I've been spending a while on that slot machine thing, and I think that I'll spend a few more days on it. It's a complex attack and a complex skill in the same vein. Otherwise the boss fight is pretty straightforward, you shoot at FirstClass F while he tries to run away from you and you hope that the slot machine doesn't spell your doom!
Time spent on the project so far: 502 hours
Currently working on: Boss fight against FirstClass F
Animated screenshot after the jump: Slot machine!
I think I'm happy about how FirstClass F moves now, he'll try to evade you the best he can. The only thing that I can't figure out how to 'fix' is the acid gun, because you can hit the little guy even when he's behind a wall! Now I have to work on the slots.
My initial idea was to have them do various things, then I decided that the Elemental Blasts would fill that role. But now I'm not so sure anymore. I think that the slots should still do various things. It's entirely luck-based, after all! So it can be a bit unbalanced and unpredictable.
Time spent on the project so far: 498 hours
Currently working on: Boss fight against FirstClass F
While this is not the core issue of the design of 100RTBD, I want to talk about the weirdness I experience regarding sexless robots. They're robots. The members of the Security Seven are things that were built by someone, somewhere, and therefore they don't have a gender and I want them to make them as gender-less as possible. How would someone go in order to do that? Since they're robots, they don't have any reason to behave in a girly or manly fashion - who knows, maybe the race that built them doesn't even have such constructs - but that's a bit hard to convey when all you have is two-frame animations and blocks of text.
They're all kickass robots that excel at what they do, but they shouldn't really act in a male or female capacity. That's not something that I can figure out easily, so if anyone has ideas or comments to add on that topic, I'm all ears!
Time spent on the project so far: 496 hours
Currently working on: Boss fight against FirstClass F
Screenshot after the jump: Early scene of the boss fight
FirstClass F fights with slot machine reels. Three reels to be exact. At fixed intervals during the fight, the reels will spin, and depending on the results, different patterns of bullets will be shot around. When he's not spinning reels, FirstClass F will just try to get away from the player as to not get shot.
That might take a bit of time to code, since I have to make the reel system from scratch, and it has to look AT LEAST okay. I know that I lack the artistic talent to create art and music that would match the idea I have in my idea, but I at least try to make everything look fine.
Time spent on the project so far: 494 hours
Currently working on: Advancing the story
Almost at the room where you fight FirstClass F! Only two rooms left to be precise! And they're not too complicated, they should be done by tomorrow! The fight will probably take a few days by itself, but then I'll be able to move on with other stuff! Woo!
Time spent on the project so far: 492 hours
Currently working on: Advancing the story
I'm moving right along with new rooms, new challenges and new stuff! The fight against FirstFlass F and the shifting to State-6 is also pretty soon! State-6 is Darkness world, probably a lot to do with semi-opaque veils of darkness on the screen to obscure the various rooms of the game. But right now I have to move along with the scheduled content. The current room I'm working on has a machine that dispenses fake InfoPacks!
Time spent on the project so far: 491 hours
Currently working on: Advancing the story
I've made two more rooms, create a new challenge, new gear and items. Now I think that all the side-stuff you could do at this point is completed, and I'll be able to go back on the main point story path shortly. I've also spent some time looking at all rooms with InfoPacks in them and making sure that when you picked them up, it would properly despawn them the next time.
I fear that there is still some InfoPack leakage somewhere, maybe in a cutscene where you get one or something like that, I'll have to figure that out one way or another, either by replaying the whole game or finding something randomly.
Time spent on the project so far: 489 hours
Currently working on: Advancing the story
I should play the game again because there was a disparity between the number of InfoPacks in my possession and the numbers that I 'think' I should have at this point. I however found that some rooms didn't properly destroy the InfoPacks you already collected in them, so that might explain this. I'm going to stick with that theory until I play the game again, then I'll check it more thoroughly.
There also was a bug where rooms you had already visited wouldn't properly destroy the C6 blocks in them after you reloaded the game, that's also fixed. It's not gamebreaking so I won't release a hotfix just for that.
Time spent on the project so far: 487 hours
Currently working on: Advancing the story
Your save won't carry over, you may experience different bugs and things that don't make much sense, you might find new things that didn't work before but now do. 100RTBD is a labor of love; it's a game I'm making because I love that kind of game, and it's to show myself that I can do it. It's about 25% completed. Please play it and comment in some fashion? Thanks!
Time spent on the project so far: 485 hours
Currently working on: Playing the game
So, what could I do to make 100RTBD stand out a bit more? Does it need to? Should I try and make the graphics more unique? Is there some gameplay mechanic I haven't thought of that would work with this kind of game and make it seem more interesting? Or am I just working on something that can't get any better - for better or worse?
In any case, I'm still testing it by playing through it and going everywhere to find out how it all holds out. And it holds out fine indeed! You should probably expect a playable release tomorrow!
