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[ANtY]

In its lust for revenge an Ancient Tree sends its emissary to sure death.
How long will you survive on this impossible mission?

(tasty fps drops thanks to my pc)

[Spencer Bambrick]

Looks awesome! Any details on the story?

[ANtY]

so the story goes kinda like this:

long long ago some wizards figured out that negative human emotions can serve as energy and slowly over the course of hundreds of years they turned into demons feeding off humans.

current times - humanity is on the verge of extinction, most of it that's left are slaves being held in some sort of camps or prisons, most of the world is burnt down, ashes everywhere

there's an ancient tree that fortunately wasn't burnt down through. it's slowly dying but it gathers enough energy to create an artificial human, an emissary, and so it sends him in quest to restore the tree to it's original power (and maybe save humanity along the way or sth like that :D )

if he dies his remains are gathered by the tree's roots and after a few years the tree gives birth to another emissary, each time a little more skilled based on the experience he gathered during his lifetime

[ANtY]

and a new gif http://gfycat.com/BleakAngelicFalcon

[ANtY]

working on a new type of enemies:



I wanted something that's got ranged attacks (in this case acid spit) and also is a part of the fauna of this starting region (mostly swamps) but also doesn't look totally out of place when fighting alongside those slaves, so it'll have those chain bits and maybe some scars, some metal plate sewed into it's skin so it'll look like it's controlled by the same faction

[ANtY]

ATM our enemy AI looks like this:

we have 3 types of AI:
-Light infantry
-Heavy infantry
-Archers

then each enemy can have 4 different attacks:
-Main Attack (regular melee attack)
-Offhand Attack (quick very short range attack when the hero is passing by or sth)
-Charge Attack (a leap, a charge or sth like that that he uses when he is in ATTACK behaviour but he's far from the player to reach him faster)
-Ranged Attack (used when enemy is in WAIT behaviour)

and then I have a few behaviours:
-ATTACK - enemy tries to maintain melee range with the player, blocks sometimes, sometimes he attacks
-WAIT - enemy keeps pretty close distance to the player, can attack with range attacks
-KEEP DISTANCE - keeps further distance, doesn't attack
-NOT ENGAGED - just does his thing, doesn't know about the player's presence
-INACTIVE - does nothing

if an enemy that is in ATTACK mode gets hurt below a certain HP level he swaps with someone from outer layers if there's someone that isn't low on HP


as of now the only difference between Light and Heavy infantry is that the Light guys can run, and they run if they're far from hero and they want to reach him, they also run when they're close to hero but they want to escape to outer layers

So I'm still thinking what other differences I can do between those 2 types

[ANtY]

new GIF

[s0]

looks cool

[Egberto]

Interesting project, I'll follow it

[Cobralad]

this looks good
although there is no hitstun for enemies, which is a key mechanic in beatemups.
Because of that it feels floaty and unsatisfying and gameplay looks barebones.

[ANtY]

thanks guys!

this looks good
although there is no hitstun for enemies, which is a key mechanic in beatemups.
Because of that it feels floaty and unsatisfying and gameplay looks barebones.

do you mean that they animations should be paused for a split second when they get hit?

[Cobralad]

yes

[ANtY]

how does this look?

[JWK5]

Looks awesome! I really like how the blood splats give a nice sense of impact to the combat.

One thing I would recommend is to give some kind of visual feedback for when you just nearly miss an enemy with an attack or they block it. The combat looks pretty swift but precise, so good visual feedback is going to be the key to being able to make split-second tactical decisions.

With a near miss you could have a some kind of "swish" animation play over them or something, just to let you know in the heat of battle that you were close but not quite on the mark so you can quickly readjust your positioning and correct your aim.

With a block maybe some kind of "burst" effect to give off the feeling that you struck but it didn't break through.

EDIT: Looking at it again, I do spot the block impacts (I think), so maybe the problem is just that they need to be bigger and more obvious.

Also, maybe darkening the darker colors and brightening the brighter colors of your characters (player and enemies) just a bit might give them a little more contrast and help them stand out against their background better.

Other than that, if you don't already have it, maybe throw in a "stagger" mechanic where if you keep hammering on a blocking enemy eventually it breaks their guard. Given you appear to have a stamina gauge going on you really couldn't abuse it much on a single enemy but in a group setting, especially with weaker enemies, it could allow you to single out enemies and chip down the herd one enemy at a time. Maybe give the stagger a cool down so you can use hit-and-run tactics and also keep the player from being stuck in combat that drags on because the enemy just turtles on them. Just a thought.

Anyways, there is definitely a "souls" vibe going on here with a good helping of Golden Axe and I love it. While the art itself is just awesome, the aesthetic is some of the best I've seen and really helps give a distinct vibe, you did a real good job with it. Keep up the great work, you're on to something special here!

[ANtY]

EDIT: Looking at it again, I do spot the block impacts (I think), so maybe the problem is just that they need to be bigger and more obvious.

I think they may be more obvious when the game is not playing in 400x200 pixels laggy gif but I'll check out if it still maybe needs to be more visible

I don't yet kinda see how it could look with the close misses but I'll think more about this, sounds pretty cool, feedback to the player is always a good thing.

I'll also play with the shaders / filters to improve the readability between characters and the background, thanks for pointing that out!

Thanks a lot for the positive feedback, you have no idea how much motivation it gives me!      

[Cobralad]

i really like it now, blood gives a good sense of impact.
keep the good work

[ｂ∀ ｋｋｕｓａ]

was waiting so long for this devlog to be updated! \o/

Is there a reason blood on the ground is disappearing over time? (i guess performance reason?)

[ANtY]

Not really tbh, I can check how it'll look with it staying permanently, at the moment there's only one sprite for the blood stain so it may not look too good ^^

edit:

http://i.imgur.com/ITnRG6y.png

(also played a little with some camera filters to make the characters pop out a little)

[JWK5]

If you're going to have the blood stay on the ground, decay its saturation over time until it becomes as equally saturated as the background (i.e. so that it blends well with it). This way, when the scene gets very bloody you don't have all this overpowering saturation all over the place killing the graphical quality of the scene and really preventing you from getting the full effect of the new blood being spilled (since it'd just be more saturation piled on top of saturation already there).

[Pixel Noise]

Really like the basic story/concept so far. Looking forward to development!

Edit: Oh, one thing regarding AI - just please avoid having a type of AI that ends up endlessly running away and "kiting" the player when it's wounded. That's the worst!