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TIGSource ForumsCommunityDevLogsSonucido: The Mage - A turn-based, grid-based Dungeon Crawler
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Author Topic: Sonucido: The Mage - A turn-based, grid-based Dungeon Crawler  (Read 17842 times)
smokesomefrogs
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« on: February 09, 2021, 01:57:05 PM »

Sonucido: The Mage is a turn-based, grid-based Dungeon Crawler set in a 3D world with 2D sprites.

To get a good impression of the game, you can watch the trailer!





I already have setup a Steam Page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1535240/Sonucido_The_Mage_by_Daniel_da_Silva/

The development started on December 2nd 2020 and I plan to release it before Q4 of 2021 2022.
I'm Daniel da Silva and worked on a couple smaller games before and this will be my biggest game yet.
Gladly my fiancee helps me out with cutscene- and marketing-graphics and works on the website!

Features

  • Turn-based combat
  • Throw bombs at your enemies
  • Multiple endings depending on your choices
  • One character that you will level up through the game

A couple of dev facts

  • Made with Godot 3.3.2
  • Will be released for Linux and Windows
  • Most of the development is done on MX Linux
  • I plan for a initial release on Itch.io and Steam

I think I will write the first real devlog tomorrow!

Thanks for reading Smiley
« Last Edit: December 02, 2022, 10:07:27 AM by smokesomefrogs » Logged

smokesomefrogs
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« Reply #1 on: February 10, 2021, 02:59:59 PM »

Hey everyone!

At the moment, I'm thinking a lot about what I'll add to the game. The last thing I added were stairs, which sounds really minor, but let's me create more complex and interesting levels for the game.
With the stairs implemented the movement system is more or less completely programmed now.

The next big thing I want to tackle is the dialogue system. All the graphics are already there but the code is still missing. I would like a system that won't be too messy when I have several branches in the code or I'll just solve the problem with good comments in the code.

I really would like more diverse lights, at the moment I have outside light and torches and I think about adding a chimney in some locations.

I also wanted to share some screenshots of the game.





I thought what might be interesting for fellow devs and a good indicator for my progress.

For marketing I simply will share the number of wishlists of my game.
For progress in terms of code I will share the number of lines in the biggest script of my game (this includes comments and empty lines).
For progress in the graphics department I will share the number of graphical assets that are included in the project (even if not in use at the moment).
I will also include the day of development. I may add more Smiley


Progress

- Wishlists count: 126
- Main script LoC: 2861
- Graphics: 58
- Day: 71st
« Last Edit: February 10, 2021, 03:05:06 PM by smokesomefrogs » Logged

smokesomefrogs
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« Reply #2 on: February 14, 2021, 12:05:21 PM »

Hey!

Just a quick update: I created a small video and will document my development process also on YouTube.




I also thought that I would include the number of audio files in the statistics section even if I haven't added one yet.

Progress

- Wishlists count: 132
- Main script LoC: 2864
- Graphics: 58
- Audio files: 0
- Day: 75th
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smokesomefrogs
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« Reply #3 on: February 25, 2021, 09:36:31 AM »

I worked a couple of days on an update for my older game Bring Back The Sun but made slowly progress on Sonucido.

Last night, I made a couple of new graphics for the game: a fence, a new guy, a fireplace (or oven as a colleague named it) and more.

As you can see in the video of the last post, you couldn't see the stairs when you were on top - but I reworked that and now you can. Instead of one tile they now span two tiles.

I still need to implement the dialogue but I'll probably get there soon.

I thought a lot about lighting and want to have a couple more different lighting sources instead of just light from above and torches. The fireplace/oven is the first step into this direction but certainly not the last one.

I now use shadows more often and the game looks more interesting because of that. It's still in the experimenting phase but I made big progress while writing this devlog post. Take a look! Smiley








Progress

- Wishlist count: 152
- Main Script LoC: 2899
- Graphics: 67
- Audio files: 0
- Day: 86th
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smokesomefrogs
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« Reply #4 on: February 27, 2021, 10:59:11 AM »

Hey guys,

Just a quick update, I worked a lot on Lighting and Shadows and made a new Progress Report on YouTube!





Progress

- Wishlist count: 155
- Main Script LoC: 2931
- Graphics: 67
- Audio files: 0
- Day: 88th
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smokesomefrogs
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« Reply #5 on: March 06, 2021, 11:03:31 AM »

Today is a big day for me. Sonucido: The Mage has now more wishlists than my previous game Bring Back The Sun! (It had more wishlists after 2 days than Bring Back The Sun at launch but Bring Back The Sun was a slow but steady accumulator after release).

This is really reassuring because it means that my efforts have an impact Smiley

At the moment, I'm working a lot on a first Pre-Alpha-Build that I can send to a couple of testers to get their first impression on the looks, the fight system, the movement etc.

