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[dek]

Throwing hammer + multiplication charms + damage numbers

[SolarLune]

That looks fun! Damage numbers are nice - they help to really make the game feel crunchy, to me. So is the throwing hammer a side weapon with limited ammo or something, or is it a primary weapon? What'll happen with multiplication and a single enemy (i.e. can hammers hit the same enemy multiple times)?

[DarkWanderer]

He said earlier all weapons are now projectile based. I'm assuming they won't have an ammo count, but I'd definitely like to know now.

[eblomquist]

I REALLY want to play this. Beautiful colors. Looking forward to it!

[dek]

That looks fun! Damage numbers are nice - they help to really make the game feel crunchy, to me. So is the throwing hammer a side weapon with limited ammo or something, or is it a primary weapon? What'll happen with multiplication and a single enemy (i.e. can hammers hit the same enemy multiple times)?

Glad you like it solar. Nope, you can only be using one weapon at a time, so its a primary weapon. You have unlimited ammo but I havent written the idea of ammo off yet. The thing about the hammer is that its base damage and multiplicator (penetrative "jumps") is really low. So its pretty weak against big monsters standing around alone, but it gains strength as you increase monster numbers and obtain certain charms. It also cant directly jump back to an enemy that it just jumped on, so its not like it looses single target dps when increasing monster number above 2. Im trying to balance and treat it like a big aoe spell to make sure its not dealing op numbers in comparison to the sword or the bow.
Compare this to the sword for example: The sword has other cool utility. The sword has a strong enough knockback that almost everything you kill with it is knocked really hard and becomes a projectile. The engine I've written will count anything moving at a certain speed as a projectile that will deal damage to things it collides with. So the gameplay of the sword it turning into something like this: See a horde of monsters in front of you, deal big single target damage to the ones closest to you, have their dead bodies deal a lot of damage to the monsters behind them.

He said earlier all weapons are now projectile based. I'm assuming they won't have an ammo count, but I'd definitely like to know now.

Correct, its still the case and still makes the most sense. The sword really only is a quick projectile that you dont really see, so it feels pretty much the same like before. Its a technical thing, but its required for a lot of charm triggers involving angles or projectile speeds.

I REALLY want to play this. Beautiful colors. Looking forward to it!

 

[wupto]

Great news! That hammer looks like a lot of fun. Although I liked the graphics of THIS version better. As pointed out already you should probably remove the outlines and maybe darken the ground a little? I like the sky better in the new GIF.

[mono]

love this project and i think i like the new outlined look more. it's definitely unique. 

[happymonster]

If you are going to go for outlines, then maybe only single pixel outlines for diagonal lines? At the moment you have staircase effect going on, which makes everything look bolder (but blockier)

[mono]

i like the fact that it looks blocky

[and]

Awesome art style, looks like it's going to be really fun!

[dek]

Great news! That hammer looks like a lot of fun. Although I liked the graphics of THIS version better. As pointed out already you should probably remove the outlines and maybe darken the ground a little? I like the sky better in the new GIF.

The outlines can be disabled in the graphics options. However, I made them, not to seperate the blocks from the sky, but to keep things clear in combat situations.

Since the background can be both really bright (sky) and really dark (cave) its hard to create contrasting sprites that work on all backgrounds. Usually, you could make sprites that have a saturation or brightness contrast to the background, but since neither of these options are really available, you need to seperate things through outlines. This isnt necessary in a game like FEZ with similar visual features because the gameplay revolves less around quick combat and more around puzzle elements. But since the game is getting really fast and you sometimes have bright sprites moving at quick velocities on a bright sky, there needs to be some way for the player to read that. other wise it gets really annoying. You might not be aware of that problem because the gifs do not show a lot of action and camera movement. But as I said, if someone doesnt like it, they can just turn it off Also get on skype. what happened?

