Again, it's been a while since the last post but there’s been a lot of changes.
So What's New?
- The first thing you'll notice are the changes to the HUD. This is due to the fact that the RPG and health systems are all working now. The player now has a health bar and a water bar. The health bar functions as you’d expect- you take damage and your health goes down. The water bar works in very much the same way as the food bar in Minecraft; I.E water goes down, health goes up. If there’s no water in the water bar then health goes down. A simple yet effective system I think. You can replenish your water bar by drinking from your canteen. If your health gets below 40% then the water bar decreases faster, causing you to either regain health faster, or die faster, depending on the amount of water in your water bar.
- There is now a levelling system in place, with the player’s XP bar at the bottom of the screen. Level ups will increase either movement speed, health, or water carrying capacity. As more updates are added I’ll add more options for levelling up.
- I spent a while adding new particle effects and tweaking the old ones. There's now a burst effect when the player picks up an object. I really feel like the visuals of the game are starting to come together.
- The screen flashes red as a damage indicator for the player. This matches the enemies flashing red when thy take damage. The same system flashes yellow every time you level up.
- New sprites! This is a big one. Many of the wall sprites have been remade with extra grit and dirt! I've also added new player and enemy sprites, which are a much-needed improvement. These are still liable to change in the future, but it'll probably just be little additions here and there.
- More detailed floors. Footprints in the sand now advise the player on where to go, and can quickly and easily show the player openings and entrances into buildings.
- Floor rubble!
- The grid system for holding the areas on the world map has been replaced, with a much simpler and more robust system. There's now no chance of memory leaks.
- If an enemy shoots you while you're in cover then you take half damage.
- Title introductions every time you enter a new biome. White text fades onto the screen slowly, with a musical stab.
- More art on the levels. (Such as the ship in the top screenshot)
Most of the key systems are there, so that means from this point on much of my time will be on designing levels, bosses, enemies, narrative elements and story telling, **MORE GUNS**
Stay tuned; all of this will be coming in the future!
Thanks for checking out Red Desert! I appreciate every view. If you have any comments then let me know!
-James
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