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TIGSource ForumsCommunityDevLogsHack, Slash, Loot
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Oddball
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« Reply #40 on: March 27, 2011, 02:31:47 PM »

Thanks guys.

@JasonPickering
1. There isn't an xp score for killing monsters or any character levels, but you can increase your stats by various ways throughout the dungeon. In the video the first barrel contains an enchanted brew which increases the wizards magic attack/damage stats by one for the rest of the dungeon. Later on in the vid(~6mins) the wizard prays at an alter and is rewarded with +1 to his natural armour and resistance to silvered weapons. There are also many other ways of increasing your stats that aren't shown in the video.
2. I have no idea at all about this. I have no musical contacts at all, so don't have any 'go to' guy in this area. I'll have to start sounding people out soon though I suppose.
3. I'd like it to be finished on release, but it is made in such a way that it can be expanded upon later.
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Sean A.
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« Reply #41 on: March 27, 2011, 04:05:37 PM »

So is there any other reward for killing monsters other than them not being there anymore?
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Oddball
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« Reply #42 on: March 28, 2011, 03:11:33 PM »

Them not being there anymore is a pretty big reward in itself, but they do drop items as well.
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Oddball
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« Reply #43 on: March 31, 2011, 04:43:56 PM »

Whilst I had my video editing software open I had a go at a teaser trailer just for fun.



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Devling
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« Reply #44 on: April 02, 2011, 09:41:19 PM »

 Kiss Totally balls to the wall awesome. Is the final price going to be 20 or so, or more like 10 or under? In US dollars.
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Oddball
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« Reply #45 on: April 03, 2011, 03:35:59 PM »

@Devling: No idea on pricing yet, but it won't be as high as $20US.

I've put together an early test build. It's missing a lot of features, but if you are interested in giving it a go, and providing some feedback, then PM me and I'll send you the link.

Overlord Ror from 2 Girls 1 Game has been giving the test build a play and has posted a preview of what she thinks of it so far. Hand Point Left Smiley Hand Thumbs Up Right

Sound stuff
Been working exclusively on sound this week. The sound effects are procedurally generated at runtime using Brucey's wrapping of DrPetter's sfxr code. That means no two sword hits(or footfalls, or bow twangs, etc) sound the same. The sound generation code is all in, but not all the sound effect profiles are done yet. The music code is in too, but I'm just using placeholder tracks now. Music isn't going to be a major feature of the game, but I do want to use it as a cue for various game states and situations. And finally volume control is all done.
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tametick
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« Reply #46 on: April 05, 2011, 01:22:43 AM »

Really cool!

You've solved some interface issues I've been struggling with in my game in a very elegant way.

I like the way your inventory works Smiley
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Oddball
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« Reply #47 on: April 08, 2011, 05:09:43 PM »

Been working on HSL a lot this week so I've split this post into two sections. If your not interested in what testing taught me skip to the second part.

It was a testing time...
So the response to my call for testers was phenomenal. Got tons of useful feedback, and I've been working through the points raised all week. I'd like to share some observations from the testing process if nobody minds.

  • It's a scary world I was extremely nervous about showing the game off to complete strangers as I had no idea what the reaction would be. I needn't have worried the general mood from the testers was a positive one.
  • I'm stupid, but I already knew that One thing I was certain would happen was that I would have missed some really obvious issue, and sure enough there were a few slap my forehead moments when the responses came in. As I work on the game almost every day I'm extremely familiar with the game and therefore have no perspective as a new comer to the game. This was one of the most useful aspects of the testing, and I appreciated that a few of the testers tried the game without reading the 'How to' guide first.
  • Carrot before stick Feedback that started with the positives felt more constructive than feedback that had the negatives first. I know that both styles are just as useful as each other but the beginning set the tone for the rest of the feedback. This is something that I will certainly be more mindful of in future when I give feedback to others.
  • You can't please everyone This is important to remember. A lot of the feedback I got was contradictory, one person thought some part was good, another would think it was bad. An important aspect of sorting through the feedback was assessing what was due to personal taste and what was due to a design issue.
  • Getting noticed Twitter was great for recruiting testers, and I was helped by the 2 Girls 1 Game preview. Next time I may consider using other social networking or tech solutions that allow for better two-way dialog with testers.


The new 'distressed' GUI and the 'tool tip' styled hint at the bottom

And the result
I did actually work on the game a little too. The biggest change is that each tile can now contain more than one item. My original intention was to keep the game simplified, and one item per tile seemed like a good way to keep it that way. Enough people found this frustrating to warrant a rethink. The most compelling argument was having a potion dropped but then killing a monster over it and having the potion obliterated by the newly dropped item. This unfairly punishes the player for killing two monsters.

I added some of the damage secondary effects. Each damage type(fire,lightning,etc) has a secondary effect if you deal that damage and/or are resistant to it. I'm keeping these effects undocumented so the player can discover them as they play. Although when a secondary effect is triggered it is noted in the turn log so as not to confuse the player as to why it happened. For those who don't mind spoilers here's a taster Life Steal(Necrotic) killing a monster with necrotic damage will steal some of the life force giving the player a health boost.

The other additions are all to do with usability. This was a key focus of testing and helped tremendously. I now have 'tool tip' style hints when hovering the mouse over stats and icons. As the name suggests hints give the player a sense of what each thing means without going into detail. They are aimed at the player who doesn't like to read help files, or needs their memory jogging. The tile cursor got a revamp meaning it is now more obvious when a feature is usable. Also you can now hover the cursor over an item to see how it would affect you stats. Creatures on the minimap now flash to distinguish them from other elements. Finally there have been other minor graphical and layout changes. Most notable of which is the new icons for swift and shadeform. Well shadeform still uses the same icon, but now it pulses in time with the player.

