Ok, so I experimented with displaying character messages directly above their heads (I mentioned about it it my previous entry). The outcome wasn't very good, as the text was covering other stuff on the map (including stats of other characters) - so I decided to drop that idea.
More animations incoming
But - I have some new death animations ready for basic melee rat enemy type - and they come with a knockback:
I decided that death animations are a pretty important part of the gameplay, so there will be different variants of them available. I will post more about this in the future.
Picking up loot now also has an animation of its own:
Also, the reaction shots now display the % to hit - it made the game rules more transparent.
Cheating
Speaking of transparency, I have expanded on my idea about introducing behind-the-scenes cheating to the game. Currently two systems are in place:
- Each time when the player character misses a shot, next shot will have its % to hit increased artificially (player won't see that)
- Each time an enemy is about to deal a lethal blow to a player character, there is an additional roll for them to completely miss such attack. The probability of that roll succeeding is decreased with each such situation.
These systems seem to make the gameplay more tense. The first one reduces frustration of the player not being able to hit too many shots in a row; second introduces these "he would've killed me, but somehow missed" scenarios (much more often than using a non-rigged RNG would do).
Besides that, I spent some time tweaking the camera behaviour again. Just wanted to be sure that it feels right when it is centering itself on a target/between targets and when it performs auto-zoom on character's attack and death animations.
What's next?
Mostly bugfixing; during my latest test playthroughs I found a number of issues that need to be addressed.
Then I will focus on tweaking the visuals. The levels seem too empty for me sometimes; maybe I need some additional visual effects, like rain or dust? I will have to investigate and try different things out.
Until then, enjoy the summary screen of a failed mission:
As usual, if you'd like to receive more frequent updates about the development and a heads-up about release of the demo, follow me on Twitter at @bryquTheDev.
I'm not fully aware of how minimalist the design of the UI is intended to be but those "cheats" sound like candidates for toggle options that the user has control over. Have a good one Bryku. :)
Stuff like this could be exposed in the options menu, which will still be present in the game.
However, I don't think that I should give the players the possibility to manipulate these particular settings; XCOM is cheating in its RNG, so do Civilization games. It is just that human perception of regular random numbers generation mechanics is often seen as 'unfair' - I am trying to make sure that I make it more acceptable :)
Ohhh ok, I see where your reasoning is coming from and appreciate it. Thank you for the time and explanation.