Godsent

[desiderata]

Could you also use the spike shield to possibly push 'spiky' objects that would otherwise hurt you?  Or to catch certain projectiles for defense boosts, so that for instance, you 'catch' a flaming... ball, or whatever, your next block also retaliates with fire damage, a wind-based object with extra knockback, ice with a short freezing, poison, a 'piercing' object that causes bleedout damage, and so on.  These could also be used in puzzles, I think.  Just a thought from a fan.

Also, totes magoats excited to see some of my work in your demo vid!  Looking great so far!

Also also, I'm temporarily back by absolutely no popular demand.

[Meiscool]

Awesome, great to see you back. Those rocks you made have been very helpful.

So, I thought I'd drop off a visual update today on stuffs. With all the coding changes I've done, I haven't really had anything to give out visually, so here's eye candy to keep some of you interested.
                                                                               


This is an area that will be in the tech demo when released. Some buildings you can go inside of.
Screens display status effects.
New enemies.
HUD now shows element.

Not much else to say about the screens. If people are wondering why there are monsters in a town... there will not be per-say. These are just placeholders.

[fruckert]

I rather like those buildings.
They're very nice to look at, and look very...there.

[Meiscool]

So, update:


Heal spell and Wind infused blade spell now complete. This marks the complete finish of the ice and wind elements, which makes me very happy.
"Regain" is above, which creates pillars of light that rotate around you for awhile providing regeneration.
"Shear" is the wind buff, which is pretty awesome. Every slash unleashes a short range wave of energy that deals damage. Lasts until you cast another spell, but may have it be time limited as well.

With the advent of creating Shear, I've decided to make additional stats magic (for the player items) and resistance (for enemies) in the game. This will allow certain enemies to be pretty buff against the normal sword but vulnerable to elemental projectiles/sword arts/shear, while other enemies are more resistant to the elements and thus harder to be taken down. Also gives players a reason to turn elements off from time to time and ration their upgrading materials. Thankfully since most of my coding is in the common event section, this won't take long to do.
Speaking of upgrading, I'm not sure I spoke of this yet, but I've had plans for months now to have the character upgrade their gear with items found fighting/exploring. Upgrades will cost exp, provided by enemies... so you can have the items, but lack the exp. Exp amounts won't be anywhere near grinding potential.
Thus far, you can upgrade:
Swords X 3 - Slash damage, Lunge damage, Drive damage, Special damage, Special regeneration.
Daggers - Physical damage, Elemental damage, Weight (effects stamina when throwing).
Boomerang - Physical damage, Elemental damage, Weight.
Boots X 2 - Defense, Stamina regeneration, Weight (effects dodge stamina consumption).
May add more junk (like passives or status effects resistance) if I feel there needs to be more options to upgrade.

Late game (fully tricked out gear), your character has nearly no need to heed stamina constraints for most actions other than sprinting and map-based events. You'll also regenerate special at a much faster rate. Spells/Lunges/Projectiles become more available and spammable as you progress with this setup.

Began coding small map events here and there. Basically, if you beat all the enemies on a map or 'room', preplanned icons may appear. Examining those icons can trigger events such as conversations, the hero's thoughts, finding diaries, etc. Most of the plot and character dev will be through these events, thus defeating enemies pays off in more ways than one.

[Prpl_Mage]

Sounds good to me, still amazed at the dedication you put into this.

[Archem]

Ditto. It still looks way too good to be the work of just one person (edits or not).

[Meiscool]

Been working at mah job a lot, so not a whole lot has changed in the game. However, I figured I should post an update of what I had done today, as well as what my play testers so far have thought and how I've changed it since.

First, play testers felt it annoying that you couldn't 'unfreeze' enemies. They also felt that the magic system wasn't expansive enough, and that the fire self-target magic was useless compared to ice/wind. They also felt that puzzles were easy enough once you know what to do, but really annoying because you don't always know what to do.

So, what I've done/plan to do: Pressing Z while dodging will do a weak magic spell (much like how pressing shift while dodging produces a stronger dagger throw). Ice magic during dodge will shatter any frozen enemies as well as produce some damage. Fire dodge magic lights your character on fire, increasing the move-speed and enabling to keep my puzzles that used this effect. Fire self target magic will need to be changed now... Earth/Pierce and Wind are not coded yet. Since this uses up every possible button combination of Shift, Z, and X, I do believe that I will not be adding any more moves into the game past this. I already felt that it had enough, so this is going above and beyond for me.

Puzzle difficulty will need more people to test before I decide to change anything.

Made a few monsters since the last update, and also ripped a butt load of boss graphics from games, so I will shortly be working on some epic battles as well.

Speaking of earth/pierce... I believe I figured out what I want to do with it. Self target earth will create a stone clone of your character, which will walk around and attack enemies. Using dodge magic while the clone is active will switch player positions with the clone. However, I am going to wait to code this stuff because earth magic will not be available to the player at the point in the game where I am releasing a demo, so no point in wasting time on that when it could better be used in other places.

Final note: Obligatory screenshots:

[Prpl_Mage]

Still wow

[DragonBlaze]

Curse you for spending time at your job instead of finishing the demo!

[daoman89]

Your sprites go with the background and terrain almost perfectly.  It looks excellent Meis.  I promise you I will play it good sir.

[Meiscool]

Thanks all

Your sprites go with the background and terrain almost perfectly.  It looks excellent Meis.  I promise you I will play it good sir.

The benefits of creating your own palette and sticking to it.

[daoman89]

The benefits of creating your own palette and sticking to it.

If only I had an artistic ability...

[zuhane]

This looks absolutely beautiful! Can't wait to play

[Meiscool]

So, it has been a long time since I've commented on this, but I am still working on this.

Made a few new areas, new enemies, etc.
Working on two boss fights (my goal is to have bosses be very unique and different than typical "reduce their hp to 0" bosses you fight in a lot of game).
Changed coding of a lot of weapons, both enemy and player:
- Boomerang no longer goes through walls.
- Fire boomerang explodes when hitting walls.
- Wind magic complete
- Enemies now have projectiles that can be thrown straight, curve, lobbed, and much more
- New "suck in or blow away" features in some enemies.

Typical bug fixes.

FINALLY added in several puzzles that I've been wanting to put in for ages. Now you have mirror combat (your reflection mimics all your moves and hitboxes), statues that need to be hit by a certain element to trigger, more block puzzles, open/close gates puzzles, etc.

Honestly, sitting here writing all my accomplishments for the last few months in this game has me kinda depressed because I when you put it on paper it doesn't sound like I've done much... but I have haha.

[Felix-0]

Yay an update. Man this game is so heavily coded it looks nothing like 2k3.