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[bram_dingelstad]

I also forgot to mention that I'm working on refining a YarnSpinner addon for Godot on Github. A friend of mine is using it for her upcoming game, but if you want a dialogue tool for Godot let me know!

But since you already chose your option, don't let me persuade you if it requires you too much work 

[EmanuelMontero]

Wow! Sounds really interesting! How did I miss on Yarn? I'll give it a try since I'm not happy with how Ink handles localization (basically it doesn't). Yarn string tables seem a pretty elegant solution and now it's the perfect time to try different alternatives for dialogue. I'm still in the 100s and not the 1000s of lines of text so the migration might still be possible. Thanks a lot for the heads up! [Persuasion succeeded]

[EmanuelMontero]

This week I've finally added a system that I've been wanting to add into the game from day one: feeding. Now you have the ability to sink your vampire fangs into random NPCs to drink their blood and refill your HP bar. Just as in the original Bloodlines, the blood bar of the NPC slowly drains while you regain health so if you're not careful you can accidentally kill the NPC in the process. Press F or right-click to stop feeding on your victim. There's no actual penalty for draining NPCs at the current moment, but maybe I'll have to build a morality system around this mechanic...

Which leads me to the second part of the devlog: planning. After so many weeks of continuous improvements I think I have most of the game systems running. I've made a very high-level roadmap of all the systems of the game and their degree of uncertainty. You can see the ascii graphic of the roadmap below. Green means done (yay! there's a lot of green!). Orange means I have a clear idea of how to implement the system and maybe some pixel mockups so it's just a matter of time before I get it done. And red means high uncertainty, or in other words, I'm desperately trying to fit this into the game but it might need some otherwordly inspiration or a ton of extra work.

SYSTEMS:
||   + Movement
||   + Combat
||   + Dialogues
||   + Choices
||   + Skill-checks
||   + Inventory
||   + Equipment and loot
||   + Character sheet
||   + Feeding
|   - Level up
|   - Weapons
|   - Reading books
|   - Lockpicking
|   - Hacking
|   - Shops
|   - Traps & secrets
|   - Stealth

The other half of the equation is content. Systems are great, but they're nothing without a ton of content to breathe life into the game world: items, NPCs, dialogues, etc. So I've decided it's time to start working on the first demo of the game to get all systems working together with a reasonable amount of content (not the whole game thou, just a couple of quests and some NPCs). I'm sure the demo will bring a lot of useful feedback and it's a great opportunity to stitch all the mockups and prototypes into something playable.

[Beastboy]

Did i mentioned i love your animations and scenary ?!

[EmanuelMontero]

Thanks a lot! I'm glad the animations are coming along nicely. More pixels coming soon!

[bram_dingelstad]

I tend to think in systems as well, especially balancing it vs the content that makes the system stand. I just never thought of noting my progress on the game through those systems like you have. I'll definitely try that approach from now on, thanks!

[EmanuelMontero]

Thanks! I'm so glad it's being helpful

[Ramos]

It is amazing how you can add so many details with so few pixels

[EmanuelMontero]

Thanks! I'm so glad the pixels are showing the detail. Specially in this animation I wasn't sure if it was "clear enough".

[Ramos]

Thanks! I'm so glad the pixels are showing the detail. Specially in this animation I wasn't sure if it was "clear enough".

yes you nailed it, I think that will also be your strong selling point for non-fans of the original

[EmanuelMontero]

This week there's a couple of updates. First, I've finished all the player and enemy combat animations for the demo. In the GIF you can see a battle against Kev and two hooded enemies. The second update is the quest log. I've finally added a quest log screen to keep track of all active quests and sub-goals. More to come soon!

[Beastboy]

I like it.
Will all quest objective have rewards or only the end main goal?

[EmanuelMontero]

Thanks a lot for your question! I've brushed too quick over quests and XP. I'm still working on the quest rewards but my intention is to reward XP for quests, combat and secrets. The numbers are still WIP but something like that:

XP per quest = 100-250-500 XP depending on the complexity of the quest.
XP per combat = 10-15-25 XP depending on the difficulty of the combat.
XP per secret = 10-15-25 XP depending on the difficulty of finding the secret.

