[Blog post (11th of September, 2023)The Interviewees!]

Blog post (11th of September, 2023)
The Interviewees!

Summary: In which there's news on the matter of the interviews; updates are sent to prospective publishers; a sprite-class is worked on; some bug-fixes are dealt with; some enemy abilities are considered; and bosses continue to be built.

Greetings and salutations!

This week's screenshot shows an excerpt from another new boss: (Once again, with prototype assets.)



The week just past was one that held a perhaps-significant development, and one of work on a few different elements!

To start with, I mentioned last week, I believe, the interviews that I held and was planning to hold for a visual artist and an audio engineer.

Well, I concluded those interviews in the week just past--and moved on to deliberating the candidates...

It was a difficult decision, I will say! I had some very strong candidates, and in the end faced two sets of primary options, both seeming like strong possibilities.

But the decision was made--and I now have those "soft yesses" from both an audio engineer and a visual artist, with whom I'm excited to start work! :D

(I will however for now hold off on introductions, I think, until such time as we can move to official contracting!)

And with that done, I took another step: I sent out a wave of update-emails to various publishers!

These emails did two things: they introduced the abovementioned two new artists, and they gave a very brief listing of some of the more-salient changes made since the initial pitch.

Now, the visual artist in question has advised the use of sprites going forward--something that I had been wanting anyway, I will confess.

So, in the week just past I spent some time cleaning up and developing my prototype "sprite" class:

I separated it from the sprite-testing program, fixed bugs within it, reworked and added to its functionality, and even upgraded its shader--such as making it respond to lighting!

Here below then you should see a simple test-sprite, located in the game and responding to light! (Forgive the blurriness of it; the frames are small and the sprite is scaled up.)



There's more to be done, but I'm happy with where the class stands right now! ^_^

But not all work of the week just past was directly related to the new artists.

On the minor side, I enacted a few bug-fixes, and gave further thought to the abilities of standard enemies.

But perhaps more saliently, work continued on the bosses of the game!

One boss was completed; another was started and finished; and a third is now under way. And of course, one of these can be seen, in part, in the first screenshot above!

That then is all for this week--stay well, and thank you for reading! ^_^

All looking good thus far, I do think! ^_^

(And I won't complain about having some green to see! Indeed, I find the new knight's armour to be quite pretty! ^_^)

I am interested to learn what the final boss-encounter will be...

So, if I'm understanding correctly, it's sort-of "anti-breakout": the player is trying to prevent "blocks" from being "broken"?

That, combined (again if I understand correctly) with using the fireball to damage incoming enemies, sounds like it could make for a fun experience! ^_^

[Blog post (4th of September, 2023)Interviews!]

Blog post (4th of September, 2023)
Interviews!

Summary: In which menus become a little more controlled; a handful of gameplay matters are attended to; bosses are worked on; visual elements are experimented with; and interviews are held!

Greetings and salutations!

This week's screenshot shows a UI change implemented in the week just past:



The week just past was an interesting one for me! There was the above-mentioned UI change, and gameplay work, and experimentation--and a task unfamiliar, but potentially salient!

As shown above, the week just past saw an update to the game's UI.

You see, as I previously had things--and as things were back in A Door to the Mists, as I recall--the menu-system would reactively adapt to the player's input: if they used the mouse, it presented a mouse-cursor and responded to it; if they used another input-mechanism (such as the keyboard, or a gamepad), it presented a different selection-indicator and responded to that input.

The idea was that this would allow players to interact with the menus as they preferred.

However, I found that it all too easily switched between the two modes, reacting sometimes to gameplay-related inputs.

So, in the week just past I took the step of removing that reactivity, and instead having the menu-input mode be selected (and saved) as part of the key-binding system.

This is what you should see in the screenshot above: the key-binding UI adjusted to make space, and in that space a new check-box controlling the menu-input mode.

Turning to gameplay, in the week just past I fixed (I hope) a bug in the generation of bone-walls, implemented new responses from the player-spells to mana-crystals (mostly affecting their timers), and even did a very tiny bit of writing.

And as in previous weeks, I did some work on bosses--if less so this time.

