could the monster designs that he, Jorge and Malika created with such love, hard work, talent, refined taste and masterful skill not become viral instantly? These thoughts and many others (ones that are so conceited that I’m too embarrassed to even write them) rattled his little brain.

Adam fumbled out of his bed and began grasping in the dark for the walls that would guide his path.

“You can fix this.” he reassured himself as he stumbled towards the dark basement steps, “everything is fine Adam, you can fix this”.

The flickering neon tube overhead revealed the cupboard in the basement that held the monkey’s paw. Hesitant, but still determined, even obsessed, he grabbed the paw and made a wish.

“I wish… for Aethermancer’s monster sprites to become… INFINITELY impressive!”

The following day, in the warm light of dawn, the artists were sitting next to each other drawing new monsters. Adam peeked over Jorge and Malika’s shoulders’ to see what kind of impressive monsters they were cooking up. It was… fine I guess? He looked back at the monster on his own screen and (despite his obvious delusional narcissism) deemed it just…okay. Maybe the stupid monkey’s paw was hogwash after all.

Just then, Denis came in and slowly inspected the newest monster designs. He seemed content. As he was leaving the room, he left the door open a crack and poked his head back through.

“You know what would make them even more…”, he paused, his eyes glowing for a brief moment. “…impressive? If they were bigger!”

Not bigger!! Adam, Jorge and Malika looked at each other, sighed and started adding pixels to their respective monster designs in front of the cold white glare of their laptops and drawing tablets.

A few hours later, Adam took his tablet to show the now even bigger monster sprite to Denis, who was sitting in the room next door, impatiently hammering his fingers on the table. “Make them bigger!”, he shouted at Adam, who had barely just opened the monster sprite file. He returned to Jorge and Malika who had both heard Denis’ wish.

All in a tizzy, they got back to the new monster sprite, adding more and more pixels to the beast. More limbs! Bat wings! Beefier torso! Huge biceps, Succulent quads, Six pack abs…(Sorry my imagination is getting the best of me) They barely finished when they heard doomed footsteps thudding towards them. Denis was back, his eyes looking unfamiliar, obsessed, almost possessed.

He took one look at the sprite and screamed: “It needs to be bigger!” Adam grabbed his graphic pen and added more and more to the monster, suppressing the shaking of his hand. “BIGGER!!!” Jorge added massive horns on the sprite. “B I G G E R!!!” Malika shouted back: “Denis, we can’t make it bigger, it can barely fit the screen anymore!” Denis’s eyes were unrecognizable.

Amongst the wails and screaming Adam kept drawing and drawing until the screen started flickering in a ghastly way. He flinched and dropped his pen. It seemed as if pixels were falling out of the screen? The computer started shaking, more and more pixels fell out. The monster that was supposed to be the most impressive monster the world has ever seen started climbing out of the screen! Everything happened in a blur. Adam, Jorge and Malika jumped out of the room and summoned the courage to glance back, only to see the demonic beast making a leap towards the person who was once Denis, who had a slight smile on his face. The art crew pressed themselves against the rattling door to keep the monster from bursting out of the room. Single pixels began to squeeze themselves through the crack beneath the door. More and more squeezed through, and they grew bigger, BIGGER. Growing in size infinitely, they eventually swallowed everything and everybody in the house.



I flinch, as a hand touches my shoulder. It was Daan’s. I must have fallen asleep when I sat down on the sofa right after the meeting. Was it all bad dreams? I take a moment to calm myself and realize, it was all a nightmare, it was not real. No monkey paw, no game development hell. No gruesome deaths. I sigh. Relieved. And then, a faint knock on the door. I open the squealing door to see… nothing. Nothing except a small package.

[h3]We hope you enjoyed this absolutely realistic stories about game development and wish you all a happy Halloween![/h3]

Welcome to a new devlog! This is our first devlog diving into the combat mechanics of Aethermancer. That’s right! It took a long time (lots and lots of iterations and internal prototypes) to get the combat feel just right, but now we are comfortable with sharing some specifics of the combat design. We are starting out with some key Monster attributes - the stuff that makes every single Monster unique, special, and worthwhile.




[h2]NAGA[/h2]

• Elements: Fire / Water
  
• Types: Attacker, Tank, Shielder, Power
  
• Signature Trait: Counter Attack: Physical Retaliation: This Monster launches an immediate basic attack against that enemy.
  

