Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length

 
Advanced search

1411283 Posts in 69325 Topics- by 58380 Members - Latest Member: bob1029

March 29, 2024, 06:14:11 AM

Need hosting? Check out Digital Ocean
(more details in this thread)
TIGSource ForumsCommunityDevLogsThe Enchanted Cave 2 [Win/OSX/Linux/iOS/Android]
Pages: 1 [2] 3
Print
Author Topic: The Enchanted Cave 2 [Win/OSX/Linux/iOS/Android]  (Read 18728 times)
bombjack
Level 3
***

That's me :)


View Profile WWW
« Reply #20 on: September 11, 2014, 06:16:27 AM »

The main character design make me think of Dungeons of Dredmor.  Blink
Logged

dustinaux
Level 0
***



View Profile WWW
« Reply #21 on: September 11, 2014, 11:13:40 AM »

Omg, this is just procedural in-game filter? Can you please show some screenshot without the filter? Grin

Sure thing!  Here's a gif of the same title screen with no filter:



And inside the cave, no filter:



The main character design make me think of Dungeons of Dredmor.  Blink

Hadn't heard of it until now, but it looks like that game uses a similar filter for their characters, so that's probably why!
Logged

Come see what I'm working on!

Stranger087
Level 0
**



View Profile
« Reply #22 on: September 11, 2014, 11:46:42 AM »


Sure thing!  Here's a gif of the same title screen with no filter:



OMG! It looks 20 times better now!
Why do you think that most of players prefer non-pixelart? Maybe they prefer more detailed 2d art, or 3d art, but allergy on pixels? Doubtfull...
I have an idea for you: at the first launch of game, show menu like this:


Logged
dustinaux
Level 0
***



View Profile WWW
« Reply #23 on: September 11, 2014, 02:21:15 PM »

I think it's just that a lot of today's players in the teenage age group never grew up with the awesome pixel art graphics of the SNES and such, and have associated "pixel art = crappy indie game" because there definitely is a ton of that now flooding app stores.

Check out this Binding of Isaac: Rebirth blog post from a couple days ago which is a very similar filter to alter pixel art, and it seems to have gotten a ton of love.

I'm with you personally on the pixels, but I've always liked pixel art.  I'll definitely include a button at the start for new players to choose the pixel look, and there'll also always be an option in-game to switch it back and forth as well.
Logged

Come see what I'm working on!

dustinaux
Level 0
***



View Profile WWW
« Reply #24 on: September 14, 2014, 07:59:40 PM »

Week 21, here we go!

Experience system has been added!  Level Ups grant you a choice of a stat bonus just like the multi-gems along with 3 skill points.



Skill Tree animations!



And lastly, a screenshot of another part of the dungeon, a jungle temple kind of thing!

Logged

Come see what I'm working on!

dustinaux
Level 0
***



View Profile WWW
« Reply #25 on: September 21, 2014, 08:59:25 AM »

This week worked a good bit on important but boring stuff for mobile optimization to reduce lag, like rewriting some of my item scroller code and caching some of the sprite texts.  Buuuut… I did want to also give you all something to look at so here you go:

“Loot this run” screen.  Shows artifacts, stat gems, and a few other useful stats for helping decide whether to use the escape wings yet or not:



And Iceslash, the ice attack spell!

Logged

Come see what I'm working on!

alvarop
Level 9
****


ignorant


View Profile WWW
« Reply #26 on: September 21, 2014, 12:35:09 PM »

Awww yissssssss. I backed this game because I loved the first so much. My first time seeing screenshots and gifs of it. Looks sweet.
Logged

i make games that can only ever be played once on http://throwaway.fun
dustinaux
Level 0
***



View Profile WWW
« Reply #27 on: September 21, 2014, 03:44:16 PM »

Thanks a bunch, alvarop! Smiley

Here's a quick new gif of the damage text in battle since it got hidden behind stuff before:
Logged

Come see what I'm working on!

dustinaux
Level 0
***



View Profile WWW
« Reply #28 on: September 27, 2014, 04:07:05 PM »

Made some great progress with items and data management this week.  Got some basic saving and loading working well – after release I want to write up a thing for other devs on how item data is all stored and loaded.  I don’t see a lot of tutorials on that topic, and it can be a tricky thing, particularly with RPG type games with many items.  The Enchanted Cave 2 has an extra layer on top of this with the artifact system and enchanting to allow for very custom items which have to have all of their data saved somehow.