Specifically, one boss saw work, but remains a work-in-progress, while another has now some area-denial arcs that are produced by one of its attacks.



On the more experimental side, in the week just past I toyed with the game's lighting; tried out a (fairly naive) light-bloom filter; and even tried a revision to the game's shader-based outlining. None of this came to any solid conclusions, but all were interesting and some perhaps worth further consideration.

And last but not least, I mentioned in last week's blog post, I believe, that I was opening a call for contractors.

This I did indeed, posting the call not only on social media, but also--at the prompting of one respondent--on the itch.io and TIGSource forums!

At the end of the week just past, then, I met with a number of potential audio-engineers and visual-artists! More, as I write this on Monday morning I have just finished another interview, have one scheduled for about half an hour's time, and have a final one set for the afternoon!

It has been an unfamiliar experience, a tiring one--and an enjoyable one, I will say. ^_^

Then, of course, comes the matter of decision--of choosing to whom to offer these positions...

Wish me luck!

That, then, is all for this week--stay well, and thank you for reading! ^_^

[UPDATE!]

UPDATE!

This posting is closed while I attend to the various applications that I've received!

Thank you for your interest! ^_^

~~~~~

Emailed re the Audio position - looks like a great project to be a part of 

Thank you again for taking the interview! ^_^

[UPDATE!]

UPDATE!

This posting is closed while I attend to the various applications that I've received!

Thank you for your interest! ^_^

~~~~~




Specifically, I'm seeking two people:

• One visual artist
• One audio engineer

The intended duration of the project is about two years.

Please note, however, that right now I'm only asking a "soft yes": actual contracting (and thus start of work) is intended to then occur once publisher support has (hopefully) been gained.

The details (including how to apply) should be found here:
http://thaumaturge-art.com/index.php?/pages/contractPositions.html


As for the game itself:

Moons in Crystal is a top-down fantasy "space" metroidvania!

Fly a brass-and-crystal vessel through crystal-sphere solar systems; explore strange moons; avert a devouring doom.


You should find the TIGSource dev-log here:
https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=72259


Some screenshots should be visible below:






And an early (and now a little out-of-date) trailer-video here:

It's good to read that things are progressing so, and I'm interested to see the next update! ^_^

Well done on the progress that you've made thus far! ^_^

the only thing you can do is to smashing the Dash button so you cancel the Stunlock recovery animation by 0,5 seconds earlier (so Stunlock lasts 1,5 seconds instead of 2 seconds).

You can safely dodge a Knight attack after a Shield Bash, since he will always do a Heavy Attack after that. His Heavy Attack lasts more than 1.5 seconds, so you can succesfully dodge it with a Dash. Whereas if you're in Stunlock for lack of Stamina, it's fair that the player get punished, because it's the player's fault.  

Hmm... Well, we'll see how it plays out, I daresay!

Implementing the Heal for the Knight: once injured, he will try to heal.

Implemented Knight behavior that, if the player is too close, tries to back away before healing.

This is pretty cool, and a nice bit of behaviour, I feel! ^_^

[Blog post (28th of August, 2023)Seeking Aid!]

Blog post (28th of August, 2023)
Seeking Aid!

Summary: In which work on bosses continues; meteors are made (a little) bigger; two spells are nerfed; the nerfing of a third is discussed; caution is noted regarding said nerfing; the effect of mana-crystals is adjusted; bugs are fixed; a new social-media platform is joined; and positions are opened...!

Greetings and salutations!

This week's screenshot shows another work-in-progress boss:



The week just past was a fairly active one, I feel, with work done on a number of fronts--including the taking of one (I feel) particularly salient step...

As shown above, work continued in the implementation of bosses. Specifically, I concluded one boss, started and finished a second, began a third (the one in the screenshot), and went back to a fourth to add a new element (MORE FIRE! ).

Regarding that first-mentioned, the one that I concluded, I will confess that I'm a little unsure of whether I've made it work. But if I have, then it would seem that spinning helped. ^_^

Turning now to the player's combat-spells, in the week just past I made a few changes to those:

First and simplest, I slightly increased the size of the player's meteors.

