I wanted to make a video to show to potential game reviewers, and it turned into a short trailer:
It shows some major changes to the game. Most importantly, the new magic system. Magic in TERRA MELIOR has gone through many awkward phases, but I’ve finally got it working well. It’s important that the magic is amazing because in my last survey, it was the most popular playstyle, with 18% choosing aggressive magic.
Powerful spells take a while to charge up, like that awesome fireball of doom! It powers up in your hand, and then falls according to gravity after you shoot it.
The FIRE and ICE elements are the most polished. Each has a complete set of moves: 5-6 spells and 3 “magic sword” attacks. This is all determined by a few different inputs from the player. Clicking the right mouse button will do something different than holding it, and tapping forward/backward right before clicking triggers a different spell as well. This makes for a somewhat difficult, but very dynamic magic system that works well in frantic battles.
This was inspired by the way Dark Souls melee combat works. I’ll make a video showing the spells and explaining it more thoroughly soon. Also, I’m working on a demo so you all can try the tutorial and test out all the guns and magic attacks in an arena.
My next objective is to work on boss battles. Specifically, really big ones. I have a new mechanic where bosses can step on you. It works by planting AOEs that turn into colliders after 0.25 seconds. So you die if stepped on, and can't run thru their feet afterwards.
It’s harder to make large monsters look and move realistically, but I love the idea of having huge bosses that tower over the player.
I made a new shader that lets me paint materials on bosses rather than the actual texture itself. So rather than having a 4096x4096 UV texture that still looks blurry, I combine several different textures and material settings according to a splat map. This lets me paint different areas as skin, armor, and bone.
UPCOMING:
- Alpha demo, including tutorial and at least one level where you can test guns and magic. Possibly a boss.
- Sci fi bows. There's a twist, and it's awesome :D
- More huge bosses!
Thanks for checking it out, and have a great week! :D