Monsters generally have two elements, three to five types, and a signature trait. What does that mean exactly?

Naga has the elements Fire and Water. These mainly determine which actions Naga can learn. Similar to Monster Sanctuary, we have four elements in Aethermancer: Earth, Fire, Wind, and Water. Unlike Monster Sanctuary, however, we also have actions that combine two of those elements at the same time. For instance, lightning actions are both Fire & Wind, whereas ice actions are both Water & Wind. Naga can essentially learn actions that are Fire, Water, or a combination of elements that include Fire or Water (such as Fire/Water, Fire/Wind, Earth/Water, etc.).

Naga has the types Attacker, Tank, Shielder, and Power. These tell the player exactly what the Naga is all about - what role it can generally take on in combat. The types also directly determine both the actions and traits that the Monster can learn. Actions are active skills, traits are passive skills. So basically, Naga can learn skills that help it deal attack damage, allow it to be a tank in combat, apply shields, and apply Power buff stacks.

Lastly, Naga has the Counter Attack signature trait. This is a passive skill that is unique to Naga - Naga always starts out with this skill, and no other Monster in the game can learn it. Every Monster has such a signature trait. The “Physical Retaliation” keyword means that this trait triggers whenever Naga is dealt damage by an enemy’s physical damage action.


[h2]WOLPERTINGER[/h2]

• Elements: Water / Wind
  
• Types: Attacker, Spellcaster, Debuffer, Critical, Armor Break
  
• Signature Trait: Eagle Eyes: This Monster can copy and use the last 2 enemy actions. On Copied Action: Apply Armor Break on target enemy.
  

Wolpertinger is more of a fragile damage dealer, with most of its types dedicated to helping it deal damage. It has both the Attacker and Spellcaster type, which makes it a hybrid damage dealer. The Debuffer type helps Wolpertinger apply lots of debuffs, and rewards it for doing so. The Critical type helps with getting more crits, enables new ways of critting, and also rewards Wolpertinger for getting as many crits as possible. The Armor Break type further helps Wolpertinger with applying a specific type of debuff, Armor Break, and makes Armor Break stacks on enemies even more devastating.

There are four core buffs and four core debuffs in Aethermancer. These are the most common buffs and debuffs in the game. Each element has a core buff and a core debuff associated with it. For example, Water is associated with Armor Break (debuff) and Regeneration (buff).

Wolpertinger’s signature trait Eagle Eyes lets it copy its enemies’ actions - which can be very useful when you’re trying to use your available Aether in the most efficient way possible. The keyword “On Copied Action” triggers whenever Wolpertinger uses such a copied action - rewarding Wolpertinger by applying additional Armor Break stacks.


[h2]ORTHRUS[/h2]

• Elements: Fire / Wind
  
• Types: Attacker, Critical, Sidekick, Power
  
• Signature Trait: Shared Fury: Whenever this Monster gains Sidekick or Power, that buff is shared with another random party member.
  

Orthrus is another rather offensive Monster, but focusing on physical damage and the Sidekick and Power buff stacks.

The design of Orthrus’s signature trait should feel familiar to our Monster Sanctuary fans. We generally tried to design the traits of Aethermancer similar to the passives of Monster Sanctuary - encouraging players to build powerful team synergies. You will find some key differences in Aethermancer however. For instance, you no longer need specific auras to get multiple stacks of the same buff or debuff - all core buffs and debuffs stack infinitely by default. So right from the start, if Orthrus casts “Sidekick” (buffing action which applies 1 stack of Sidekick on the whole party), it will result in an extra stack of Sidekick on one of your other Monsters. Crazy, right?

Signature traits are mainly designed with two goals in mind:

• Do something unique, which other Monsters can’t do. → Each Monster should stand out.
• Have strong potential to play or build around. → Each Monster should make the player interested to try out new strategies.

[h2]STAR SPAWN[/h2]

• Elements: Fire / Water
  
• Types: Spellcaster, Shielder, Aether, Power
  
• Signature Trait: Wrath of the Void: On Spell Action: If you have 1 or more Wild Aether, consume up to 4 of them to cast a random damage spell in the game with equal cost.
  

