Hi everyone!
Spring in Norway is always so magical, and this year was no exception. Here in Drangedal we enjoyed plenty of much-needed sun and warmth, but with enough rain to keep the fire risk low. Spring is my absolute favourite time of year to be outside, and I made the most of this one with long walks around the nearby lake, a special visit from my parents, and plenty of time in the garden.
Spring Gardening
Since we don’t have a greenhouse or a good place to start seeds indoors, I tried making this old bathtub into a sort of cold frame. It’s not pretty, but it works! I was able to start tomatoes there in April while the nights were still frosty.
About two thirds of the tub is filled with soil from when we dug the foundation for our chicken coop, and the rest is compost. Unfortunately the soil on our property is heavily polluted with plastic from hay bales, so filling the tub was a much bigger job than it should have been. Below you can see the insane amount of plastic I separated just from the soil in the tub. Almost our entire property is like this!
All this plastic in the soil has limited where I’ve been able to start garden beds, but there is one corner of the yard where the previous owner had kept pet pigs, and this area doesn’t seem to have had hay bales at all, so the soil is relatively clean.
I set up a little garden bed with a rock edge there two years ago, but didn’t use it last year and it grew over. A couple of hours with a hand scythe and some grass scissors, and a generous layer of compost and it’s ready to use again.
I never get upset about weeds in the garden, even when a bed is completely grown over like this, because I know how important it is to keep soil active with living plants as much as possible. Nature is all about keeping things moving and flowing.
A Visit from Canada
We also had a very special visit from my parents last month. My dad and stepmom finally got to see our new house and we did a little road trip to the west coast to see some of Norway’s majestic mountains and fjords.
We were extremely lucky to have warm weather and beautiful blue skies almost every day they were here. We had such a wonderful time, and it went by way too fast!
Game Updates
Needless to say, I mostly took a break from development during May with everything else that was going on.
Most of the work I have done since opening the Steam page was focused on bug fixing and generally improving existing mechanics before jumping ahead with new features. In addition to having less time to focus on heavier work, I also want to take it slow and keep things as clean and tidy as possible, especially since I’m not an experienced developer and I’m learning as I go.
Parallax Background
Right now I’m experimenting with background scenery. I want to try creating a parallax effect to give a sense of distance and depth as the player moves around the scene. This is done by stacking a few layers of images with partial transparency so you can see through them, and having them move at different speeds as the player moves around. Just like in real life, if you move your head from side to side, objects very close to you appear to move much more than things farther away.
Painting the background images will take some time since they need to be huge, but I’m hoping it will be worth it, and that it will really bring a sense of depth and immersion into the game.
Summer is Here
Now that we’re moving into summer it’s not as nice to be outside with all the bugs, rain and humidity. I have plenty of time at my desk to focus on art and game dev again, so there should be lots more to share in the next update.
If you haven’t yet, remember to check out the Steam page and add Cellscape to your wishlist!
I also have some art news coming up, which I’ll share more about in the next update once those projects are finished.
Hope all is well with you, and as always thank you so much for being here!
Wish you all the best,
Kate