But a little more complex, in the process of boss-testing I came to find again that some spells felt too powerful.

And indeed, looking at my weapon-value spreadsheet, I started to wonder whether the damage-per-second gradient between spells wasn't perhaps a bit too steep. (That is, that DPS values didn't jump too greatly as one looked from one spell to another.)

At the time, I concluded that this was probably an issue to be attended to in a later polish-stage.

Then I did something about it anyway. ^^;

Specifically, I've now reduced the damage dealt by meteors, and by the Dragon's Heart. Both are still powerful weapons--just less boss-breakingly powerful. (I hope. ^^; )

Now, the "Retrocaster" spell remains much more powerful than either, making it tempting to nerf that one, too. However, it's also much harder to use, which I think may balance it out. This, at least, I'm content to leave until I have better evidence that it's overpowered...

I will also say that I do feel a note of caution in making these changes: I'm aware that what's easy-to-use for me may not be so for others... (After all, I made and have extensively played with these spells.)

Remaining with gameplay work, I adjusted the effect of mana-crystals on the player--and I have it in mind to do yet more there!

And last in matters of implementation, in the week just past I fixed (I believe) some bugs in my inventory-viewer class.

And finally, on the social side, I have two things to report and announce:

First, I'm now on Bluesky! If you want to find me there, you should be able to reach me at:
https://bsky.app/profile/ebornian.bsky.social

And second, and somewhat anxiety-inducing I will confess, I have now opened up a call for two contractor roles!

To be clear, I am currently only seeking a "soft yes" on these--actual contracting being contingent on gaining publisher support (and thus funding).

That said, if you're interested in working on Moons in Crystal, take a look at the page linked-to below for the details!
http://thaumaturge-art.com/index.php?/pages/contractPositions.html

That then is all for this week--stay well, and thank you for reading! ^_^

I guess its sort of semantic: respect is a 2 way street, I can't build a community out of people who never initiate any kind of interaction with me.

Sure--that just means that it's time to go and look for other people, I would say.

It seems like a lot of devs treat me like some kind of fan and not a peer if that makes sense.

I mean, not really?

To some degree, "fan" is the baseline default: if you're interested in their work, then you are de facto a fan; if they're interested in your work, then they're a fan of yours in return. And you being a fan of them doesn't require that they be a fan of you.

Being a peer doesn't mean retweeting what someone posts just because they're in the same field as you, I would say.

One way to show respect is to share my work.

You see, here I disagree.

Retweeting someone has an effect on one's timeline; to retweet every peer would result in a cluttered mess of a timeline, a timeline pretty much unusable.

Retweets are then, I think, more exception than rule: they're for things that either one particularly wants on one's timeline, for one's followers to see, or for things that one feels it important to share.

Yes, on many forums I was reading that many people hate the stunlock mechanics. In my opinion, as in all mechanics, the problem is that there are games that abuse stunlock. On the other hand, if you use it little but well, it's something that can improve the game.

Well, playtesting will tell one way or another!

Ironically, I actually just last week implemented a (very very short) "stun" of a sort in my own game!

Stunlock time is about 2 minutes, but it can be canceled with a Dash (reducing the Stunlock by half a minute), so you can dodge some of the enemies' attacks at the last moment.

Two minutes?! 0_0

I'm guessing that you mean two seconds? ^^; (This seems to be the case, looking at the video.)

Which... honestly still feels kinda long, intuitively--but again, we'll see what playtesting says!

So, can the player do anything other than dash while stunlocked? Can they attack at all? (It looks like they can move a bit, at least.)

This thread indicates that Contra III: The Alien Wars includes what you're asking. (For only two stages, I gather, but still.)

(That thread also includes some discussion on the topic that you may find interesting!)

[Blog post (21st of August, 2023)No More Mana]

Blog post (21st of August, 2023)
No More Mana

Summary: In which a mechanic is removed; some UI elements are relatedly reworked; a combat-spell is adjusted; knockback is tweaked; one boss sees changes; another boss is begun and completed; a third boss is started; and a big step is planned.