Time spent on the project so far: 483 hours
Currently working on: Playing the game
After a week spent on the game, now I'm mostly testing everything I have so far, fixing bugs, balancing things here and there and making sure everything plays fine. Some things had to be fixed, but overall I'm happy with the feel of the game. I might release another playable version soon, even if we're not at entry three hundred yet ;)
Time spent on the project so far: 481 hours
Currently working on: Playing the game
Here's a video, that's it for today! I'm currently correcting a few of the bugs you might have seen during it.
Time spent on the project so far: 480 hours
Currently working on: Playthrough video and fixing bugs
I've been hit by some limitations of the way I've coded the dialog system in my game. Mainly that NPCs and events can't really span more than one box of text without me having to create flags specifically for them. I can also use the global 'Story State', but I only want to use that for main story stuff. So when you encounter someone else or read a computer screen, you're going to get three lines of text, max. I wanted to have a way to display more text on a specific subject - without needing to do weird things like putting three computers in a room in order to get 9 lines - so I've made big text boxes.
Specific computers - you'll know them when you see them - use these text boxes to expand the story even more. 100RTBD is about exploration and growth, but it's also about the story, since after all, 'Story' is the thing I wanted to do with this game in contrast to, let's say, Friday The 2013th or my other titles.
Tomorrow I'm probably going to record my commentated playthrough, so you should see that pop around sometime during the weekend, or even tomorrow! Don't miss it!
Time spent on the project so far: 477 hours
Currently working on: Side areas
Creating the rooms of side-content isn't as straightforward as going with the main path, I have to play in the game and find places where you couldn't go before that are unlocked with new movement abilities. So far, everything I've encountered is fine, but maybe at some point my design doc will tell me to make a room with enemies too powerful and I'll have to move stuff around. That being said, I think I have maybe 4 more rooms to make before I return to the primary quest.
I've also decided to maybe not include so many items with the "Increase Skill Effect" modifier on them. Skill effects are very powerful and right now they're gated by levels, and that works fine for me. I think that instead these items will boost certain aspects of specific skills, these boosts might be compounded with skill effects, but it's much more targeted than powering all skills up
Time spent on the project so far: 475 hours
Currently working on: Continuing the story
Screenshot after the jump: Another look at the map
New enemies! New items! New rooms! Stuff is being created and the game is going fine! The latest item is a buff that revives you when you die, it's going to be useful for boss fights and difficult challenges, because while you never lose much progress when you die in 100RTBD, you are sent back to the beginning of the current room. The new enemy type shoots homing bullets and is very powerful, watch out!
Time spent on the project so far: 470 hours
Currently working on: Continuing the story
With E3 going on, I forgot to post this, but don't worry! I'm spending most of my free time this week on 100RTBD, and it should mean that a bunch of new rooms get made, further advancing the story! New items and enemies too! And probably some kind of video on friday! Videogames!
Time spent on the project so far: 467 hours
Currently working on: Continuing the story
Plenty of side-story stuff to work on right now, since you're exploring previously locked sections of the planet in order to find the two InfoPacks you need to continue on your journey of discovery and power. A lot of stuff is going on at the same time on Plan-X, mysterious actors behind the scenes, items and gear to find, levels to get and challenges to complete. I'm still making rooms, at least, so the progress is steadily stacking up.
Next week is almost full time work on 100RTBD! Get hype!
Time spent on the project so far: 464 hours
Currently working on: Continuing the story
According to very crude completion metrics (Number of rooms created), I am about 23% done with 100RTBD. It's true that the actual completion percentage might be somehow different because rooms aren't all created equal, but I think it's still a pretty accurate representation on how the project is going. Multiplying by 4 (to make the math more simple) arrives at around 1852 hours total to make this game. Which would mean approximately two and a half years at the rate of two hours per day, or less than one at a regular 40 hours work week. Huh.
Time spent on the project so far: 463 hours
Currently working on: Continuing the story
I had to spend most of today working on a weird bug I've just discovered where you can get 'stuck' in walls and jump infinitely if you just hold the arrow towards the wall and jump. This isn't a desired comportment so I had to fix it and it was something about the way colliders are set in order to make up the basic shape of the main character. With that out of the way - and most of my sickness gone - I'll be able to carry on tomorrow!
Time spent on the project so far: 461 hours
Currently working on: Continuing the story
Screenshot after the jump: Admiral A is stuck!
Still sick, I've added a challenge room where enemies are healed by poison droplets and I've fixed a few bugs here and there. It's crazy how many little details stack up both in code and design whenever you generate new content. I suppose being a good designer is to be able to see ahead and to quickly change gears when what you thought would be best doesn't pan out!
Time spent on the project so far: 460 hours
Currently working on: Continuing the story