One thing is I still haven't found any good editing software for this process. I'd really like to make a trailer video but I'm not sure what to use. Anyone got any ideas?

I have listed a selection of proper video edting and recording software over here:
http://www.pixelprospector.com/indie-resources/#video-recording-and-editing

I use Sony Vegas for editing. Really good piece of software.
There are 3 versions (50$/100$/600$... the basic version is enough for normal editing).
Note that you can test the free trial of each version for 30 days without any restrictions.

I've heard good things about Sony Vegas, thanks for the tip, I'll give it a go.

edit: I've been trying the trial of Movie Studio 11 (the cheapest option) and it seems really awesome! It's extremely intuitive and works straight out of the box with lots of great features. I'll probably be buying it. Thank you very much.

Hey, that's where you are wrong. This game IS fun to play. It's got every turn based action point game on the market beat so far. Steam Marines http://www.steammarines.com/ is much further along in development, but it isn't nearly as fun as Dungeon Dashers. Guts http://www.bigmengames.com/alpha.html shows promise but it doesn't use more than one character, a must for action point tactical roguelikes in my opinion.

I'm not sure why Dungeon Dashers is so good, either. I'm trying to figure that out for my game. Anyone care to guess?

Can't wait to play this build, man!

Thank you for the feedback and kind words. I feel better about the game now that I've released this build. I polished a fair few small things (such as displaying when you don't have enough AP left or no targets in range) which seemed to make a lot of difference. I'm confident about the game and I'm still working on it everyday to make it better and better. It was just a temporary lack in motivation after working on it pretty hard for many days in a row.

[Dungeon Dashers Build 271 Is Ready!]

Dungeon Dashers Build 271 Is Ready!

"game feels 100% somethinger"

Main Changes:
* Loads of bugfixes and polish tweaks
* User Interface Artwork
* Different weapons, armour and equipment with unique stats
* Craftable equipment
* Loads of new skills
* New turn system based on a "speed" attribute
* New levels
* Global Quests System (one quest right now to kill 3 enemies)
* Critical hits (extra damage for attacks in the back)
* Health bars displayed for all enemies and players (Press and hold Tab)

Everyone who has purchased the game so far has access to this in development build.

Steam Greenlight Page: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=92990904
Purchase Link: http://www.dungeondashers.com

If anyone has a YouTube account and would like to record a Let's Play or create a trailer of of this new version then I'll send you a free copy of the game to do so.

The Knight also has 3 newly drawn skills by Chris. I think they are spectacular, especially the detail on the arms and hand.

You are right, they are awesome!

Chris reads the blog too and I'm sure he appreciates comments like this (Philip reads it too!)

[Day 268]

Day 268
* Implemented Skill UI
* Fixed bug in new level
* Fixed bugs with blinking onto objects

I play tested the new level that I'd created with two friends today. It seemed too hard, brutal and unfair.

The game overall isn't feeling as fun as I want it to. It's a good game, but it's not GREAT yet. There isn't a lot of stuff that jumps out and makes you really excited or say "wow". Little bit disheartened, but I will press on until it is more fun.

I'm thinking I might recruit some help for the level development so that I can focus on improving the game features itself.

New Skills UI (works for any number of skills):

[Day 267]

Day 267
* Changed skills system so that it is variable for 3 or 4 skills
* Elf now always has shoot arrow skill, it does not have to be chosen in addition
* Skills are now implemented as hotkeys. To use a skill you press its corresponding slot, i.e. 1,2,3 or 4.
* New level - lots of traps and switches and a big battle too. Quite difficult.

I'm pretty happy with what I achieved today. I worked pretty hard and I got a lot done. I started off the day changing around the skills system and how it worked. I scrapped the "current skill" and "change skill" button in favour of simply pressing 1/2/3/4 to use a skill. I also did lots of UI fixes and minor changes. I ran into a few problems implementing some of the new skill UI art so I'll need to modify how that works.

I spent a large part of the day after that working on a new level which should be a lot closer to the levels I've had in mind all along. It's more intricate than what has been showcased before and has many alternate routes to complete it, depending on how you want to do it. It is a bit more difficult but I think it makes it more interesting. It needs more playtesting.

Here is a screenshot with a small section of the level. The Knight also has 3 newly drawn skills by Chris. I think they are spectacular, especially the detail on the arms and hand.


Tomorrow I'd like to make another level and then it should be pretty close to a new build for release.

If you haven't already, please Vote for Dungeon Dashers on Greenlight.

I made a fair few storybooks with my dog as a super hero who had rocket launchers attached to him and killed the bad guys.

I've tired a lot of different techniques and pieces of software for recording videos. I'm still not really sure what's the best but I can show you what I do so far.

