More on the Day/Night Cycle
To start things off, I'm going to cut something out of a previous update to hammer out the basics:
..Beyond the benefits of fleshing the world out a bit more visually that the day-night cycle provides, it has also created a ton of opportunities for gameplay features and mechanics that weren’t otherwise possible before:
- “Time of Day” Events - Game events can have a new layer of depth in their design and parameters, whether it’s the next leg in the main quest stipulating that you need to be at a certain place in the morning, a secret merchant that only appears at night, or a rare happening that only occurs every several days, to name a few of the possibilities.
- Scene setting - Without getting into specifics, many narrative elements previously had to bend their way around being set during the day, or, if they were set at night, had to be distanced from the gameplay itself. Besides this no longer being an issue, it also enables me to set not just scenes but entire stages at night if necessary, which has opened up a lot of new narrative options.
- Alignment and other macro time-related systems - Alignment as traditionally seen in the Ogre Battle games likely will not exist in Chronicle of Ruin. However, with the introduction of a day-night cycle, class-based alignment is now a definite possibility. Making certain classes stronger at night and others best during the day adds another dimension to both the creation of your squads and your decision-making process when dealing with the enemy’s. While I can’t guarantee that this is something that’ll make it into the game, it’s definitely an idea that will be explored further.
Time of day events, scene setting, and new macro system possibilities - that about sums up where I'm at right now with the day/night implementation. Regarding alignment, if it goes it, it'll in all likelihood be split 50/50 between day classes and night classes, although some trees will have more of one and less of the other, and vice versa. I've also had a few people suggest to me having a class based around the time of day, with skills being dependent on it, and it's something that I'd like to look into, but that's the sort of thing that I'll get into further down the line as I delve into advanced classes.
Some other thoughts that I've had on the day/night cycle, rapid fire-style:
- Adjusting sight and aggro radius based on time of day on the tactical map
- Light-based behavioral interactions in garrison points - douse a flame a night to draw a guard or grant yourself access to a place unnoticed
- Stages that have to be completed in X number of days (lukewarm on this, timed missions usually end up being just a step above escort missions
- Enemy squad behavior changing on the tactical map -- for instance, more patrols during the day, while sticking closer to garrison points at night
Would love to hear any thoughts/ideas anyone else might have for the Time of Day stuff!
The characters wobble too much when hit if you ask me. Could do much better with a few on-hit animations.
Also the world map, is that in the game? The art direction is so different than anything else.
I'm always open to tweaking the wobble, so thanks for the input there. I'd like to have full on hit animations for the characters, but I'm trying to reign myself in where I can with the art workload, considering there'll be ~40ish classes that need any animation I decide to put in. For instance, I put in death animations for everyone recently because I really couldn't stand seeing them warp from a single 'hit' frame to a single 'dead' frame. The hit frame with the wobble, on the other hand, is something that I can live with, even though yeah, there's work to be done on it.
Actually, depending on what you're looking at, it might already been sped up and shortened in overall length. Can't really remember when the last time I messed with it was off the top of my head.
As for the map, do you mean the parchment-style World Map, or the more zoomed in tactical map with the unit icons on it? I'd say that yeah, the art looks different, but that's just part of iterating through old art and the different perspectives, I guess. Working on it.
Just discovered this;
I'm really happy you made an update recently! This is an absolute joy to look over. I think the art direction (and the night/day cycle, to reference your latest post) is very effective.
It has a classic vibe without being "too" old-school, if that makes sense!
Thanks! Glad you like the day/night cycle. Did a lot of arguing with myself as to whether or not the way that I did it was acceptable (basically just a mask and some effects over the layouts), but I thought the overall effect was pretty acceptable, and after doing some research, I figured that if that's what Chrono Trigger and Seiken Densetsu 3 did, that's good enough for me
Because, as you seem to have sussed out, I'm trying to ride that fine line between the older stuff and the new - just a matter of deciding what sorts of stuff is acceptable and what's pushing it too far into an ungainly mishmash of styles.
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