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[gimblll]

If you can make a build for macOS I'd be happy to try it out and report back

I don't have a MacOS port right now, sorry. Wouldn't be too hard to make probably, but my Mac is quite old and slow. Doing anything with it is very frustraiting, so I don't think I'll get around to it soon.

This is really looking good, nice work!  I especially like the idea of "captains".

I'm currently working on a procedurally generated dungeon crawler of my own, and have no goals in the levels yet - I like the idea of having to kill a tough (non-boss) enemy to proceed.  Kinda puts me in mind of the Black Knights in Dark souls, though those were generally optional

Thanks!

It took some time to arrive at the captains thing, but I like it a lot now. The problem now is that I want to end the level after killing the last captain, but some people find that a bit annoying as they can't go around the level looting everything before continuing. Or they just let the last captain chase them around the level as they loot stuff. I prefer the level to just end quickly and move on, but it's not very "clean" design right now. (And I wouldn't want to add manual exit either. I had that, but that just was a very boring step at the end where you tried to remember where it is and backtrack to it...)

And oh yeah, I had forgotten those from Dark Souls 1! I've just been playing DS2 and it's very interesting to see how much worse it actually is than DS1 or DS3...

[tanis]

Dang! Too bad you don’t have a macOS toolchain already up and running.
If you’re using CMake it’s pretty easy to add a macOS target; I have mine up and running for my engine and I can lend you a hand if you want to do that.

[ydobemos]

(And I wouldn't want to add manual exit either. I had that, but that just was a very boring step at the end where you tried to remember where it is and backtrack to it...)

Why not spawn a portal/door/totem that says Exit level/Next level/whatever where the last captain was and make it work once the player has stood there for a little while (or push some non-combat button)? That way it's up to them and there's no need to run around and look for the exit. You can also add a guide arrow that always points at it if the player wanders off looking for loot.
 
And, since testing was mentioned... if you need a PC-based tester, I'm up for it 

[gimblll]

Dang! Too bad you don’t have a macOS toolchain already up and running.
If you’re using CMake it’s pretty easy to add a macOS target; I have mine up and running for my engine and I can lend you a hand if you want to do that.

The toolchain/compilation is not a problem, it's that I need to port my window and controller code to MacOS or switch to SDL2 and I don't really have time to work on any of that, especially with my super slow Mac.

Why not spawn a portal/door/totem that says Exit level/Next level/whatever where the last captain was and make it work once the player has stood there for a little while (or push some non-combat button)? That way it's up to them and there's no need to run around and look for the exit. You can also add a guide arrow that always points at it if the player wanders off looking for loot.
 
And, since testing was mentioned... if you need a PC-based tester, I'm up for it 

Yeah, that's one option I've been thinking too. It's just currently that I have a "mini game" there that when the portal opens, it spawns some reward loot and gives you a small time window to collect them. It's pretty fun to try to get to the loot before getting sucked into the portal, but I don't know. We'll see.

Thanks, but I have enough testers for now, I'll probably post here if I need some more external testers.

[PsycheMac]

Looks really fun! Kinda jealous about the custom engine. I've always wanted to make my own to make my game lightweight and incredibly optimized. Is your barbarian character going to be able to get different gear, even if it's just cosmetic?

[gimblll]

Looks really fun! Kinda jealous about the custom engine. I've always wanted to make my own to make my game lightweight and incredibly optimized. Is your barbarian character going to be able to get different gear, even if it's just cosmetic?

Thanks. Hah, don't be, massive pain in the ass to keep running...

At first I thought that there would be no customization, to save some trouble, but now I'm thinking I'll add some things. Like you'll upgrade to a better axe or something. Nothing too complicated though, I'm not doing any inventories or complex menus or anything. Depends also on how fast I can do the "important" stuff and thus how much time I have for some extra eye candy.

[tanis]

At first I thought that there would be no customization, to save some trouble, but now I'm thinking I'll add some things. Like you'll upgrade to a better axe or something. Nothing too complicated though, I'm not doing any inventories or complex menus or anything. Depends also on how fast I can do the "important" stuff and thus how much time I have for some extra eye candy.

