Ok, it's probably stupid to ignore feedback only because it's late.

So I tried to increase the fog of war's offset as far as possible. Trial and error let me increase it by 75%.
Now you can see more of the environment. And the smaller obstacles are still covered partially, even if you rarely can see the other side (facing away from you). But I can accept that.

Now this isn't a breakthrough of course, but I hope it eases your pain a bit.

https://imgur.com/wdFCffQ

I think your original fog of war looks better It might be that you need to make it semitransparent but that might screw up with the rest of your game (I dont know, you might have some set pieces that are meant to be seen by turning around a wall), you can still be picky with what you hide, maybe you show only the terrain in the semitransparent view and everything else is hidden.

The fabled reverse Metroidvania! I made a design similar to yours like 5 years ago; you were a knight that got bitten by a cursed spider and got spider powers (I called it Spiderknight, dont judge me I was a teenager), you had to save the kingdom but also find a cure for your curse, at the end of each level you defeated a boss (usually a creature that got mutated by the evil wizard who also made the cursed spider, mind you this is a ripoff of Crash Bandicoot) and could choose to drink some of the cure and lose an ability or just go on with your quest. So in the easy ending you can go trough the entire game with all your abilities and save the kingdom but the curse kills you at the end, and in the hard ending you lose your powers one at a time, get cured, save the kingdom and live happy ever after. I got the multiple endings idea from Dishonored which had just come out at the time.


I ditched it because I wasnt skilled enough back then and I got bogged down by level design, but I'd say its definitely doable. Its also perfectly ok if players avoid using abilities theyre gonna lose, something similar happens in Dishonored where players avoid using abilities that can put people in danger (like Devouring Swarm), for the sake of a happy ending,

lmao that gas mask dude is the cutest thing.

Might as well post some of my progress here:

I made it so you can highlight interactive objects with your mouse at a certain distance from the player, its still clunky and I'm prolly going to have to rewrite it tomorrow but hey it works (I still need a solution for controllers cause atm all my code is for mouse and keyboard). I also added a context menu for items when you right click them (no split stack functionality yet tho).


I also made a relay system for interactive objs so they can call other objs and I built an elevator with it, I was surprised with how smooth are Unity's physics, lots of games have stuttering elevators.

I've been working on a 2D action RPG for a couple months, I'm thinking on systemic mechanics, interconnected levels designed to be explored at a slow pace, hard hitting critters, inventory management, upgrades come as weapons and tools, and crafting comes in the form of research.
I'm currently building the guts of the thing and writing the story and I'm looking for someone who can do the visuals, if you're a big fan of games like System Shock, Deus Ex, Prey 2017, Dark Souls and the Resident Evil series and can draw better than me (I suck at it) you can send me a PM or contact me in Discord (reiniat#3472) and we can have a chat about it, I haven't decided an art style yet but I'm using skeletal animation atm, I do have character outlines and level layouts blocked out already.

This is my current implementation of your good ol' tetrix inventory, you can hotkey and equip/consume items, pick'em, stack'em, drop'em, etc. I still need a context menu tho.


And this is how combat looks right now, your starting weapon is a wrench (duh!), and there's a poise system that works similar to Dark Souls 1, also the electric stun gun (your first enemies are robots) there's a limited set of weapons and I plan to have all of them do their own thing which is not always murder, and I got ragdolls working today.



This is a big project because I'm just bad at scoping but I plan to have a working level within the next two months that we can release for free as a technical demo, after that we'll probably need funding because I really really want to work on this fulltime.

You're having performance problems with how many AIs? From your gifs it doesn't seem like you should be having performance issues, If you're using a grid most calculations (including line of sight) should be done with the grid and only involve basic maths, so you would be needing very few raycasts (or none at all), also you shouldn't be instancing GameObjects for AI calcs.

