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[JigxorAndy]

Day 226
* Added particle effects to icebolts
* Added End Of Level Stats

A friend is doing some UI concepts, as well as doing some of the effects such as the ice bolt. Here is the progression of the UI designs that he's come up with and that we've been discussing:

Haven't checked this out in awhile but the gameplay is looking really nice. Liking the video and tactics used to pass the level

Thanks! The game is actually going to get a lot more tactical (or "allow" you to be more tactical). The players will have many more skills, and some of the levels will be quite diverse. It's still very hack and slashy - which some levels will be - but I aim to put a lot of depth into some upcoming levels.

[alastair]

Oh nice, that's pretty cool, I really like the current design!

Are the boxes between the HP and AP bar the turn order boxes? I'm assuming that at that length you'd be including enemies beside the players cause theres so many?

Is the freemove icon also the button for teleporting, or did you change your mind on that mechanic? Also do you think you'll put an icon for ending turn  (for mouse reasons)?

[JigxorAndy]

Oh nice, that's pretty cool, I really like the current design!

Are the boxes between the HP and AP bar the turn order boxes? I'm assuming that at that length you'd be including enemies beside the players cause theres so many?

Is the freemove icon also the button for teleporting, or did you change your mind on that mechanic? Also do you think you'll put an icon for ending turn  (for mouse reasons)?

The current design is awesome, but there's a lot more information that needs to be displayed and I don't think I'm able to adapt the current design to fit it all. One of the main things is that the current design isn't showing the enemy turns, which I think is an important element when there's a lot on screen and you don't know when you'll be able to move next.

I was thinking the same thing about making the freemove icon into a button for teleporting! Double use. This UI layout also has mouse controls in mind as well with some more 'button' elements.

I'll probably not have the map there all the time. I think that might be changed into a dropdown so that it's there optionally. I don't think a map will be that necessary all the time for the game, it might be good to look at now and then.

[JigxorAndy]

Day 229
* Added global quests system - things to do on any level
* Designed new equipment system

Too exhausted to discuss it more as it's 5:13AM!

[JigxorAndy]

Day 231
* Designed new equipment

Over the past few days I've been doing a lot of design work, which is why there haven't been so many feature/coding updates. I've developed a new equipment system where skills are no longer tied to items and you choose your skills separately. And I've been doing a lot of work on paper to figure out how many items are required and what their properties will be. Additionally I've been working closely with Philip and a new artist Chris Pariano who is working on new sprites for equipment.

Here is Chris' work on a sword and a cloak:



The design of the sword is a reference to a movie! Bonus points to whoever can work out where it's from. Hint: look at the handle.

I'm excited to put a lot of new items and progression into coming builds.

[JigxorAndy]

Day 232
* imported new equipment assets
* changed equipment and skill selection system (required a lot of refactoring)
* weapon and equipment design
* skill design (there are about 7 unique skills per character planned now)
* added options screen and ability to control music volume with a slider

Here is what the new layout for the equipment/loadout screen is like:


With this new system, skills are no longer tied to items. Instead you choose 3 items and 3 skills. There were going to be many balancing problems and also simple restrictions that would have occurred using the old system. I'm happy with the design of the new system and I'm excited to have some art in there by Chris.

I started the day doing a lot of design of the new equipment system, including fleshing out a whole bunch of items and their general stats. I also worked out many of the skills for the heroes. You'll be able to see briefly in the screenshot that there are a bunch of stats. These have come about from thinking about how the items will affect the heroes, as well as different scenarios. Some levels may have lots of witches and elemental creatures, so it might be a good idea to use armour with magic resist. Some other levels might have lots of weak enemies, so you'd be best to buff your Action Points to allow for many moves. I'm hoping each item is quite unique and has a situation where it would be best used.

It took a long time to code the new system in and a lot of refactoring of old code, but it works now.

Tomorrow I'll tighten up this and import some more of Philip's assets including tiles and some entities that have been lying around such as the bookcase.

[JigxorAndy]

Day 233
* Made new equipment/skill selection more polished and fixed many bugs. All item/skill selection stuff is now very functional.
* Imported new tiles for the castle levels
* Added bookshelf (can be destroyed like a crate)
* Added new columns for the castle
* Updated level editor to handle new tiles and objects

A neater looking screen for choosing a weapon, but still programmer art:



Big things to tackle soon:
1. Implement new Speed system. This system involves giving each player and enemy a speed stat which determines turn order, where as the current system = all players move then all enemies move. I think this may need some refactoring since the game is structured to work with "enemy turn" state and "player turn" state. (The currently disabled multiplayer backend will need to be recoded as well most likely).
2. Teleport party to surrounding tiles. This is a feature I've been thinking about for over a week now. There's still too much idle walking, so it would be good to be able to bring your party members with you right before you open a door. I have another idea that would work well in multiplayer but is a pain to code with the current engine: Simultaneous Free Move! I think that it would be cool if you're able to walk around freely during multiplayer at the same time as other players when there are no enemies around. This means you could all go around and pickup gold faster, pull levers, etc. There are a fair few synchronization issues with the current state-based network code, but it would be worth it. It would give the game another reason to play online, where as in singleplayer you'd be forced to move characters one by one, or use the less efficient (but still useful) teleport system.
3. Crafting. This should be relatively easy to code I think. It's mostly user interface stuff and content - i.e. working out what unlocks what.


