Hello everyone!
I worked on a lot of stuff since my last post:
- Thought a lot about the content/format of my blog and my freshly started video series, and made some decisions about their future.
- Worked on the linux/mac port of KREEP, but still no announcements yet (but not far).
- Lot of progress on the development of "I am overburdened", although not as much as I hoped :| ...
Blog
Both the last video and blog entry were huge in length and quite empty (video was okay? I guess as the first one). My goal with the series is to have a little introspection of the development process and to showcase the games I'm working on + to gather some interest for them. Of course with dreadfully uninteresting videos this is not going to happen :D . Cooked up these rules and goals to try to fix this:
- Cut short the videos or fill them with more "action" (50+% game/feature showcase sounds about right).
- From now on measure word-count and aim for 500 to 600 word long written entries.
- Made an introduction video. This allows omitting the silly "greeting and explanation" section from the upcoming entries.
- Embrace "freestyle" recording to act more naturally (+ to cut down the time it takes to prepare an entry).
- Increase recording quality.
So here it is, in it's full glory, episode two:
As always, open for critique and comments both for the video and the blog entry. Please leave them here or below the video, so I can make better follow-ups.
Progress
Steady, but a tad bit slow. I hoped I could complete all the core features by now, but failed to implement monsters. It is starting to become a real game though, but I'm still in the "prototyping" phase, hence the title. Here goes last weeks progress in GIFs:
RPG layer
The RPG design and its implementation is mostly complete. Our hero has health points (damage, healing and death when reaching 0 works), and the main attributes are done (most of it is integrated and takes effect on certain events).
- Attack: damage output.
- Defense: damage reduction.
- Vitality: maximum health points.
- Speed: who attacks first.
- Luck: luck trial influence (item find chance, potion efficiency etc...)
Pickups
Treasures scattered around the dungeon floor are fully functional. There are various types (e.g.: gold sacks, health potions, permanent attribute bonuses, random artifacts), with varying probabilities to be spawn. The system is data driven, so without modifying the game a lot of pickups (and types) can be added to the mix easily.
Chests
Chests, the most valuable targets, are working. Again large part of the system is data driven (sprites, cost to open, probabilities etc...) and I have some "okay" default chest settings added to the game already.
Items and inventory
The inventory system and the basic item logic is in place. Items don't have their bonuses and skills implemented yet, but I'm already working on it :) . The plan is to have an event system "fueling" the skills, so the bonuses can be configured in tiny "scripts" (e.g.: [+X] ["Attack"] when [attacking "undead"] or [+Z permanent] ["Health points"] when [reaching "stairs"]). It has to carry the weight of 100+ unique items, so I hope this approach will be adequate.
As the next step, I have to complete the monster and battle logic. I put down the skeleton code for this too but it is going to take a few days to finish. Once that is done, the game will be pretty much playable, but lacking content and original assets. So the next post will focus on the monsters, finalization of the RPG layer and the item system. Maybe it will have plans for an open alpha release too :) ?!
Stay tuned!
