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[Alain]

I liked this in-depth view on this one enemy type. It feels like you have a really clear vision mechanic-wise and know what is important for the game you are making. I'm looking forward to see that archer in action!

[Thaumaturge]

That sounds like a pretty impressive system, overall! ^_^

[vdapps]

That looks great and very well elaborated. And certainly I can't recall RPG with so detailed and precise NPC archer system. Putting arrow back to quiver is really nice touch.

[assemblerbot]

=== Update #3 - Archers are here (just few tweaks away) ===

Hello,
archers took longer than expected (but I've expected that ). Besides the usual life-related stuff the main source of the delay "happened" right after my previous post. I wanted to make aiming animations in Minecraft-like style: body facing forward, hands in front of the body and bow draw animation. That looked so terrible!

I've decided to make "small adjustment" - to turn the body to the side like all human archers do. That triggered literally chain reaction in all existing systems: for example I had just one strafe animation set, now I needed two more. New body animation states were introduced. I had to revisit and adjust all existing animations to fit new body animation states .. and so on and so on.

Now it's almost finished. Here is a video of that whole machinery. It's slow and overcomplicated but nicely shows everything in action.





What remains is a lot of animation tweaking and AI tuning to the production ready state.

[JobLeonard]

> took longer than expected (but I've expected that

Experienced game devs expect the expected

Tangent: the lighting of the torch and the skeleton having open ribcages gives the lighting a cool dramatic flair

[Thaumaturge]

I do like this new archery animation--it gives the skeleton's actions a bit more verisimilitude, I feel. ^_^

[assemblerbot]

=== Update #4 - Mages, humans, ragdolls and more ===

Hello,
a quick update this time. I've been busy yet somehow I've managed to push the game bit by bit almost every evening. I just didn't have time to write about it.

So there it is:

• I've added migration feature to the serialization mechanism, so no backward compatibility issues in the future (hopefully )
• archers are a bit more intelligent, still need some tuning tough
• mages are also in the game (they can use wands or staffs)
• first human NPC is functional (male bandit)
• skeleton death animation was changed to physical destruction (like ragdoll but without joints)
• humans and other creatures use ragdoll physics after death (can be combined with animation)
• voice controller was completely reworked, now attack and pain sounds can be played (more to come later)
• many tweaks, fixes and refactors

Right now I'm working on a armor. Stay tuned!

[JobLeonard]

The "pile of bones" death animation is satisfying, bet that will look fun if you ever kill them on a set of stairs and see the bones roll down!

[Thaumaturge]

That looks like pretty good work thus far! ^_^

[vdapps]

Nice! This skeleton's bow with lights is very nice touch.

[assemblerbot]

=== Update #5 - Armor and a bit more ===

Hello,
I've been working at relatively steady pace on new features. There are two major new things:

First of all - armor is finally in the game, it's fully functional with stats and both player and NPCs can wear it. To tune the stats and damages I've also added a simple game log that will be in the final game (optional, switch in the game options).

The second new feature that haunted me for some time simple hole in the floor! That sounds sooo simple! So I've added holes and with that I had to update visibility clipper, navigation, ranged combat AI and also my internal data structure because it didn't support multiple holes in the same column one right above another (I know, my fault in initial design).

That's it for today. The "hole" topic is far from the end. I'm working on trap doors, illusion floors, secret trap doors, multi-cell holes, hole with grating.. See you next time!

[Thaumaturge]

Ah, it can be tricky to be faced with a desired feature that wasn't originally designed for, indeed!

Well, I'm glad that you managed to get holes working--and well done on doing so! ^_^

[vdapps]

Glad to see new update. Looks intriguing!

Regarding holes, yeah, I know that. That feeling, when you add one new feature which looks quite simple and then you realize how it complicates other things in engine, and it touches lot of other classes in code.

[assemblerbot]

=== Update #6 - illusions ===
Don't be afraid, it's just and illusion .. or just be afraid! 

No technical issue except Unity related compilation stuff occurred this time, so I've been able to implement more features than I've originally planned!

What's new:
- sprinting was turned off and walk was sped-up (I may add it back later, just don't see any benefit in it right now)
- jump was tuned, so now you can jump over 1x1 holes
- large holes were added (to block player's path)
- trap doors
- fall damage (sound is still missing though)
- illusion floors and illusion walls with custom shader
- detect magic spell is in the game, in form of wand (ring or necklace may be added later, we will see ..)
- secret door that looks like wall
- it's not visible on the video but I've implemented LUA scripting. Now it's possible to create puzzles!

[vdapps]

Very juicy video as always and lot of new stuff. Good progress!

Regarding your YT channel, maybe you can give your channel some dev name (assemblerbot or some other game-dev name), focus channel and try to gather more subscribers. I know, YT is maybe not the best advertising platform for games, but on the other side, it's for free, and you're uploading videos anyway. I'm thinking myself to upload on YT as well as anyway I'm grabbing short animations for devlog here.

[assemblerbot]

Thanks for the tip. I'll try to improve my YT channel, somehow. Right now I'm using it just as a public video storage

[assemblerbot]

=== Update #7 - puzzles ===
Just burning through my feature list. This time it's about puzzle related stuff.

What's new:
 - player is now able to place items (not just drop them)
 - throw is also implemented, including damage that is dependent on item's weight
 - pressure plates with adjustable weight needed to press them
 - keys
 - locks
 - locked doors
 - also buttons (normal and secret variant), but they are boring, not in the video :-)

[JobLeonard]

 

Oh man, the environmental puzzle possibilities!

Also nice to see the effect of charging up a throw and really flinging a weapon with a lot of speed and momentum, that feels good!

How the skeleton falls apart after being hit feels a bit "disconnected" at the moment though, like it should have just been a graze but instead it's like "oh it touched me, guess I'll die (again)".

[assemblerbot]

How the skeleton falls apart after being hit feels a bit "disconnected" at the moment though, like it should have just been a graze but instead it's like "oh it touched me, guess I'll die (again)".

Yes, that's probably cause by "lazy" hit animation. I'll fix it :-)

[JobLeonard]

Would be totally fair to prioritize other things right now