I'm also making a turn based game and my AI checks every reachable tile, every perceived enemy and every ability (1-4 abilities) every turn and the calculations are pretty much instant, heck I can run 20 AI units in real time (think Fallout: Tactics) I execute their AI calculations 10 times per sec and I get around 100FPS on my old FX6300.

Most of what you need to know you can find it here:
https://www.redblobgames.com/

For cheap field of vision algorithms you can go here:
http://www.roguebasin.com/index.php?title=Field_of_Vision
Rogue Basin has a ton of useful information about grid based games.
You can also check this other page:
http://www.adammil.net/blog/v125_Roguelike_Vision_Algorithms.html

For AI you should Google weighted tables and behaviour trees (and maybe goal oriented planning), you'll probably need a mix of those and maybe the blackboard system (I just use lists).

If you want any help you can PM me and I can share my code or check a look at yours.

Graphics are cute! They make me want to play it already.

i am afraid of the one day i look at myself and ask "is this what i want to do" while i'm working on a game on my lunch break at a successful yet monotonous office job

I was looking for a job and then I found a job and heaven knows I'm miserable now.


My biggest fear is releasing something nobody gives a shit about.

Hello! I'm still working on What Remains! I must confess I stabbed my original vision on the back (just a little!) and got the scope down, it was just too much work for a single person. I also played and got inspired by a bunch of rougelikes like Everspace, Slay The Spire, Cogmind (when I grow up I wanna be like Kyzrati), Dead Cells, The Kryptark, etc. I'm still making a squad based tactics game but I'm making maps smaller, getting rid of the cover system and trying to organize the campaign like a rougelike run so its shorter (how much I don't know yet) and can be completed multiple times trough completely different playstyles.
My biggest problem right now is whether to go the sci-fi route or ditch it and go full fantasy, it will still be a post-apocalyptic game either way and I've already rewritten most of my lore (I write a lot, I'm bad at it) but I'm not the biggest fan of fantasy and magic sometimes feels like the easy way out so I'm trying to write a world that is still mechanically consistent with magic on it.


Oh right images:

This is the first version of my area generator, I'm thinking I'll have four basic types of encounters; enemy, trader, unknown and story. Enemy encounters are just enemies you fight, trader is more than just a trader in that you can also rest there and even rob the trader (not without consequences), unknown encounters are the type of scripted events I described in my original pitch and story encounters advance the story or present you with a set of chained encounters (think of them like optional side quests). At the end of each area there is a special encounter (not necessarily a boss but always a challenge), how many areas per campaign? I don't know yet.

And this how encounters look right now, I'm sticking to a 10x10 board and I changed the scale a bit, walls might be too big right now, what do you think? Should I scale characters up a bit? I'll probably do that, I like 2x1 walls and occlusion isnt really a problem since you can rotate the map anyway.

What else? I'm working on AI right now and I'd show it but I'm also working on persistence and I broke the encounter generator in the process (yes I have an encounter generator too!). The good news is that when I'm done I'll have saves and all the data will be stored in XMLs (good for modding).

[COVER]

COVER
I implemented cover yesterday, I took the easy way out for now, so no flanking bonuses (although that's trivial to implement), and cover just adds a flat penalty to hit chance (40% for high cover, 20% for low), regardless of angle (much like how XCOM 2 works).

I've also been looking at random number generation for hit chance calculations, my current hit chance formula looks like this:
HitChance = BaseHitChance + UnitAccuracyStat - CoverPenalty
Right now Im just using Unity's Random class to generate a number from 0 to 1 and if that number is less than the hit chance then its a hit, traditionally Fallout games cap the final HitChance at 95% (because of tabletop RPG rules I asume), so I might test that later.
Other stuff that should also influence shots is the target's dodge state, distance (for ranged weapons only) and weapon range bonuses, this last one I'm planning to weave with the Critical Hit system: Instead of having random criticals they should depend on distance to target (so for example shotguns always get a critical hit within 3 tiles of distance), and abilities (say Snipers have a Headshot ability that crits but has an accuracy penalty), this takes longer to implement but also gives more flavor to clases and weapons and its a more interesting reward system than the usual random crits.