Anyway, I’ve been working on that mostly to be able to start playing the game normally through multiple runs and balancing stuff out soon.  I did do a nifty escape wings animation though!

Logged

Come see what I'm working on!

dustinaux
Level 0
***



View Profile WWW
« Reply #29 on: October 04, 2014, 07:40:58 PM »

Populating the town with more people!



Also gold bags are added, hooray!



I got most of the basics of saving and loading game data working this week as well, which can be a little tricky but is of course hugely important.  The game will save your progress during a run by auto-saving with each new floor, and of course upon using the Escape Wings.  There will also be an option to save anytime from the menu during a partially-completed floor.
Logged

Come see what I'm working on!

BlueBeard
Level 0
*


Gluoz


View Profile
« Reply #30 on: October 04, 2014, 10:42:18 PM »


Platforms: Flash, Android, iOS, Steam if greenlit (PC, Mac, maybe Linux)
Release Goal: November 2014
Background: The Enchanted Cave 2 is a sequel to my most successful flash game The Enchanted Cave which launched in 2009, and has several millions of game plays across the web.  I finished a mobile port of the game for Android and iOS in January 2014 for some necessary experience in launching mobile games.
Not Bad

Following a successful kickstarter I quit my programming job to go full time indie during this game's development!

The Game

The Enchanted Cave 2 is a roguelike/rpg/puzzle or something if you must assign a predefined genre to it.  It features a randomly generated dungeon of monsters and treasure, with the a unique dynamic provided by special items called artifacts.  During a typical run you'll find both normal treasure and artifacts, with the difference being normal treasures are for that run only, while artifacts you keep permanently and can use on future runs.  (This concept's inspired by the Ancient Cave from Lufia II)

In addition to artifacts, you'll also keep gold, exp, spells and stat gems when you successfully escape, but if you die you'll lose that entire run!  So it's very much a risk vs reward type of game.

Escaping the cave will be done by using the Escape Wings, an item found in the cave.  Unlike the original game where there was one set of wings, I'm planning on making a different set of wings for each 10 or so floors, which can only be found on and work on those floors.  This would force you every 10 floors to determine whether or not you're health and equipment are good enough to find the next set of wings before you die.  This would provide a constantly shifting strategy of just how much health is worth losing on a particular floor to loot the treasure you see.


Battles



Battles are fought automatically, with the default being your hero and the monster attacking one another until one dies.  You'll be able to use consumable items or magic during battles, and also have the choice of running away.  The game is most definitely not a hack-through-every-monster-you-see game.  Instead, monsters are stationary and game strategy relies on determining whether or not the reward of fighting that monster is worth the health lost, along with the tactical use of equipment and item/spell usage.

Examples:

Treasure chest and a stat gem are behind a weak rat --> Fight it!

A stat gem is behind a goblin dealing medium damage --> Stat gems are permanent, so it may be worth it if you have the health...

Small bag of gold behind an orc that deals big damage --> Ignore it!

Another orc guards a passage you can't see the end to --> Fight it? Ignore it? Use a powerful consumable item against the orc? Use an item or spell to skip the orc? Use an item or spell to see reveal what's at the end of the passage?

These are the type of decisions you'll have to make.


The Town



The town is built around this mysterious cave attracting travelers from all over to try their luck at finding some treasure in the cave.  A couple explorers go missing in the cave each month, but the greed for rare and powerful artifacts is enough motivation to take the risk for most explorers.  Although the number of missing explorers has been on the rise recently...

