The Cast, Demo Direction, and World Map Stuff

It's been a while since I posted an update, but I haven't stopped working on Shrew Road Trip RPG! In fact, I've more or less pinned down the main team:

Please feel free to tag yourself. I want to be cool shrew with red jacket, but I am probably really shrew with big specs...

I spent a lot of time working  on this cast, as evidenced by the countless doodles you'll never see in my hobonichi. What I can show you is the last doodle of the cast before taking the concept to Aseprite:

God, the doodles always look better than the finished product , don't they?

There may be some changes obviously, but I can say with some certainty that the little green guy won't be changing...because they're actually the main character! Roll that sweet, main character gifage:

As you can see, I took a lot of inspiration from my early shrew sprite since so many folks on Twitter seemed to really resonate with it. So I simply cleaned it up a bit and put a little more emphasis on the arms (which were basically just sticks--now only the feet are sticks). 

Hmm... Why do you suppose this shrew is green? And what's with the little leaf on their head? Mysterious!

In addition to the walk cycle, I've also completed a full sprite sheet for the MC's in-battle sprite. I am particularly proud of the item-use animation:

The MC fights with a little twig? Well, that doesn't sound very strong, now does it... Mysterious!

And finally, I decided to change up the demo a bit. Initially I had thought the entire demo would take place within the main town featured in the game. But I've decided to move in another direction for a couple reasons:

1. The main town will feature a lot of unique objects, characters, and textures, so it's pretty labor intensive. I don't want to burn out on that before I can put out a demo.

2. Limiting your movement to just within a town doesn't get across the whole "road trip" that is Shrew Road Trip RPG

So, for that reason, I want the demo to feature a few small areas broken up by a world map. 

Not sure if I've already mentioned this, but I really love games with world maps. I basically fell in love with PS1 era JRPGs which had world maps that did wonders for helping you imagine and feel the world.

So I've started working on the world map assets and objects and made a bit of progress. Here's a small look:

One thing I am excited to work on next is enemies that appear on the highway sections. I am currently imagining a big tire with a huge bicep coming out of the wheel-hole... Not sure how that will work, but I'm gonna run with it and see where it gets me!