Ohhh I like the pixel art characters - not what I was expecting, but in a good way. Also enjoying the humor/writing in the devlog! Definitely interested to see where this goes 

Those characters are from another project I was working on, I'm not targeting a certain art style at the moment so I'm doodling a bunch of characters and seeing what sticks, feedback like this is appreciated, I wouldnt consider myself an artist and I find it easier to draw musketeers and knights at that resolution than madmax characters. Postapocalyptic environments have a tendency to look monochrome and noisy and I want to have a more colorful game.

I agree with the poster above me - the pixel art characters look cool on the 3D terrain. Can't wait to see how the terrain will look later on.

I have no idea how it will end up looking yet, I think I'll go with simple 3D models with textures and tiles for the terrain. So the terrain, the characters and smaller objects will be 2D.

I also agree that the pixel characters on the 3d terrain looks surprisingly interesting, and appreciate the detailed, more technical devlogs.

Yes there's a few things I'd like to write tutorials for, like my stat implementation, creating assets with scriptable objects and my isometric tilemap setup, it took me a while to find reliable info on the internet about those.

[CHARACTER DESIGN]

CHARACTER DESIGN
I was wondering which character classes should I implement first and I found a GDC video about R6:SIEGE, which is probably my favorite multiplayer game ever I have like 400 hours on it, anyway the interaction between Smoke and Monty was the first one designed and implemented in the game, its basically Monty's shield blocks bullets, blocks entrances and gives cover for planting the defuser or holding the control area, in contrast Smoke's canisters are used as area denial and force Monty to change position making him vulnerable to fire and prevent defuser plants.
In the spirit of that the first classes I'll implement will be the Heavy Knight (he doesnt carry a shield, but has a deployable one), the Smoker (has toxic canisters hes immune to) and the Field Medic (self-explanatory).

I also made some super wip designs of the Field Medic and the Smoker:


TURN SYSTEM
I been toying with the idea of having a degree of predictability from the enemy AI, or rather have some of its actions telegraphed to the player, the basic idea is to divide a turn in three phases:
   -ENEMY_PLAN, Some of the enemy actions are telegraphed, so the units that are going to be attacked are marked and maybe the direction they will move on is shown with an arrow.
   -PLAYER_PHASE, The player gets to move his units so he can prevent the enemy from executing his plan either by killing the enemy units, stunning them, relocating them in the field or blocking their line of sight.
   -ENEMY_EXEC, The enemy AI gets to execute the actions that were not interrupted and the ones that it doesn't telegraph.
I'm pretty sure this isn't really a new approach to turn based combat but I can't seem to remember a game that uses a similar mechanic, if you know one let me know! So I can steal borrow some ideas, I'm not a big fan of reinventing the wheel.

I like the choice of music and the aesthetic although it might be a bit too dark, you need a way to make the characters, which are completely black, stand out from the background which is too tenuously illuminated, Dark Souls is probably a good example of what you should be looking for in that armors and characters have shiny highlights over darker tones, Darkest Dungeon portraits are another good example of it.

Combat is functional now!

Still no turn order and I'm actually firing on my own unit, but hey, its a start.
I also ended up tying abilities both to a Unit (so units can learn new abilities during the course of their adventures) and to Weapons and Equipment, the code is rather messy and prevents me from creating Abilities as assets, which means every single weapon has its own unique Attack ability, which is ok? Is that how games work? Or do they have one Attack ability that then gets instanced multiple times and its parameters are affected by the weapon stats? No idea.

[STATS:]

So, I'm a Computer Systems Engineer now! my graduation was just a few hours ago. This last year has been very rough on me, between school and my job, I was also very sick earlier in the year and then my graphics card died (a suspicious hardware failure roughly a month after the 2 years warranty expired, AMD wtf?).
Anyway I have some free time to pursue game development and I've picked it up exactly where I left it, well kinda... Unity's new Tilemap feature was just too good to ignore so I rewrote most of my project to take advantage of it, what? There's still no official support for Isometric tilemaps? No problem I'll just rotate the grid 45°, set my camera to Orthographic, and scale the sprites accordingly, and now I'll never have to worry about drawing order again!



