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[Birdorf]

I'm going to have to start following this, looks interesting.

[Blodyavenger]

Thanks Birdof! I'll be able to show more and more stuff now because I'm on map & art production stage now.

Until then - new screenshot, just for this beloved Saturday, and all of you who dare to peek into this place.

[JigxorAndy]

I really like how you've mixed pixel art with smooth undiscovered/black fog. Looks great! The HUD is awesome as well.

[Blodyavenger]

That's nice to hear, thanks   Although, that what you call fog is simply just a darkness. When you move away from it it becomes black again but I'm thinking to place some "lightable" torches around the walls that will light for good when you pass them.

HUD will have few changes as well like torch for example that will have flame improved and animated.

[Blodyavenger]

I have one question, do you think that dialogue window from the image would be too disturbing in the game? I want to use it for the hints or some random quotes from the courier but of course, never in places where you need to see your surroundings.

This won't block your movement, it will just pop up for two or three seconds. Thoughts?

[PompiPompi]

'Disturbing' sound like the wrong word, heh. Maybe you ment disrupting or distracting?
Anyway, dialogs depend on the type of game, and how they appear.
If your game have action elements, like a rat can sneak on you and attack, then a dialog can interrupt you in the wrong time.
Even if you don't fight enemies in your game, but have some sort of... pressing element, like you can run out of oil while reading the dialog... it can also be problematic.
A safe option would be to open dialogs only as a response to an action, and even then, pause the game while the dialog appears and let the user decide when to close the dialog.
However, spontenous dialogs might be more creative and fun, though missing out on a dialog because it last only 3 seconds might be annoying to the obssesive gamer... heh.

Well bottomline, you need to try all sort of options and playtest what works best(with testers other than you).

[Blodyavenger]

Like I said dialogues would show up only when there is nothing important around like enemies, traps or something and flame is not consumed if you don't move so it would be quite safe.

On the other hand, I didn't think about the time. As you said, it would be nice for the user to skip it as soon as he wish instead of reading it fast like a mad man or sighing out of boredom.

I'll try both options and give it to some testers then, that should be indeed the best option.  Thanks for your strong opinion

[PompiPompi]

I hope it doesn't sound I am telling you what to do. I guess I should make it more clear that these are just my thoughts, and I don't have a clear developer perspective to back them up. Though I did think about them from my experience as a gamer... but that's just my specific experience. So, it's more like food for thought...

[Blodyavenger]

Hehe, not at all, I take every suggestion for consideration

This dialogue screen will be very small (like you see on the image) and it won't get any bigger so you can expect really short notes or quotes.

It seems that combination of "timing" and "skipping manualy" works nice. You can either wait those 5 seonds or simply skip it by pressing "x". Movement is not blocked though.

[xfry]

¡Hi! I only want to say something about of dialogue frame. if you don want affect the visuality around of scene to activate the dialogue, please make that be short words to dialogue frame, and don't forget move a little the dialogue frame to the dark part of scenery

another suggestion about of sound, these will be substantial to express the suspense...  i like that #IndieGame

[peous]

Like the lighting !
Maybe if you can place light sources in the future there could be some gameplay related to this ? Like monsters spawning if their spawnpoint is in a dark area, and stop spwaning if you light fire next to it...

[Birdorf]

I'd be tempted to see how the text bubble looks if it's faded around the edges and/or a bit frayed/ragged, like an old piece of parchment or a map. Game's looking great, by the way.

[Blodyavenger]

First of all, thanks to all of you for the input!

@xfry:
Yes, maybe I should really resize the frame by the length of the message. For now it fades away faster if there is only 1 line of text but making smaller bubble should do even better job with all the covering-scene problem. About the sonds - I'm already working on that with my music composer. When you'll have lots of flame, music will be played normal but when your flame will get smaller, music will change it's atmoshphere - rythm will be gone and you'll geta feeling that you really are alone in the crypts and that something is not right.

Sound effects will be done carefully as well for the torches, mice, random noises from the halls etc. I'm focusing a lot on the crypts atmosphere overall.

@peous:
Thanks, glad to hear this. There will be even more light shapes to reach nice dynamics in crypt areas. I had in mind to light torches on the walls automaticly when you pass them but I never tought about what you've just mentioned but I love the idea. Preventing spider spawning with placing light next to the hole or something would be more than great! Something like that is coming now for sure 

@Birdof:
I should definitely try that, preview next time I'm glad that you like what you see so far.

More and more stuff will be coming up soon so stay tunned!

[Paul Jeffries]

This looks really cool.  Reminds me a bit of this game mechanic idea: http://www.squidi.net/three/entry.php?id=86, which I always thought would be cool to see realised.  Will there be similar grue-like enemies in this game?

[Blodyavenger]

Thanks Paul I've, never heard for this game but thanks for sharing the link, it's nice to see something similar although my game is going to be a bit different.

Darkness Creatures seems to heavily concetrate on light sources (all mechanics works around the light as I can see) while I don't have that.

For me, light source is important because if you run out of the light you "die" and there are some enemies that are affected by the player's light (spiders for example run away from your light then ghost are revealed only by light). While you work on keeping your flame alive and big you have to solve different puzzles that are not heavily connected to the light and darkness.

I want to mix everything together - puzzle, action & light mechanics into one game.

[Blodyavenger]

Courier is lurking trough the crypts trying to find easter eggs.
I would like to see expression  on his face when he finds out that
those are not what he thinks. Hah, this should be fun!

Happy Easter holidays!

[Blodyavenger]

[ Update log: ]
- created new gfx for teh spidah
- created gfx for 1st boss which is quite cool (images comming soon)
- added spider eggs from which spiders gets hatched if you don't destroy them quickly
- changed spider logic: spiders will fear your flame as long as you keep it above 50% after that you should better watch yourself. Before that they just got closer if your flame lowered but that didn't rise any threats and it was almost impossible for them to kill you
- new maps done



First big video preview for the first thematic is getting really close now.

[happymonster]

New spiders look good!

[PompiPompi]

Looking great!

[Franklin's Ghost]

Nice improvement on the spiders.