One of the essential mechanics of Aethermancer (which is also new for our Monster Sanctuary fans) is Aether. It only makes sense that there are Monsters with the “Aether” type which specialize both in accumulating Aether, as well as spending additional Aether for strong extra effects. Star Spawn is such a Monster - whenever it uses any spell (including both damage and support spells), it may trigger an additional random damage spell. We wanted to design Star Spawn as a prototypical, powerful spellcasting Monsters - what says “powerful spellcaster” better than casting extra spells every turn?

You already know about Earth, Fire, Water, and Wind Aether. One for each element - makes sense. There is an additional fifth type of Aether, however: Wild Aether. Only specific actions and traits can generate this type of Aether. It can be used as any type of Aether, which makes it very useful in combat. Missing a Fire Aether for your big “Fire Storm”? Just use a Wild Aether instead. Additionally, certain Monsters like Star Spawn utilize your Wild Aether in unique ways.

Also, Star Spawn’s signature trait reveals a hidden, third design goal for signature traits:

• Have the potential to make each combat and each run of Aethermancer feel different. → Each combat and each run should stand out.

This design goal is only present with certain signature traits, which feature randomized and dynamic gameplay elements. Having to deal with the unexpected is not everyone’s cup of tea, so this kind of effect is mainly found on certain signature traits. We generally reduced the amount of random effects in Aethermancer compared to Monster Sanctuary.

That’s all for today’s devlog. We hope you have a better idea of our Monsters now!

[h3]Hope you guys know more about our monsters now. If you want to directly ask our Game Designer Anton about the monsters in Aethermancer, head on over to Reddit to a little live q&a:[/h3]

r/AethermancerGame

I am so happy I finally have time to write to you! Last week kept me pretty busy, but was super special! The team finally got together for our very first real company trip in Cologne! We rented this charming old house for all of us for a whole week to spend time with each other and of course go to Gamescom. But the reason it was so special was that it was the very first time most of us met in real life! I’ve been looking forward to this for months!



Oh, I forgot, I need to give you some background! (Note to myself, I should write more about work in my diary...)

Oh, I forgot, I need to give you some background! (Note to myself, I should write more about work in my diary...)

So, moi rai games was started by Sersch some years ago, when he was working on Monster Sanctuary. He was working mostly alone but later with help from his brother and his wife and at some point our first Community Manager from the US. Most of the team gradually joined after Monster Sanctuary’s release (you are my diary, so you should remember, I joined around April 2021) from all over Germany, US, the Netherlands and Brazil! As we are all spread around the world, we never had an actual office. Working together remotely works great. We can choose our hours, don't have to commute somewhere and we still manage to spend quality time as a team playing stuff together online or having virtual coffee dates. But still… meeting in real life is different and that’s why this trip was so so so sooo exciting for all of us!!!

And maaaaan it was so cool to meet everyone! We taught each other our native languages (I can say so much cool stuff in BR Portuguese now huehuehue), had a huge snack pile and one of us (no name dropping) did a ranking of who seemed the most different from their online-version.



One of the first things we did was a hike! I guess that’s what you do at teambuilding events. We went up Drachenfels and Drachenburg (“Dragon Fort”). I felt like that was a bit dangerous since there were dragons living in that forest, but well, the others are badasses, what can I do



The view we got was pretty nice! All the way down and into all the little castle windows... Ooooooh... so many d e t a i l s I would have missed, if I didn't look c l o s e e n o u g h.



The next day, we mostly enjoyed spending time together! We played a lot of cool boardgames (can’t believe I forgot to take a pic of our boardgame pile!), for example Dune. Even though it’s a game of betrayal, our programmer Manoah never betrayed me in our alliance. Team building works! Yeahi! We also tried some black magic potion cachaça that our pixel artist Jorge brought from Brazil with a fruit named Jambu, that makes your tongue numb for a couple of minutes. Crazy! And I got a new game idea! Monster charades with Monster Sanctuary and Aethermancer monsters! Man, diary, try doing an Ooze, that was hard... Oh!!! And I forgot to mention the great food we had in Cologne! Yummyyyyy ~



Wednesday was Gamescom day, woohoo! As expected, most of the time was spent in the Indie arena (since indie games are way cooler than AAA anyway, duh) playing all sorts of cool demos.



We actually also met a new colleague who will join us very soon! Gamescom was a really cool experience and I also took a lot of notes in case we ever get to have a booth there for Aethermancer...



