I try to keep mine at around 3-4 max; but you can buff different ways, and how you build/play your character can vary that a lot. A high-defense character can easily exchange 5 or more per enemy, and with tanks, it's usually 2 or less (both ways).

It's not a hard game to win; that's the tricky thing. It's just REALLY REALLY EASY TO LOSE. Even as you're dealing impressive damage, you're always kind of frail.

I've been off-and-on following Angelina's development, it's not too far off from what I'm trying to create as well. I was just using a general difficulty curve for mine, but I can see how constraint solving can be a good predictor of approximate difficulty. That's rather spiffy stuff, there.

EDIT: I love the "Procedural (Procedural Level Generator) Generator" as well. Now you're going super-deep!!

[TIGSouls.]

TIGSouls.

(/thread)

Seems solid so far.

I would have "pressing" the sword (or as I would put it in this case, the "combat") button begin the blocking phase, couple it with a "windup" frame for attacking; then release the button to attack. It would flow more naturally that way. Also, there should be a limit to how long you can hold it, before some kind of consequence like dropping your guard, or releasing an unblockable focus attack (think about your dodge rolls here - it *could* be balanced by that!).

As far as your level/area design goes, don't take one approach "over" the other. Use them both, along with your traps and environment, keep players on their toes by switching them up or combining the approaches. That's what's gonna make this game take off. Then all that's left to do is design your environmental gameplay mechanics.

Exciting but smooth pacing, with high mobility focus and various approach options. A good, solid, simple combo system like Chain Combos. Timing-sensitive defense options (like Just Defense/Parrying or KoF escape rolls). Characters designed with natural strength/flow about them, which feeds into momentum/match control (and special move commands that do so as well); but also have weaknesses/openings to exploit by others' approaches and a natural start-bridge-finish approach that discourages infinite combos.

An offense/defense-aware AI (not just a MK3 "my turn your turn" one) that uses/illustrates "active" defensive options by default*, but then turns on the offense when you're in their field of advantage or on the defensive yourself.

*This, of course, is totally factored into character personality, and specifically, how patient/disciplined they are. A couple should have no-to-little defense game at all, and totally bullhead the player, but in ways that they can tactically react to.

The simple part is in the design phase. If your grind isn't fun, it needs more fine-tuning.

I do agree that exploration itself is more fun than "static" grinding, but lots of stuff like slot machines and puzzle games are nothing BUT grinding, essentially. There's always a way to make your grind fun.

Cool. Gotta catch up here, it's been awhile. You've progressed quite nicely, here!

(tangent)
And it's funny you mention that stuff Gimmy, that's the kind of things I've been working on myself. A split-path approach where enough momentum and/or a successful reflex test determines which route you take (there's some painful math there, I'm sure you're on top of it - success route clearly has reward integrated).

And while I didn't know where to appropriately discuss it (Design subforum?), I was thinking something along a game having a limited approximation of certain class-locked resources (let's say one type is exclusively used for melee weaponry purchases, for example), and then a progression of values (10, 30, 60, 100, 300, 600, 1000) where it's impossible to purchase all of them, but the total resources give you some diverse options in progression. Topping out your character would occur near the 3/4-end phase, but would only be possible by achieving that with minimal upgrades to get there (the 10/30/60 or 100 ones, plus that?).

(Around 1100 to 1500 of each? But conservatively, more like the 1100 each as a base, then just some extra resources sprinkled at random, for the sake of player flexibility...)

Resources that are more naturally plentiful are ones you can afford to splurge on a bit; but it really forces the player to consider cost-efficiency of spending/upgrading versus the potential for saving, because the endgame with *no* top-tier gear may be overwhelming somehow - it's not always about acquiring the latest-and-greatest. Just knowing what your strengths and weaknesses as a player are.
(/tangent)

Note to idiot self: Hijacking a moderator's DevLog thread with a tangential response is probably not the smartest move in the book, here. lol

Forgot about that and poise, actually.

Heavier equipment leads to better poise (less pushback), but increased comboability as a result of it, and lowered mobility; but the figures balance it out better than most games.

Lighter equipment leads to faster movement all around, but lower poise which makes pushback a bigger factor (your hit reactions take more time, not just more space), and that factors more into the environment.

I also forgot to mention the Ninja Flip ring; which kinda goes more into the gear/RPG side of things, but that basically IS an invincible roll with immediate recovery. It replaces your evade roll automatically when the ring is equipped (and you're below 1/4 of your max weightload), and in early builds could actually flip through characters for easy/dumb backstabs.

That has since been patched. Twice. It used to be half your max weightload; but it was often combined with another ring that drops that burden in half, too; essentially letting you use it with anything...

Terraria. Sporadically. Very sporadically. Real life. Becoming. Too stronk. You know it's bad when you're becoming too busy for the internet.

You can store two "left hand", and two "right hand" equipments, and alternate them any time using the left/right d-pad buttons. You can also store a list of spells in your "up" d-pad to toggle if you cast those (it will automatically group multiples of the same spell, they're basically "ammo counts;" the game has no MP equivalent). Disposable items go in your "down" d-pad list (up to 5), and square(PS3)/X(360) hotkeys those.

Each weapon type has a 2 sets of light and heavy attacks (one- and two-handed), and each type of that weapon combines a set of those together. So two staff/spear weapons can share the same one-hand-light attack, but use different heavy attacks, and so forth. They all have windup/cooldown about on par with Castlevania, so you can't just flail widely without leaving your butt way open, and draining your stamina bar. Light attacks usually have a short 3-4 hit combo sequence with repeated input, but they're more rhythmic than rapid. They all drain a green "stamina meter," which replenishes during downtime, making combat sporadic and tactical in nature.

