Time for a real update
I settled on making a "light" version of the "Thief of Vallas" game the isometric rendering engine was designed to handle. The original plan was a sort of cinematic platform game--but there's no way I could put together that many graphics in such a limited time frame.
Instead, I made several design choices as if I were developing the game for something like the Gameboy-- limited color palette, small screen, small sprites. I gave myself a 384 x 384 resolution screen and 6 colors (black, orange, and four shades of blue).
If I have time to spare, I might even make a Gameboy style manual with some of the art from the original game.
Isometric sprites fit in a 32 x 48 box, with rooms 12 x 12 tiles in area and 4 tiles high. The size allows for rooms big enough to have traps, jumps, and room for boss fights. But it shouldn't be so big I can't draw the rooms quickly. To keep the programming as simple as possible, each room will be exactly the same size and arranged in a grid pattern. There won't be any camera tricks. I probably won't have dynamic lighting, since I'm only now just getting the basic sprites ready.
Working with the original Muybridge-inspired models, it didn't take an unreasonable amount of time to put together animations for walk, jump, attack, damaged, idle, and "getting item". The animations are a bit choppy, but if I have extra time I can go in and smooth some of them out.
I also made a title screen using a photo I took. Can you guess what house it is?
Hurricane Matthew is supposed to hit my area tomorrow. So if I have no power, I can pass the time mapping out the rooms. I'm now imagining a metroidvania style game, with the goal to be to destroy a machine that spawns mechanical ghosts and goblins.