I'm still working a bit on the lighting but it is mostly done - I fixed almost all lighting bugs or found workarounds. The performance suffers a bit (on very old hardware) and now I'm starting to implement some ways to switch lights off when they aren't needed at the moment.

Here are two screenshots of stairs :D





Progress

- Wishlist count: 170
- Main Script LoC: 3032
- Graphics: 70
- Audio files: 0
- Day: 95th
« Last Edit: March 06, 2021, 11:16:04 AM by smokesomefrogs » Logged

ThemsAllTook
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« Reply #6 on: March 06, 2021, 02:48:11 PM »

Hey, this looks pretty cool! Definitely looking forward to seeing how it turns out.
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smokesomefrogs
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« Reply #7 on: March 07, 2021, 10:09:08 AM »

Thank you very much Smiley
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smokesomefrogs
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« Reply #8 on: March 11, 2021, 12:41:13 PM »

Today is day 100th of development! Toast Right

At the moment, I focus on a tiny version of the game I can give to playtesters to get some feedback on the feel of the game so far. I'm working on the dialogue system right now and when this is done, I should be able to send them the game very soon (somewhen this week, if I'm fast, tomorrow).

Progress

- Wishlist Count: 174
- Main Script LoC: 3158
- Graphics: 72
- Audio Files: 0
- Day: 100th
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smokesomefrogs
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« Reply #9 on: March 16, 2021, 12:32:37 AM »

I completed the test version on Saturday and send it to a couple of colleagues Smiley

While people test my game I usually don't work on it or do much less. I use this time to think, to play games, and work on other small projects. At the moment, I'm thinking more about marketing and have some ideas how to improve in that department  Blink

I did a little bit of work today to get rid of some tiny lighting bugs (that seem only to bother me).

Since the first test version is out, I think it's a good day to increase the percentage number of the project from 10% to 20%.

That's it for now! Have a nice one!

Progress

- Wishlist Count: 177
- Main Script LoC: 3232
- Graphics: 72
- Audio Files: 0
- Day: 105th
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smokesomefrogs
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« Reply #10 on: March 25, 2021, 02:37:09 PM »

The first test phase is finished and I watched a lot of recorded playthroughs.
While the testers had time to test, I played Legend of Grimrock 1 & 2! I played LoG 1 before but never tried LoG 2. My non-spoilery review: Awesome games, check them out, underpriced gems!

I got lots of feedback from the players, positive and negative!

Let's focus on the complaints for a moment:

- The options the player has in the dialogue weren't clear
- The game needs more decoration
- Walking feels bad because you need to press it again and again

I'll fix the complaint about the dialogue options with an explanation in the manual. It just wasn't clearly written and it's understandable why the players were confused.
The complaint about the decorations is something I want to tackle further down the line. This will also help with orientation in the levels.
The last complaint about continuous walking (or rather the lack of it) was fixed today! The game now queues the key presses for rotation while you are walking which gives the game a more natural feeling. I need to do a lot of testing on this to ensure that this doesn't introduce any new bugs.

Progress:

- Wishlist Count: 191
- Main Script LoC: 3300
- Graphics: 72
- Audio Files: 0
- Day: 114th
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smokesomefrogs
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« Reply #11 on: March 29, 2021, 10:33:13 AM »

I reached 200 wishlists! 202 to be exact Smiley Yesterday, I had 197 wishlists, so I'm very happy about this small jump.

Also, I released a new progress report for Sonucido: The Mage!





Progress:

Wishlist Count: 202
Main Script LoC: 3309
Graphics: 72
Audio Files: 0
Day: 118th
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smokesomefrogs
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« Reply #12 on: March 31, 2021, 01:55:04 PM »

The game needs more decoration!

That was one of the complaints I got most often from my testers. Today, I was motivated to work on some of them - and I will create more of them in the future!

I also fixed a couple of bugs in regards to the movement and throw away some code which was commented out.

Here are two screenshots to visualize the examples better. I really like the broken wall! Smiley






That's it for today, have a nice one!

Progress

Wishlist Count: 207
Main Script LoC: 3187
Graphics: 80
Audio Files: 0
Day: 120th
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logophil
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« Reply #13 on: March 31, 2021, 03:13:40 PM »

Thanks for the updates, nothing beats a good turn-based, grid-based dungeon crawler Grin I'm curious if levels and enemies will be procedurally generated, that would seem a good fit for this kind of game (thinking of the 'traditional roguelike' genre)?

On the subject of decoration, I think adding some variety within the wall and floor textures (if only some slight changes in colour between individual bricks/floorboards) might go a long way there..
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smokesomefrogs
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« Reply #14 on: April 03, 2021, 12:25:49 PM »

A Roguelike approach would be certainly cool but I wanted to aim more for a fixed experience with only minor elements of randomness. But I certainly would see the appeal - even though more in a real-time dungeon crawler.

