Hello again, Designer Michael here! Happy Holidays to one and all, to celebrate this festive season I am going to share with you a brief making of Yule Moon. This moon is one of the Mini Moons you will discover far out in the Solar Map. It's a winter wonderland full of hidden ice caves, windy paths, ice slides and surrounded by festive decorations. Biome: Ice Climate: Windy Size: Mini Moon [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/42922256/aae32460ee344f744d9cce2166b4cc8b94d36cc4.png[/img] FUN FACT 1: Yule Moon used to be called Cool Moon! [h3]Making a Moon[/h3] As you may have read from my last post [url=https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1808640/view/7249162346639218640]Developer Blog #8 - Community Moons[/url], I spoke about the process I used for making a world for the game. Before I sketched up any ideas for Yule Moon, this Mini Moon actually started off as a testing template for the game’s ice and wind physics, it was then decided to be used and changed into Yule Moon. Due in part to the fun challenges that were used to test out the ice and wind. So with Yule Moon, I had blockouts and a few Challenges floating around already. So I had to rearrange and change the Moon’s layout and make it flow better gameplay wise rather than being a set of specific testing areas. This is where sketching out ideas and plans came into play. To help me get ideas out of my head and on to paper to start creating. With blockouts and challenges put into place, then began play testing, with our amazing QA team. We even had sessions where the whole team would have a go. From there I would receive bugs and gather feedback from forms to help address and identify any issues and areas that could benefit from improvements. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/42922256/dde2745714767eb8564b097aa2f86263eddee94b.png[/img] FUN FACT 2: Yule Moon was once going to be orbiting Zaroth IV. [h3]Tis the season for Challenges [/h3] Like all the Mini Moons, Yule Moon also contains Challenges that offer fun trails that reward Players with Solar Safes and Ore. Some of the Challenges will require Contraptions to be made in their related Workshops. While other Challenges require Players to platform and explore every nook and cranny of the Mini Moon. For the purpose of this post and to keep some surprises on Yule Moon a secret, I am going to talk about the first Challenge that was made, that being “Sleigh Ride Slides”. As mentioned above, in “Making a Moon”. Yule Moon was once used to test out the ice and wind physics, while special areas were made to test them out, “Sleigh Ride Slides” was the first testing challenge to see what we could do more with ice slides. With this I was able to tweak and play around with how Players react to ice slides and because of that we were able to have special Design rules for the ice slides. Which meant they would behave differently to ice ground or ice slopes. When it came to using Yule Moon as an actual Mini Moon for the game, the Idea of “Sleigh Ride Slides” was changed slightly to fit a more gameplay friendly experience rather than a debug testing style. Though the idea of ice slides never left. This Challenge had a few iterations, from being a simple slide to jump over a large lava pit, to being a couple of ice slide loops. In the end though the Challenge became bigger, using up nearly half of the Moon’s side. Which impacted the Moon's look and placement of everything going forward. The Challenge became about using ice slides to jump over lava pits and avoid the wind areas that could lift you up or push you down into lava. This Challenge may not be the easiest, but it is one that tests your knowledge of the game’s Workshop component parts and Yule Moon’s Ice and Wind physics. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/42922256/1bc8ca8ca1ce644ab484b303563d69c493049294.png[/img] FUN FACT 3: The Challenge “Sleigh Ride Slides”, was originally named “Be Cool!”, it was changed to match the new holiday vibe of Yule Moon. [h3]Let's Decorate[/h3] We have talented artists who dress the worlds and place art assets around, that follow the art style, look and feel of Astronimo. With Yule Moon the theme and visual style is clearly snow, ice and festive decorations, with an Astronimo twist. You will see blue Christmas trees, candy canes, presents, snowmen and a giant skeleton reindeer serpent! All of this is from the creative minds of our artists! [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/42922256/c6f2734d411b52164d0ed3d31e85447aa83a836f.png[/img] Check out Astronimo today, discover Worlds collect rewards. From myself, the team of Astronimo and Captain Croc. Happy holidays and we wish you all well for an exciting New Year! Join the [url=https://discord.gg/coatsink]Coatsink Discord Server[/url] Follow Astronimo on [url=https://twitter.com/PlayAstronimo]Twitter[/url]. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1808640/Astronimo/