Chris is working on more awesome items.

Philip (Dusty) is working on a boulder to fall from traps and run down narrow corridors like in Indiana Jones.

[JigxorAndy]

Day 234
* Fixed tileset issues for Castle tiles. Castle levels can now be built.
* Equipment and skill design on paper

[JigxorAndy]

Day 234
* Added party teleport system. When you press the teleport button and there are no enemies around all of your party members are automagically teleported around you.
 You can also make this automatically happen whenever you open a door. This could be initially confusing but it speeds up the game considerably. No more useless walking around.
* Added new speed system. Now each enemy and player has a Speed attribute. Whenever you open a door it orders all of the characters by their Speed for their turn order. This will allow more strategic decisions for who should open doors, and also during combat.
* Removed delay when cycling through players.

Here's a screenshot showing the flood filling algorithm I used to determine which spaces around the player are free and can be used to teleport allies onto:



I felt like I got a lot of stuff done today. I did 2 out of the 3 difficult systems that I mentioned. The teleport system only took about 2 hours and was quite straightforward once I'd gotten the algorithm down for searching nearby tiles.

The Speed system was quite difficult and challenging. It basically required me to rewrite how turns were handled, as before I was using a system that was really "player phase" or "enemy phase" and had two lists (queues) holding the characters to move that phase. I had to combine those into one big priority queue ordered by the Speed attribute so that the fastest units move first.

Once I'd implemented the Speed system there were a lot of problems and inconsistencies that I had to address. Little things to do with how the end/start of a turn came about which led to a few bugs which I managed to fix after lots of staring at code.

Next Up:
I need to implement new UI which handles the Speed system and gives better feedback. I also need health bars above characters and enemies when they take damage.

I will also look at adding in the crafting system, which shouldn't be too hard.

After that I need to add in shadows for the new Castle tiles and then there should be a lot of content creating! New maps, items, progression.

Steam Greenlight is live in under 6 days, so I'm aiming to have an impressive version of the game and make some cool videos by then. Ludum Dare this weekend as well might take up a bit of time!

[GeoffW]

Steam Greenlight is live in under 6 days, so I'm aiming to have an impressive version of the game and make some cool videos by then. Ludum Dare this weekend as well might take up a bit of time!

Do you know if it's possible to create a project on Greenlight yet?  I was told it would be possible to do this some amount of time before the site goes fully live.

[JigxorAndy]

Steam Greenlight is live in under 6 days, so I'm aiming to have an impressive version of the game and make some cool videos by then. Ludum Dare this weekend as well might take up a bit of time!

Do you know if it's possible to create a project on Greenlight yet?  I was told it would be possible to do this some amount of time before the site goes fully live.

I don't know anything about early submissions. I'm just going by the information on their website which says that Greenlight will be live at the end of August, it could be earlier!

[SpaceFish]

I like the gui design that person is making so i added some stuff on top.. the game is lookin' great!



Edit: Thanks JigexorAndy, can't wait to see it

[JigxorAndy]

Thanks SpaceFish! That looks cool! It will be great to do some more integrated UI elements like the one you drew rather than having objects simply floating everywhere as they are now.

[JigxorAndy]

Day 235
* tweaked some delay values to make the new turn system feel like the older one. There wasn't a delay between turns which was making everything jump around too much.
* imported new end of level portal assets
* imported new dragon and item graphics
* implemented Crafting System - you unlock new plans for items which allow you to craft them if you have the right resources. Currently you only require gold but there will soon be reagent drops from enemies randomly which you'll need to collect.
* designed new armour attributes and types

Crafting an item. Once you craft it the craft button changes into "Equip". Also, I cheated to get gold  Still placeholder UI.



Next Up:
* Changing the in-game UI to show turn order of everyone as well as health and other essential elements
* Add reagent drops and collection.
* CONTENT! Implement proper item/character stats. Make levels.

[JigxorAndy]

Day 236
* Made skills craftable
* Fixed some problems with the new Turn System where players would get effectively two turns in a row
* Made the turn order display for every enemy and player on screen (see screenshot)
* Starting moving around UI elements some more - trying to implement UI Concept 7

Bottom right of this image shows the turn order of the enemies and players. Current turn is the Rogue, following by 3 enemies, and then the rest of the party. This new system allows enemies and players to be interspersed with each other, where as the old system had a strict order of "all players" followed by "all enemies". Placeholder art of course!



I'm planning on participating in Ludum Dare this weekend which will probably slow progress a little bit.