We didn’t do that much work on Aethermancer this week (except capturing videos for social media! Are you proud of me diary?), but you know what? It was the right thing to do. All the great moments we had together made us only stronger as a team and I really believe that this will make Aethermancer an even better game!



Our trip came to an end at some point, which left a bittersweet taste and I do feel a little sad, but then again I am sure we’ll meet again and until then, I will just have to destroy the others online playing Overcooked!

Talk to you later, Diary.

Galina

[h3]Hope you enjoyed this page of our Community Manager's diary (and maybe found what's hidden in this devlog)! Now it's time to head back to work on Aethermancer! This fall will definitely be exciting...[/h3]

We are happy you signed up for today's tour through Terastae! Your guide Anni will show you what's there to explore with some hints on how level generation for Aethermancer works.



Meowdy partners, I’m Anni and your guide for this exclusive tour showing off our exploration! Since you’ve been battling so many monsters, you might want to sit back for a while and enjoy this small walk through this absolutely-definitely-no-monster-danger zone. Though we’ve had people wander off during tours and they definitely just started a new life somewhere far away and didn’t get lost or anything!



Also if this isn’t your first time on this tour, please keep in mind that some of the paths might have changed since you came here last time. No tours will ever be the same, even if they give you a similar feeling. So you will need to stay close and not wander too much, even though it might seem tempting to branch off and go exploring. Who knows what you might find out there or what might find you. But now that we’ve established some ground rules, we can start our walk through **NAME REDACTED BY PR** in Terastae! Let’s start at the beginning!



Notably: One of the first things that might catch your eye about our surroundings here is that we do like to do a bit of landscaping to enhance nature’s true beauty. While we appreciate everything flourishing, we do want to keep things somewhat contained so that everything is nice and easily traversable. Otherwise you might sprint and break something, you know? On the other hand it’s always fun to see how well we can mix and match our handcrafted creations with nature’s wild beauty. Sometimes we even adjust the near environment to really make things stand out or better integrate them into the overall look and feel we are going for. Oh but that’s not the only reason!



Did you know, that not all plants can grow everywhere? Some can only grow on certain terrain, so we need to keep that in mind whenever we’re planting them, so we sometimes need to adjust the soil to match it to whatever we wanna put there. We really do care about the beautiful flora in **NAME REDACTED BY PR** but some plants are even more finicky than what I just told you. There are a number of plants ᵃⁿᵈ ᵐᵃʸᵇᵉ ᵒᵗʰᵉʳ ᵗʰᶦⁿᵍˢ that will require additional environmental factors to be juuust right for them to thrive in this fast-paced world. You could even go as far as to say they can only grow in their specific biome or area because they are so picky. But let’s move on, we don’t have all day to stand here and watch grass grow!

Right now, we are working on making traveling as easy as possible so we’re making sure to preserve these well-traveled paths wherever possible, so nobody needs to ask “Do you know the way?”. You know, that could get annoying after a while. We are currently also discussing plans of getting some printed flyers in case somebody doesn’t re-meme-ber where they are. We’re actively trying to avoid any Hänsel & Gretel situations, where people feel like throwing bread on the floor is anything other than a waste of food. But we also don’t want people to feel frustrated and smash the next best thing they find and have additional employees for cleaning up only.



Ah damn … I might have been mistaken and this isn’t the super-peaceful-relax-trip I thought it was going to be with those monsters hanging out over there. Hm, but it seems like they are guarding something, so they might not pay too much attention to us if we stay further away. Our best chance would probably be to slowly move away, so we don’t disturb them in whatever they are doing.

Good thing, that worked so well! We should have paid more attention to where we were walking. But it does really make you wonder what they are defending. Could be something useful or powerful but I didn’t get a good glimpse of it. But I might also just be making stuff up at this point. You know, doing a lot of tours really changed me for the better. There’s so much to learn and explore. For example if you turn around …



Over there, can you see those cliffs? I didn’t pay too much attention earlier but they look different than the ones we saw earlier, not as high for sure. Did you notice that those high cliffs also weren’t everywhere? Since all of this is its own ecosystem a lot of things are connected and influence each other. That’s probably why some patches seem to spread that far. But to be honest, that’s more of a wild guess, than an actual fact. You know, one should always make sure that they aren’t just making up wild speculations and interpretations about things somebody said. You also shouldn’t just jump into things, you’re usually better off starting at the beginning.



