Dev Log 2 -Animations - Making the Dolls Move

Hello Dolls!

We’ve been busy since last we talked. Your feedback on the demo helped a lot. Much of that feedback was on gamefeel. In this Dev Log, we’re going over animation and game feel improvements we’re making to the full game.

APNOIAC - OUR ANIMATOR

You met them in the last dev log; Apno is updating and creating new animations. Let us know which of the new animations are your favs in the comments!

A STRANGE CREATURE

This odd one was one of the first opponents we showed off. She was actually the first creature designed by Hexosphere, Apno and Moonskinned collectively! As you can see, almost every part of the fight has been revamped since 2024. Look at the difference in speed and polish in those attacks!

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Above, the first enemy showcase. Below, the most recent iteration

A note from Apno:

CLEANER ATTACKS

Apno is also making sure all weapons feel how you’d expect; smaller weapons feel fast, bigger weapons are more committal with bigger windups and follow through.

Your comments on animation cancel windows prompted us to take a deeper look at the demo implementation. We’re paying close attention to the timing of weapon attacks and abilities.

Combos now flow smoothly into attacks, making spamming more fun! But watch out for the timing of combo exit animations; if you get too greedy, you’ll risk a hit or a mistimed parry, which could be a death sentence!

Hexosphere also added dodge recovery animations! You’ll see these after taking a big hit.

FALLING!!!

We've switched to A* Pathfinding Pro to improve the pathfinding system.

Pathfinding tells our enemies where they should move next, depending on where they like to fight!

Now you can push enemies off ledges, and after they fall, they will navigate back to you. Unless they died of course :p Note that they will do the same thing to you so be careful!

TLDR - Wrap Up

• Attacks are easier to read

• Lighter weapons feel faster

• Everyone can fall

• Everyone will find you

• Getting up after panicking looks better

All of these improvements are for the full game.

More to See - Best Indie Games

Prison of Husks was also just featured in the Best Indie Games Winter Showcase, presented by Best Indie Games. Please check out the new trailer! We showed off a new enemy coming in the full game... [Trailer embed]

Until Next Time

Hope this gives you a good look into our animation workflow and our priorities! Next Dev Log will be reviewing some of the combat improvements we’ve been working on.

Thanks for reading. There's a lot of world to build, so we’ll get back to it.