So all the animations are done. The use item script is implemented. I need to:
- Add traps
- Add throwable items
- Figure out how to deal with Shields again
Then I need to make a dress up script that will take a player object and build data and change the values for the player object so that they take on their stuff.
I need to do collisions, player health, and make some special effects. Learning the Unity 5.5 particle system is probably a goal of mine… doing everything with brute force without the particle system probably lead to some highly unoptimized systems. I’d also like to add some weapon trails!
I still haven’t figured out how to swap sprite sheets! I could technically make a shitload of animations for other sprite sheets, but the work involved to do that to swap 1 sprite sheet is astronomical compared to the work… swapping a sheet via code. And when I want to do something like 40 sheets it’s a huge waste of time.
After that I need to do big overall framework stuff. It’ll probably just be get players from character select to the game screen and that’s it because the other stuff is so much more important. But that’s just what it is!
Added traps!
Added throwable items!
Added shootable items!
The turpentine is back as “Black Goo” because I am changing names randomly and it’s kind of funny. Also my workaround for making sticky fluid dynamics makes it look like shiny squishy purple black spheres.
I didn’t look at the old file, but for some reason I couldn’t get the sprite animations working properly here. It’s bugging me pretty hard because I feel like the sprite animations here are better than they were before. Aye.
Now a completely disorganized list of things I have to do in the next two days:
- Health script
- Weapon collisions
- Magic Spells
- Potions!
- Weapon clashes
- Shields
- Weapons colliding with shields
- Weapons colliding with the environment
- Fix Sprite Animations
- Stun, Shock, and Bleed animations
- Have at least one skill that shocks the other player
- Sync the character select to the match screen
- Reload/rematch on the match screen
And a list of things I want to do:
- Sound FX
- Pretty up the explosions
- Make a real Arena
- Actually get the Magic spells in the game
- Potions!
- Preemptive balance tweakery
Things I suspect that the new systems will change - black goo seems to be better here, but every character can now jump over the goo, so… that makes the skill more about placement than having the jump boots. The Arena is bigger so projectiles are more important, and shields are only on one side (plus back), so players will have to be more aware of where they’re putting their defenses. Throwable items have 3 ranges now, though their longest range has been shortened and the shortest range needs you to be in the air which usually means jump which means it takes a minute to get out there. What that really means is that the black goo is more controllable now, which yeah… I am going to leave Caltrops on the field when they damage the player, but they’ll still be destroyable with enough damage dealt to the caltrop. I want to have a spell that generates a glowing blue block that acts like a mobile shield. Using the Physics systems to push other players around should introduce a different way of winning. Spike pitz.
I really genuinely think it’s hilarious how exciting each of these small things are to me. I don’t know if it’s because it’s my game or if it’s because its genuinely interesting here, but hey whatever… I’m also probably loopy because of this week of game jamming, but whatever it’s happening.
Things I added/fixed today:
- Prettied up explosions
- Added a whole bunch of shields
- Fixed sprite animations
Things I should do before
- Health Script
- Weapon Collisions - this will be the hardest part :-\
- Connect Character Select Screen
Bonus Stuff:
- Magic Spells
- Potions
- Sound FX
The weapon collisions are close to being done. I need to enable pushback on block. But the character select screen didn’t get done, so the local Milwaukee indie dev scene didn’t get to see what I was making. Super sad, but hopefully I’ll get more of it together by Saturday when we have our Madison indie meetup.
Ok, so health is in. Weapon collisions are in. Stun, weapon pushback, etc. are all in. Character select screen is 75% done. I have a coworking group tonight, so maybe I’ll get enough done to demo some stuff, take vid, and screencap some gifs finally?
I didn’t have anything real to show for either the monthly MKE or Madison indiedev hangs, so I was really bummed. But if I can manage to get some video this week — hopefully just some friends hanging out — I’ll be good for media. Mostly I’m worried about going to GDC and not having anything on my social media that is mine mine and not “here’s what I did from a previous company that I worked with that didn’t pan out”.
Finally cobbled something together and it’s not exactly as fun as it once was, so list time to keep my head together
- Go through melee attacks and figure out which attacks really need Hyper Armor
- Figure out how to deal with weapons colliding with the environment and shields. Back shields seem to be fucking with my shit blocking things they shouldn’t (e.g. attacks from above that overshoot to the back collide with the back shield collider before the player collider).
- Apply Turpentine fire damage
- Ammo
- SoundFX
- Swap out armor sprites
- Camera Shake
- Set Proper Spawning Locations
I’ve cut down the number of attacks using hyper armor so that the effect still looks special. I realized that in Souls most weapons have some level of poise hyper armor thing, but the levels are tuned enough that some weapons can take a beating while others… can’t. I can’t deal with that level of detail and nuance, so I’m only giving armor to the attacks where the only way you stop your attack is if you’re dead…
And clipping through the environment is pretty much the default now. Most weapons are given a bool called bruteForce and for some weapons bruteForce is turned on during a particular animation. This lets a weapon clip through the environment and still be available to give damage. Weapons like the Iron Lance will be able to clip through the environment and damage other people, but weapons like the Winged Spear don’t have this bool and their attack won’t.
I got all of those done besides swap out armor sprites.
I think I’m going to try to get magic spells implemented tomorrow and then demo with some friends to get some video to put on social media. Then GDC. Fuck I need to buy business cards. !!! ugh
http://imgur.com/PUt1WMB
Got to test multiplayer for the first time tonight. It feels similar to CJr, but “bigger”. Running/dashing is a problem. The game is also much, much worse when running at 30fps + some noticeable lag or whatever it was when I broadcasted it onto the TV. The fights last ~20s now which is kind of a huge departure from before. I think I’m going to make my business card and chill out on the gamedev tomorrow. Then it’ll probably be
- Tweak magic/potions/etc
- Make first arena
- Simplify as much as I can
There’s something about the color scheme above that I dislike. Maybe it’s that it’s oversaturated…
Anyways, the next thing I’m working on is the magic system. Been thinking about this for a couple days now:
MAGIC!!