There are 3 kinds of spells in the game (Sorcery, Pyromancy, and Miracles), and each has a weapon set that summons them. Yes, they're basically weapons, with the ammo/spell determined by what you have in your "attunement" slots. You begin with one usually (2 for spell builds), and can actually level that up as a statistic. There are also standard weapons that can inflict magical-class damage, as well.

Shields are passive/positive, and it's pretty often you'll see a lot of players with them raised. You recover stamina quickly with them lowered, and slowly with them raised/blocking (hold L1). You can also try and predict (or quickly react) to attacks with a parry (L2), which has a little windup (about half that of a weapon), followed by a "parry window," and a cooldown about equal to a weapon's, maybe a little quicker. You can use these defensive manuevers while two-handing weapons, too, but not while dual-wielding. Many of the better shields include passive effects, like faster-regenerating stamina, an increased parry window, or extra resistance to status ailments like poison.

Critical hits are NOT random, ever. There are three ways to score Critical hits (usually for 3.5-4x base damage) - a direct light attack from a narrow back angle (about 20 degrees wide, you CANNOT BE BLOCKING!), an (unblockable?) "plunging attack" during a drop taller than your character, or successfully parrying and riposting an enemy's attack. These are very key in combat, and can often make-or-break even highly uneven matches, unless they're extreme cases.

You can choose to lock on to an enemy (R3) or free-form, as weapons have geometric range, ala Soul Calibur. For facing one adversary, or a small/compact group, it's easy enough to lock on, and then toggle by moving the right stick (think Spider-Man games); but with spread enemies, sometimes you're better off not being locked on (one enemy baits, the second slips up behind you).

Status ailments are meters that you can grow with your "resistance" statistic and certain equipment/garments. They're a meter that fills up with an effect before it takes effect, but then the effect lasts until it drains. 'Bleed' and 'Curse' drain instantly - curse instakills you and returns you in Cursed Form with half your Max HP; Bleed does an instant percentage of your Max HP in damage (usually about 80%!!). Poison/Toxic drains out of your meter slowly (unless it's still being added to) while burning up your HP. Some items and spells instantly empty these meters, without affecting you.

You can use evasive maneuvers with the O(PS3)/B(360) buttons. Tap to backstep, tap with the stick pressed to evade roll (there's hit detection issues there, but it's not invulnerable), or you can hold it down to run/dash. Each of these will use a bit of stamina. Running will drain it smoothly, and you do have a skid-stop to be aware of. If there's running involved, it's usually running FROM combat (lock-off, but rare because of backstab potential), to a strategic position, or in pursuit of someone fleeing - but again, that's rare and usually just people ducking around phantoms rather than facing them. It's also very easy to fall off of unfenced edges if you're not careful.

Finally, there's the jump-stab/kick. It's a little tricky to pull off, as it requires a simultaneous "press" of your movestick and L1(kick)/L2(leapstab). The kick acts as an instant guard breaker, for disarming turtles for quick followups, and pushing enemies off of ledges nearby. The leapstab is good for quickly closing some distance with an attack, but it's rarely used because it's highly telegraphed, and completely blockable/parryable. It doesn't go too terribly far, so it's not like it's all out-of-control-flying-off-the-arena. But the control scheme of these two does create your occasaional "input error" (player, not software) that can be capitalized on, or just lead to some interesting situations.

All that talk about fall damage reminds me...

I enjoyed The Great Hollow.

Sens Funhouse

 

Terraria. (Especially keen if you're a point-and-clicker, too!)

If you're not afraid to butcher animation principles to their core, and you don't mind layering a few effects on (like a few general motion-blur images that function like projectile overlays/offensive hitboxes, anyways), you could get characters to animate - even including hit reactions, in ~100 frames apiece, give or take. Regardless of how detailed the illustration itself is, which is much of really what determines graphical quality.

NeonPlat Adventures is where it's at.

It's like Bubble Bobble meets Super Mario Land, with Wario-Land powerup hats.

Looking sweet. That's some freaking brilliant conceptualism there. Following for sure.

Player tips:

Book of Blades (or as I call him, Bob) is your second best friend. If you're still having problems with silkworms, basic rats (not dire one), or bats, then you're not using Bob enough.

Personally, I equip my main weapon to D, and Bob to S. Makes a far more natural-feeling spread for a three-finger layout.

Use your altars wisely. You can only make one sacrifice apiece, so if you need HP, drop a potion or food. You can also drop defense gear - which I would suggest doing at least once - if you think you're taking too much damage. It's probably because you are, and this game makes you level that wisely, too.

Use your jump button! You can actually jump out of the way of bats diving at you if you can't strike them in time, and with one or two rats around you can easily jump past them. This isn't The Dishwasher or Double Dragon, nothing forces you to kill everything before you move along. Sometimes skipping a few targets is far easier than taking 4 hits trying to land one yourself.


As for feedback on the demo itself, check your G-mail DiscordGames.

Doing top 200s, you can work with tried-and-true and well polished, but what about top 30s? Does innovation factor more in those than in the other 170 per mix?

 

I've only seen one ever, a flash/browser game somewhere that seemed incomplete at the time.

Does anybody know of any Zelda II inspired fangames out there? There's been a weird, kind of "cult classic" buzz about it lately, and one of my friendlies started looking to do one, too.


Personally, I think it underplayed the platformer/physics end of itself in relation to it's pretty respectable combat... kind of like Castlevania/Ninja Gaiden with defensive hitboxes involved. But really, with Metroidy mobility powerups, subweapons, and unique gameplay mechanics per palace, there's a lot of undertapped potential in the formula.

I'd dabble with it a bit if I weren't already working on my core stuff; and if it didn't just make me want to play Terraria. Because the idea of it already kinda does.

I think he's comparing LoP to Zelda II.