Hey guys, you may be wondering why I passed about 2 weeks without posting anything about the project, well, I'm taking a little break of programming, so I'm spending my time... Doing other stuffs.
The project didn't gained much progress latelly, but I've been trying to implement the counter attack system, which you may wonder what will do, a monster that is taking the action will attempt to attack, the other monster will dodge and then use another attack to counter it, causing the attacking monster to be hurt, while the attacked monster will gain no injury, beside that depends on the effects the skill offers.
Now that I'm talking about this, what if I talk more about how it works? Counter attacks will be dependant on the skills the monster currently have selected to use in combat, for example: The Kangaroo Mob has the Punch skill assigned to be used in combat, but that skill is also a Counter attack skill, when the monster is getting attacked by another monster, there is a chance that when the monster attack misses, the victim will counter attack using Punch.
The counter attack isn't limited to only one skill, you may end up having more than one counter attack skills disponible for your monster to pick, but during the counter attack, the monster will pick one of those skills to then use on the enemy, and the best part, is that counter attacking does not discount Stamina or SP, so your tactic isn't broken if your monster does a "unintended counter attack".
More kinds of skills are planned too, aswell as different effects on how they are triggered in combat, but I still need to think how I'll make it work.
Currently, that is all, maybe in a few weeks I'll show some good progress, with photos.
Anyway, I've been spriting a new monster, but I'm thinking, those monsters I add to the game doesn't really look like monsters, so maybe I should attempt to make them less.. Related to real world animals.
Well, until next news.
Tuesday, November 27, 2018
Friday, November 16, 2018
Enter the engine limitations on TNR Project.
After some time I begun implementing the new monster sprites, I've been worrying about the fact that while making sprites, there were a moment where the width of the spritesheet would pass 2048 pixels, being that the 2048, is the XNA max texture dimension for both width and height, higher than this, and the texture would have problems to load, if would load correctly at all without error.
Well, I found out a while ago after checking out the project, that I've set the game profile of the project to hi-def, so It will load textures up to 4096, so that is already a good increase in max texture size, but the problem still exists and may limit me on what I can do with the monster sprites.
Where the problem kicks in? That you ask, let's take for example the sprites of the Big Foot monster, It's sprite size is of 64x64 pixels, being that the first row of sprites is reserved for the front animations, and the second row is reserved for the back animations, due to being 64 pixels size of sprites, that means I can make up to 64 frames for the monster before It reaches the 4096 pixels cap.
That will possibly make impossible for me to add some extra animations to that monster sprite when they are necessary, leading to either short animation frames, or even missing animations at all.
But you may wonder, "Wow, 64 frames is a lot, you're exagerating a bit", not really, some monsters may have their sprites bigger, for example, one of the monsters I'm still sketching, the Kaiser Raccoon, has 64x80 pixels size animation, that not only means the height is taller than the one of the Big Foot, but also means that in the future, I may end up adding bigger and bigger monsters to the project, that's where the problem kicks in.
At least some time in the future of the project, I'll have to think how I'll solve that sprite limitation problem, and potentially lead to a good skill animation when under effect.
On other news, I've added an effect to the monsters, to make them feel more alive, their sprites will somewhat shrink and grow to look's like they are kind of... Breathing, so isn't a "stop motion" animation in combat.
I've also did some extra hud work on the battle action selection system, tell me what you think of it, if possible, and if something could be change on it.
Anyway, two videos in a day, nice :D.
The skill system may pass through another rework, to include more complicated effects, so you can torment more your foes, aswell as be tormented in case you're unlucky enough to be hit by one of the future skill effects.
After finishing the battle system, I'll move to the out battle systems, like reworking the maps, I want to make so structures actually have height, so It doesn't need to eat some of the tiles in the world to say that the structure is tall, aswell as working on some systems, like for example, giving back the functions of the npcs that offer services to the players in the towns.
I just remembered, and I changed the monster spawning system in the fields to the new system I mentioned some time ago, and filled some maps with the monsters, It still has some empty maps, or a lot of maps with just one monster on the area, but as I make new monsters, they will be populated.
Anyway, I got to go sleep, see ya, and until next news.
Cheers!
Well, I found out a while ago after checking out the project, that I've set the game profile of the project to hi-def, so It will load textures up to 4096, so that is already a good increase in max texture size, but the problem still exists and may limit me on what I can do with the monster sprites.
Where the problem kicks in? That you ask, let's take for example the sprites of the Big Foot monster, It's sprite size is of 64x64 pixels, being that the first row of sprites is reserved for the front animations, and the second row is reserved for the back animations, due to being 64 pixels size of sprites, that means I can make up to 64 frames for the monster before It reaches the 4096 pixels cap.
That will possibly make impossible for me to add some extra animations to that monster sprite when they are necessary, leading to either short animation frames, or even missing animations at all.
But you may wonder, "Wow, 64 frames is a lot, you're exagerating a bit", not really, some monsters may have their sprites bigger, for example, one of the monsters I'm still sketching, the Kaiser Raccoon, has 64x80 pixels size animation, that not only means the height is taller than the one of the Big Foot, but also means that in the future, I may end up adding bigger and bigger monsters to the project, that's where the problem kicks in.
At least some time in the future of the project, I'll have to think how I'll solve that sprite limitation problem, and potentially lead to a good skill animation when under effect.
On other news, I've added an effect to the monsters, to make them feel more alive, their sprites will somewhat shrink and grow to look's like they are kind of... Breathing, so isn't a "stop motion" animation in combat.
I've also did some extra hud work on the battle action selection system, tell me what you think of it, if possible, and if something could be change on it.
Anyway, two videos in a day, nice :D.
The skill system may pass through another rework, to include more complicated effects, so you can torment more your foes, aswell as be tormented in case you're unlucky enough to be hit by one of the future skill effects.
After finishing the battle system, I'll move to the out battle systems, like reworking the maps, I want to make so structures actually have height, so It doesn't need to eat some of the tiles in the world to say that the structure is tall, aswell as working on some systems, like for example, giving back the functions of the npcs that offer services to the players in the towns.
I just remembered, and I changed the monster spawning system in the fields to the new system I mentioned some time ago, and filled some maps with the monsters, It still has some empty maps, or a lot of maps with just one monster on the area, but as I make new monsters, they will be populated.
Anyway, I got to go sleep, see ya, and until next news.
Cheers!
Friday, November 9, 2018
Little Q&A for how I'm handling the project
Well, people may have already questioned themselves a few things about my project, because things seems really... Unconventional, at least for the standards of "game market" now adays, and since doing a complete rework on the battle hud will take some time to do, I will try doing a little Q&A about the project, and most probably also explain why it's taking so long.
Q: Why the changes to the project is taking so long?
A: That is because I work on it when I'm alone, generally I'm alone during the morning, beside sometimes I have the bad luck of having something to make me go sleep later than should, taking away the time I spend working on the game. I also sometimes don't work on the project to not get tired of it, since as experienced on N Terraria mod, that may cause serious problems, that could impact not only the project, but also my social life, somewhat.
Q: Why are you working on the project alone?
A: My project isn't attracting much interest of the people, so there isn't even the chance of getting a new team member to help on it, so I'm pretty much doing all parts of the project all alone.
Q: Why did you decide to sprite the monsters of the game in isometric way, but the map tiles and human characters in 3 direction sprites?
A: Due to being a monster taming oriented game, the game will need quite a number of monsters in it, even more to add diversity, I found out that making them in isometric way speeds up the process of spriting them, aswell as allow me to do some work on their animations, since I will only need a front and back sprite for each animation, differently from 3 direction sprites, that needs front, side and back sprites.
Q: Why most monsters are duped mammals?
A: Spriting a different kind of monster is not that easy, since I'll have to change the method to make it, but I have some ideas of monsters that are up coming, one of them will be a Bee related monster, which will be a flying monster, another one related to a Dog with excessive fur, which is a quadruped monster, a Wolf, aswell as the Werewolf, those are some of the planned monsters I will need to sprite, not only that but also finish the sprite of the currently existing monsters in the game.
Q: The monster sprites are really different compared to the player sprites, why is that?
A: Kind of the same reason as above, the player also needed a chance on the spriting method, beside It still may pass through changes, since I feel like the sprite isn't really that fine.
Q: What is your plan for the game release?