The town provides a bar for the townsfolk and travelers to congregate to share stories or offer quests you can take on to complete in your next run through the cave.  There is also a museum to display any artifacts you've found in addition to acting as a renting service for taking an artifact with you into the cave if you've got the cash.



Crafting

A crafting system is planned to provide plenty of customization.  Use ingredients found to create health potions to let you explore more that run, or create a better weapon, or enchant a weapon or piece of armor with a specific ability.  You'll even be able to enchant a normal item into an artifact to keep permanently.




Music

I'm absolutely thrilled to be have the great Grant Kirkhope scoring the music for the game!  Grant is the composer for games such as Banjo Kazooie, Donkey Kong 64, Kingdoms of Amalur, and many more.

A few more screenshots/gifs:

Secret Areas:


Iceslash:


Equipment Screen:


Skill Tree:


Town Bar:


Updates

I plan to post descriptive updates weekly in addition to little things here and there so stay tuned!  Follow me on Twitter to keep up on the latest TEC2 news!  Grin

(This post is regularly modified with new screenshots, check the end of the thread for the latest stuff!)
Logged
dustinaux
Level 0
***



View Profile WWW
« Reply #31 on: October 19, 2014, 06:10:52 PM »


I’ve been working on getting the greenlight page up for the last two weeks, so theres a few new things in the video you won’t have seen before.

Now lets talk about the different platforms!  I’ve had a pretty flexible plan up until now when I’m ironing out a few fine details.

The flash game will be a full game I plan to release sometime in December.  A bit later than originally planned, but that’s how game development tends to work out!

The mobile and paid versions will come afterward, with plenty of extra features. Namely these: (taken directly off of the greenlight page)

  • 20-25 extra floors + extended storyline
  • more NPCs and sidequests
  • more items
  • more monsters
  • more spells
  • native fullscreen capability
  • longer, higher quality music tracks
  • plus plenty of smaller details for a highly-polished game!

To do all of that which I want to will take a bit longer, so the release date for the mobile and steam versions is March 2015.
Logged

Come see what I'm working on!

dustinaux
Level 0
***



View Profile WWW
« Reply #32 on: October 23, 2014, 09:54:20 AM »

Made a little acid-spitting flower thing:

Logged

Come see what I'm working on!

dustinaux
Level 0
***



View Profile WWW
« Reply #33 on: October 25, 2014, 04:15:39 PM »

After getting the greenlight video up, I feel like I’m in the home-stretch now.  A few programming tasks remain but a lot of the remaining work is a steady flow of more art.

Here’s a new feature though: Are pesky monsters blocking treasure you want, but you don’t feel like fighting? Just blast through the walls with the magic pickaxe!



Magic pickaxes can be found throughout the dungeon or bought at shops and break when used, so stock up!
Logged

Come see what I'm working on!

dustinaux
Level 0
***



View Profile WWW
« Reply #34 on: November 03, 2014, 10:04:21 AM »

This past week I’ve been working some more art for monsters, npcs, dungeon tilesets, and items, which will be a large part of the work from here on out.  Aside from that and fixing a few small things in a stream, a bigger addition is the equipment comparison screen!



Not too flashy, but should be very useful for comparing stats of an item with what is equipped.  This will come in handy the most on shop screens where you’ll be able to compare a shop item to what you have equipped and buy and equip it from the shop, to make buying new equipment quick and easy!
Logged

Come see what I'm working on!

alvarop
Level 9
****


ignorant


View Profile WWW
« Reply #35 on: November 03, 2014, 10:23:42 AM »

I'm really happy to see all these updates and like the direction the game is going. Pretty excited!
Logged

i make games that can only ever be played once on http://throwaway.fun
dustinaux
Level 0
***



View Profile WWW
« Reply #36 on: November 10, 2014, 05:36:14 PM »

The largest change this week is the addition of equipment forges which allow you to enchant your equipment! Going along with that development, the effects of most enchantments have been added and the crafting UI for potions reworked a bit to make the enchantment details a bit prettier.

