In the previous blog post we featured a screenshot showcasing a new character operating a power armour. Are you ready to meet him proper? Well, here is the first Big Boss of TAGAP 3; The Funky Doctor!
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The Funky Doctor is the surgeon general of PDOH (Pluto Department of Health). He holds the post for a reason, as he has developed more new procedures and cures than most Pluto's citizens can hope to remember. Driven, dedicated and slightly eccentric, he lives for his work and aims to push the boundaries of what's medicinally possible; Whatever he is tasked with, he gives it his 110%.
While these are admirable traits for a doctor and a researcher, the new duties brought upon PDOH by the martial law have shifted both the focus of his work... and his mind. While he hasn't gone mad per se, the joy he gets from his work hasn't wavered a bit, even when it involves coming up with methods of destruction instead of healing.
He isn't the easiest of birds to deal with at the best of times and if you happen to end up on his bad side, he becomes a genuinely scary nemesis. And that's a tough spot for Paola, working undercover in the Doctor's ranks.
And by the way, yes, The Funky Doctor does wear a fez and a bowtie. Because of course he does. How could I resist? It was either that or a ridiculously long scarf.
PDOH, or Pluto Department of Health, is the main healthcare body of Pluto's society. They do everything related to health – from overseeing and actual delivery of all health and care to educating the public on health-related issues.
Like all other apartments, the duties of PDOH have shifted under the martial law. Public services function as well as they always have, but on the research and development side things have gone quite grim. Whereas prior the focus of PDOH was squarely on discovering new cures and procedures for the public, they now are mainly immersed in the arts of biological and biomechanic warfare; Instead of trying to discover the next magic pill to cure the flu, they're now trying to create weaponised viruses, interrogation methods and cybernetic body augmentations for the battlefields.
However, as far as Pluto's general public is concerned, nothing has changed. They know next to nothing about what goes on behind the closed, restricted doors of the very hospital they get their cough medicine from.
My work schedule for past week or two has been all about a new level and new enemies to populate it with. This level is essentially the most hi-tech of all them all, meaning I've had to create a ton of custom hi-tech assets for it. It's a lot of work, as usual, but now as the level starts to shape up, it kind-of looks like a love-child of Tron's light-strip designs, the shiny ceramic hallways of the Death Star and TAGAP 3's own, rounded design language. Sadly I can't show it to you yet, as it's so 'work-in-progress' that the walls aren't in place!
As for the enemies, they're fun ones. In fact they are a brand new kind of foe – or actually three of them working in unison. I don't want to spoil these, but I can say they are a nice change of pace from anything else you've seen in TAGAP so far. In other words the perfect one-level foes!
And finally, just yesterday we had a special dual-session of penguin plushie photography and TAGAP 3 progress checking. We're rolling ahead nicely on TAGAP 3 front, as great chunks of the game are almost complete, while Petja has composed a slew of new sketches ready to be transformed into proper TAGAP songs. It's great to see, once again, how the separately formed pieces are coming together as a whole. There's a long, long way to go, but we have tons of stuff ready, too.
