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[gimblll]

Log Entry #20

- Two captains finished. Third captain has been drawn and next I'm going to animate it and add gameplay. I hope I get it done today or tomorrow. Integrating the Spine runtime has been a big bonus now in hindsight as it's allowed me to do these captains as large enemies without wasting a huge amount of sprite sheet space, and as there are only few of these enemies in levels, it's ok CPU/GPU wise too on the slow platforms.

- Next week it's time to work on the upgrade/drop/loot/etc. systems a bit. It's quite a mess currently, all kinds of tests without any coherence. Need to make it somehow consistent. I was thinking also making the minions into one kind of 'currency' in that you sacrifice them at altars to gain something. That could give the player a bit more incentive to have them around and care about them too. Let's seee.

[gimblll]

Log Entry #21

- Finished third captain, a skeleton that shoots bombs around. Also did a bit of code cleanup and polish here and there while doing that, so that projectiles, bullets etc. work a bit better

- Spent some time doing a refresh of the 'world' design. Or how the level and upgrade/progress systems work and locked it down to what I'll implement. That was left open until now (I've had like 10 different designs for it). For now I've just had a linear progression of levels (old school arcade style) where I could play with all the game systems etc. and if you die -> everything is lost. Upgrading was done in-level in specific 'shopping' places. Instead I decided I'm going to have some kind of 'quest' selection in the hub world where each quest is a set of levels you have to play through and then new 'quests' open on the main map. And you upgrade your hero and units in the hub world too with your quest rewards etc. Die, and you retain your updates, but loose all loot collected so far in the quest. Pretty basic stuff I guess.

(Also abandoned the idea of the 'sacrifice' system from the previous update, don't want the extra complexity really at least now)

[gimblll]

Log Entry #22

Been sick, did not get a lot done since last time. Mostly just finished small tasks that I had pushed until later. Like fixed bugs in the 'hit chain' counter/detection and did usability work and fixes to my level setup tool. Also now started to setup the new world structure. That's going to take most of my time for this/next week.

Here's a gif of the skellington bomber captain in action. For some reason it's trying to bomb itself. I suspect working conditions have not been ideal, so it might have some kind of mental breakdown. Need to investigate. I may have pushed the NPC temps too hard. Vacation might be in order.

[MereMonkey]

This is looking incredibly fun Kimmo! Every screenshot so far is a joy to look at 

[Schrompf]

It's a skeleton with a backpack full of bombs. I assume a mental condition is a prerequisite to that job.

One a side note: that shore line looks amazing! Get well soon!

[gimblll]

Thank you both of you! I really appreciate the encouraging messages! It's been a long and hard project and still lots of work to push through.

[gimblll]

Log Entry #23

- Updates to the 'hub world' so that all quest selection, shops etc. are there now at least in prototype form

- Setup basic menus for the game, copypasting whatever possible from my last game. All is functional, except I'll have to do the controls setup menus later as I'm not 100% locked on the controls yet, so I don't want to waste time before that. I'll also have to redo the graphics later to be more suitable for this game.

Next up, I'm finally trying to put together the first 30 minutes of the game in 'alpha' form. Staring from first batch of quests, until the first boss. That's probably going to take many weeks, especially the bosses are usually a lot of work. I guess we'll see how that goes, I might also get distracted again with other tasks...

[gimblll]

Log Entry #24

Started putting together real levels from all the pieces I have! Made first intro / tutorial world and first quest. Also did a few improvements here and there to my level edit flow and such. Really happy I can now proceed with actual 'final' level content, it's been waaay too long to get here. Now building second 'quest' finale. I'm redoing my 'king' enemy as a more badass miniboss type of enemy for that ending + a few other new entities. That'll probably take a good part of this week to get done.

Also, here's an example how much I suck at prioritizing stuff. Notice the facial expression changing on the sceptre while the king attacks... No-one will ever notice that in the game as it's so small and fast...

[protactinium]

Looks amazing!
Especially the collected twitter posts from different months are really inspiring. Looking forward to see more progress!

[gimblll]

Log Entry #24

Did some work on the king, but got sidetracked created a lightning/electricty effect system too which took most of the time last week. I'm using the effect to indicate some gameplay 'things' in regarding the king and will use it later for stormy weather etc., so I thought it'd be wort it to spend a few days on it. Worked out ok and I'll probably use it elsewhere too.

Then this Monday was spent on updating one of my old iOS games to have a 64-bit build before Apple removes it form the store. Most of the time was spent fighting Apple's store/upload systems and useless error messages, rather than doing any conversion work...

