Presentation & Character creation

Hi,

Today I've got a rather large update for you. It's size is defined by a couple of factors:

1. An rather substantial update to the game
2. A new prototype for you to try out!

This post will mostly focus on what I've done in the game. Finally there is a new demo/prototype to try out.

So.. What's new to the game you might ask?

Particle Effects

I've added a ton of event-listeners for the particle gfx (effects) added in the previous update. I've also optimized it somewhat (still rather poor performance but I know how to fix it, it's just not an priority right now). The particle gfx can now be attached to regular Effects (movespeed +-, crit chance ect..) now as well. This means that the particle gfx can be attached, in the XML, to: mobs, npcs, playable characters, effects and objects.

I haven't yet had the time to tweak and add effects to most of the stuff, look at it as a demo of what it can do instead.

Playable Characters

This is probably the biggest update in terms of time-worked and actual presentation.
Now each time before you start a new game you are prompted with an Character Creation screen. Here you can customize your name and choose one of the several playable characters. Later on this is also where you choose you spells.

Most of the time went into adding customizability to the XML where you define the characters. I think I've done a pretty good job with this, so even though there only are 4 playable characters there is a lot of room to create new interesting ones!

Sprite Sheets

All of the NPCs and mobs are now able to turn directions and have a spritesheet with the same layout as the player. Therefore it's really easy to make a new playable character and simply take or modify an existing sprite and add it to the character. All of the mobs and npcs only had a single image on it's sheet with a direction facing down, therefore i had to apply my lacking pixelart skills and try to make it look as good as possible from all 4 directions. I think i did a fairly good job, although I'd rather have someone with the passion for it doing it.

Be well

Character creation update soon...

I've been working on a "Character creator", an update will follow soon :)

Particle Effects

I've done some more work on the particle engine. It's now fully customize-able in XML and you can easily hook it up to events. For example an AI has these events available for hook-up:

- on_spawn
- on_step
- on_block
- on_damage
- on_crit
- on_death

Here are some pictures of the XML for those interested.

XML asset
Scripted on a mob

A very long time, no see

Finally i have some break from my University and i've been able to start working on the project (game) slowly.

I just wanted to show of my new particle engine that i plan to have fully incorporated really soon. It will drive all the effects in the game for things like spells, blood and fire.

I hope to get back to coding more frequently on the project now. I have a few important features i want to get finished before i start doing some actual game design instead of engine optimization.

Those systems would be:
 - Particle Engine
 - Better randomization algorithms for loot/mobs/areas
 - Spells
 - Character customization

I think that after that i can add some better art and implement sound to the game.

Vacation

I've been taking a little break from coding the game and website, mainly because I've got vacation from my otherwise full-time job. Although I do have some interesting features implemented that I haven't uploaded to the website yet, so theres that to look forward to!

I predict that I'll get back on the horse sometime this or next week.

Cheers!

Weekly update

Unfortunately there wasn't much progress made on the game this week and the little time i had went into making the website cleaner and adding features to it. Which is a good thing honestly. I really needed to make it better at introducing the game to new visitors.

The few small changes on the game doesn't justify a new build release just yet, so I'll wait to upload the latest build to the site until i have some more progress. Currently i'm developing a "Admin CC" for the website which is taking a little bit of time, hopefully it will be done soon!

Tiny update

Just fixed some bugs and made some design fixes to the game.
While play-testing myself i found that the distance to talk to an NPC was way shorter
than the actual interact distance.

So i set those distances to the same, resulting in a longer interact distance on NPC's.
I also replaced the GFX for the player-ghost and I added a potion drop on the first Slime you encounter to replenish your health. Buy more of those in the town!

Hello World!

Finally! I've got a playable prototype, it might be rough around the edges but it works! Since it's my first post I also want to explain and talk about the game a little.

What is it today

First and foremost, this is in no way done. For example all of the textures in the game today is picked from different corners of the internet just to help me prove my concept.

This is a tiny prototype to show/test how the game will play. The basic interactions, weapon & ai effects, combat and world exploration is what i want to test and play around with. For example character customization and spells isn't in the game yet and the little randomization i got today is "okay" at best.

What it will be

I strive to add customization and randomization to the game/engine. I want the player to create unique experiences for themselves.

Customization will materialize with customize:able characters. You will choose a name, skin and 4 different abilities out of a larger pool. These abilities can be anything from passive buffs, active spells or new mechanics. For example one might let you roll away from danger to dodge. I also want to either add a map-editor or an rich documentation for the ".xml"-files the game is using as a script language. This will allow me and players to easily create, change and share content to their liking.

Randomization will be a choice for the map creator. But i want it to be available if needed. It should be able to randomize entire worlds and quests to create unique experiences.

Near future

In the near future i will work on fixing smaller bugs and trying to fix some performance issues. I might also start to experiment with sounds as well.

My plan is to update this blog and the version of the prototype as i go.

Artists reading?

If you are and if you're interested in this project feel free to contact me. I'm in some need of good and coherent art as you probably can tell.