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[Chis]

happymonster: I'm trying to now, but it's really difficult to do without cluttering up the sprite. For the idle animation I'll definitely get a few lines streaming off of her, it'll look awesome  

green: Better? It's kinda hard to see.

Not too much to say today, but I've implemented throwing of items - to other characters, and to the ground. Some items are fragile, meaning that if you throw them onto the ground, they break. (don't throw them on the ground!) Throwing items at monsters hurts them, unless they are humanoid monsters, in which case they just catch them.
Oh, but perhaps holding something makes you more vulnerable to damage, therefore making this an interesting battle tactic?!
HMMMMMMMM

Also came up with a tutorial level. My immediate goal for now is to implement everything needed to get the tutorial up and running. That includes:

- six initial characters (will reuse sprites to save time)
- modelling the level
- camera panning
- ability to undo an entire turn
- a floor switch system
- enemies
- at least one skill for 3 characters
- drawing strands
- dialogue
- GUI

whooo boy  

[happymonster]

Looks better to me, very nice sprite work!

[Chis]

happymonster: Thanks!

I ended up rewriting half of my code again, but this time I have a much more solid system working!





Updates I've made:

- given everyone really simple drop shadows.
- totally generalized character actions. Now all actions basically just have an execute function, which makes em really easy to deal with.
- the undo turn function! You can go back/forward in your turn history, but unfortunately you lose the progress on your current turn. Will be disabled if monsters are on the map.
- the character action menu now displays options depending on your character's state, instead of vomiting out all possible options. Eg. you can't throw an item if you're not holding anything.
- the new turn function. I kind of needed it for the undo turn.
- tweening actions! I have yet to make any animations, but characters now move to their destination/throw objects at the appropriate speed instead of just appearing there.
- camera now pans around. It could still use a little work.
- not showing highlighted tiles for now, because it slows down the game x1000. I need to figure out a better way to do this.

I've had a bad history of giving up on past projects, but I feel really really good about this one 8D

[McMutton]

The art style is incredulously awesome. That is all.

[Seiseki]

Those sprites look incredible! Love the colors! :D

[Chis]

So I finally made an enemy AI. It's really dumb and only attacks the closest character in its current movement range, if there are any. Which is okay though, because every enemy will have a different behavior. That's the other thing - except in some instances, enemies will generally make independent decisions instead of one invisible AI controlling everyone.

In other news, I seem to have lost my arting abilities   After a frustrating day of literally not being able to pixel anything, I managed to make health and mana pots lol



Thanks so much, McMutton, Seiseki, glad to know you're enjoying the art! I'll try to keep chugging out more  

[cragwind]

Looks good! Any thoughts on visualizing available moves (for both the player and opponent units)? In regard to allowing only 'perfect' formations, I wonder if you could highlight all available positions, but the positions in the formation would be brighter or otherwise distinguishable.

I like the idea of a formation based game. I've got a hexgrid game in the works with a focus on individual movement and positioning, but I've kept thinking about collaborative attacks.

Any ideas on terrain, obstacles, line of sight, or anything else related to the map itself?

[Chis]

Annd the deuteragonist. Will redo later, too frustrated with it now   at least now I have a design I don't want to throw out the window. I realized his colors were too similar to everyone else's so now I get to draw him again! fffff

gears: Incidentally I do have a way to show the reachable tiles (like a modified Bellman Ford), but I'm temporarily taking it out because the actual highlighting of the tiles was slowing down the game. I need to find a better way than creating a bajillion projector objects  
That's a good idea - you mean like brightening the positions along the six hexagonal directions? In that case maybe I can get away with not highlighting the rest of the map at all.
It's nice to find a fellow person using hexgrids! Your devlog looks awesome and although I am no authority on the subject, I'd definitely encourage experimenting. I'd be interested in seeing what you come up with   What sort of collaborative attacks are you thinking about?
Well, I haven't though about too much, but my idea was that that soul strands, being made of spiritual material, can pass through obstacles and terrain and the like. But all characters in a formation have to be at the same height, otherwise there's all sorts of weirdness with checking if lines actually intersect or not. It'd be interesting to have some material that blocks stranding though, I'll have to look into that.

[Peregrinus]

Your art is really astonishing. And I'm a big fan of tactics rpg! I can't wait to see the next update of this!

[Boud]

And there I thought nobody makes TRPGs anymore, this feels my heart with pure joy ! I really love the artworks, the colours are amazing ! Great job !

