what the hell happened?!! I didn't scout anyone bad to my knowledge...

newgrounds, explain.

Hey guys, I'm going through a lot again... I guess, I'm noticing my art environment isn't enabling new art as much, again sometimes I'll get a ton of shit done, sometimes I'm barely motivated to not be lazy. anyways, it's coming along, me and the team are working on it as much as we can.

anyways, here's some new promo art for the mod (it's inspired by Mario Paint)

We're working on BM's week and remastering Tutorial at the moment, also cutscenes are a priority...

we're getting closer, don't worry

-GiffanyCD (isabelle)

I need feedback on my shitty BF redesign

the

If anyone asks me "How do you design these characters?" or "What's the Nova art style?", I usually just tell them, cartoony or stylized. as much as I could go on for hours about my dumb little OCs and their worlds, I've noticed that I can't pinpoint what makes the style unique in words. I think simple is one way, or sketchy. even when art is finished, it has this old flash cartoon feel that I go for.

Like look at one of the cutscenes for the mod, it looks complete, but also a bit purposely janky and jittery, that's mostly just because of how rushed I feel when drawing. so I decided to make it a quirk of the Nova art style and why I'm a fan of Newgrounds animation to begin with.

One of the WIP cutscenes for the mod (some animation may be different in the final version)

I'm still new to animation and am still lazy with some things. I have been taking my time with things, and me and the team

are going through ideas and trying to decide if they are good or not (stuff like feedback for music, ideas for songs, etc).

I personally wanna thank Emily and TonoTim for helping me think of ideas for this thing. I can't thank them enough, also Gamingmania being there to help is nice...

Anyway, I'm thinking of finding another animator, I'mma have to do heavy background checks and stuff, but if I'm able to find someone who isn't problematic, who can animate some of the Nova stuff, I'd be very happy. Music is fine at the moment, I have some people helping with mixing and stuff.

I still have a ton of work art-wise, making sprites usually involves sketching idles and poses, then some other animation frames if needed, and then slowly working on making the frames into actual animated sprites. it's a tedious process, but once you get into the groove, you become a drawing machine.

you draw stuff like this

and it takes me a bit to draw the whole thing, sometimes an idle for the character in question can take more than an hour somehow. animation is hard, even the simplest of things can take a while.

I'm not gonna repeat myself about progress and release dates, it comes out when it's out, yada ya. but I will say, in a bit, I'll be on a bit of a soft hiatus per say, I might work on things here and there, but I have some IRL things to work on.

I'm hopeful we can get this out when we can, we're maybe halfway there if I'm being generous, but progress is being made, one step at a time I guess.

-Isabelle (GiffanyCD)

cool

help

F in the chat, we lost a real one today

So hey, good news. we're making progress. Me and The Team are getting shit done.

ok, progress update stuff

Nova status:

Main story stuff: 40% (we have almost all the songs done, we just need to finish the sprites and flesh out a possible mechanic we might add to one of the songs)

Sprites: 40%, Nova and BM's sprites are the ones I'm focusing on at the moment, with Nova it's hard because she has so many I need to add, and BM... I can't spoil it. you'll know what I mean when it's finished

Music: 80%, Almost all the songs are done, like I said, just have to finish a couple more and fix the mixing on some

Cutscenes: 10%, once the rest of these are done, I think these should be a priority, not all of them will be super advanced, but as someone who barely animates, you can see why this is delaying stuff

Charting: 70%: really good progress is being made, we just have the chart the new songs, all of Nova's songs are already charted, so we're just tweaking them to feel better to play, also, maybe more difficulties for new players

Freeplay shit: 60%? (oddly enough most of it, progressing well. some of it, we'll cross that bridge when we get there.)

Sprites: 50%, it's hell I know, but I have a feeling more progress will be made soon. reminder, if I didn't choose to redo everything, the update would probably progress faster, but I'm choosing to redo most of the art for fun I guess, and to maybe fix some errors. again the new characters are gonna be tough as well, so stay tuned

Music: 80%: I genuinely have like two more songs that need to get done, and maybe one song will get completely redone, only if the musician (Tonotim) is in the mood to do said song. but surprisingly, we're close to having the full OST completed, most of it was done last year, so this year is mostly gonna be focusing on sprites and putting this shit in-game.

Charting: 70%, most of these songs don't have their vocal melody changed, so not much charting is needed, with the new songs. We will have to chart them eventually, only 3 songs are on our radar to chart, and some recharts will only be made if we think it's necessary

Misc/other shit: mostly other stuff we need to get done eventually to give the mod some flair

UI tweaks: 40% we're possibly planning on changing the look of some UI elements to have the mod stand out a bit, you might have noticed the SICK! ratings for when a combo was changed in 2.0, I'm planning on also changing some other UI elements, like notes, countdown sounds, etc. Most of the base game stuff is gonna stay the same, for consistency. but don't be surprised if the arrows get a new coat of paint

Trailers, OST videos, other stuff: Depends% I do have a final update trailer I plan on making for this, but no OST videos have been made yet, we might make those eventually.

Crediting stuff: you may have noticed a problem recently with creators not being credited, this has also been a problem in the FNF community. I noticed I forgot to credit a couple of scripts that were in the mod, due to forgetfulness, getting them from a pack that didn't credit the authors, etc. With this update I'm going to credit everyone's scripts.

Players Guide: ???%. This is a wee bit outdated atm, the current player's guide hasn't been touched since last fall, so some stuff is gonna have to get updated and worked on when I'm able to. I can't promise it will even be done for the update. we'll get there when we get there

In total

Sprites: 40%

Music: 80%

Charting: 50%

Other: 30%?

In some actual development news, we have a couple of guest composers for the mod, which are Horizon95 and Tonotim, with Solxrity also maybe helping with a song. I wanted some musical variety for the mod, having me compose like the whole OST was hard enough, me being the director and also helping with everything else... yeah so thankful to have these 3. they mean a lot to this mod. we hope you enjoy the OST, it's pretty good so far.

as for the development plans, stuff is also going great. we've both scaled down the update while also making it beefy enough to be considered an update. most of the Novamixes are being swapped out for the new songs. so it may seem like the amount of songs remains the same. but the quality of everything has improved a lot, I'd rather have variety and all the songs stand out on their own, than to have Week 1 Novamix and the dark mode remixes clogging the roster.

we're working on an actual story mode. 4 weeks (including Nova's week), but in total 5 new songs with 2 freeplay songs being turned into songs for story mode. also some new game over screens and cutscenes. what we have planned is going to knock your socks off (my lawyers have advised me to state: we can't knock your socks off, but if it happens... idk run)

for free play, Joke is back, and you might know about that Jonkler song, it isn't replacing it, they both get to stay, good ending. Libitina isn't gonna be in the mod tho, Libitina will be replaced with the guy, and Mentallity is getting removed as well. but as for additions, I think the same amount we had in 2.0, with the new free-play songs taking the place of the ones that got moved to story mode. overall most of the filler is being replaced with substantial content.

I'm afraid that the new update would have around the same number of songs as 2.0. but with the complete overhaul going on, it might make up for it. we don't want this update to be the same song and dance as 2.0 was. in a way, just an update, and hey, the old songs, I will keep in the files, along with the assets, so you can play them anytime you want I guess.

Anyway, I can't promise a release date, it comes out when it comes out. if I had to estimate I'd say about April or May if we're working nonstop. either way, we hope when it's done in the oven, you all can enjoy this next update.... have some sneak peaks

um, happy 2024, I'mma sleep as well

-Isabelle (GiffanyCD)