At the moment, I'm not 100% sure in which direction I want to go with the walls, I'll try stuff here and there and see if it works Smiley

Thank you very much for your feedback!
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smokesomefrogs
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« Reply #15 on: April 08, 2021, 12:40:09 PM »

Today, my brain hurts because I fixed two bugs that were on the list for quite some time so I'm very happy that they are fixed now (at least I hope so). One bug was related to the stairs which resulted in the player only walking half a tile instead of one full tile and the other one was the same but it happened while moving normally. Both of them existed for different reasons¹ but I hope they don't happen in normal play or happen so seldomly that it isn't important.

Also, I finally replaced the axe graphics and really like the result! While doing this I improved the animation of the axe and of the sword, and attacking looks certainly better now!

This was the old "axe":



And now it looks like this:




That's it for today! Have a nice one Smiley


Progress

Wishlist Count: 216
Main Script LoC: 3278
Graphics: 83
Audio Files: 0
Day: 128th

¹Explanation: The stair bug happened because of creating an int out of float - this is necessary because my implementation allows that you step on the stairs while still being a tiny bit in the movement, which results in a float position and int(2.9 + 6) = 8 while int(3 + 6) = 9. With the normal movement bug I'm not sure but it seems to be related to the collision check - basically I use 4 raycasts (2 in front, 2 in the back) to check if I can move forward or backward. This is checked every 60th of a second. Since it happened only in extreeeeemely rare cases before I implemented continuous walking (holding down the key instead of tapping it for every tile) and seems to only happen now on my development machine (which is a ThinkPad X220 and a bit underpowered for today's standards) but not on my gaming PC I suspect that the raycasts aren't checked enough or to slow. I fixed that with an additional check which happens while the key is hold down. This doublechecking is not ideal for performance reasons but I don't see any impact that would be noticeable. If you make a dungeon crawler yourself, one tile should relate into +1 not +2 on one axis. How I did it was stupid and can lead to weird float errors.
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smokesomefrogs
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« Reply #16 on: April 16, 2021, 09:44:30 AM »

The last couple of days I worked on a small puzzle in a new level! It's the first puzzle in the game and I had a couple of bugs that I needed to fix but now it's in a state where I'm happy with it.

The following screenshot is part of the place where the puzzle is.



It's good to have something in addition to fights, exploration and dialogue but I certainly want to be careful with implementing the puzzles. On the one hand I'm personally really frustrated when a puzzle is very obtuse and I just don't get it but I don't want to dumb everything so much down that the puzzles are effectively irrelevant. I like harder puzzles as long as they are logical; I really liked The Witness for example (aside from the audio puzzles).

The other part of the problem originates from puzzles that are mandatory or block your progress. It's not so much a problem if you have a couple of ways to choose or you can come back later but if the only two options are solving the puzzle or just stopping, it's not quite as fun tbh. There was a great talk on Antichamber about this very problem and how Alexander Bruce (the developer) solved it without dumbing down the experience.

But it's still early in the process and I will just do frequent tests to solve this problem.


Another thing I worked on a bit was visual variety and now I want to show it to you! Aside from the water I made a bigger change: additional walls! (and a new light source!)



When I have a problem like this I tend to make small changes that improve the situation a bit but don't really fix it. For the most part this is okay especially if the problem is more or less irrelevant. But in this case, I think it's more important; sure, I added the plant and some other stuff I can put here and there but it doesn't really fix the underlying problem and it's also very time consuming to place. Having a new kind of wall + the small stuff is certainly the better solution!


With all the smaller changes I think a new trailer would be a good idea and I want to make a new YouTube Devlog!

That's it for today!

Daniel


Progress

- Wishlist Count: 225
- Main Script LoC: 3338
- Graphics: 83
- Audio Files: 0
- Day: 136th
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joe_eyemobi
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« Reply #17 on: April 16, 2021, 12:57:22 PM »

Interesting! It reminds me of some old school RPGs like Eye of the Beholder or Bard's Tale.
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smokesomefrogs
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« Reply #18 on: April 18, 2021, 02:08:36 AM »

Thank you! Smiley
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smokesomefrogs
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« Reply #19 on: April 18, 2021, 12:11:18 PM »

I worked mostly on smaller parts of the game. One thing I did this morning was improving the pixel art of the potato fighter.

When I remember correctly that one was the first enemy I made for the game - and since my pixel art was very basic before, it was time for a small overhaul.


Old!

New!

Progress

Wishlist Count: 242
Main Script LoC: 3333
Graphics: 83
Audio Files: 0
Day: 138th
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