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[BlueSweatshirt]

I am PUMPED
My loins are GIRDED
I AM READY TO BEAT UP SOME SLIMES WHILE WEARING HATS

You BETTER BE.

BECAUSE ALPHA WAS JUST RELEASED

HATS ARE FREE FOR A LIMITED TIME ONLY!(and not only because I was too lazy to create a currency system before alpha)
SO ABUSE IT!

inb4 "this game sux"

[fraxcell]

Cool! I tried it out, here's some feedback:

-I felt like things were a little too spread out in the town. It would be less annoying to walk between the weapon shop and the dungeon if the buildings were closer together. Although it will probably look better when you add in people and stuff.
-If your name is really long (say ten syllables) it kind of gets in the way of the action, especially with the transparent black bar which extends beyond the name. Maybe move the name to the top, and move the health and other things down?
-I like the random generation! And the tree!
-I think the shop interiors could be made a little more visually appealing if the layout of the shelves was mixed around more. Also, maybe the desks with people/help should be closer to the entrance?
-In the hat shop, looks a little weird when two hats are highlighted because you are standing in between them. Consider reducing the distance you have to be to a hat to have it highlighted, or just move the hats farther apart.
-Large slimes seem to have some trouble moving towards me. Maybe they're getting caught on walls?

Good job, looking forward to more

[Ashkin]

Nice! I got to a level six sword and level eighteen fire spell before giving up.
A problem: When I closed the game and opened it again, my progress was saved but my dungeon high-score was lost


Now, some feedback:

-I felt it was rather strange that the fire spell hurt me whenever I cast it.

-I think the shield may need a max time used added, like a meter that goes up as you use it, and then cools down when you're not using it. If you fill the meter completely, the shield shatters, hurting you a little. You then have to wait for full cooldown before using it again.

-Maybe the hats should modify stats a tiny bit?

-I felt it needed more variety in enemies. The wizard and slimes get old after a while.

-There really, really, REALLY need to be treasure chests down in the dungeon. I'm not sure what reward they would yield, but they could maybe give currency, or experience? OR HATS?!

-I never got 'strong enough' to get a second weapon. I'm not sure if it's even possible at this point

-Need... more... hats...

-Sometimes, I get stuck on corners, and if I walk towards a wall, then it doesn't turn the character towards it if you don't move. So, instead of having the character turn when you move, have him turn when you press the corresponding key.

-The dungeons need more variety. Maybe there could be small shops down there that sell potions and experience points for your well-earned gold. Maybe there could be special miniboss floors, where the design is special and it's populated by one specific enemy that is more powerful than the average enemy. You have to defeat him before you can move on, and he gives significant gold and xp.

-The slimes are very cute!

-Sometimes, I really needed a spin attack. When an enemy sneaks up from behind, you can't really turn towards him without walking into him and hurting yourself. In that situation, I would just shield him to bounce him back then turn.

-The graphics are very cute, although the tiles might need a little bit of work, especially in the Pocket where there needs to be a border between sea and land. The colours also feel kind of... dirty, I don't know why though as I am no expert in pixel art.

-I really can't wait to see more people inhabiting the pocket. I can already imagine the eccentric dialogue you'll give them



tl;dr it's a good game so far and I can really see it going far. Keep working on it

[BlueSweatshirt]

Thanks! A lot! Yeah! 

@ninjutsu
I wanted the town to be big enough so that you'd have a bit to explore-- My hope is to fill it up with interesting things and people.
I never thought about people making crazy huge names, I think that's a good idea.
I'll work on the shops... Hahaha.... I mainly just wanted to get them *done*! And yeah, the slimes are getting stuck on the walls. I'll have to go back and rewrite the spawning code to fix that one up.

Now for you, Hat boy. ASHKIN! *cracks knuckles*
Your highscore probably didn't save because you quit before exiting the cave.(by dieing) I'll make sure to fix that one, by having it set every floor or something instead of just when you leave.

I wanted there to be some repercussion to using such a strong spell. But I was starting to find it a nuisance when there was no way to recover your health in a dungeon. I think I might reduce it.
I'll see about the shield... Damage isn't completely negated even when using the shield. So using it for long periods of time still hurts you. I was considering making it slowly drain MP as the other option.(because I don't want to make things too complicated with too many gauges to watch.)
Nada on the hats, I want them to be a purely visual element! Think of them as achievements. But not gay.
Definitely agree on the enemy variety. It really is hard making up new enemies that truly feel unique!
I decided I wanted to avoid inventories and loot in this game, so it would either be score or experience.(score turns into currency) And maybe unique hats, yes!
It's level 20 to get your second weapon. You were close, man!
More hats? You got it, bub~
I'll totally fix that movement thing-- I encountered it too.

Shops sound like a great idea. But I don't want to be all stereotype RPG shop with it. I've got a few cool ideas for that! In-Cave restaurant lolwat.

