NZC progress report
Hi Noxcrew community
After a lot of hard work and toil, our latest project (codenamed Nice Zoomy Cats or NZC for short) has made some major progress!
NZC is gearing up to be our next big adventure map, in the vein of maps like Monsters from the Ice and DestructoBots vs Dinosaurs, with lots of bosses to fight, items to find and maybe a few generators to fix (you know how we like generators in our maps). This means the build team have had to develop lots of places for you guys to explore and hopefully survive in!
Of course, the team are more than up to the task and have pretty much completed all of the map’s planned dungeons, with only the sprawling world between them left to polish up, as well as the player’s main base (think the IDC labs but with less ice) They’ve been working with a different aesthetic than we usually use, moving away from our usual western-style and are gearing towards more of of a Japanese, modernist style, looking at places like Tokyo and Hong Kong as inspiration. We’re hoping this will bring a different feel to Nice Zoomy Cats, making it stand out against our other maps.
While they’ve been doing that, they’ve been ever so considerate and also laid out lots of areas for the mechanics team to put their tricks and traps once they’re able to get in to the world and start tinkering around (more on what mechanics have been doing later). They also nearly completed all of the boss rooms (because what's a Noxcrew adventure map without bosses?), setting up areas to facilitate mob spawning and trying to make them a little different from previous boss fights and a lot more engaging. No more hiding up in the rafters against the Ice Tiger, I know the strat!
While the build team have been building a world, the art team have been hard at it trying to fill it. There are a lot of entities and enemies planned for Nice Zoomy Cats, and all of them need to look and act in a certain way to pull off the environment we're working towards. Thankfully our art team rocks so most of the entities are pretty much there. It’s no word of a lie to say I jumped out of my skin when I first saw one of the boss monsters. I don’t think we’ve created something so horrifying yet also so cute since Drugar the Frost Worm. The minions and NPCs are also coming along, with lots of little variations and a really fun animation cycle that we’re planning to make a video of ‘cause it's just so good!
There’s still a long way to go, with the world’s textures still to complete and a few more bosses to design and develop, but they’re making amazing progress and I’m super excited to see how everything looks when it’s all ready to go!
While we don’t usually tackle sounds and voice acting this early into a project, we’re usually still focused on story and world development, we’re trying something new and have already started casting, in house, for Nice Zoomy Cats’ various cast of characters, from the Alan-like guide to the wacky wanderers that exist within the world. Recording will be starting soon so we’ll finally be able to breathe life into the amazing NPCs that are being created.
Finally, the mechanics team have been knuckling down making sure all of our crazy ideas actually work! Stuart’s looking over our mobs and bosses, making sure they act and attack exactly as we want them to. Avondale’s been hooking up the missions and the mechanics we need for the missions to work properly while Miluteen got quite the surprise when he was sprung the job of sorting out our mission randomiser by the end of the day, during the meeting we were discussing it!
All in all, things are storming ahead with Nice Zoomy Cats, with the tenuous plan of having it in a testable state in 2 weeks time! I’m really looking forward to seeing how this all turns out, it has the makings of being one of our finest adventure maps yet!
Until then, stay safe and I’ll see you again next time!
Noctis