A: I'm not sure, initially, I were planning on making it a $10 game, but I don't know anymore, I may end up following the initial plan, or maybe not, my idea would be to make the game accessible for everyone, but If I directly did that, how would I earn money from the project? That is the problem, even more since part of it would be invested on the project, since things like music, I can't make by myself.
Q: Do you plan on releasing the game on Steam?
A: That is also part of my initial plans, maybe even make use of what It's API offers to make some extra functions to the game, so not only gives the players more interactions, but also make them more unique, somewhat (That would possibly be a thing for multiplayer). But I believe I'll have to launch the game on other online stores too, due to how the pc gaming market is changing.
Q: Do you plan on releasing the game on Consoles?
A: I? Myself? No. Not only they have a lot of b******* with game launching and updating, but I probably would need a publisher to launch the games for them, and with the number of consoles existing, would be one hell of a job to keep them updated with the official version of the game, would be ignorance of my part not to think about what the publishers would have to pass to port this game.
Q: What OS will the game be released for?
A: Certainly for Windows only, the reason I'll say bellow.
Q: What kind of development programs are you using to make the game?
A: Visual Studio C# 2010 to do the coding and debugging, XNA 4.0 as the game engine, and Aseprite to make the game sprites.
Q: Why are you using such a dated engine and program to develop the game?
A: Because my pc haven't seen an upgrade has some years, the last serious upgrade it got was around 2013, some of the upgrades since then were minor pieces replacement or some others. I kind of work on a "Comodore 64", as a friend says, because currently there is no way I can upgrade my pc hardware, so I can't upgrade my development kit.
Q: You could use free engines like Unity to develop the game.
A: Actually I can't, one of the things that not upgrading the pc is causing, is the fact that several programs are starting to ditch Windows 32 Bits, meaning that even to use Unity, I need a 64 bits computer. Also, I believe Unity will limit me on what I can do on the project, beside I kind of can't stand how it deals with 2D sprites.
Q: Why you didn't made any campaign to raise funds for the project?
A: Because that would force me into investing even more on the project, instead of being a passion project, would be a pression project, since I know that the people who invested their money to see the project reach the end of the tunnel, will want to see the result in the future, and not only I don't know If I'll manage to finish the project, but also I fear that I may end up not giving to the players what they wanted, or expected of the project. Would be as worse as a betrayal, and even more if the project got cancelled while people invested their money and hopes on it. Can you see how awful that is?
Q: Then... What is the plan?
A: I'll keep working on the project, trying to make it see somewhat the light, probably I wont be able to launch the game 100% finished, there will still be things missing, but It's better than never being launched. But I'll try aswell to make the launch less disasterful than the older version of the game, aswell as make the game cool to play, and with lots of things for you guys to play with. At least that is my plan.
Q: Why you only work on the project while being alone?
A: It does not limits my creativity, I can debug and do stuff on the project without "judgemental eyes", also, I distract myself very easily, programming, as you may know, is not a really "fun" activity to do, If my brother, for example, plays a game on the pc that conveniently is right to the left of me, I may end up getting distracted watching the gameplay, and end up not doing any progress on the project.
Q: Do you have any testers or anything to check if the game content is good?
A: Not really, I sometimes asks my friends what they think of some photos I send them from my project, and gather their feedback, but on the older version of the game, I sent them a test version of the game to see what they think about it (thing I eventually did during the N Terraria mod development), and then collect feedbacks. Their reception is the reason why the project is still running today.
Q: What is the point of having a SP and Stamina bar?
A: The Stamina bar will be used for physical moves, each move uses a percentage of the bar, for example, basic attack uses 10% of Stamina, medium attacks uses 25% Stamina, and so goes on.
The Stamina bar were added to avoid simple tactics of spamming the toughest attacks to win the battle, so if you spam the toughest attacks through the battle, your monster will get tired easier, making so eventually your monster will have to use Wait command for 1 or 2 turns to charge the Stamina bar so you can use the skill again.
The SP (Special Power) bar is more oriented to magic, the magic in the game is planned to be a powerful thing to use, but not recommended to spam, so that bar will probably deplete faster than Stamina bar, but the use of Magic will be worth it.
Q: Do you plan on adding multiplayer to the game?
