Hello everyone!
I'm still chugging away at working on this game, I promise! I am working two jobs now, soon switching jobs, and hopefully gaining a full-time position somewhere soon, so most of the big stuff in this project is currently (and unfortunately) on the back burner; mainly multiplayer and networking.
However, some of the more manageable projects involved with this game project are within my time budgets to invest in properly. I honestly wouldn't want to rush multiplayer structures and coding, all to have it not work for you guys because I didn't give it the time and care that it needs.
Story Mode
The picture above shows the main menu screen. Simple! Remember when I used to have the story mode button, and it used to put a message on the screen indicating that I wasn't working on it yet? I believe now is the time to begin work on that area of the game.
The way I want this particular side of the game to work is to split the story I have to tell into acts, much like how Diablo III splits its story into acts as well. However, each individual Act will be centered around a specific character that you can play as in the game or encounter at some point in Adventure Mode. The Act divisions are set up as follows:
Act I: Paladin
Act II: Sorcerer
Act III: Ranger
Act IV: Battle-Mage
Act V: Necromancer
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Acts I-V are the events that occurred before and leading up to the player's shenanigans in Adventure Mode, such as explaining the reason why all of the heroes are gathered in Broken Shield Castle and where they are from. It will also offer players a different objective besides hunting for loot all the time.
Difficulty
I have been messing around with an idea to add in levels of difficulty that players can choose from to give the game a bit more variety and depth. Just your average normal, medium, and hard levels, perhaps named differently to be a little bit more creative. How this would effect monster and their damage/health would depend on the scaling factor that I add to those levels. For example, if I add in a global variable called something like "difficulty" and give it a number, I can give the enemy's health value another multiplier on top of level scaling.
These are the lines of code that control how each individual monster stacks up against the player. Certain monsters are given certain health values depending on their type. For example, a small flying bat would be given health_1. A skeleton would be given health_2. An atronauch, larger monster or boss would be given health_3.
Difficulty levels would increase these values by a specific amount. For example, I could change the "difficulty" to, say, 1.5 (medium), it would then multiply that entire value of, say, health_3 by 1.5. A level 5 monster set on medium difficulty would have 3150 health instead of 2100. Damage values would also be impacted in the same manner.
More Items
I have been drawing the art assets for some more items lately, particularly higher-level armors. I find that the most-fun armor to work on is in the legendary/godlike bracket because they have to be the most vibrant colors and the coolest looking gear available!
Here's a screen of the asset folder that contains the sprite images of these legendary armors. We have one complete set for each armor type, though they aren't actually "set" items, as you can tell. These are merely supposed to be bits of armor from lore in the game that may appear elsewhere if you look hard enough. They aren't exactly supposed to match one another if you wear them all, but individually they look pretty neat!
Releasing Dungeons of Daggerhelm
I have decided to move forward with these plans in an attempt to make a more stable and fuller version of the game, with hopes of releasing it for an official purchase in alpha stages for $0.99 on Desura. Steam Greenlight will have to come later since the game does not have the followership to support such a campaign. However, perhaps with a listing on Desura, the game will cultivate a following big enough for that in the future.
