I've been somewhat burned out as of late.

Even my commute has become slightly less productive lately, as I've just been so damn tired. However, this didn't stop me from adding more room data and beginning to code puzzle elements in.
In addition to large set-piece puzzles every now and then I decided to pepper the game with less complex, but somewhat interesting tasks throughout. First such task I planned to implement was the balancing platforms - two platforms suspended on chains, and a crank to turn left or right to move one platform up while the other moves down and vice versa... Implementing this took me surprisingly little time, so I decided to kick it up a notch - remove the crank, replacing it with a giant rusty wheel connected to the platform chain. Grabbing and hanging off of knobs along the the circumference of the wheel turns it in that direction, lowering and raising platforms. Not only does this make the whole system more realistic, but it provides for a possibility of very cool set-piece graphics (of ancient rusty machinery)
On the graphical front I have continued rehashing one of my existing tilesets adding more elements to it. A new parallax background for another area of Sanctuary Woods has been preliminary pixeled, but needs to be detailed out. It currently looks like this.
^^^

I have been slowly adding more flashy effects for things getting hit. Now when a hit connects with certain enemies, not only there is a fountain of animated sparks, but also a cloud of dust - this adds a lot to the robustness of the game's look... or something: ) Began drawing other hit-connection effects drawing inspiration from Street Fighter 3.

As I mentioned in my previous post - I began working on the game's starting area - a modern city, but honestly haven't made it far enough into drawing it to even show it here. Maybe the next time I update.

Fixed a few annoying glitches in the ledge-grab routine, which apparently I originally hacked in. Also - floating enemies no longer become invincible when uppercutted.
There is still an annoying glitch in moving along with horizontally-moving platforms - I need to fix that pronto, as this will be key to some puzzles.

Anyway - so many things to work on... so little time - and even less energy to do it.

The work goes on...

And the work on Legend of Iya continues at a leisurely pace…Ever since I bought myself a netbook computer I have been using my daily commute to keep adding stuff to the game. The shaky, unpleasantly brightly lit, uncomfortable environment of the train isn’t great for pixeling, the work I do is mostly map, code and Phaeton animation-related.

Speaking of maps – I guess it’s too late now, but I realized that Game Maker’s built-in map editor is total crap, and for my next project I’m building my own: )

On the animation front I have added one fluff cycle - a wobbling-on-the-edge animation if you send Iya sliding off a platform - it's pretty, but will rarely be seen. I have also started to expand the aerial pummel animation, which was previously nothing but a single lightning-fast punch repeated endlessly. It is now more along the lines of an all out Naruto-esque string of fist, knee and leg attacks - hopefully this will make the aerial juggling look more fun. Oh, and I began to correct the wall-pushing animation, as previously Iya lost about 25% of her size when pushing against things.

I finally added the third tileset - the first Catacomb location. It is currently rather rudimentary and is lacking ladders or any kind of ornamental flare or creepy necropolis parts (that I have planned for it), but with its cold gray walls and slightly iridescent background it adds a cool contrast to the game's other overly green areas. So far I only have one area-specific enemy for the catacombs - an indestructible floating eyeball that serves to impede vertical progress. The parallax layers for this set aren't finished yet.

The first Phaeton monster in my game - GunGanesh - a mid-boss is beatable, but as of right now lacks a clear boss pattern and the emphasis of his boss-ness. I am yet to add some more animation for him as well as come up with a clear pattern for the fight - something I need to play a lot of Noitu Love 2 and Legend of Princess for... although - his "home" screen isn't done yet, and I want to do something really cool with him.

My next logical step in development should probably be doing the opening area of the game - a modern city, so I can finally release a demo of LOI... let's see how that turns out.