A: Of course, this project would be incomplete if there weren't multiplayer, even more since not only this game is playable solo, but also there may be parts you will need a party to go, and if you don't want to party up with npcs to venture through those lands, why not go with a group of friends instead?
Q: Since we're doing a Q&A, mind if I talk about the N Terraria mod? Do you plan on returning to developing it?
A: I'm not sure, modding Terraria was one of the best things I ever did, was even fun to see the result of the new mechanics I added into the game, I really wished that the current modders of it added some more mechanics to diversificate the gameplay, in my case, I would remain on Stand alone development, because with it the sky is the limit.
The problem is that at every update Terraria recieves, It gets harder to decompile and fix it's bugs to begin working on the new version of the mod, so at the time I finish decompiling and fixing it, I'm already kind of burned out, so I barelly work on porting the old features the mod has, and the new features comes unfinished.
For example, I've promissed that when 1.3.5 update came out, I'd launch N Terraria 7 on it, I couldn't fix all decompiling bugs of it because the errors were so much complex that made me stop trying.
So, possibly, If I decide to return to modding Terraria, either will have passed quite a good time, or I'll have enough knowledge to deal with those issues and begin modding it right away.
Q: Is Tamers Network Reborn your current active project?
A: Somewhat yes, there are a number of other projects I have made too, one for a desktop agent, one for an auto rpg maker, and some other projects aswell, but those two mentioned are more visitted than the others. The bad is that the progress on them is really bad, even more since I'll possibly have to rescript some part of them, due to the fact that since I gained some good knowledge on programming with the years passing, the old techniques I used turned to obsolete. But those projects aren't actually impacting the TNR project, since I work them in moments I'm not working on TNR project, they are kind of side projects that takes my head off the main projects, so I don't get burned out.
I guess that's all for my made up Questions and Answers. If you manage to have any question about the project and how it is being developed, feel free to ask.
Q: Why the changes to the project is taking so long?
A: That is because I work on it when I'm alone, generally I'm alone during the morning, beside sometimes I have the bad luck of having something to make me go sleep later than should, taking away the time I spend working on the game. I also sometimes don't work on the project to not get tired of it, since as experienced on N Terraria mod, that may cause serious problems, that could impact not only the project, but also my social life, somewhat.
Q: Why are you working on the project alone?
A: My project isn't attracting much interest of the people, so there isn't even the chance of getting a new team member to help on it, so I'm pretty much doing all parts of the project all alone.
Q: Why did you decide to sprite the monsters of the game in isometric way, but the map tiles and human characters in 3 direction sprites?
A: Due to being a monster taming oriented game, the game will need quite a number of monsters in it, even more to add diversity, I found out that making them in isometric way speeds up the process of spriting them, aswell as allow me to do some work on their animations, since I will only need a front and back sprite for each animation, differently from 3 direction sprites, that needs front, side and back sprites.
Q: Why most monsters are duped mammals?
A: Spriting a different kind of monster is not that easy, since I'll have to change the method to make it, but I have some ideas of monsters that are up coming, one of them will be a Bee related monster, which will be a flying monster, another one related to a Dog with excessive fur, which is a quadruped monster, a Wolf, aswell as the Werewolf, those are some of the planned monsters I will need to sprite, not only that but also finish the sprite of the currently existing monsters in the game.
Q: The monster sprites are really different compared to the player sprites, why is that?
A: Kind of the same reason as above, the player also needed a chance on the spriting method, beside It still may pass through changes, since I feel like the sprite isn't really that fine.
Q: What is your plan for the game release?
A: I'm not sure, initially, I were planning on making it a $10 game, but I don't know anymore, I may end up following the initial plan, or maybe not, my idea would be to make the game accessible for everyone, but If I directly did that, how would I earn money from the project? That is the problem, even more since part of it would be invested on the project, since things like music, I can't make by myself.
Q: Do you plan on releasing the game on Steam?
A: That is also part of my initial plans, maybe even make use of what It's API offers to make some extra functions to the game, so not only gives the players more interactions, but also make them more unique, somewhat (That would possibly be a thing for multiplayer). But I believe I'll have to launch the game on other online stores too, due to how the pc gaming market is changing.
Q: Do you plan on releasing the game on Consoles?
