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[Chris Pavia]

Can you de-saturate the background colours a bit so the players and enemies pop out a bit more?

I'm about to head out to a super bowl party, but I'll whip up a quick mockup when I get the chance.

Those trees! 

I'm glad you like, they were pretty fun to make.

[Chris Pavia]

Got a second environment in game:



Also, you'll notice that the characters aren't in the same pose they are usually in. They are finally animated! McMutton did a great job bringing them to life, now they just need some cool FX to make them pop. I've also got a bunch of animation timing related things to sort out. I'm pretty excited because it's starting to play more like a game than a prototype! I'm currently trying to get to a good vertical slice stage so I can take some video of the gameplay, since I imagine most people have no clue what's going on in the bottom half of the screen.

[Chris Pavia]

On a whim I doubled the character's run speed to see how it looked. It looked so awesome I had to keep it! Also started on some particle FX for running and getting hit by an attack.

[Chris Pavia]

Hurray, Unity 3.5 released today! I've been waiting to dive into particle FX until it come out, since the new particle system Shuriken is supposed to be so much better.

[McMutton]

Ooh. Lemme know how the new stuff works out.

[Son of Bryce]

The character models looks sweet! Looking forward to seeing this in motion.

I agree with green's post about the backgrounds, the characters totally get lost in them as they are now.

[Chris Pavia]

It doesn't come across well in screenshots, but I got a first pass of the particle fx for the player character's attacks. Currently working on the fx for the puzzle interactions. I should have enough stuff in the game to take some video in March.

[McMutton]

Is Telina's bone setup helping with the arrows?

[Chris Pavia]

Yeah, works great!

[Chris Pavia]

Hmm, I'm considering changing up the overall flow/progression of the gameplay.

In the current version, the player goes continuously from battle to battle until they die or defeat the final boss (~24 battles). The battles are somewhat randomized so they fight new enemies/new combinations of enemies on each play through to keep things fresh. Kind of like an endless runner but with an end (albeit one that requires a lot of skill to get to). One of the good things about this is that each play is self-contained which adds to the "pick up and play" feel that goes well with mobile platforms (DH is primarily an iPad game). Nothing other than the basic rules needs to be remembered from session to session. Also the least amount of art content needed.

I'm thinking of breaking this rush up into a series of discrete encounters (each containing 2-5 battles). These would be laid out as sites on a branching path across an overworld type map the player uncovers as they progress from point to point. This would mean more art content that needs creating, but a simple 3d map shouldn't be too bad.

One potential difficulty this raises is that one of the fun parts of the current flow is leveling up your characters quickly between battles to get stronger and unlock skills. I don't want to let the player keep their earned levels from encounter to encounter because that would take away from the simplicity of the gameplay too much.  So the players will have to start at level 0 at the start of each encounter. Could be weird to the player.

A solution I came up with is having regularly spaced unlockables on the map (at the end of branching paths) that give a permanent bonus to the starting levels of the characters for future battles. For example, each unlock could give +5 levels to all the characters at the start of each encounter. This way the characters are growing in power over the course of the game, but I have a lot of control over the rate of progression. And the unlocks act as a good recurring medium/long term goal for the player. Hardcore players could see how far they can get by not getting any of the bonus level unlocks.

The map system would also allow me to do a bit of storytelling, if I decide to tackle that.  To keep the resource requirements down it would have to be simple character portraits and text, so I haven't decided if it would be worthwhile. I would have fun doing it, but would it add to the game?

Anyway, I'm mostly just brainstorming out loud. Let me know if you have any opinions either way.

[Windybeard]

Interesting concept, I have to say though if i was playing a game and i kept going back to level 0 after each segment i would not be too happy.

Perhaps you could have the main level like you say with perm upgrades on the "world map" and then inside the battle system don't show a level at all, just have buffs per round or something like that.

[Chris Pavia]

That's a good idea, although I would hate to stop calling them levels since leveling up so core to RPG's and I wanted to encapsulate that process. It's a good fallback if I can't think of something I like more though.

[Chris Pavia]

Interesting concept, I have to say though if i was playing a game and i kept going back to level 0 after each segment i would not be too happy.

Hmm, I wonder if I could solve that problem with some story greeble. For example, maybe the characters are cursed to carry with them an artifact that drains their life essence (sucking their level down to 1). Is that too transparent? I was also thinking that the artifact would be the weapon that can capture/defeat the Dark One (final boss), although that may be too similar to the one ring.

[Chris Pavia]

I bumped progress up to 50% to reflect the work I've done in the last month or two.

I'm considering reversing the direction the upper half of the game flows. Currently, player characters on the right, and they run from right to left between battles. This just felt natural to me since I'm so used to playing the old jrpg's with the characters on the right and the enemies of the left. But when I demo'ed the game recently at a game jam, a few people thought it should be the reverse. This makes sense, since us english speaking folk read from left to right, and in japan it's right to left. Anyone have an opinion one way or the other?

[cynicalsandel]

When you first posted pictures of them being on the right, it weirded me out a bit (most JRPGs I have played had the sort of Dragon Quest view of a large enemy rather than side by side.) However, I got used to it the more you posted progress.

Honestly, I bet its one of those things that is weird at first glance, but players will get used to.

[McMutton]

I bet it's screenshots will stick out more as is, since it's something people aren't used to.

[Chris Pavia]

Cool thanks for the feedback. I'll leave it as is for now, I'm going to be showing it around at GDC so we'll see if anyone else mentions it.

[Chris Pavia]

If any of the 3 or 4 people who read this devlog are going to GDC, I'll have a build of the game on my iPad. Hit me up if you want to check it out, I should be there Monday thru Thursday.

[JasonPickering]

going back to you over map talk. the Shiren games are a roguelike, with set floors. they dont need a map, but its nice for the player to know where there breaks are. could you perhaps do that? you wouldnt need to do any more art, just after every 5th battle there is a rest spot.

also with the levels could you call it rage or something, the description reminds me of break limits in final fantasy games. although the mcguffin sapping their life energy is pretty interesting idea. it would be super crazy if you integrated that into gameplay though. can you imagine having to kill enemies to gain levels, all while slowly losing XP mean you need to kills as many guys as fast as possible.

[Chris Pavia]

going back to you over map talk. the Shiren games are a roguelike, with set floors. they dont need a map, but its nice for the player to know where there breaks are. could you perhaps do that? you wouldnt need to do any more art, just after every 5th battle there is a rest spot.

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll check out some Let's Plays for Shiren. I know of the games, but haven't played any of them. I'm not too worried about the additional art requirements though. The camera would be zoomed out to a birds eye view, so I wouldn't have to go into too much detail with the map. I'm also kind of looking forward to designing the corrupted, blighted land the characters are traveling through. Sounds like a fun exercise.

also with the levels could you call it rage or something, the description reminds me of break limits in final fantasy games. although the mcguffin sapping their life energy is pretty interesting idea. it would be super crazy if you integrated that into gameplay though. can you imagine having to kill enemies to gain levels, all while slowly losing XP mean you need to kills as many guys as fast as possible.

Yeah, I'll probably go with the rage-type thing. I like the limit break type theme too, which fits into the gameplay because every 10 levels the character unlocks a special attack/ability. The artifact (the Dungeon Heart itself) could be the thing that gives them this rage/limit break ability, preying on the character's inner turmoil to give them Hulk-like power. Each of the characters has a very powerful and personal reason to destroy the Dark One that is revealed over the course of the game, so it fits in well.

On a separate note, I think I'm going to have the current endless-rush type gameplay be an additional gameplay mode unlocked after beating the regular story-based mode.