LOL! It looks like you're pretty much like me when there's an UI involved.. I tend to leave it last or avoid it completely if possible.. that's usually a major pain for me

BTW I thought you were already using SDL2 under the hood. I agree that porting to SDL2 right now won't be a good choice. But please keep it in mind for the few guys like me who use a Mac as their primary box

IIRC you're also going to release on iOS eventually.. that would be nice as I play a lot on the iPad :D

[gimblll]

LOL! It looks like you're pretty much like me when there's an UI involved.. I tend to leave it last or avoid it completely if possible.. that's usually a major pain for me

BTW I thought you were already using SDL2 under the hood. I agree that porting to SDL2 right now won't be a good choice. But please keep it in mind for the few guys like me who use a Mac as their primary box

IIRC you're also going to release on iOS eventually.. that would be nice as I play a lot on the iPad :D

My absolutely least favourite thing is coding anything GUI related in games. (But here its really more about managing the project scope than my personal work preferences.)

Will probably look at MacOS port near or after release, depending on if this project generates any interest. And yeah, iOS build is up and running fine, looks quite good on an iPad.

[gimblll]

Log Entry #40

This week has been fully just working on Boss 2. I've got the graphics, basic attacks and functionality set up but there's still a lot of work needed. It's a tentacle monster! A bit annoying to code the tentacles (fun but time consuming), but they look pretty cool now. One big issue in doing these bosses is that in the isometric view I have, I can't really make opaque gigantic sprites, or the player will just be lost behind. I could draw it through the boss with some outline or colored mode, but I don't think it's a very optimal solution. It's just something to keep in mind. (Which I completely forgot when sketched the first version of this boss... ) Tentacles are good in that I can move them around a lot so they won't obscure you for long even if they would be in front of you.

Next week I have to do work on the actual level (lighting, decoration, etc.), do a short intro sequence, do boss death, polish, effects, etc.. So I think it'll take at least half of next week.

Some .gifs...


Sketching some ideas for the boss


Tentacle attack testing


Tentacle storm attack testing... the minions aren't really that stupid, I just thought it would make a fun .gif

[gimblll]

Log Entry #41

Well, Boss 2 took most of this week. So a total of 2 weeks for boss, which is pretty much what I estimated, but still a bit more than I would have liked. A bit over ambitious boss with tentacles etc. Maybe next should be a bit simpler.

I also ran into some "unexpected" difficulties with the boss, so it took a few more days than I thought to tune the gameplay. The problem is that as you get more and more minions, they start being super powerful against single entities, like bosses. That's fine in regular gameplay where armies fight armies, but boss fights aren't really about that. Boss 1 was still manageable and the gameplay is such that the minions don't get super good shots to do massive damage, but this boss stays still a lot. I still want the player to be the one that is the key to killing the bosses and doing the most damage, so I can't just let minions take care of everything and let the player just run away and watch.

There's a few gameplay things I can do like spawn a lot of minions for the boss too and make large boss attacks that kill a lot of minions at a time and so on, but none of them really solve the problem that if the player is "too smart", the bosses can be damaged super fast without the player doing much of anything. So eventually I had to resort to cheating a bit, in that the minions get a bit of damage penalty when attacking a boss. They still do good damage, but won't take the enjoyment of the boss fight away from you by killing it alone. I don't like the solution at all in some puristic way, but it does result in much better gameplay and a much more fun experience, so I think I'll have just to get over myself.

Anyway, I'll spend today drawing a few things the boss needs to be integrated to the 'meta world' and then I'll move on to start putting world 3 together next week.

[flex$]

the amount of work put into this shows. each combat action looks very responsive and there's a lot of feedback given there to the player. nice work.

[gimblll]

the amount of work put into this shows. each combat action looks very responsive and there's a lot of feedback given there to the player. nice work.

Thanks! Yeah, a lot of work is in that swing of an axe etc.!

[io3 creations]

Yep, bears are definitely cool!  :D

The visuals are looking good!

When I first saw the octopus boss tentacle attack gif, it seemed like one of those games where you can get hit without even knowing when the boss would attack.  Then, as the gif repeated, I noticed the danger warning hexagons  on the ground before attack.  A corresponding shriek sfx could also help.