I doubt I'll do a spin attack, because that won't work out for every weapon type. A "special attack" is doable, but I don't want to make the mechanics too complicated and put too many complex layers in. Possible, though! Don't think I won't keep this in mind

I agree with the graphics. I really need to work on my palette(the colors don't match each other very well, which is probably why it feels dirty.)

Putting life into The Pocket should be really fun, too! And I also have a surprise building in mind which I haven't yet unveiled, as it is under construction(*wink*), and I think it'll add a lot to the 'culture' of the game. 

[lasttea999]

Very nice. Those mage enemies are a bit difficult to deal with! And I keep forgetting I can block in battle...  

EDIT: That blue arrow skill kept hitting the walls to the side of the player when I expected it to go straight.

[BlueSweatshirt]

Updates:
- Fixed highscore bug(it was just a messup on loading order)
- Fixed moving outside of the room
- Added more variety to the cave generator(and still working on it)
- Adding shadows to the cave.
- Recoloring the graphics
- Redecorating the caves
- Thinking of new enemy ideas
- Thinking of ways to rework the shop

FFAARRTT!

[BlueSweatshirt]

Working on the new look.

Still need to finish up the shadows, but yeah.

[Ashkin]

Whoa, that's looking a lot better
I still think there's something wrong with the colours... The floor tiles seem a bit too... green.

[BlueSweatshirt]

I just drafted some potential 'power attacks' for all the weapons in the game.

You'd execute them by holding guard and pressing a weapon key. More charge = stronger power attack. Power attacks would take MP to use.

Some examples of power attacks:

• Sword - Spin around and knock back all surrounding enemies
• Spear - A powerful energy stab, extending well beyond your normal reach
• Claymore - Unleash a shockwave to disorient and tear enemies apart.(fittingly brutal)

Keep in mind, if the power attacks are too much work and aren't very useful/fun, I'll probably scrap the idea. I have multiple ideas for some weapons, like the bow. We'll see!

And yes, there will be Claymore.
There are 6 more weapons coming to the game. But more on that later.

[EDIT]
Also, due to the outlineless art style of this game, it's rather difficult to make them of similar colors without blending. So I purposefully made the ground a bit greener and less saturated. Does it not look good?
(still working on the art)

[BlueSweatshirt]

Updates!
- Bugfixes
- 'Finished' lighting in cave
- New enemy!(itsasurprise)
- Lots of graphic touch-ups
- Redid the Weapon Shop

Eye Candy!

[Ashkin]

Wow, that's already looking much prettier.

[BlueSweatshirt]

Things are all going pretty slowly right now. College is ramping up on me, and life is busy.
Whatever though~

I'm mostly doing graphics work right now.
No, not just revamping old stuff.
I'm drawing new stuff too!

Any suggestions for mouseless spell upgrading? I can only think of block+spell, but I feel like that may lead to potential accidents.

[BlueSweatshirt]

NEWS FLASH!
RESIDENTS OF THE POCKET HAVE BEGUN APPEARING IN PUBLIC

ONE SUCH RESIDENT, AN EX-PROTECTOR, HAS COMMENTED ON THE LIVING CONDITIONS WITHIN THE POCKET
When asked about the food situation, we received this response:



[EDIT]
Working on a dynamic outline for the player.
Does anyone know of a blend mode(AS3) solution which can achieve drawing the whole image as black? the Subtract mode gets pretty close, but not quite there.
Very important!!

[Conker534]

I played it.
I loved it. 

[BlueSweatshirt]

I added chests today! They give random amounts of exp/score when you open them.
I'll expand on that as time goes on.

And I've never made a teaser(or an overly dramatic one, at that), so I gave it a shot!

Watch it

[Conker534]

Awesome!

I loved the choice of words. ^_^

[BlueSweatshirt]

I've been working on a website to house all my creations:


Click for full size

[BlueSweatshirt]

From somewhere, a transmission...

Good things are coming.


Good things.

[baconman]

Seems pretty cool, and it loaded real quick for me. Although, if you have a netbook, you should probably download the SWF and run it manually - the up/down commands while active in the Flash window didn't disable it from scrolling the webpage while pressed (though it continued functioning in-game as well). That's the only thing I've encountered, with my whole two minutes of fumbling around in the game so far. XD

I'll post more feedback once I get some playtime with it. Also, how's your "dungeon generator" algorhythm? At first, it appears pretty "structurelessly random," that just checks for nothing being blocked off.

[BlueSweatshirt]

http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=16738.0

Above is almost the exact generator I use in my game.
(It's been ported to FlashPunk and tweaked to fit my game, of course)

It's essentially drunken pathfinding.

This generator is intended to make effective caves, hence the random haphazardness.
For the actual "dungeon" type stages, things will be much more structured due to the nature of... structures... And... Dungeons... Yeah.