Anyway, welcome to the forge! Forges will be on every 5th floor, including the shops that are on every 10th floor:



Here’s a quick rundown of enchanting: Items can only have 2 enchantments. Some items will have one or two default enchantments, like the Mage Helm in the example which has an MP Regeneration enchantment on it currently. When enchanting you can choose one or two crafting ingredients to add their properties to the item. You have the option to keep an existing enchantment on the item and just add or change the other slot, where only the one ingredient will be used in that case. Two enchantments of the same type on the same item will remain two separate enchantments, but stack for the effective stat bonuses.

So what’s some neat enchantments besides your basic attack, defense, and elemental stuff? Bonus include Exp bonus, Critical Hit bonus, Item Drop bonus, Insta-kill chance, and Bleed and Lifedrain!

Here’s bleed and lifedrain at work on an unsuspecting tortoise:



The purple 7′s are from a lifedrain enchantment and the red 3′s are from a bleed enchantment.  Both do damage over time after the first hit, with the main difference being that some enemies are immune to bleed damage if they don’t have blood, like that spirit fellow in the lower left! Lifedrain works on most everything.
Logged

Come see what I'm working on!

dustinaux
Level 0
***



View Profile WWW
« Reply #37 on: November 15, 2014, 02:45:25 PM »

Got a good amount of things done this week, but they are mostly some boring stuff like more art, data management with saving and loading games, adding a settings menu, and fixing some bugs.

One thing was adding functionality for potion effects. Here’s a look at the “active effects” screen to view what kind of effects are currently active and for how many battles.  Normally you probably won’t have so many effects, but it’s certainly possible. Smiley



Not shown in the screenshot is the icons appearing on your HUD as just the icon and battle duration.  Clicking on them will show this screen for a more detailed look.

Potions with the same effects will stack their effects and battle durations, and take the average power between them in a way I think is the best method without having any loopholes that could be exploited, while avoiding the need to keep a long list of limitless queued effects of different strengths for different number of battles.  Basically… if you have +10 attack for 3 battles and use a potion that is “+15 attack for 2 battles,” you end up with +12 attack for 5 battles.  The battle durations are just added together, and power is “power = (10 * 3 + 15 * 2) / 5″.  It works, I promise!

Also finished is a run away ability.  Sometimes you could accidentally start a battle and not be equipped how you want, or simply change your mind, so you can now run away by just clicking a tile outside of battle:

Logged

Come see what I'm working on!

dustinaux
Level 0
***



View Profile WWW
« Reply #38 on: November 24, 2014, 09:14:08 AM »

First off real quick: after working many months on TEC2 a change of pace for one weekend sounded great, so this weekend I made a quick game for the #indiesvspewdiepie game jam! You can play the super weird game I made in 3 days right here! (Bonus Full Screen version on my website if you want or the link doesn’t work)

If you have a gamejolt account (or make one) it’d be awesome if you could vote for the game in the jam here! I wish an account wasn’t necessary, but I guess it’s to stop cheaters… which I’m sure would be plenty with nothing in place.


Yes, quite radically different from Enchanted Cave 2!



Aaaannnnyway it’s time to get back to The Enchanted Cave 2. What did I do during the week then?

Nice shiny new textbox animations with dialog choices!



Not shown in a gif is plenty of behind-the scenes work in setting up the basic functionality of npc switches as the basis of giving out and completing quests!

Also I made a few new spells, Windblast and Earthsmash!



Logged

Come see what I'm working on!

dustinaux
Level 0
***



View Profile WWW
« Reply #39 on: November 30, 2014, 05:30:51 PM »

More art, more people, more effects!

Here's the latest text effects to help give personality to some NPC's in the game:



Adding more people to the town.  People swap out and say different things as the game progresses - how many runs into the cave you've completed.



And a glimpse of the Ice Cave area:

Logged

Come see what I'm working on!

Pages: 1 [2] 3
Print
Jump to:  

Theme orange-lt created by panic