Thanks ... I keep getting delayed by unexpected bugs. I think a particular area is done and working but then I realize that it isn't and I end up spending days fixing it. My code is super messy as I'm an undisciplined coder so going back to stuff I wrote a year ago and trying to understand it is really tough. Though on the bright side, once I get this code base working and free of bugs ... it'll be so easy for me to make a lot of games of this type.
Anway, although I've been bogged down with bug fixing. I do have some new stuff to show. Here is the Automaton ... a towering, techno-magical creation that can be summoned by the Gnome Explorer. Automate Promo by raj_dhillon, on Flickr It's got giant blades for arms and will be able to shoot a laser beam from it's eye socket. I will be making the Halfling into a Gnome so will focus much more on technology rather than thievery. So will give him the ability to perhaps throw grenades and summon the above automaton. I'm thinking of possibly switching out his crossbow for a proper handgun but not too sure. May just keep the crossbow.
Hi guys, Quick update. Did some more bug squashing today. I fixed the weird bug where after a level up a unit would have 0 or 1 movement range for the first turn. Found out this was only when the player has movement stat increased due to the level up and then figured out the mistake in my code that was causing it. Also fixed the bug where if the player characters died, the game would not end. On to more bug fixing ... I think this week, it'll just be bug squashing and little else. Hopefully next week's updates will be more interesting.
Hey guys, Just a quick update. My day job (the one that pays the bills) has been kicking my ass lately and rather inconveniently getting in the way of my game development. As such, I haven't been able to do too much in terms of new content. I did end up re-writing a component of the code related to leveling up as I realized it was badly designed and not working with magic items. I also have done quite a lot of playtesting to try and get the difficulty at the right level. I did this by switching off the character leveling and then trying to play through and see how far I can get. This will give me a better understanding of when character should level up to meet the increasing difficulty of the levels. An interesting side effect of this is that I've realized that the game is the most fun when it's at a more challenging gameplay level. It's really enjoyable and satisfying when your party barely manages to survive a level. So I think I'm going to try to adjust the time of leveling and magic item reward quality to be such that after the first few intro levels, each new level should be a challenging encounter where maybe only 2 or 3 characters get through to the end. The other thing I've noticed is that while the game has a really good cover system ... I don't actually use it enough in my level design. I'm going to add a lot more obstacles and defended positions in the levels as I update them before release. With a battlefield that's covered with more terrain and defended positions, it adds to the tactical depth of the gameplay.
Thanks for the update. We all appreciate it. It's quite inspiring that you have a day job and are working on this in your own time. And lacking the time to progress this at the pace you'd ideally want is understandable. In fact I've been meaning to give this more time to get some opinions back to you but just haven't had the time in the same way. From what I did play of it (not much yet I'll admit), I thought it was quite impressive. I hadn't got deep enough to come to terms with the mechanics. My only thoughts were on the graphics (obviously the first thing to hit), and while impressive, and amazing that you've given so much imagination to the creatures, they did blend in to the environment a bit much. It was easy to forget a monster hanging out on the side, or even my own characters. XCom is a little like that too, although it's more open space and they stand out a bit more. Also the camera flicks around a bit when you go to move it. Almost as if the programming behind the onscreen gestures have overlapped a bit. Like an on screen gesture usually does what you want but then may get to a point where it twists in another way or goes too far or back the other way. I want that to be constructive criticism as I was otherwise impressed with what's here. Hopefully I'll get more time soon and drop you a PM. Others who like xcom or dungeon crawlers in general should note this one down and keep an eye out for it.
Thanks for the feedback, gents. In my current version, I've begun to update the lighting settings to make things a bit brighter and increase contrast. This helps a lot in making characters easier to see and also makes the game look a lot better in general. For the Golem, I agree ... his colours are actually totally neutral grays and browns so when he's placed in the dungeon, he reflects the ambient blue / green light of the dungeon and just blends in totally. I'll update him to fix that. Will try to make his head, at least, a bronze colour.