I also made some progress on my Field Of View algorithm, and by my algorithm I mean the one I got from this page:
http://www.adammil.net/blog/v125_Roguelike_Vision_Algorithms.html
Which is referenced by RedBlobGames, it has some limitations but it fits my project quite nicely and its also fully symmetric.



I decided to use the system that Fallout 2 had where Tiles had two independent variables:
    -Occupied, can units walk trough this tile?
    -BlocksVision, can bullets and vision pass trough this tile?
A wall is one example of a tile that is both Occupied and BlocksVision, a tile with a Unit in it, or a window, is only Occupied, and an empty tile is of course neither Occupied nor BlocksVision.
Note walls in the gif are only half as high as they should be, that's for clarity since I still don't have Unit outlines.

Since it makes testing much easier I'm building the map editor so it runs in-game and can be toggled with one key press at any time, in the final game most maps will be procedurally generated, but I might include the map editor so people can create their own maps and combat scenarios.



STATS:

I revamped stats, my current system is a proper RPG stat system with buffs, debuffs, state effects and temporal effects, so you can have a sword that gives you +2 Move Points or a helmet with +10 accuracy, or get slowly poisoned overtime. I decided to add Action Points instead of one main action per turn because I played a lot of Divinity Original Sin 2 and noticed it works pretty well for mixing cheap 1AP abilities with your main offensive attacks, also if you run out of Move Points in a turn you can still move using your Action Points.
Aside from that the new stats are:
Dodge: Not a passive, but instead its used by active abilities like Dodge, Parry and Deflect, mostly useful to melee classes.
Sequence: Determines the turn order within your team.
Memory: How many abilities can you equip at one time.
Accuracy: A bonus accuracy applied to ranged attacks, useful to ranged classes.
Critical Multiplier: Extra dmg from crits, plus a chance to roll special effects on the critical hits table, much like FO2 did.
Crit Chance: Bonus to critical chance applied to every attack (NOTE: I have it so bursts count as one individual attack for simplicity).
Movement Multiplier: How many Movement Points is one Action Point worth.

I also changed the UI to something more clean and even managed to make it pixel perfect. Whats next? Same as last time, having a functional combat within the game. I still have no idea how to organize Abilities, Should Abilities be tied to a Unit, or also to Weapons and Equipment? How should weapons be classified? Since I'm using a 3D space now I also have no idea how to handle art or animations so I'll put those on hold for a while.

This one even moves!! this is like my second animation ever, the first one is buried somewhere in this thread and I cant even remember if It was better or worse...

bump

Holy crap I liked that a LOT.

I made IK work, there is a bunch of things im not happy with but it will do for now.

Got caught up in the door conundrum, should you open doors by interacting directly with them? How many states do they need? Are there locked doors? I decided doors need their own in-world interface, kinda like how old FPS sims work (see System Shock 2, or more recently, Prey).
Anyway, doors need panels and panels need a solution that doesnt make me repeat tons of graphics so i decided to make consoles, workstations and panels modular from the start:


That door is ugly I know, I have no idea how to make sci-fi looking doors from the side.

I am not an artist, I wish I could be one, I will try to post something everyday.

This is a bunch of pixel weapons I made and my character ingame, I had the idea of using skeletal animations after I found an asset called Anima2D (Im using Unity), I'm trying to get free 360° aim while keeping the pixely feel to it, how? I dont know yet.
Also I think her hair is kinda wrong, and the neck is maybe too big?

What do you mean? Greenlight is going to be on for a while. Valve said their new system will take time.

Umm.
http://steamcommunity.com/games/593110/announcements/detail/1265922321514182595
Steam Direct launches the 13th of June and Greenlight submissions are already off.