For a 720p YouTube video I use:

Record with:

Playclaw:
Low Compression
30 FPS
6 Compression Threads

And then put it through VirtualDub:
XVid 720p preset. Quality 1.0
with audio: CCITT u-Law 44.1k 8 bit stereo

That gives me a video of this sort of quality: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdKUVKkPTJk

The filesize can be quite large. Perhaps 1GB of raw video for 5 minutes of recording which is compressed to 100-200mb.

Playclaw is decent, but I think something like FRAPS which most people use would probably be better.

One thing is I still haven't found any good editing software for this process. I'd really like to make a trailer video but I'm not sure what to use. Anyone got any ideas?

[Day 266]

I'm really love watching this game progress. Super inspirational stuff here guys!

I'm loving your game so far, it has that great old-school DnD/Warhammer Quest feel. I look forward to playing it in the future! Keep up the good work.
 

Thank you! That's very motivating.

@Bandreus Procedurally generate content is definitely worth exploring, and I can see that if it was done well it could be a fun feature. But tweaking it so that it generates interesting and balanced levels would be a task in itself and so that and a map editor are things I'd look into releasing as post-version-one content.

Day 266
I didn't do any development today either as it was the last day of Freeplay. Tomorrow I intend to make levels.

Philip did some more Ancient Egyptian tomb tile modifications and skills HUD layout.

[Day 265]

Day 265
I didn't do any work on the game today. I'm still attending the Freeplay festival in Melbourne which is AWESOME. There's so many interesting panels, discussions, people and games.

Chris did a bunch of new skills and Philip drew a proper popup textbox back image.

Even though I didn't do any work today I think it's important to keep you all updated so that you can see the processes behind making a game like this including the successes and the failures. I'll be getting back into it on Sunday night or Monday day.

@Bandreus - I will reply to your comments tommorow, currently super busy!

[Day 264]

Day 264
I didn't personally get much done today. I was busy attending Freeplay for most of it.

Chris did some fantastic new skill icons (see screenshot). In particular I love the realism and volume of the "guard" skill which shows a figure with his two arms crossed, in the bottom image:

263 days and I didn't even know this was a thing!? This is an exciting, exciting thread. This alone makes me glad Dom is creating a visual summary of Devlogs now!

It's almost surprising to hear of hand-crafted dungeons in a fantasy themed game. I love procedurally generated things, don't get me wrong, but I really like the experience that a designed level brings to a game. Also, co-op yaaay

Thanks! Dom's visual summary is really great and I found a couple of cool new games that I didn't know about before too.

Dungeon Dashers is really aiming to have crafted levels with interesting challenges and surprises. The advantage of designing the levels myself instead of procedurally is that I can setup intricate traps and try to get into the mindset of the people playing. I'll try to think about where they will be and what they might try to do next. I can then build a level around this experience, and playtest it so that the same level works a wide range of players with different play-styles and experience. With a procedural game it's harder to anticipate what kind of situations you'll encounter all of the time, so it's difficult to implement a trap or a surprise at the right time.

Thanks for doing this and including Dungeon Dashers! This is a really cool idea and I've found some nice titles from it that I would have missed otherwise.

The fireball skill icon is so hot! (pun totally intended)

I would go the same way most games do it these days. Skill icons in hotbar, keybindings (1,2,3,4 or wtv) to cast skills, but the player can still click on icons directly to cast those (for insta use skills like buffs on caster, etc) or pointer go into designate-target mode (for targeted skills like projectiles, AoE skills etc) in order for the player to pick an ally, enemy or tile as appropriate per skill.

Sounds like a good way to go!

All the stuff you have added since the recent dev build.

Y'know, if you randomly generated dungeons, that would give acres of new content. I know you didn't want to go that way, but it would certainly fill the hole. The three levels you have now are fantastic, and I totally get why you aren't, but ToME can do both. Maybe you can too.

Don't go tryin' to write the algorithm, it has totally been already written.

Randomly generated dungeons is something that I'll be looking at in a post-first-release build as some extra free content. I think it would be fun to see how far you could get in a randomly generate dungeon, but it's not part of the core experience that I'm trying to deliver with Dungeon Dashers.

I haven't played ToME, it looks fun. I'll give it a go! Thanks.

[Day 263]

Day 263
* Added "kill all enemies" trigger to maps.
* Fixed UI bugs

I spent most of the day discussing the HUD with Philip and Chris and working out how it should look. Chris came up with a more realistic looking style (as opposed to the "parchment" in yesterday's post) which I think works a lot better. It's more interesting and allows for some more creative freedom as well. There will be a border on the HUD to go around it.

