Long Live The Moon Fields

[anothergod]

@sufresh and I figured out how we can handle him taking a break from coding so I can still work on The Moon Fields. After a very draining week, I’m finally able to sit down and reassess how to move on with the project.

We currently have the combat engine mostly done in Combat Jr. We are still going to add items, arenas, and game modes to Combat Jr, but the engine itself is done.

As of two weeks ago I was in the middle of doing some tests for Zelda-like dungeon generation. I was looking at examples like Binding of Isaac and Lenna’s Inception for inspiration. Boss Keys’s analysis of Zelda dungeons is really helpful, too.

The current roadmap looks like:

1. Figure out how to do dungeon generation right
2. Do more pixel art and voxel art
3. Demo dungeon

[anothergod]

Dungeon Generation

The dungeon generation I have been looking into is a combination of my own ideas and Tom Coxon’s metazelda. He’s the one making the super crazy impressive Lenna’s Inception linked above.

Dungeons are called FIELDS. Each field is constructed from ROUTES whose interconnections are predetermined by a tree structure. Each route is a series of ROOMS that necessarily connect to each other. The routes are “themed” to espouse a similar feel throughout its series of rooms. The ENTRANCE to the field is placed in a random perimeter room from the first route. And this should determine the structure of the dungeon in a way that every room connects to every other room.

Starting from the end branches of the route tree there is a possibility that each route will connect to each preceding route via a LOCK. If a lock is placed then there must also be a KEY placed in a route towards the entrance. It is possible that in a series of routes that multiples keys are placed in the same route as long as the locks are all further down the tree.

And finally we placed the GOALS. Either the BOSS KEY or the BOSS will be placed in one of the furthest branches from the entrance. The other can be placed anywhere there is a 1 entrance room. There will always be at least one ITEM and if possible it will be an item that is useful against the enemies that appear in this dungeon. There is a possibility of a second or even a third item. The probability that these spawn in the first route is very, very low.

[anothergod]

So instead of working on Dungeon Generation I’ve been working on new sprites. I really like these new sprites. I needed these for the single player mode anyways, but now I realize they don’t mesh with the old sprites. Oh well.

The first image is the breadth of armors that you can choose. It goes NUDE, RAGS, lego TUNIC, ROBE, CLOAKED KNIGHT (might need to rework this one), HEAVY LEATHER, ANIMAL, new TREELORD, BULBED, TOWER, and UNICORN.

The second image is the depth of hair fashions you can sport. It goes PONY, LONG, PIGGY, SHAGGY, and BUZZCUT.

All of the colors can be swapped (hopefully!) for other colors. That means we got HAIR, HAIR COLOR, SKIN COLOR, LEATHER, METAL, and CLOTH to play with. I don’t know for if I’ll be using android art’s palette exclusively for the art, but I think the idea of discrete choices for each will be good. I don’t want messes of colors. Or maybe I do? I dunno…

And along those lines of what you can look like the question becomes what to do with how to pick. I don’t want just a dropdown menu that lets you pick whatever. I think that’s really boring. In the multiplayer I think I’ll have discrete MISFITS that players select that initially seem like what’s your favorite color/hair combinations. Then it goes to the normal selection of ARMOR and ITEMS. I think it’ll be neat to give each MISFIT their own DEFAULT LOADOUTS to create flavor and characterize the MISFITS as more than just character color data, too. E.g. one MISFIT’s tunic loadout will be an Archer loadout while another MISFIT’s tunic loadout will be a Trapper loadout.

For the single player I want the game to start with a series of questions. I don’t have a ton of references to this, but I love the interrogation style game intros that try to get to “know you”. If ya’ll have any reference points I’d be stoked. Anyways, the questions would allude to be not necessarily be specific to what they do, but more vague. A question about preferring day or night could help push your skin color one way or another. Or a question about elements might push the clothing color one way or another. I don’t know the specifics. But I think I’ll also let the player modify these things in game (clothing dye can be really cheap, hair cuts can be kind of cheap, changing the color of your leather or metal will be more expensive).

Oh yeah here’s a joke I want to add to the game, but I’m not sure if it’s cool or not - I want one of the options in the game to be able to buy an expensive potion to change genders and then when you drink it you look exactly the same as before you drink it. Part of me doesn’t even want you to choose gender at the beginning because I don’t want it to matter. I think it’ll be funny next to all the visual adjustment options. Please tell me if this is malo, tho.

[eska]

sounds p hilarious to me, but maybe wait for someone else to chime in

[anothergod]

Thanks eskaibo

Where do you draw the line between ripping off and being inspired by?

FANG, HOODFANG, BONES, BEAST, UNBURIED, GHOSTEYE, FLYMOUSE, CHIROPTERA, FLOATEYE, GOOBABY, GOO, BLOO, and BLOOMOMMY.

Some BONES, BEAST, and UNBURIED will have ITEMS just like the players. I am hoping it won’t look out of place. I also will have to somehow figure out if touching enemies will be damaging to the player, or if not then how to make it look right…

I think I still have to make:

Heavy Armored Enemy (I’m thinking turtle instead of Armos-y)
Big Wormy Snakey Enemies (multipart!)
At least 2 Weird Animal-y Overworld Enemies (maybe these guys will be laarge like Peahats and fly, too)
Four Legged “Smart” enemies (Centaurs…)
Something where lightorbs float around them (wizardy enemies)
Light and Heavy Jumpy Enemies

[Notymenow]

I have nothing to say to you - but, a well-wish on the (???) Programing, or whatever needs be done…

And to say, that the sprites look good-ass (meaning better than badass, I asume.)