A: I? Myself? No. Not only they have a lot of b******* with game launching and updating, but I probably would need a publisher to launch the games for them, and with the number of consoles existing, would be one hell of a job to keep them updated with the official version of the game, would be ignorance of my part not to think about what the publishers would have to pass to port this game.
Q: What OS will the game be released for?
A: Certainly for Windows only, the reason I'll say bellow.
Q: What kind of development programs are you using to make the game?
A: Visual Studio C# 2010 to do the coding and debugging, XNA 4.0 as the game engine, and Aseprite to make the game sprites.
Q: Why are you using such a dated engine and program to develop the game?
A: Because my pc haven't seen an upgrade has some years, the last serious upgrade it got was around 2013, some of the upgrades since then were minor pieces replacement or some others. I kind of work on a "Comodore 64", as a friend says, because currently there is no way I can upgrade my pc hardware, so I can't upgrade my development kit.
Q: You could use free engines like Unity to develop the game.
A: Actually I can't, one of the things that not upgrading the pc is causing, is the fact that several programs are starting to ditch Windows 32 Bits, meaning that even to use Unity, I need a 64 bits computer. Also, I believe Unity will limit me on what I can do on the project, beside I kind of can't stand how it deals with 2D sprites.
Q: Why you didn't made any campaign to raise funds for the project?
A: Because that would force me into investing even more on the project, instead of being a passion project, would be a pression project, since I know that the people who invested their money to see the project reach the end of the tunnel, will want to see the result in the future, and not only I don't know If I'll manage to finish the project, but also I fear that I may end up not giving to the players what they wanted, or expected of the project. Would be as worse as a betrayal, and even more if the project got cancelled while people invested their money and hopes on it. Can you see how awful that is?
Q: Then... What is the plan?
A: I'll keep working on the project, trying to make it see somewhat the light, probably I wont be able to launch the game 100% finished, there will still be things missing, but It's better than never being launched. But I'll try aswell to make the launch less disasterful than the older version of the game, aswell as make the game cool to play, and with lots of things for you guys to play with. At least that is my plan.
Q: Why you only work on the project while being alone?
A: It does not limits my creativity, I can debug and do stuff on the project without "judgemental eyes", also, I distract myself very easily, programming, as you may know, is not a really "fun" activity to do, If my brother, for example, plays a game on the pc that conveniently is right to the left of me, I may end up getting distracted watching the gameplay, and end up not doing any progress on the project.
Q: Do you have any testers or anything to check if the game content is good?
A: Not really, I sometimes asks my friends what they think of some photos I send them from my project, and gather their feedback, but on the older version of the game, I sent them a test version of the game to see what they think about it (thing I eventually did during the N Terraria mod development), and then collect feedbacks. Their reception is the reason why the project is still running today.
Q: What is the point of having a SP and Stamina bar?
A: The Stamina bar will be used for physical moves, each move uses a percentage of the bar, for example, basic attack uses 10% of Stamina, medium attacks uses 25% Stamina, and so goes on.
The Stamina bar were added to avoid simple tactics of spamming the toughest attacks to win the battle, so if you spam the toughest attacks through the battle, your monster will get tired easier, making so eventually your monster will have to use Wait command for 1 or 2 turns to charge the Stamina bar so you can use the skill again.
The SP (Special Power) bar is more oriented to magic, the magic in the game is planned to be a powerful thing to use, but not recommended to spam, so that bar will probably deplete faster than Stamina bar, but the use of Magic will be worth it.
Q: Do you plan on adding multiplayer to the game?
A: Of course, this project would be incomplete if there weren't multiplayer, even more since not only this game is playable solo, but also there may be parts you will need a party to go, and if you don't want to party up with npcs to venture through those lands, why not go with a group of friends instead?
Q: Since we're doing a Q&A, mind if I talk about the N Terraria mod? Do you plan on returning to developing it?
A: I'm not sure, modding Terraria was one of the best things I ever did, was even fun to see the result of the new mechanics I added into the game, I really wished that the current modders of it added some more mechanics to diversificate the gameplay, in my case, I would remain on Stand alone development, because with it the sky is the limit.