Right, we’re back in good old Pilgrim’s Rest. So sorry we had to cancel the tour and you didn’t get the full experience, but who knows, maybe somebody else can take you along next time they’re going. I gotta go now, somebody really tested the limits over there and got himself stuck. No idea why he keeps trying to break stuff but I should probably try and help him fix it!

All the best on your travels, Aethermancer!


[h3]Hope you guys enjoyed this little trip. If you want to directly ask Anni about level generation or overworld in Aethermancer, head on over to Reddit to a little live q&a:[/h3]

Aethermancer Sub-Reddit

This devlog focuses on monster animations in Aethermancer! It consists of the written devlog by one of our Pixel Artist Adam as well as a video about specific monster animation at the end.



"Just for some background on my involvement with moi rai, I worked on Monster Sanctuary towards the end of its development creating monsters 51 through 111, then later remastering some of the earlier monsters. I worked on MS as a freelancer and since a style was already established, my main goal was just to match the style and tone already in the game. After a grueling year of drawing loveable pixel art monsters, Monster Sanctuary was released. I looked at our main developer Sersch and he looked at me. I gave him the Pixel Artist’s Salute and rode off into the sunset. Wacom tablet in hand, never to be seen again.

Then I came back! My dramatic reappearance to the moi rai team came pretty much right at the start of their new project, Aethermancer. Unlike Monster Sanctuary, Aethermancer’s art style was still undecided and moldable, so I wanted to take that opportunity to push the art direction into a position that would be best suited for our team's strengths. Most of my professional work has been drawing characters looking cool while punching, looking cool while shooting, looking cool while slashing, and just looking cool while doing all sorts of destructive things. It’s really one of the only things I know how to do. So when designing the visual structure of our new game, all I could think about was “will the monsters look cool drawn like this?”

This goal affected a lot of the artistic decisions within the game. For example, the choice to cut away to a battle screen instead of fighting in the overworld was made in part because we knew we could make more detailed sprites and animations if we went with a side view perspective, as that would only require animating the sprite from one view. While I love the idea of battling in the overworld like Chrono Trigger, what I don’t love is animating a giant toad with a pipe doing a body slam facing down, then a body slam facing right, then facing up, then facing up and to the right… you get the point. With the current design, each monster has one detailed battle sprite and we can take a lot of time and effort to make the actions super fluid and unique."


Some initial concepts for a more complex Naga overworld sprite, and also a monster in an isometric-style that will probably never reappear ever again ever:


"Another concept I had in mind is something that I call 'animation space'. I loved working on Monster Sanctuary, but one issue I kept running into while animating is that I had no space! Each monster had to stand still (well, hop forward), pretend to swing at the air or do a little dance, then jump back into place. There are only so many ways that you can animate an attack like this, and I think I animated all of them. Apparently monsters in Monster Sanctuary use the ‘Shouting’ technique quite often..."



"That ain’t the case with Aethermancer folks. We tried it out at the beginning and said 'Nah, this is GARBAGE!'"



"The monsters in Aethermancer have the whole canvas to move around in. Some monsters jump to their enemies and slice em up (Naga), other monsters dash straight towards them and punch em in the face (Gargoyle), some go underground, pop back up and then whack the opponent (Mandragora). This style gives us a ton of space for unique and creative animations. You want a monster that teleports behind the enemy like Goku and blasts him with a Kamehameha? We can do that. A monster that jumps so high that he goes off the screen then comes down smashing the enemy with an aerial strike? We can do that too! A monster that punches so hard that he causes the enemies to fly through the background, opening up a NEW SECRET BACKGROUND!?! Well actually no, we can’t do that.
That’s too much work. This is probably my favorite part about working on Aethermancer, there are just so many opportunities for creativity in the battle animations and I think it makes the monsters stand out from other games and feel unique."



"We as a team are quite proud of the new style of monsters in Aethermancer, and it’s always exciting to come up with new ideas and share them with all of you! We’re looking forward to creating a cast of loveable (or in some cases, weird and creepy) new monsters that you can smash your opponents into oblivion with in all sorts of new and interesting ways!"

Hope you guys enjoyed reading about our monster animations. If you want to get more insight into monster pixel art animations, you can also check out this video Adam made where he goes deeper into thought processes when animating pixel art monsters:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h3]Stay tuned for the next dev log and feel free to leave comments![/h3]