I really like the gameplay ideas too, I will keep an eye on this.

What engine/tool are you using or are you doing everything yourself from scratch ?

[Haite]

Loved everything, waiting updates!

[Chis]

Peregrinus: Thank you so much yeah, I think trpgs need more lovin'!

Boud: Ahh thank you! and I'm glad you like the gameplay  I'm using Unity.

Haite: Thank you! Updates you shall see, yes /slapself

 I've been slow lately cause of my new parttime job, and I've been doing alot of rethinking for the game. But y'know what, from now on I will post daily updates! to pace myself better and to figure out what I still need to get done.
Now everyone gets their own soul color! I quietly edited this into the front page, but soul is now the 5th element, and the only way to use soul is via soul strands. At first I was just going to make them super AoE attacks, but I felt like they needed to be more special. So there we go.
Also, I've gotten some basic zelda-like mechanisms working. There's the floor panels, which each have their own color, and will trigger if there's a jar of the same color sitting on them. And the door, which opens once all the puzzles in the room have been solved. Alsoo, I've added in a mysterious black tile
As usual, I ended up rewriting all of my code. But now I have a system that will run chain reactions for mechanisms with ease, and it's super easy to implement new ones as well. Thank you, anonymous functions!
Still flailing around artistically. It amazes me how I am decent at sprites imho, but can't pixel vases and simple objects to save my life. I went back to the pencil and paper so that I can at least draw -something-.



Dungeon one! It's actually floating a kajillion miles above the mainland.

[Chis]

Oops, I'm late. Make that updating every two days at the least?

I made the first skill, Whirlwind! It smacks the player on the target tile around a little. I still need to play with the formula though. It comes with a little particle whirlwind effect, which was shamelessly stolen/modified from the Shuriken particle system samples. Speaking of which, the new system is pretty cool, but I wish it had a global scaling factor.
Also added Heal.

I made a super generic menu system, so I can pretty much make any sort of menu of my deepest desires. I'm starting to come around to component-based programming over OOP. Kinda late, I know.

Nothing exciting going on art-wise, but here, have a WIP. Strangely I actually like the fourth one the most.

[amidos2006]

Woooow nice concept art and pixels that game looks great Good Job Keep the good job going on

[Boud]

Peregrinus: Thank you so much yeah, I think trpgs need more lovin'!

Boud: Ahh thank you! and I'm glad you like the gameplay  I'm using Unity

Oh lord that is great, using itween or other frameworks/scripts to handle the grid/hexa movement or you've done your own system ? I plan on doing a small trpg on unity myself, the genre needs more love

If yoi need some help, i'll gladly contribute

[Peregrinus]

Hey Chis, have you received the e-mail I sent you lately?

[Chis]

Characters can now die!
Sorta. SpriteManager's not hiding sprites when I want them to. But they're effectively gone from the map.
fixed, I guess I didn't need to call Transform() after all

Tiles can now hold multiple objects, so theoretically you can create Disgaea-like character towers. I'll probably not do the exact same mechanic though, maybe just holding items.
Floor panels transition to white when you place the right-colored pots on all of them. Undoing also undoes any progress with floor panels.

Fixed some bugs with the menu.

Also, I think this is the fifth time I've completely rewritten my code. Question for you guys - when you find crappy code that you've written at 4am, do you rewrite it or trudge along with it?

amidos2006: Thanks for the support! :,D

Boud: !?!??! I've never heard of itween before but it looks awesome! I could definitely use it in the future  
Oh really? High five and I completely agree! And gosh that would be great what would you be interested in doing?

Peregrinus: Hey sorry your email wound up in my spam! I sent you a reply.

[Boud]

Boud: !?!??! I've never heard of itween before but it looks awesome! I could definitely use it in the future 
Oh really? High five and I completely agree! And gosh that would be great what would you be interested in doing?

Well if I could find the time, I would glady help on the coding/game design/Writing departments, wherever you need help

Right now, I'm a little overbooked, but in a few weekd maybe I could lend you a hand if you still need it by then. For now I'll just watch and support you by simple feedback

[Chis]

I haven't gotten a chance to update cause Thanksgiving, but I finally started on modelling the first dungeon. Cloud particles are always fun!
You can see that the grid trails off the sides. I need to somehow mask the parts of the grid that aren't traversible :S

Boud: Of course, you should tend to your business first! Your support is more than enough  

[Alec S.]

Characters are looking really good, and I like the idea of puzzle/tactics hybrid.  Good luck!