The problem is that at every update Terraria recieves, It gets harder to decompile and fix it's bugs to begin working on the new version of the mod, so at the time I finish decompiling and fixing it, I'm already kind of burned out, so I barelly work on porting the old features the mod has, and the new features comes unfinished.
For example, I've promissed that when 1.3.5 update came out, I'd launch N Terraria 7 on it, I couldn't fix all decompiling bugs of it because the errors were so much complex that made me stop trying.
So, possibly, If I decide to return to modding Terraria, either will have passed quite a good time, or I'll have enough knowledge to deal with those issues and begin modding it right away.
Q: Is Tamers Network Reborn your current active project?
A: Somewhat yes, there are a number of other projects I have made too, one for a desktop agent, one for an auto rpg maker, and some other projects aswell, but those two mentioned are more visitted than the others. The bad is that the progress on them is really bad, even more since I'll possibly have to rescript some part of them, due to the fact that since I gained some good knowledge on programming with the years passing, the old techniques I used turned to obsolete. But those projects aren't actually impacting the TNR project, since I work them in moments I'm not working on TNR project, they are kind of side projects that takes my head off the main projects, so I don't get burned out.
I guess that's all for my made up Questions and Answers. If you manage to have any question about the project and how it is being developed, feel free to ask.
Wednesday, November 7, 2018
New TNR Battle HUD display.
This is a quick news about the new battle hud change.
The Hud for team monsters status and also for the commands you can pick changed.
First I'll talk about the new monster info hud, of course the text shows the monster name, gender and health, meanwhile, the frame to the left shows the monster portrait, the Red bar shows the monster health, Blue bar shows the monster Special power, the Yellow bar shows the monster Stamina, and the Orange bar shows the monster current ATB load, when the monster is casting a spell, or using a skill that requires charging, the Orange bar will start to be filled by a Green bar.
I still will need to do some work on that part of the hud, not only because I'll have to reduce the size of the text, but also make it more understandable.
To the bottom of the screen you see the actions you can order the monster to take, Fight leads you to the attack selection commands, while Run... Does nothing, for now. In the future, more actions will show up on those empty frames, one of them will be the Magic command.
This is the attack selection hud, picking an attack is really simple, just press the direction of the command and then press the confirm button to select the action.
And this is the targetting hud, the number of arrow changes if the skill is AOE. And to toggle the targets, you just need to press either Left or Right buttons. I still will need to do some tweaks on this, since depending on the team you are selecting (for example, your allied team), Right may become Left, and Left may become Right.
I will also have to think about how I'll make the currently acting monster status hud be more visible for the player, aswell as make it easy to be read when you want to do some quick action, even more since the game wont pause for too long once your monster turn comes.
Some informations I believe wont be necessary, but others I will need to think how to reduce their requirement information, so wont take much of the interface.
The arrows above the attacking and targetted monsters also will need a rescale, or I may change it to something else, like a giant circle to the attacking monster, and a giant X for the targetted monster, and both be shown on their feet, at least it's sure that it needs to be changed, since can be really confusing if there is too many monsters in the battle.
Well, that's all for today's news, If you have ideas on what I can do about the hud, just tell me in the comments, and before you ask, yes, each photo is in a different battle, that's because I got the idea of taking photo of the other hud parts after closing the game :/. So yeah, I reopened the game 2 times to take the photos.
Until next news.
The Hud for team monsters status and also for the commands you can pick changed.
I still will need to do some work on that part of the hud, not only because I'll have to reduce the size of the text, but also make it more understandable.
To the bottom of the screen you see the actions you can order the monster to take, Fight leads you to the attack selection commands, while Run... Does nothing, for now. In the future, more actions will show up on those empty frames, one of them will be the Magic command.
I will also have to think about how I'll make the currently acting monster status hud be more visible for the player, aswell as make it easy to be read when you want to do some quick action, even more since the game wont pause for too long once your monster turn comes.
Some informations I believe wont be necessary, but others I will need to think how to reduce their requirement information, so wont take much of the interface.
The arrows above the attacking and targetted monsters also will need a rescale, or I may change it to something else, like a giant circle to the attacking monster, and a giant X for the targetted monster, and both be shown on their feet, at least it's sure that it needs to be changed, since can be really confusing if there is too many monsters in the battle.