Greetings and salutations!

This week's screenshot shows a significant change to the mechanics of the game, along with concomitant changes to the game's UI:



The week just past was perhaps a little less busy than the previous, but still, a number of things did get done:

I mentioned in last week's blog-post, I believe, that I was thinking of removing the "mana" mechanic from the game. In short, I felt that it was perhaps more hindrance than help--although at the time I was hesitant to make a final decision before I received more feedback.

Well, in the week just past, at the encouragement of a friend, I made that decision!

The game now no longer uses mana!

Sort of: technically, the system does still exist internally (albeit with some tweaks), and it is in fact used by certain spells for timers or cooldowns.

But no more does the player "run out of mana" via excessive firing, leaving them either pressed to switch combat-spells or stuck with firing in dribs and drabs!

What's more, in removing the mana-bar at the bottom of the screen, UI space was freed up. This in turn allowed me to bring into the main UI a depiction of the currently-selected artefact--and after all, the artefacts are part of the uniqueness of the game. ^_^

All of this should be visible in the first screenshot above--but here below you should see a still screenshot, showing the new UI in context:



Speaking of changes to extant elements, in the week just past I made some tweaks to the "Meteor" combat-spell.

You see, in testing a new boss, I found that this spell rather trivialised the fight--I often didn't even get to see the last of the boss's attacks! Where conversely, using other spells left the boss rather more of a challenge, and that last attack did tend to appear.

So, I thus made a few changes--both nerfing it and slightly buffing it.

Specifically, the spell will now only charge a single meteor, not the three that it previously would. But conversely, the damage and area-of-effect of individual meteors have both been slightly increased.

On a similar note, I made a change to the handling of "knockback" in the week just past.

Specifically, when applied to the player it now incurs a brief period--0.3 seconds, if I recall correctly--of immobility. This prevents player-movement from overriding the knockback, allowing it to be more effective.

I mentioned the testing of a new boss, and indeed, work continued in the week just past on the implementation of bosses.

First of all, I made some tweaks to the "dragon" boss, primarily to its "cone of fire" attack.

But perhaps more saliently, I implemented two more bosses; one of these is completed, and the other is still a work-in-progress.

I will confess, that work-in-progress boss is proving tricky! I do think that the idea is workable and interesting, and I think that progress has been made--but it's proving difficult to make fun and challenging!

The other boss, however, I'm fairly happy with! Let me share with you, then, a brief excerpt from that boss:



And finally, I have it in mind to take a somewhat big step (as it feels from my perspective, at least) in the next few days--but keep an eye on my Twitter account to see that...!

That then is all for this week--stay well, and thank you for reading! ^_^

Thank you very much Thaumaturge for the continuous feedbacks  The resemblance to something from Dark Souls is a nice compliment

It's my pleasure! ^_^

Launch animation after a frontstab, where the knight is thrown to the ground.

"No, it's okay, I wasn't sleeping! I'll be up in five minutes, okay?"

More seriously, knockdown effects like this can be pretty fun and rewarding, I think! I like its inclusion! ^_^

I start implementing stunlock, when an enemy’s attacks causes you to temporarily be paralyzed, leaving you vulnerable to consecutive hits.

Hmm... conversely, I'm not sure of how I feel about this one: Speaking for myself, I tend to find that effects that lock the player out of play for more than a moment tend to be more frustrating than fun. (Although effects that lock enemies out of play can be very fun! )

But, I will defer to play-testing on this!

[Blog post (14th of August, 2023)Fixed Teleportation]

Blog post (14th of August, 2023)
Fixed Teleportation

Summary: In which boss-implementation continues; a spell-bug is fixed; teleportation sees tweaks; the testing-area backdrop is changed; the design-doc sees updates; the removal of a mechanical element is considered; and more pitching is done.

Greetings and salutations!

This week's screenshot shows a bit more boss-work (once again with stand-in art):



The week just past was a fairly varied one, I feel, with implementation, bug-fixing, design-doc work, and more!

To start with, and as shown above, work continued on the implementation of bosses. Specifically, I finished off one that I had already begun, implemented a second, applied a fix to a third, and began work on a fourth.