This is a must have! I must admit that title didn´t catch my eye, but the screenshots and gifs. Is there any estimation regarding availability? Because - and I really mean it - I want to play it immediately. 

Thanks! Unfortunately I don't think I can finish it this year, so it's going to be 2018. Hopefully in the first half of it.

Maybe a demo version? 

[gimblll]

The visuals are looking good!

When I first saw the octopus boss tentacle attack gif, it seemed like one of those games where you can get hit without even knowing when the boss would attack.  Then, as the gif repeated, I noticed the danger warning hexagons  on the ground before attack.  A corresponding shriek sfx could also help.

Thanks! And yeah, it's got plenty of indicators. The .gif is just a "teaser" really (I don't want to show and spoil the whole boss yet), in the real battle you'll see the entire boss pretty well. The gifs are also just a part of the full game screen to fit the Twitter post format. The real game view is more like what those screenshots in the first posts show. Maybe I should do a few full screen screenshots again, it's been a while.

Maybe a demo version? 

Naaaah, I don't do demos.

[gimblll]

Decided to do some actual screenshots for #screenshotsaturday for once instead of the same old cropped .gifs, so here's two with work-in-progress HUD and all visible.

One of the World 1 levels, first one right after start and the second one after a bit of mayhem.

[batiali]

I read the whole devlog in one seat, everything looks fantastic. My mind is blown away with the 2d / 3d hybrid implementation. (It's amazing to see how all tiny details - which I assume some of those details take really hard work to implement - work together to create awesomeness.) Extremely inspiring work mate, thanks for sharing!

[gimblll]

I read the whole devlog in one seat, everything looks fantastic. My mind is blown away with the 2d / 3d hybrid implementation. (It's amazing to see how all tiny details - which I assume some of those details take really hard work to implement - work together to create awesomeness.) Extremely inspiring work mate, thanks for sharing!

Thank you! Yeah, lots of work definitely. I love details, so it's fun too.

And let's add a bonus gif (currently implementing fire into the game, or rather updating it from a year old prototype)

[gimblll]

Log Entry #42

Alrighty, I've begun working on World 3. It's got a kind of a desert theme going in it. Also a new gameplay element, fire, is in there. I took an old prototype and updated it to look good enough (see gif in previous posts). It burns the grass and spreads along it too. Also there's limit to how much it spreads so one spark doesn't burn the whole level (which looks good and fun, but it's not so good for gameplay ).

I did a new enemy also, just a simple skeleton dude that throws firebombs that starts these fires. I also modified the old bomber captain (that I was planning to introduce in World 3 anyway) to shoot fire bombs instead of just ordinary bombs. And now I'm currently doing a new "fire spider" enemy, that I'm thinking will explode in a fireball when it dies.

Next week I'm planning on putting some W3 levels together properly and try out all these new elements in a larger setting and seeing how they interact. That should take some time to iterate on and then I need to do a few new fresh elements (enemy or two, and a building) to W3. And eventually finish the first pass of the levels...

[lordinarius]

Hello there, a fantastic work here.

I'd like to ask some questions if you have time for them

Seamless beauty between ground and grass is amazing. How did you achieve that, are they rendered together ?
I mean it seems grass is effected by the terrain's shading (or diffuse lighting) and color.

And about grass , Are you baking them into one mesh to save some CPU overhead or are they individual sprites ?

Thank you for awesomeness.

[gimblll]

Hello there, a fantastic work here.

I'd like to ask some questions if you have time for them

Seamless beauty between ground and grass is amazing. How did you achieve that, are they rendered together ?
I mean it seems grass is effected by the terrain's shading (or diffuse lighting) and color.

And about grass , Are you baking them into one mesh to save some CPU overhead or are they individual sprites ?

Thanks!

Sure, I have time. The grass samples the same texture that the terrain uses to render itself to get the color, so they always match. (It contains the lights etc. too.) Also, I keep the grass on fairly single colored tiles only, as it will look awful if the grass starts spanning over large color changes rapidly, or like going on the sand / rock tiles etc. The grass itself is a bunch of individual wide sprites, as I need to sort them with all the other sprites to get the units etc. into the grass.

Is that clear enough? I could maybe write a more in-depth post about the lighting if there's any interest?