Well, that's all for today's news, If you have ideas on what I can do about the hud, just tell me in the comments, and before you ask, yes, each photo is in a different battle, that's because I got the idea of taking photo of the other hud parts after closing the game :/. So yeah, I reopened the game 2 times to take the photos.
Until next news.
Friday, November 2, 2018
Hairy Spooky Wall of Text about TNR Project
Happy late Halloween (beside here where I live that isn't celebrated...), today I'll share some of the plans for the TNR project, aswell as tell what changed latelly.
First, I'll begin with the plans:
The magic system I plan on splitting them by "schools", and differently from skills abilities monsters comes from, they will be unlocked... By some way, because I didn't thought about that, yet. Possibly, maybe there will be a secondary leveling which involves that, or another function that you will need to do something to be able to unlock a new spell on that "school".
One thing I'm unsure about, is about if the skills should or shouldn't level up with the use, potentially getting stronger, that could either make the magic system more interesting, or broken, or even unfair.
Anyway, one thing is sure, that menu you saw for the Fight command on the video, where you could pick one of the 4 abilities to use, I plan on adding another menu like that for the magics, maybe even split them by "schools", and then when you select that "school", you'll be able to pick one of the four magic spells you can use. Of course you still will need to set the magic spells that you'll use in combat.
Another change I plan to do aswell, is change how the battle action selector works, I had an idea of minimalizing the key presses to select an action, like, with a simple direction press, you can select the action you'll use, like... You press Up key, the Fight command is selected, you press Down key, the Run command is selected, you press Left key, Magic, and so goes. The same also is planned for the inner commands, like the Fight skills and the Magic spells, since you can pick only up to 4 abilities, that will speed up the selection of abilities.
A third change I want to do, is change how the monsters will spawn in the maps, and what level they will spawn, I plan on removing the level tags of the map, and making so the monsters spawned in the maps have their own individual levels, aswell as removing the level display from the monster (and possibly npcs ) name, and instead replacing by an icon, the icon will be red if the monster is going to be a challenge for your monsters, and blue if the monster is not much of a challenge.
I'm not sure if I'll be able to fully make those changes, beside, I'm doing them because most likelly, any player will want to make their own monster team before venturing in the game world, also, numbers may make the player feel restricted about what kind of challenge to face, so removing them and replacing by an icon, might give the player an idea that the monster is tough, but wont stop you from facing it, even more since the reward for beating it will be good.
I don't know if you guys remember the Werewolves and Vampires from the old version of the game, but I'm kind of trying to bring them back here, possibly with transformation and everything includded, but what kind of bonus and penalty they could afflict the monster, victim of it?
And the last plan I have, I'm going to make the game show better who is the monster going to take an action and show the targets when in the menu, I have kind of an idea of how to make that work, I just will need to add a few scripts to the monster skill data, so It also tries to get the possible targetted monsters from the skill.
Now for what changed latelly on the project...
The monsters will not only receive status boost or penalty depending on their size, the exp required to level up, aswell as exp reward also changes based on their size, bigger monsters awards more exp, and requires more exp to level up than smaller monsters do. This change has been done, because bigger monsters are already tough, even if you have a Level 1 small and big monster on your team, the big monster status is already as good as of a monster of a few levels, so you'll probably not have much problems having one in the team, so to level up faster a big monster, you need to face big or even bigger monsters to acquire good exp for it.
I've been tweaking the skill effects positioning, they were appearing at weird positions when trying to spawn from a monster action point, It's still bugged, but is less bugged than before.
Added one more monster to the game, but now It's 3 monsters I have to finish spriting.
Now multiple monsters can attack at the same time, as long as their skills attacks only 1 target, and It's target isn't using a skill or being a victim of one, that surelly has speed up the battle, but I will need to do a system to get the targets from the multi target spell, so It doesn't turn to mandatory that multi target skills should have their own spotlight.
And for the last, I've did some changes to the tutorial npc dialogue, in the future you may have the chance of seeying it in action, but right now, the tutorial is unfinished, also, I still need to think of a name change for the BattleNet company, in the game, because that possibly will lead me to problems in the future, maybe a name that starts with B and ends with Net, I still need to think, beside I'm always open to suggestions.