If you are going to go for outlines, then maybe only single pixel outlines for diagonal lines? At the moment you have staircase effect going on, which makes everything look bolder (but blockier)

I've tried both versions, but its become pretty clear that the aesthetics of the game rely a lot on straight lines (e.g. as little pixelated curves as possible). If I go with the method you suggested, that effect breaks completely and things just look awfully.. off. Just think about a single pixel with outlines generated through both methods. In my method, it essentially just gets bigger but still is a square made out of 4 corners. With your suggestion, it becomes a cross like shape made out of 12 corners. And since a lot of things are made with single pixels, straight lines and hard corners, it seems to fit the art style a little better. If I get to it again, ill post a comparison screen. I also think that the staircase effect is a problem that only really occurs when you mix up both methods because then the outlines start looking like they have inconsistent thickness. I definitely agree that it makes things look bold and thick, but i kind of like that. Thanks for the feedback.

Awesome art style, looks like it's going to be really fun!

i like the fact that it looks blocky

thank you .

[dek]

For the sake of keeping track of progress (these changes are summing up everything since 273)

Build 302 new additions include:

• added new weapon, the hammer
• added blob monster
• added online scoreboard
• added damage numbers
• added many new types of gore, gibs and particles
• added charms: rangers tooth, little flame, spark
• added new internal types of props (8x8, 16x16, 32x32, 64x64, 128x128)
• added new projectile mods: penetration, burning, physical
• modified shader to allow for gradient backgrounds
• modified outline shaders to adjust hue and brightness depending on background
• modified movement physics to feel more dynamic when many entities are at the same spot
• modified all weapons to behave as projectiles
• grass particle system now has a smart search system to perform better
• changed slowmotion to happen less often
• implemented recently hit detection for projectiles
• added projectileModSystem method to calculate damage after mods
• moved development to VC++2013

[dek]

Another update to keep it complete. Been away for a week and only had my macbook, so i ported the game.

Build 311 changes include:

• mac port
• created proper input manager (can now switch between controller & keyboard
• bugfixes on camera
• little flame charm now has a low chance of triggering on physical interactions
• added more little tunnels and connections between rooms

[Scifa]

Wow this looks really good, looking froward to playing this!

[dek]

Wow this looks really good, looking froward to playing this!

Thanks!

Bow and arrow preview, ill make a bigger post soon with some combat action and charm interactions.

[dek]

Build 313 changes include

• added bow, bow sounds, character bow sprites
• brought ladders back (i am sorry for removing you, ladders)
• projectiles now collide and reflect with environment
• projectiles will break / time out

Combat


Fire Charm Combat

[SolarLune]

Cool juggling in the GIFs, man! Nice animation and screen shaking, too. Makes it come alive.

[dek]

Cool juggling in the GIFs, man! Nice animation and screen shaking, too. Makes it come alive.

Thanks

Made an aim indicator for ranged weapons today. Also considering to simply remove the sword, as meele weapons seem to not offer fun enough charm interactions. It would also make everything easier to balance because the whole enemy and charm design could be more streamlined.
For example: If theres a charm that adds slight homing to your projectiles, its simply not possible to have that have any effect on melee weapons. Of course, you could compensate this by saying that the charm will do something else on melee weapons, but that would just make things overly complex. If said charm would add, say, aoe damage to melee weapons, that would be cool, but if there would be another charm that adds aoe by default, a ranged weapon will now have gained two interesting additional mechanics, while a melee weapon will only have gained more aoe damage. This is going to boil down to a gameplay in which you get frustrated when you get a charm thats really cool unique things on ranged weapons but doesnt do that much on a sword.

[SolarLune]

I feel you should keep the sword / other melee weapons. Maybe it's just a different gameplay style altogether that should be designed for the sword. Maybe instead of finding charms to apply to swords, you can find whole swords that offer different stats or abilities.

Or, maybe you could just adapt it as best as you can - homing + melee would be a melee attack that pulls you toward your target a bit, for example.

[Christian]

Some exposure from RPS!
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/07/07/devlog-watch-tim-cosmonaut-path-to-the-sky-more/