Fireball skill icon at 2X


I also realised that there isn't much point in having a "current skill" system with a "change skill" button. Instead, I'll bind the skill slots to the number keys 1,2,3,4 - or perhaps to Q,W,E,R (which could be changed for those with non QWERTY keyboards). The original reasoning for the change skill button was to limit the number of buttons used in total for the game, but I think it just makes it less intuitive overall. How would you feel if the skills were hotkey bound to 1,2,3,4, and pressing them went straight into casting them?

I might not be so active over the next few days because I'll be attending Freeplay, an Independent Games Festival and conference held in Melbourne, which goes until Sunday night.

When I do get time my plan is to build 2 more levels and then get a new build out.

This is of course going to be changed according to iterations over the GUI, but you may try to display something as simple as "Mary's turn", "Skeleton 1's turn", "Kate's turn", etc.

Either under/above portraits or somewhere else you see fit. I'm assuming you'll want to include some sort of Log, as in some strategy games and most roguelikes, so that may be a good place to display the current turn as well.

I'll see where the text can fit, but I'll keep it in mind. Thanks for reminding me. A log would be a good idea too. I've seen a fair few roguelikes which keep it in one of the corners and fade out the lines as they appear, almost like a background. However I don't want to clutter up the screen, so if I do have that, it would be an option.

[Day 262]

Day 262
* Tweaked HUD visuals, adding backing behind smaller HP bars on players and enemies.
* Made damage and gold counters smoothly fade out instead of disappearing
* Made critical hist/miss/dodge alert fade out
* Fixed bug where gold counters would often display +0 instead of +1
* Added back enemy drop shadows
* Added variable width typeface to replace the monospaced typeface. Much easier to read.
* Chris experimented with the skill icons (see bottom left of screenshot)

I've been thinking that teleporting everyone to a door might not be the best way to go. I realised that some of the later levels I'm designing might not work so well if you've got the option to find a door and get everyone out, rather than force players to be trapped or split up. I think some sort of special floor tile which teleports all of the party to the surrounding tiles might work. My original hesitation with this idea was that I thought I'd pretty much have to put them in every room. But I realise that if they only allow a single activation, they become more like checkpoints which I can place less frequently. I'll play around with the idea in later builds.

The variable width text was something that was important to me because the monospaced version I displayed a few days ago wasn't very readable. I spent a fair bit of time reading into how to make it work, and I came up with a 8x16 bitmap typeface based on those found in SNES games.

This game is incredible, man! It a lot like what I'm looking to make for my game. It's really fun.

I want more! Can we get another dev build? It looks like you have added a ton, and I'd really like to check it out.

I'm trying! I wanted to build two levels today but I didn't get around to it (I did design a new one which I think should be interesting). There's only one proper level in the game right now that I'm testing the new features with so that's why I haven't released a build in a while. I'll shift my focus to building two new levels first thing tomorrow so that I can give you guys something to play. I know it's been too long since the last build and I'd really like to get this one out.

Is there anything else in particular you'd really like to have for the next build?

Oh, I was just wondering if you'd show like "Mary" or "Kate" (player names) somewhere or maybe that doesn't matter I guess.

I was displaying the multiplayer name in earlier builds but I removed it for now. I will need a place to put it later on so I'll have to keep that in mind. The screen could get pretty cluttered if names were always visible. Underneath or above the player portraits would be a good idea.

I like how it just extends for different HP/AP amounts. Do you think you need to show the current player's name below the large portrait?

Do you mean the player's name in multiplayer or the hero/character's name? E.g. "Knight" or "Rogue".

[Day 261]

Day 261
* Implemented turn order (portraits) and smooth transitions into the new HUD
* Implemented health and action points into the new HUD

I basically spent today adding in a lot more visuals for the HUD (where as yesterday was a lot of behind the scenes code). The bottom right of the following image is now how the HUD looks in game. The red icons are where the skeletons' portraits are supposed to be for their turns. I hope to have every character/enemy with a unique portrait. I also think I might see if the current portraits can be reworked a little as I don't think their poses are exciting enough.

The current turn is displayed on the very right with the largest portrait, and the other characters are displayed sequentially in turn order to the left of this. When the current player's turn is over, all of the portraits slide right. The sizes of the AP/HP bars adapt to the maximum values of the current player.

Philip suggested that the icon in the top-left is unnecessary, and instead whenever you have freemove it could simply change your AP bar to an infinity symbol. I think that makes a lot of sense.

[Day 260]

Day 260
* Worked on integrating Philip's new HUD.
* Added smooth transitions for turn ordering.

The right hand side of the new HUD that Philip has been working on. This will contain the portraits of the characters to display their turn order, as well as their health (red bar) and action points (blue bar).

I'm really happy with this design that Philip has come up with. I think it has some really beautiful metal and wood textures in it. Still WIP.