Anyway, sorry for the boring wall of text, the people at IndieDB possibly would have locked down my blog for posting so many news without photos, if they were the owners of blogger, what they aren't, hahaha.
Well, I'll see if I can show some visual progress on the next news, that is, if I don't talk about another monster too.
Until next news.
First, I'll begin with the plans:
The magic system I plan on splitting them by "schools", and differently from skills abilities monsters comes from, they will be unlocked... By some way, because I didn't thought about that, yet. Possibly, maybe there will be a secondary leveling which involves that, or another function that you will need to do something to be able to unlock a new spell on that "school".
One thing I'm unsure about, is about if the skills should or shouldn't level up with the use, potentially getting stronger, that could either make the magic system more interesting, or broken, or even unfair.
Anyway, one thing is sure, that menu you saw for the Fight command on the video, where you could pick one of the 4 abilities to use, I plan on adding another menu like that for the magics, maybe even split them by "schools", and then when you select that "school", you'll be able to pick one of the four magic spells you can use. Of course you still will need to set the magic spells that you'll use in combat.
Another change I plan to do aswell, is change how the battle action selector works, I had an idea of minimalizing the key presses to select an action, like, with a simple direction press, you can select the action you'll use, like... You press Up key, the Fight command is selected, you press Down key, the Run command is selected, you press Left key, Magic, and so goes. The same also is planned for the inner commands, like the Fight skills and the Magic spells, since you can pick only up to 4 abilities, that will speed up the selection of abilities.
A third change I want to do, is change how the monsters will spawn in the maps, and what level they will spawn, I plan on removing the level tags of the map, and making so the monsters spawned in the maps have their own individual levels, aswell as removing the level display from the monster (and possibly npcs ) name, and instead replacing by an icon, the icon will be red if the monster is going to be a challenge for your monsters, and blue if the monster is not much of a challenge.
I'm not sure if I'll be able to fully make those changes, beside, I'm doing them because most likelly, any player will want to make their own monster team before venturing in the game world, also, numbers may make the player feel restricted about what kind of challenge to face, so removing them and replacing by an icon, might give the player an idea that the monster is tough, but wont stop you from facing it, even more since the reward for beating it will be good.
I don't know if you guys remember the Werewolves and Vampires from the old version of the game, but I'm kind of trying to bring them back here, possibly with transformation and everything includded, but what kind of bonus and penalty they could afflict the monster, victim of it?
And the last plan I have, I'm going to make the game show better who is the monster going to take an action and show the targets when in the menu, I have kind of an idea of how to make that work, I just will need to add a few scripts to the monster skill data, so It also tries to get the possible targetted monsters from the skill.
Now for what changed latelly on the project...
The monsters will not only receive status boost or penalty depending on their size, the exp required to level up, aswell as exp reward also changes based on their size, bigger monsters awards more exp, and requires more exp to level up than smaller monsters do. This change has been done, because bigger monsters are already tough, even if you have a Level 1 small and big monster on your team, the big monster status is already as good as of a monster of a few levels, so you'll probably not have much problems having one in the team, so to level up faster a big monster, you need to face big or even bigger monsters to acquire good exp for it.
I've been tweaking the skill effects positioning, they were appearing at weird positions when trying to spawn from a monster action point, It's still bugged, but is less bugged than before.
Added one more monster to the game, but now It's 3 monsters I have to finish spriting.
Now multiple monsters can attack at the same time, as long as their skills attacks only 1 target, and It's target isn't using a skill or being a victim of one, that surelly has speed up the battle, but I will need to do a system to get the targets from the multi target spell, so It doesn't turn to mandatory that multi target skills should have their own spotlight.
And for the last, I've did some changes to the tutorial npc dialogue, in the future you may have the chance of seeying it in action, but right now, the tutorial is unfinished, also, I still need to think of a name change for the BattleNet company, in the game, because that possibly will lead me to problems in the future, maybe a name that starts with B and ends with Net, I still need to think, beside I'm always open to suggestions.
Anyway, sorry for the boring wall of text, the people at IndieDB possibly would have locked down my blog for posting so many news without photos, if they were the owners of blogger, what they aren't, hahaha.
Well, I'll see if I can show some visual progress on the next news, that is, if I don't talk about another monster too.
Until next news.
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