REASONS GAMES
A dog you can always find
The darker dogs disappeared into dark grass and night, the adoption screen had game HUD showing through it, and in a fight the raider vanished under its own blood spray. This update fixes all three.
What's new
- Every dog now has a thin lit edge along its top and left side, the side the light comes from. The Doberman and Rottweiler bodies are also a shade lighter than their black outline, so they no longer melt into dark ground.
- Your dog's name and a small health bar float over it whenever it matters: when it gets hurt, while it fights, when it is badly hurt or down, and while you have the order ring open. A few seconds after things calm down, the tag fades away. It is drawn in a tiny pixel font above the night tint, so it stays readable in the dark.
- Adoption screen: the health number and hotbar no longer show through behind it. The smaller text is brighter. The breed name now appears under the highlighted icon, and each icon has a tooltip. A stat bar is brown only when it is clearly below the all-breed average, and the legend now uses colour swatches. A stray pink pixel next to ADOPT is gone, and skill text no longer leaves a lonely '1.5 s.' on its own line.
- Fights: an enemy you hit flashes a little softer, its blood splat sits behind its body, and the spray is see-through, so you can still see who you are fighting. 'Takedown!' and similar call-outs float above the damage number instead of on top of it.
How it was made
- The lit edge is a step in the dog art build, not hand painting. After each breed's coat and shape pass, every pixel on the top or left edge of the dog moves one or two steps lighter on the game's 32-colour palette. Then the usual outline and dithered ground shadow go on top, and all 56 frames of each breed are rebuilt the same way.
- We checked the result on dark mud, grass, dirt and night-tinted grass, before and after, with every breed in a row.
- The name tag uses a new 3x5 pixel font drawn pixel by pixel, so it scales up cleanly with the game window.
Screens
Tools used
| Python + NumPy | The edge-light pass in the dog art build. |
|---|---|
| Aseprite | Outline, ground shadow and sprite sheet export. |
| Godot 4.7 | The name tag, the adoption screen and the hit effects. |
How to try it
- Start a new game: the adoption screen is clean. Hover or step through the icons to see each breed's name.
- Once you have your dog, let an enemy hit it, or hold Q (L1 on a pad) to open the order ring. Its name and health appear over it, then fade a few seconds after things calm down.
- Wait for night: the darker breeds now keep a lit edge.
Known issues
- At full night the darkest dogs are still dim. The name tag is how you find them in the dark.
Ironfall dev log · Update 18 of 18 · All updates