Bee ladies & arena effects (progress update)

tl;dr: bee lady entity work, mega jungle arena effects (speed/gravity/damage/etc and 'weather' effects), plant spitter entity work, spider lady entity work, more bugfixes coming 

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The estimates in each section are guesstimates, and the work may take less or more time. We're currently 2 weeks in.

Mega jungle arena

This is coming along nicely, I hope to release this to Insiders first, before the new sub-region, but it will land in the demo a bit later. My aim with this is to experiment with new things as well as make it easier to add new entities without having to add a whole new region, so after the bee lady we may see another entity or two in future updates :)

🟦 Bee lady entity (1-2 weeks)

• Animation core nearly done, then the sub-animations will be done

• Two fight moves done: honey bubble and horizontal sting. A downward sting may be done too

🟦 Riding broom (1 week)

• This is functionally mostly done, with sprite work (outfits) the main thing that's left

• Eventually this will be available outside the arena too

🟦 Core arena (1 week)

• It's split into normal and boss waves

• Optimized performance: entities reused more aggressively and don't all spawn at once

• Level design pretty much done, small improvements likely

• Inventory isolation - your inventory empties on entry and you get it back on exit - needs to be finished and tested well so that items aren't lost on exit

🟦 New spells (1-2 weeks)

• There are two ultimate spells so far, and I'm experimenting with a 3rd one

• I'm considering a normal spell, too, but that may be a later addition - we'll see!

🟦 Effects (1-2 weeks)

I've started working on effects that affect the arena - player effects like faster movement as well as environmental 'weather' ones. I hope these will make each wave feel more unique!

Shadow sub-region

I'm mostly focusing on entities right now, which I'll then design the map/level around. This will also most likely be split into part 1 and 2, so this list will grow/change a bit with e.g. more entities.

🟦 Plant Spitter entity (1-2 weeks)

• Good progress made on animation

• One fight move in progress so far, 2-3 total planned

🟦 Spider lady entity (1-2 weeks)

Mostly sprite work here, animation has some old existing work but needs a rework

⬜ UFO / alien special/miniboss entity (1-2 weeks)

This will likely be a slightly larger and much stronger than usual entity - similar to the summoned ghost man

⬜ Level design (1-2 weeks)

I didn't get to work on any art or blocking here the past 2 weeks, but some assets do exist from earlier

⬜ Farming / minigame (1-2 weeks)

The plan for this is to let you grow flowers, but it will also serve as a minigame

⬜ NPC quest (1-2 weeks)

Might do a poll for this quest, because I have a few ideas :)

Otherwise

I've been working on general bugfixes, particularly around movement like the getting stuck in the ceiling bug, but these will get their own patch notes once released

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That's it for this update - as usual I'll aim for another progress update in two weeks