I will confess: Making bosses has been proving to be fun, thus far! ^_^

(And occasionally challenging: as I recall, at least one of those called for some serious thought into how I might approach it!)

Moving away from bosses, but remaining with coding-work, I applied some changes to a few extant elements in the week just past:

First and simplest was that I fixed a bug in the "lightning ball" combat-spell: The previous reduction in player damage-values, and the fact that this particular spell reduces its damage with each bounce, had resulted in it reducing its damage to negative values, thus actually healing enemies! XD;

Thankfully, this was easily fixed!

Second and a bit more complicated was that I made some adjustments to the "teleportation" "metroidvania upgrade".

This was brought on, as I recall, by the discovery that the upgrade in question didn't work very well when the game was played with a controller.

You see, the teleportation upgrade previously targeted the player's cursor, up to a certain range.

Now, when the game is played with a mouse, the player's cursor moves with said mouse. This then allowed the upgrade to be targetted somewhat freely.

But when the game is played with a controller, the cursor stays at a fixed (and small) distance from the player-character, merely shifting direction around them. (It could be more free, I daresay, but that would be awkward with a controller-stick, I fear.) This left the upgrade targeting a point that was too nearby to be all that useful.

What I've thus done is to standardise the teleportation upgrade to target a point at a fixed range from the player (in the direction in which they're aiming), regardless of input device--but at a range closer to its old maximum.

Now, this does mean that it's less easy for the player to adjust their targeting for nearby walls. So, I furthermore added some logic to account for such things, to a degree at least.

Overall, the result is a little more awkward than it used to be (with a mouse, at least), but it does work, I feel!



You might also note in the gifs above, by the way, that I've changed the background texture in my testing area. This texture should, I hope, be a little more gif-friendly--and maybe also a little nicer to look at?

Moving to the design-document (and related documents), I made a few changes there in the week just past.

On the relatively-minor side, I finished off one questline (or a draft thereof at least); listed out and gave consideration to the order in which artefacts and spells become available; and contemplated the addition of a new artefact-and-spell to the early part of the roster.

I also addressed the issue that a particular, relatively-late-game region lacked any side-questlines. To this end I found one for it--and incorporated one of the optional bosses into that, making said boss, and the artefact that they provide, now part of a questline.

On the more drastic side, in the week just past I gave serious thought to effectively removing the "mana" mechanic from the player's combat-spells.

In short, I'm not sure that it's actually good for gameplay here: I find that it can be frustrating to be low on mana, to have one's combat-spells working only intermittently. Especially early on in the game, when the player has few spells to switch between while recovering mana.

It might be more fun, conversely, to allow players to fire freely--to have the choice of what spell they use be purely one of which seems best at the time, or of personal preference.

Further, it would open up some UI space, in which I could then bring the player's selected artefacts to the fore alongside their spells.

Conversely, I do worry that the removal of the mana mechanic would reduce the game's tactical depth...

All that said, I've decided (for now) to leave the matter until such time as I get more feedback on the demo...

And finally, I believe that I mentioned in last week's blog post that I intended to send out a third wave of pitches. And this indeed I did!

That, then, is all for this week--stay well and thank you for reading! ^_^

Well done on making a start, and good luck going forward! ^_^

Also, congratulations on gaining aid in development, if I gather correctly! ^_^

I'm liking the work that I'm seeing on the various attacks, and that there's variety in both the attacks and their usage! That spearman in particular almost feels like a Dark Souls player-character! ^_^

Also: That knight's "big cat" helm is pretty cool. ^_^

[Blog post (7th of August, 2023)Boss-Building]

Blog post (7th of August, 2023)
Boss-Building

Summary: In which the design-doc sees updates; a boss is fixed and tweaked; another boss is reworked; more bosses are implemented or begun; some boss-related miscellaneous work is done; a consultation aids with matters of pitching; and one more wave of pitches is planned.

Greetings and salutations!

