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[bigosaur]

Each level in will have one or more locked rooms with treasures.



You can unlock the rooms with keys or blast the doors open with bombs. Or you can use magic scrolls that open doors magically.



Unlocked doors are not controlled by monsters, so you can use them to escape from tight battles.

[Pixel Noise]

Hey I've been checking this out periodically - all sounds good with how you've described the game. You might also take some inspiration from some of Dragon Crown's progression systems - specifically their loot multipliers where, the longer you stay in, the better the loot gets.

[bigosaur]

Hey I've been checking this out periodically - all sounds good with how you've described the game. You might also take some inspiration from some of Dragon Crown's progression systems - specifically their loot multipliers where, the longer you stay in, the better the loot gets.

Thanks. I will look into Dragon Crown, I haven't played it.

[bigosaur]

Presenting Goblin Berseker:



This goblin combines ranged and melee into a single unit. His rage increases even without hitting an enemy and when the rage is full, he throws the axe towards the player. When up-close we uses the axe to fight in classic melee strikes.



Goblin Axe is a very desired weapon for warriors. It can be thrown from a distance. If your rage meter is full, the thrown axe is unstoppable and flies across the screen knocking everyone down.

[bigosaur]

Due to my mistake parts of two goblins got mixed up:



This looks so funny, I just had to post it. Anyway, the axe throwing works now:

[bigosaur]

I got the multiple shots working. Reminder, it's an effect of one of the potions:



You get more shots, but each orb is weaker. When you start a game with mage you make 6 damage per orb. When split, each orb does 5 damage, but you fire two orbs at once, so that's 10 damage, a nice increase. Of course there are other ways to increase damage back up:



A good combo is when you add poison to it. You can easily poison multiple enemies at once:

[bigosaur]

I'm testing my game engine to see how it behaves in big battles:



Two players, 15 enemies and it works as smooth as with an empty screen. The game will run on a 10-year-old Core2Duo CPU with integrated Intel graphics card at 60fps with smaller resolutions like 1366x768. For HD screens it pushes about 53 fps on that config, but if you have just a little bit stronger CPU or dedicated GPU like nVidia or AMD it will work just fine. It only requires OpenGL 1.1, so even some really old hardware will be able to run the game.

[bigosaur]

As promised, you can pick up enemy weapons and use them. Goblin axe has a simple overhead strike attack mapped to fast attack button. Pressing Strong attack button throws it:



When your rage meter is full, you can use the sweeping mega throw attack:

[bigosaur]

Here are the magic scrolls. Of course, first comes the less interesting part, like picking them up, storing in inventory, etc.:



And then comes the fun part, i.e. using them:

[bigosaur]

Here's the first boss: Ogre Mom:



She can be challenging, especially for beginners. She will have several different attacks, the main one hitting you with that huge club:



It shows zero damage, because the player is invulnerable during testing

[bigosaur]

Here's the gruesome animation. I still need to work on some dust effects on the ground where the club hits:

[Ashedragon]

That thing she does with her head right before attacking is very weird and jarring.

[bigosaur]

If you try to pass behind her back, you might get smacked in the back:



I'm also planning an arena for the boss fight. There will be a small building for goblin warriors to come out and help the Ogre and there's a catapult that you can use when the battle is over



The boss room will have a distinct door which cannot be blasted with bombs:

[Jad]

That thing she does with her head right before attacking is very weird and jarring.

I wouldn't say the head animation is in itself weird and jarring.

I'd even say it's important for the animation, to give it life - she shouts before she attacks and leads the strike with her head.

What is jarring specifically is the pause between her head movement and the strike - they should be part of the same motion.

Also jarring is how linear all the movements are, the parts are either entirely still or moving at a singular speed.

I'd recommend either using some ease-in and ease-out (depending on the motion, the end of the strike should absolutely not ease out) OR embracing the stiffness and snap between poses and moves more!

This kind of paper doll animation is tricky. I got paid to do it for 2 years and I never really learned to love it!

[bigosaur]

What is jarring specifically is the pause between her head movement and the strike - they should be part of the same motion.

Actually, it was a single motion at first, but it felt weird in some way. Maybe I just need to reduce the delay.

Also jarring is how linear all the movements are, the parts are either entirely still or moving at a singular speed.

Thanks. I'm still learning the craft and this kind of feedback is awesome!

[bigosaur]

The first level ends when you catapult yourself into the King's Castle:

[bigosaur]

There will be shops on each level, where you can buy various items like potions, bombs, scrolls, weapons, etc.



I plan to have a special potion shop that only sells potions and a pet shop that sells... well, pets.

[bigosaur]

I got so many new elements, I guess it's time to build some variety of levels. Currently there are 15 different level layouts for the forest, but I plan to have at least 60 for the first alpha version:

[bigosaur]

It's time to play with fire. One of the playable characters will be a fire mage, so I decided to play with various fire effects. Wands can shoot fireballs which explode and enemies can players can be set on fire and lose a lot of health while burning:



Here's some animated action. The mage is still using the Snake Staff to fire fireballs, but there will be a special Fire Staff in the final game:

[bigosaur]

Here's a cool combo. If you get both the Snake Staff (poison) and the Fireball Staff (fire), you can buff the Fireball Staff with poison to shoot poisonous fireballs:



Enemies that get hit will be set on fire and poisoned at the same time. Somehow the burning animation is missing here, I need to fix that.