Entry One Hundred And Fifty Five

Not much to talk about today! I'm almost done with that bit of the State-2 spaceship the player will visit at that point in the game. Then I have to create the State-3 version and after that, out of the spaceship you go! There is a door in the spaceship with the number 20 on it that turns into transparent blocks if you go to State-2 or below, it means that you'll be able to go through once you get the appropriate ability and that above State-2 you'll be able to just waltz in. There are a few doors like that in the game. Of course, when you get the B&R Engine later on, you'll be able to visit almost everything.

Currently working on: Continuing the story

Time spent on the project so far: 284 hours

Entry One Hundred And Fifty Three

After re-reading yesterday's entry, I've been wondering. Are optional challenge rooms the best vector to give new guns to the player? It means that if you don't go through any of them, you'll only have the starting basic gun to tackle the world with. Some guns have better reach, some have elemental properties and some are just plain weird. I was going to say that it's possible to beat the whole game with the basic pistol, but that's not true since enemies in State-8 (Inver) are immune to damage and can only be killed by being healed, and that gun will be given to the player alongside the critical path. 

I feel that it's okay if I give away cool gear in such places, since challenges are bonus rooms with bonus content that player can live without - although new guns and gun parts are a pretty good reason to attempt them! There is also an achievement tied to the number of completed challenges, so that's that.

Currently working on: Continuing the story

Time spent on the project so far: 280 hours

Entry One Hundred And Forty Nine

Making a new room, I encountered the well known issue of having to place some items in a chest. As of right now, the items aren't all programmed - only the ones I've added to the game are. It's giving me issues where I have to decide what item is going to go in a chest and that's informed by how complicated items are to be added in the game. Which item to add? Should I take one that's easy to code - like an usable item that restores some health - or something more complex?

This has lead me to thinking about the advantages of coding everything right now - new enemies, new guns, new items, new skills - so it'll all be done and I could just carry one with the story, placing items/enemies and things like that. It would make that process way faster, but on the other hand I would spend a few days/weeks just making items and enemies and stuff. I'll think about it! 

Currently working on: Continuing the story

Time spent on the project so far: 273 hours

Entry One Hundred And Forty Seven

Many bugs were fixed this weekend, things related to equipping multi-block gun parts over spots that are disabled and the way cards work. Now the menu has a better framerate than 10fps and the whole story for the cards is written. I've also changed the experience requirement for enemies and adjusted the knowledge they give when defeated so stronger enemies give more and take less kills to fully unlock. I'll keep on making new rooms and content tomorrow!

Currently working on: Continuing the story

Time spent on the project so far: 270 hours

Entry One Hundred And Forty Six

So far I was building cards by hand, meaning that each entry in the card table was created like so:

allCards.Add(new Card("octobot","/enemies/base/octobot (2)",false); //Repeat 289 more times

And that was quite annoying and frankly, could be optimized into three loop statements. I've done so, and discovered to my great surprise that I didn't have 300 different enemies, but rather 270, 10 states * 9 enemy ranks (I thought I had ten) * 3 types of enemies. Therefore, my exp calculations to get to ten thousand weren't accurate. Therefore, now bosses give 68 experience instead of 50 and the required enemy kill count is now 32 instead of 30. 

I've also used that opportunity to show the whole card menu as it will appear when you've defeated all the enemies in the game. That lead me to notice that the framerate in it was atrocious, so now I'm fixing that. It'll allow me to see how much space I have for the backstory of this game as well, since it's stored on cards.

Currently working on: Continuing the story

Time spent on the project so far: 265 hours

Entry One Hundred And Forty Three

Twenty-three infopacks done, only sixty seven to go and the game is completed! I jest, 100RTBD is much more than collecting a hundred infopacks, actually you won't need them all to complete the main story of the game, I couldn't say on the top of my head how many you'll need, but it's not all of them. However, if you're curious about the story and lore of this game, you'll try and get them all to get the 'best' ending. Much of the story is optional in my game, but you'll be able to seek it out if you explore and read documents left around. I just don't want to force-feed it to people and be really hamfisted about obvious plot twists and story elements.

Currently working on: Continuing the story

Time spent on the project so far: 260 hours

Entry One Hundred And Forty

I fixed the way that multi-block gun parts work and now I'm working on a giant ice worm boss. Since giant enemies are just enemies oversized, the snow whirl that surrounds it will be scaled up as well. It'll be impossible to avoid the snow whirl and therefore the player won't be able to jump very high, thus bullets will always hit the player. That's not really desired gameplay mechanics, so I'll figure out something. Maybe sliding ice blocks that you can jump on?

Currently working on: Continuing the story

Time spent on the project so far: 253 hours