Now it's back to some final tweaks for the king and then finishing up some new quests.

[Geoff Moore]

Aargh this looks so awesome!! Keep up the good work! 

[Platy]

As someone who also enjoys making games and tools from scratch your project is a real motivator for me and for others I'm sure.
Whenever I feel like I'm not making significant progress or that it might not be worth all the effort I pop back over here to see the progress you've made and it remind me what hard work and determination can look like if we give it time.

Can't wait to see what you've planned next   

[Eneko Egiluz]

Good job!
I like specially the movement effect of the grass, its simple but it works fine and fills the scene with elegance. 
Looking forward for more stuff.

[gimblll]

Aargh this looks so awesome!! Keep up the good work! 

Thank you!

As someone who also enjoys making games and tools from scratch your project is a real motivator for me and for others I'm sure.
Whenever I feel like I'm not making significant progress or that it might not be worth all the effort I pop back over here to see the progress you've made and it remind me what hard work and determination can look like if we give it time.

Thanks, messages like that mean a lot to me! I have plenty those moments every week where I feel that this game will never be finished etc., and I kind of feel ashamed to write a progress update here as I feel that I did nothing. But I guess it's just natural, you just have to keep chipping away if you ever want to finish.

I like specially the movement effect of the grass, its simple but it works fine and fills the scene with elegance. 

Thanks! The grass worked out surprisingly well.

[gimblll]

Log Entry #25

'Finished' the king (added effects and new attack and some AI behaviour) and the related level where you first meet one. Then spent some time drawing new fortress props, like walls and gates and such (visible in the gif). That's about it. Slow week really. I've been thinking I need some more more story structure to the game, now it's really empty in that sense. Just a bunch of levels slapped together with minimal story. I'll probably focus on that kind of world building next, so it wouldn't feel so sterile.

BUT next up is HOLIDAAAAYY! Couple of weeks of relaxing and not thinking one bit about my game (I doubt I can manage that, but I'll try). Updates shall resume when I get back and get something done (early July).

[DrHogan]

First of all, it looks absolutely gorgeous Then a technical question (it's a problem i battle in our game since quite a long time).

Don't you have drawcall/fillrate issues using 2d in isometric due to the depth buffer? I managed to lower down ours, but man, it's still high, and it took me quite some workarounds (I work in Unity but I guess the issue is more opengl-nature related)

Cheers!

[gimblll]

First of all, it looks absolutely gorgeous Then a technical question (it's a problem i battle in our game since quite a long time).

Don't you have drawcall/fillrate issues using 2d in isometric due to the depth buffer? I managed to lower down ours, but man, it's still high, and it took me quite some workarounds (I work in Unity but I guess the issue is more opengl-nature related)

Cheers!

Thank you!

Fillrate is somewhat a problem on mobile, though less on the newer devices. (And I only target iOS on mobile so I don't have to deal with the really awful devices.) There's not that much overdraw in the scene actually if you look at it. Mostly it's just landscape (3D mesh) and sprites/grass on top, so that's mostly 2-3x max. I don't use a depth buffer at all, all the sprites are back to front sorted on the CPU and drawn with one drawcall.

[gimblll]

Log Entry #26

Back from holiday last week. Worked on some simple things like some code maintainance (updates Spine runtimes to 3.6 etc.) and polished a few things here and there. Also added a different mechanic to gaining minions, now you don't buy then from shops but get them from levels by rescuing them. It allows me to have much more control over how you gain them and hopefully avoid a few balancing problems + offers a new little thing to do in levels. Then designed the world/story a bit more so I have some kind of blueprint now how the world will be structured.

Next up, trying to finish up all main features so I can really start to put all the levels in 'World 1' so I can start to have some kind of feel for how game progression will be balanced through levels and that kind of things. Now working on some kind of 'quest finished' reward system so you get some bonuses for playing a quest well etc. We'll see how that goes. That's really the last major feature that affects world economy etc. at least for now.

[Showbag]

Mate, this game is looking fantastic. You have an excellent 'feel' with the action, your animations are used to great effect where everything seems dynamic and yet it never seems to be overwhelming with too much action on screen. I will be watching this one with great interest! 

[MegaTiny]

This looks absolutely fantastic! One question:

Instead I decided I'm going to have some kind of 'quest' selection in the hub world where each quest is a set of levels you have to play through and then new 'quests' open on the main map

Will it be a system where the quests are sorted by level and you can skip over them if you're ready for the next set, or one where you have to finish all available quests and then the next batch pops up?