Most of the XP rewarded will come from completing the main quest but hopefully there's enough side quests, secrets and optional combats to give you an extra challenge and a small XP boost for those interested in a 100% completion of the game. To give a more specific example:

QUEST: A Is For Astrolite             
   ■ Enter the beach house.
   ■ Get the Astrolite explosive from Dennis.
   ■ Find Mercurius’ bag of money.
   ■ Report back to Mercurius.
      a) Not turning the beach house into a massacre. (+75 XP)
      b) Battle with Kev at the beach house exterior (+15 XP)
      c) Battle with Dennis at the beach house interior (+25 XP)
      d) Retrieve the astrolite back to Mercurius. (+15 XP)
      e) Retrieve bag of money back to Mercurius. (+10 XP)

The peaceful solution is rewarded with a total of 100 XP, the combat-oriented solution is rewarded with 75 XP, and if you find any extra secrets during the quest you can expect a small boost of 10-25 XP to round things up. I think this is a good structure for questing but I've also considered giving XP after each quest sub-goal. I'm not sure yet but I'll try the XP at the end of the quest first since I think it may feel more rewarding to gain 75 XP once than 25 XP three times. I guess we'll see once the demo is up and running.

[Beastboy]

Thank you for the info! It seems like you got everyithing cowerd up.

[EmanuelMontero]

Another week of development and a couple of small improvements: first, I've added three buttons to open the character sheet, the quest log and the inventory. The game is meant to be played mainly on browser, so making all options accessible with the mouse is important.

Also I've added persistence to the world and a quick save system. Basically, now the game remembers which containers you've opened and looted in each room of the game (no more infinite looting!). And the save system allows you to save and load the game with just a button press, which is super useful for testing the same levels with different characters.

[bram_dingelstad]

Those buttons look really good and responsive. Like crunchy in a way, great job!
Persistence already adds a lot to making your systems feel more whole, so super cool you got to implement it.

[EmanuelMontero]

Thanks! I'm so glad they end up feeling tactile. I'll try to make the other buttons as crunchy as these.

[Beastboy]

Love it, simple and user friendly

Do you plan to add multiple language translations?

[EmanuelMontero]

Yes, of course! I'm already localizing the game in English and Spanish. The original Bloodlust: Santa Monica had a ton of visits from a Polish game site so maybe I should consider that too. The more languages the better, but I can't translate the game to languages I don't speak. For now, with English and Spanish I think I have a good percentage of the world covered, but I'll be happy to add more translations down the line.

[EmanuelMontero]

This week I've added weapons, both to the inventory and to the combat system. Weapons work pretty much like regular pieces of equipment: you can loot them from containers (i.e. the dead bodies of your enemies). In order to use weapons in combat you have to equip them beforehand. Since weapons can only be equipped in a hand slot and you only have two hand slots, you can't equip more than two weapons at the same time so you have to carefully choose which weapons you want to bring to the combat. In addition, all rings and gloves are also equipped in the hand slots so there's a bit of a choice there too.

This is the current list of weapons that I've added in the game. Thankfully, with one animation per weapon I can reuse the same weapon for all 7 player characters. There's a long list of weapons but I may add some more (especially in the brawl category where there's only a single weapon).

BRAWL WEAPONS: Brass Knuckle

MELEE WEAPONS: Knife, Butterfly Knife, Machete, Katana, Fire axe, Frying pan, Tire iron, Police baton, Crowbar, Baseball bat, Spiked baseball bat, Sledgehammer   
               
FIREARMS: Glock 17, K&M .45 Tactical, Revolver .38, Colt Anaconda, Desert Eagle, Utica M37 Shotgun, Sawed off Shotgun, AK-47, M-16, M249 Rambo, Steyr AUG, K&M SMG, Uzi SMG