Initially the idea was that each armor had Health, Speed, Carry Capacity, and now Magic/Faith. Magic and Faith would sum to be your Max Energy. You’d slowly gain Energy to use to cast spells whose strength would be affected by your current Magic and/or Faith levels.
I’m realizing that is super complicated and dumb.
The design goals I want for the magic system are
- Magical items have to feel different than other items
- Some items can be used in both magical and non-magical capacities e.g. the rapier Starlight should be able to be used as a rapier and also be used to shoot magical darts (when the conditions are right)
- Magic should feel unwieldy and lots of factors can change the effect e.g. I want a magical armor class to be able to cast more/better/wilder magic spells than the non magical classes
- It has to be simple
First things first: simplicity is solved by ditching Magic/Faith for just Magic. Also, instead of armor giving you the ability to use magic, all armors have the ability to use magic. Armors just gain you magic power at different rates. This means that a dumb heavy armor with no magic ability still can use The Book of Occult, but it will just take longer.
The unwieldy/manyfactor thing is solved by each spell being unique and weird and sometimes having tiers of uses. The magic-dart spell shot from the Starlight rapier will cost 1 Magic (god I hate Mana but I might start using it here…) and be the same everytime you cast it. A magic-orb will cost all your Magic but will get progressively bigger as more magic is used.
In the above example of the Starlight your Mana does not go away on use. If you do things like dash or use a big heavy weapon your mana will go away. This plays into both the unwieldyness and the magic-is-a-separate-category thing. Initially I wanted the scimitar Moon Breaker to shoot a magic crescent (and I still might!), but this is a nice compromise here. The Moon Breaker can be considered a magic weapon and so it doesn’t make you lose your magic like other items would.
Hopefully this all makes Magic feel different and unique and special. I really want magic to feel like something that isn’t just another item with a meter. Hopefully this works! I’ll have some video probably tomorrow with the local gamedev crew…
I suppose (magic/faith) it’s supposed to seem unwieldy -
though just from the words that’s how it comes off to me.
Don’t know, 'bout saturation, so 'ah - yea…
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Ok, so spell ideas:
Book of Faith
- Push, Holy Shield, needs 1 Mana, uses all Mana, blocks all damage for 1/8th to 1/4 of a second
- Neutral, needs 2 Mana, uses all Mana, heals X-1 Health where X is the amount of Mana used
- Aerial, Faith Above, needs 2 Mana, uses all Mana, absorbs the next X Health where X is the amount of Mana used
Book of Crystals
- Push, Crystal Orb, needs 1 Mana, uses all Mana, shoots a a slow moving orb whose size and damage is determined by Mana used
- Neutral, Teleporter, needs 2 Mana, attempts to teleport the user forward, causes a lot of smoke
- Aerial, Crystal Blockade, needs 1 Mana, throws a crystal seed down to the ground that on contact grows into a large crystal
Starlight Rapier
- Push, Magic Dart, needs 1 Mana, in addition to stabbing also shoots a magic dart
There are two items that are Magic related: Magic Candles and Magic Potions. Magic Candles should raise your Magic generation while you’re within range while Magic Potions could possibly add to your Mana up front and be done with it? I’m not sure, but I like the idea of stacking multiple items that work in different ways to recover Mana.
Sounds good enough, for spells in the multi-player project…
Ok, so I ended up making a weird magic system that kinda worked but kinda didn’t probably because timing was off. I think it’ll work with some tweaking; I just need to understand the cusps in the design.
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0MP
The magic system is a little like my initial idea way back when for a charge system for all the items. I found that nobody used the weakest level of magic because the window (between 1MP and 2MP) was not long enough. In fact, knowing that merely waiting could net you a stronger thing really got people to use the actions on the last possible moment. So they either waited for a long time, spammed it repeatedly, or in very very few circumstances they mashed it out in desperation.
Out of all of these scenarios only the last one was annoying to the players. To be clear, what is happening is that the players want a skill to occur but are unsure if they’ve reached the minimum MP to use that skill. Mashing out in desperation nets you nothing. It’s not just useless, it’s just nothing. And I have no idea what to do. E.g. if you press the button for the MAGIC BOOK and you don’t have enough MAGIC just wtf am I supposed to do?
I think I’m going to implement a visualization system for the MP. Maybe if it’s obvious that you don’t have MP then doing nothing when trying to use an MP skill will make sense… We’ll see what happens by the end of tonight.
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@Bee or anyone else in Minneapolis glitch is doing a thing at Bauhaus brewery tomorrow night and I’m gonna be there to see what’s up. Come hang out!
I’m working out a new character select screen. The goals are to make it more easily navigated by new people, but also offer the customization for people who have been playing for a while.
If you’re new, you point towards a starting spot, press X, press Left or Right to scroll through the character classes, and then press X to confirm. If you want to customize your character you press up or down to flip the card over to its Data Customization side, and then you can press Left or Right again to scroll through the items.
Things I need to add:
- Navigation text for basic commands e.g. “Pick A Starting Spot, Press X”.
- Hints e.g. arrows to indicate that you can scroll through classes or items
- Something to identify the huge list of items. I forgot to add the indices for this mockup, but I still need helpers. I am thinking when you’re scrolling through the items the actual item voxel shows up in 3D in front of the stats. Maybe the adjacent items will show up so you see like 5 at a time? I was also thinking you could hold a button down like R or L to scroll through an item map.
- Something for an arena select
- Pretty much all real functionality, too
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Animated character select:
And the full character select:
