I definitely think DD being "fast paced" is among the most appealing things in the game.
Turn based strategy games can be extremely time consuming (carefully planning every turn), things tend to be even worse when talking multyplayer. So yeah, DD bein a swift game is definitely a plus. The fast paced action helps the game feeling much more dynamic and franctic, possibly leading into much more tension (something most turn based games easily lack).
So yeah, I'm all for it.
Also, any progress on the "all players moving at the same time" while in free-move mode?
I haven't looked much into making all the players moving at the same time for multiplayer. My work on the multiplayer engine has taken a back seat lately as I work out some of the levels and progression. The main reason for this is because if I try to keep the multiplayer features up to date with the singleplayer, then whenever I change something in singleplayer I have to write the appropriate network code for whatever I just implemented. Since the game is going through constant iteration, it would not be an effective use of time to implement multiplayer elements to mirrow the singleplayer features as they may be changed significantly and the multiplayer code is much more complex than singleplayer. It's better to test out the ideas in the singleplayer build, and iterate on what doesn't work to make it better than to implement a singleplayer feature and its multiplayer counterpart only to remove or significantly modify both later. Basically I'm trying to get the singleplayer experience right and then add the correct multiplayer elements when I know that they're final. Otherwise I'll be wasting time trying to keep both singleplayer and multiplayer in check, whereas the iteration process means that things can change quite rapidbly. It's about trying to keep the development agile and flexible.
My current development plan for the next "decent" build is:
* Build 2-3 levels which are close to their final versions. Make them quality, fun and replayable. Have exciting and unique elements in them. (This is why I've been adding lots of code for map triggers, to allow interesting things to happen)
* Add progression elements (global quests + unlocks) to accommodate these new levels
* Add better HUD. (Philip is currently working on the artwork for this)
At the same time as I work on these things, Philip and Chris are developing new assets which I generally implement as I receive them.
Day 258I was quite busy today and didn't get as much done as I would have liked to. No real features implemented today, mostly research and some design work.
I had some friends playtest the game at my house and I picked up on some interesting things that I didn't really notice or that I'd forgotten were important (since I'm so used to playing the game myself). Here's what I found:
Some of the rocks are quite difficult to see on the ground and look like they are walkable, Philip will have a go at adding some darker outlines to them.
There still isn't a line of sight display for using ranged attacks and it would be much better if a skill told you where it was going to cast it. That should be pretty easy to add in and it's a very common element in turn based games.
I'm thinking not being able to end your turn on heroes is not intuitive enough and might not be the best way to explain why you can't do it. Perhaps I should change it so that when you walk on a tile with another player you swap places instead. That's a common solution to this problem.
Even though the game doesn't have any of the nice polished explanation or help stuff that would normally accommodate it, it seems that there was too much thinking required for doing certain tasks. Perhaps it's because there were also no explanations on the skills and they had many to begin with. There are really only a couple of buttons (Space to use skill, Control to change it, and Enter to end turn [used infrequently]), and so I was surprised that it took a bit of thinking for a couple of my friends to work out which button needed to be pressed. I can't really see how I can reduce it, but perhaps more onscreen indicators would help, as well as the proper mouse controls later. Mouse may be the dominant control method.