Hey guys .... big design question for you. I've realized that with magic items, it's pretty easy for a player to cheat the system by moving all of his best magic items to the character whose turn it is to move. Essentially getting the best effects of his magic items on each character. I believe Warhammer Quest addresses this by preventing the use of the inventory during battle. I'm thinking I should do something similar. However, since I removed the non-battle turns in my game by having each room be a battle encounter, this might not be as easy. So I have a few options: 1 - Make a complicated code change that allocates time / AP cost to moving inventory around (equipping, unequiping, giving to a nearby character, etc.) I think XCOM uses this approach ... or at least the original XCOM from the 80's did. 2 - Prevent the Inventory button from working if there are any enemies in the level. This would mean that players could shuffle around the inventory after they've killed all the enemies. Would be a very easy code change ... almost no effort needed. 3 - Allow the inventory to be accessed only on the first turn so that players can see what kind of danger they're in ... adjust inventory if they want. Should be fairly easy to fix and should address any major abuse by the player since it would only be the first turn and most enemies would be out of range anyway. Please give me your thoughts. I feel option 2 is the best. Option1 would be great but probably a lot of effort for very little gain. Especially as I don't have defeated player characters remain in the game unlike the original XCOM series where you could essentially loot the corpses of your dead comrades for that one precious ammo clip (ahhh ... good memories )
definitely 2 or 3. maybe even both, make the start of each encounter a "allocate resources and units" phase, and "Touch here to end allocation phase and start the battle" then the battle would start and proceed normally.
Yeah just prevent any inventory shenanigans while enemies are around. In my opinion that would be an easy yet effective form of balancing the game.
Hey guys, Sorry for lack of updates. Real life getting in the way, unfortunately. Not a whole to report. Have certainly been working on this with what little time I have at the moment but it's all been bug fixing and gameplay balancing. It's critical stuff that needs to be done but it isn't all that exciting so I haven't posted much. Looks like inventory and leveling is finally working properly as well as the store vendor. There are still a handful of minor bugs and one recurring but that seems to happen randomly when performing some abilities ... but I don't think any of these would kill the prevent the launch of the game. So I'm going to keep plugging away with bug-fixing, testing, tweaking, adjusting difficulty, and such. Chronomancer character is done but his animations still need some work. The Chronomancer will replace the Orc Berserker. The Orc is going to switch sides and be an enemy in chapter 2, which will feature Orcs heavily. I'm also going to try and explore having enemy AI actually perform abilities like heals, damage spells, etc. At the moment, they don't do that and I would like to get them to do it. Going to spend a few days next week on that while I'm travelling for my day job. However, if it's too tough then I'll leave that feature for chapter 2. I still think I could have a submission to Apple of a very polished version of this game (chapter 1 only) with all 20 characters by end of February. However, let's assume there will be some other delays or bugs or whatever that will push that out to March. So I think realistic submission time will be before end of March.
Hey guys, Some big news ... I was able to improve the AI so that they can now cast some simple spells (specifically buffs and debuffs that affect all friends / enemies within X tile radius). Seems to work really nicely and follows all the rules of casting abilities (cooldown timer, action point requirement, range, etc.). This does some big things to the gameplay as it now makes enemy wizards / clerics far more important. It also allows me to add special buffing skills to enemy archers and fighters. Could be a big change to the overall gameplay. So I'm going to keep working on it and testing it. Next step will be to have the AI perform abilities that require target selections such as hurling fireballs and such. Will let you know how it goes.
This game is becoming a fabulous example of why it is not always a great idea to build something to the spec of your customer at the cost of time and production. People used to hang on your every word, thinking they are devs and spewing out suggestions while knowing little of code and having a dnd / warhammer /LotR imagination. Now time has passed and you can see a lot of interest has too. Make the game as you intended it, get it on the App Store and then adjust from there before interest dwindles completely.
Thanks for the feedback. To be honest, the delays that I've experienced have been mainly due to unexpected bugs in the code that appeared only when I pushed to an actual device. Also a bit of underestimating time for final tweaks and gameplay / balance adjustments. If interest has dwindled ... there's not much I can do about that. I'd rather put out a quality product than rush something out the door that was sub-par. Hopefully, once I've put on the final polish and put up some more demo videos and screenshots, interest will pick up a bit before it's released.
er, i respectfully disagree. "Spewing out" suggestions? Even if your choice of words is not the best, i - and others who participated in beta also- responded to the dev asking for suggestions. The delays, as he explains, were not because of us "spewing out" our suggestions, but because of bugs and timing. Furthermore, if interest is a bit low atm, it's because it went from "i'll be able to play this game in some weeks" to being delayed due to bugs and tweaks. I may speak for myself, but this doesn't mean that i will not buy it the instant it comes out, whenever that is.