This week's screenshot shows an excerpt (using stand-in art, of course) from work on a new boss:



The week just past was perhaps a "week of bosses"--but nevertheless, a number of other things were done, too:

You may recall that I reported previously that the design-document was done--but also that I didn't expect it to be a static document, never changed.

And indeed, in the week just past changes were wrought!

Much of this had to do with the availability of combat-spells. In particular, as I recall, I discovered two things: First, that there were few straightforward "attacks" available early in the game. (And that two of those were spreadfire attacks!) And second, that one rather powerful "attack" was available awfully early on.

After deliberation, I made a few changes:

• A new questline (and NPC!) has been introduced, being available relatively early on, and providing the "lightning ball" spell.
• The questline that used to provide that spell--which is completable only later in the game--now instead provides the "meteor" spell.
• The moon that provides the above-mentioned "rather powerful 'attack'" has been moved to a later part of the game.

Now, that last point did leave the solar-systems that are initially available to the player each holding exactly three moons, and one of them having only smaller moons. So, I further moved a medium-sized moon from one of those systems into the system with only smaller moons, thus solving both problems.

Regarding the second point, the "meteor" spell was previously acquired by defeating a boss--that boss has now in turn been removed. And in fairness, it was a boss that I was finding didn't fit ideally into the mechanics of the game.

And regarding that first point, let me note that this new questline is not quite complete--I'm not yet sure of what the NPC wants from the player!

But speaking of bosses, it was perhaps work on such foes that occupied the majority of the work of the week just past.

To start with, I fixed the "Dragon" boss (there were some missing import-statements and an incorrect file-path), and then later applied some tweaks to it: removing one attack, and altering another.

Furthermore, I reworked the "Skeletal Sequential Boss" that was present in the demo. While the basic idea remains, the nature of its attacks and patterns has been altered, and its health has been reduced a bit.

This, I hope, better reflects both the boss itself and its (early) position in the game, and further makes it more distinct from other bosses!



And beyond that I implemented three new bosses, and started a fourth!

I hesitate to say too much here, as discovering bosses can be part of the fun of such a game as this, so let me say little more than that they're each from a different moon, and each at least a little different from the others.

They're also all from relatively early in the game: I've been somewhat working from earlier to later in my list of bosses--the above-mentioned Dragon aside!

But let me not leave you with only that: the first screenshot above shows an excerpt from one of these bosses, and here below you should see another!



Along with this, I updated the spreadsheet that holds record of enemy health-values (bosses included), and reduced the intended maximum value for boss health-bars.

And finally, in the week just past I took a consultation with indie-dev and indie-consultant Rami Ismail, in which we discussed some questions that I had regarding my pitch, and in particular whether and when to query it.

The short answer to that last is: some time ago! (He recommended only a short time before first querying--a few weeks I think that it may have been.)

So, I also sent out a set of queries to those publishers from whom I yet awaited responses. (Save for two--I think it was--who didn't seem to provide a clear email address or message-page.)

This got me two more responses: one a "decline", and one a "wait a week for response", more or less.

I will confess, that "decline" did hit me a little hard, specifically in that it noted dissatisfaction with my player-character, finding the initial sphere-like form too impersonal.

(However, this was not their stated reason for turning the game down, and they did say that they appreciated the game's charm.)

But, I think that I have a way forward there: Should a publisher who is inclined to take the game on feel similarly, my thought is to suggest that we simply start off the player with all of the ship-parts currently given alongside upgrades. The final form--a sort of brass bird, wings outstretched, and with a great crystal set in its centre--has to my mind significantly more personality!

Mr. Ismail also suggested that I pitch to a third wave of publishers, and so I intend to do so tomorrow! ^_^

That then is all for this week--stay well, and thank you for reading! ^_^

It may be worth noting that it might be possible to "split the difference": depending on your desires for the game, you might be able to find royalty-free artwork.

Now, this has its own challenges: offhand, those of finding art that suits your game, of finding art that works well, and potentially of selecting art-packs that work together.

But with some creativity (and perhaps flexibility in your choice of art-style), it's possible that this will allow you to avoid both engaging in something that you find unenjoyable, and paying professional rates for a project that seems like it's primarily a hobby.