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[Chris Pavia]

Just crossed one off the list  Now each battle has an optional field that will cause the token scroll speed to increase over the course of x amount of time, making the battle get more difficult if it takes too long. After trying it out, you definitely feel a sense of dread knowing that it is getting slightly harder with each passing second.

This feature is to 1. encourage the user to defeat enemies as quickly as they can, making any sort of point farming more difficult, and 2. to make the end of each battle slightly more difficult than the start of the next (even with a shallow curve) to encourage an undulating but upward trending difficulty curve.

Obviously it will be tuned to not be too crazy for the easy and medium modes. It can take a lot of tokens to build up to the characters' higher tier abilities, so we don't want to discourage that!

[Chris Pavia]

I made them a bit too difficult.

I added a pause function (mainly for when I'm demoing on iPad), and stats are now working and progressing as the characters level up. It's not tuned at all, but I'll probably save that for after alpha.

This week I'm going to start searching for someone to rig (and maybe animate) at least one of the characters so I can start testing real time vs rendered to sprite animations.

[Chris Pavia]

Weekend Update:

This weekend I crossed several small things off my alpha checklist. The list is still the same size though  But thankfully it's because a couple large nebulous tasks have been broken down into smaller, more concrete tasks.

Unless something unexpected pops up, the game should be in an alpha state within the next 2 weeks.

I showed the game to some people at a local game jam, got some great feedback and now I have several ideas for potential changes to make to the base gameplay, but that won't come until I start the user testing period at the end of alpha (which really just means making my wife and other non core gamers play the game with various rulesets and observing how they play).

A friend threw a quick rig on the fighter character for me, so I can start doing some test animations and nail down the production pipeline.

[Chris Pavia]

Wow at emergent gameplay 

I had previously decided not to implement dual and triple techs (2 or 3 characters attacking at the same time), and save it for an update. Then I started implementing a new combo system and while playing realized I had implemented the system accidentally as a byproduct. Not only that, you could theoretically attack with up to all 4 characters at once!

[Chris Pavia]

I got a ton of work done this week toward alpha. I've knocked my to-do list down to 4 items, which I plan to have done by next weekend. Then I'll start working on more content, probably starting with the enemies. I've planned to do 40 enemies in total, with roughly half of them being palette swaps. Which reminds me, I need to find a 3d character animator!

The way the player interacts with the puzzle section has changed a lot over the course of the week, I'll probably write up a post tomorrow or during the week detailing the new system.

Unfortunately all the stuff I've been working on doesn't really show up in screenshots, so here's a shot showing the newest enemy, the Dark Elf.

[McMutton]

How much animation would you be needing?

[Chris Pavia]

Hmm, probably a lot of short animations. There will be roughly 20 unique enemies (the rest are palette swaps), that will need ~ 5 or 6 animations each (idle, attack, hit react, death, etc). Then there are the 4 main character who will need 8-10 animations each. They may be getting rendered down to sprite sheets, so the animations won't be that complex. They would probably all already be rigged, The Setup Machine makes rigs quickly and easily, so I'm going with that since I hate rigging.

I'd be willing to pay on a per-character basis, if we can agree on something I can afford 

[McMutton]

Sounds like a plan. I'll PM ye.

[Chris Pavia]

Hmm, added something to the game today that seemed minor at first, but ended up being cooler than I thought it would.

Normally, when the player initiates an attack with a character, the character chooses a random enemy to attack. The gameplay already requires a decent amount of focus and concentration, so I didn't want to add another layer by requiring the player to choose a target with each attack. This worked fine, but once you started getting to enemies above the party's level it got a lot tougher since your attacks were being distributed randomly among enemies with lots of HP.

Since enemies are arranged in a diamond-like pattern, I randomly changed it to a system where the frontmost enemy is always targeted. It's still random when you hit the group of 2 in the middle, but in general you have to go front-middle-back in order if the enemies are present.

This made engaging tough enemies easier since you consolidate your damage on one target at a time, but it also feels good to carve though a block of enemies from one side to the other. It also gives the rear row enemy a greater role since they are engaged last have the whole battle to be using  their special attacks/abilities.

I've got 1.5 things left on my alpha to-do list, plus some bug-fixing, then it's back to creating enemies.

[Chris Pavia]

This morning I completed the last item on my to-do list for alpha. I've got some bugs that need squashing that'll take me to the weekend, then next week it's back to content creation. First on my list are the Lagomorph enemies.

I've hired McMutton for animation, he did great on the test character I sent him so I'm looking forward to seeing what he produces!

[Chris Pavia]

My 2d skills aren't the greatest, but here's a quick doodle of one of the new enemies, the Lagomorph. The standard Lagomorph is the weakest enemy in the game, although there are tougher relatives, including the mythical Shadowmorph.

[BomberTREE]

Haha Shadowmorph xD
I'm imagining splender man with a bunny face 

[Chris Pavia]

Progress on enemies, palette swapping is GO!

[McMutton]

[Chris Pavia]

I lol'ed so hard McMutton!

Managed to finish up the Sqweeks:

[Chris Pavia]

I'm currently working on a giant silverfish with lobster claws. My wife refuses to even look at it. I'm thinking that it's special attack is to summon a swarm of insects.

[Chris Pavia]

Some baddies from this week:

[McMutton]

You do good work, Chris.

[Chris Pavia]

Thank you sir! I find that sticking to a 2-3 color palette, and a clean easily-identifiable silhouette goes a long way.

[Chris Pavia]

Currently prototyping a turn-based variant of the game. In normal gameplay, the pieces automatically scroll across the field, with the speed defined by the difficulty of the battle. So you have a limited amount of time to make use of your pieces, or to get rid of enemy pieces. The downside is that you often don't have time to look at the top half when things get hairy. The turn based approach fixes this, but you don't have the steadily growing pressure of the original.

Maybe I'll include both if the turn based version ends up being fun and not radically different gameplay wise.