« Last Edit: April 08, 2011, 05:15:20 PM by Oddball » Logged

moi
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« Reply #48 on: April 08, 2011, 06:38:59 PM »

I have already seen that interface somewhere, but I can't remember the game.
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Oddball
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« Reply #49 on: April 09, 2011, 01:33:56 AM »

Not quite sure what you mean by that moi Huh? You've probably seen it on the other three pages of this DevLog.
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Lazycow
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« Reply #50 on: April 09, 2011, 05:14:22 AM »

I have already seen that interface somewhere, but I can't remember the game.

I like the style of the interface, and I had the same feeling that I remember it from somewhere. Maybe Dungeon Master was in my head:
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Zulli: "Is this game really being programmed or are you just torturing us?"
Oddball
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« Reply #51 on: April 09, 2011, 09:01:09 AM »

I don't see the similarities myself, but I'm certainly not going to complain about having my stuff compared to Dungeon Master, that game was awesome. Grin Hand Thumbs Up Right
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Devling
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« Reply #52 on: April 09, 2011, 04:49:11 PM »

Cool. Hope my feedback helped.
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RotateMe
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« Reply #53 on: April 11, 2011, 01:55:39 PM »

If this has been asked before feel free to ignore this question, but do you plan on adding more tilesets (maybe even an outdoor/forest tileset, I *love* those!)? And did you plan for any features that haven't been seen before? 

Really looking forward to trying this, checking the page like every hour if the friggin download button already works. I love the tiles, even better then Oryx' 8-bit tiles!
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Oddball
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« Reply #54 on: April 11, 2011, 03:02:03 PM »

@RotateMe: I have 7 dungeon themes currently planned, one of which is a forest theme so isn't technically a dungeon. Although I'm playing all this fast and lose, and if any of the themes aren't doing it for me then they'll get cut. Conversely, if I get any flashes of inspiration then I may do a couple of extra themes. The game is made to be extendable anyway so there'll probably be some post release dungeon themes too if there is any demand for them. The public beta is probably a couple of weeks away yet, depending on my other commitments, but I'll be sure to post here when it is.
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James Edward Smith
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« Reply #55 on: April 13, 2011, 01:30:15 PM »

I don't know if you stated before, Oddball, but what are you making this in?

Nevermind, found the answer on your twitter, heh.
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Derek
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« Reply #56 on: April 13, 2011, 05:47:36 PM »

Sorry, Geothermal, I gotta make an example out of you! It's a pet peeve of mine when people ask a question on forums and then go "cool, I figured it out" without telling everyone else what the answer was.

The answer to "what are you making this in?" is:

http://twitter.com/#!/OddballDave/status/54947302665760768

Quote
@mrshrubber #HackSlashLoot is written from scratch using BlitzMax. Same code compiles flawlessly on Win/Mac/Lin.

Anyway, there's something very appealing about the graphics in this game - it's cramped but cute and easy to read. Great font. I also like that you're "shooting for the moon" with regards to content. Looking forward to the public beta!
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James Edward Smith
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« Reply #57 on: April 14, 2011, 06:29:39 AM »

Oh sorry, I was sort of in a rush. I was making the post at work. Who, Me?

But is it really necessary to chain me to this boulder?
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Derek
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« Reply #58 on: April 15, 2011, 12:19:37 AM »

I think that, in time, you'll come to enjoy your boulder. At the very least, it will provide you a bit of shade on hot days. Hand Thumbs Up Left
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Oddball
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« Reply #59 on: April 15, 2011, 02:09:36 PM »

Yes HSL is made using BlitzMax. It's what I do nearly all my coding in these days. It takes all the pain out of making cross platform apps. I write everything on my Mac and when I need a Windows build I simply fire up parallels and press compile. Same for Linux.

Wizard, I choose you!
I've actually been doing a lot of bug fixing and optimisation this week. Not really had a lot of bugs to fix during development so far, but as it is becoming a much larger, and complex, beast they have started to creep in. I have had time for a few new features though.

The most requested feature from testing was to be able to select your character. This is now in, as is selecting the quest you wish to embark on. When finished there will be three characters available from the start with the others becoming available depending upon the number of times you have died. These 'unlockable' characters are more powerful than the original three so having their availability dependant upon the amount of times you die seems the sensible way to do things.

As I mentioned in my last log tile spaces can now contain more than one item. This presented a problem as it was difficult to tell when a space had more than one item in it. I have solved this by having the items expand into a stack when you hover the cursor over the tile. I am also contemplating having monsters drop there entire inventory instead of just the one item as it now. This may become annoying for the player though as there'll be a lot more item shuffling involved. I'll probably try it and see how it feels.

Artifacts are now retainable from game to game. Each quest will contain one or more artifacts. These items are more powerful or unusual than enchanted items, and after being found once they will be included(randomly) in your inventory for other quests. Artifacts won't be dropped by ordinary monsters they will be reserved for bosses and the like.

Finally I finished adding the secondary effects for the special damage types. I may add some more, but I'll wait to see if inspiration hits. Either way I'm more than happy with the current ones.

« Last Edit: April 17, 2011, 02:59:40 PM by Oddball » Logged

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