Custom made challenges are quite the pain and there are plenty in 100RTBD; In this one, you need to protect Defender D by blocking acid shot at him with your own body; if a single one of those hits the center, you lose. Winning will give you the Riot Shield, a powerful item that can use the Barrier skill whenever you shoot! Now I can move on with non-complicated rooms!
Currently working on: Continuing the story
Time spent on the project so far: 746 hours
Screenshot: Defender D challenge
Some new gear and items were created today and I'm now working on a challenge that gives some more new gear. I thought it would be straightforward to 90 infopacks, but I guess I was wrong, there are a few meandering rooms that I'll have to make first, but I'll get there for sure!
Oh yeah, I'll release a new playable version just before the 90th infopack, maybe I'll even play the whole thing again to make sure?
Currently working on: Continuing the story
Time spent on the project so far: 744 hours
Screenshot: Giant ExaSolBot fight
A few rooms were done today, I'm at 563 rooms so far and it's going quite well. The rooms I'm working on right now don't have many moving parts, so a bunch of them can be created in a short period of time. Still looking towards that 90th InfoPack...
Currently working on: Continuing the story
Time spent on the project so far: 743 hours
Screenshot: Blaze it, Ensign E!
I'm currently working on that stretch of the game where the player moves in some unexplored areas of previous States in order to collect Infopack 81 to 90. Not much to talk about here, besides the fact that I'm really excited to get to the 90th infopack, since it means the introduction of the B&R Engine, which will probably change a lot for me (and the player when they find it!) Keep hope, Admiral A, your story will end someday!
Currently working on: Continuing the story
Time spent on the project so far: 742 hours
Screenshot: Some room in State-7
Content. That's all there's left to do for GEAR LINK, I think. I need hooks for the endgame, but besides that, all that's left is content. I have 53 levels done out of the 100 I want to make, and GEAR is also about halfway done. With the number of days remaining, I'm not sure I'll be able to create all the remaining content before the end of the jam, but the game is totally playable and I think really fun so far.
Of course, I'd feel bad releasing an unfinished game; The very core idea of GEAR LINK is the famicase game ITEM CONNECT, which states "In ITEM CONNECT, there are a ton of items to find. Too many to count! Get ready to ITEM CONNECT." so not having enough content would feel like it doesn't respect the spirit of the original. I'll try to have at least the ending hook done for the end of the jam, and maybe I'll put a few more days on it to complete it before I release it on android!
Time spent on the game so far: 63 hours
About half of the game's content is done, from GEAR to levels, so that's nice. I still have about a week to finish everything up and since most mechanics are done, it shouldn't take much more than that time. If I don't manage to create all that content, I'll still have a fun game, so it'll be a net win, but I really really want to get everything in before then. Time to GEAR LINK!
Time spent on the game so far: 55 hours
Now I have music and sound effects in and I'm currently working on testing the mechanics I'm tacking up on the game. I have to be careful not to add too many mechanics, but at the same time, I can't prevent me from integrating my ideas! There's a bit more than a week left and I still have about 75% of the content of the game to create, but I think I can do it!
Time spent on the game so far: 43 hours
A bunch of levels, items and mechanics were added since last time, the most significant of which are spells. Spells are tiles that don't end your turn and add their power cost to your character. Then, random tiles become empowered and by linking them, you lower your power, when it's at 0, all the spells you have cast since the last time your power went to 0 are cast, so you can queue a long list of spells, but it'll take more power to make them happen. Now I'm working on the specific mechanics of each spell, and today I'll probably try to add music and sound effects to the game.
Time spent on the game so far: 40 hours
Empty potions are now more or less in the game! They're GEAR that you need to LINK into other GEAR in order to create stat-buffing potions, they are the first GEAR with a multi-colored LINK arrow, so it means they can chain to many types of GEAR! They take two turns to activate, but their effects are powerful and can really help - if you can manage your health. That's one of the issues I'm having with how the game is balanced right now; Just managing your health is enough, if you can heal constantly, enemies die sooner or later. How am I going to fix that?
Time spent on the game so far: 26 hours
Balance is hell of a thing, especially when you're not sure how the flow of the game will go. How much do I want the player to grind? What should they grind? Could they grind everything and come out okay? I had to really tone down enemy damage lately, because even at a range of 0-8, taking 8 damage is devastating. Now I feel that the amount of gold you need to buy new GEAR might be a bit too costly. I still have two weeks left to get this on the right track, but it'll be a challenge!
Time spent on the game so far: 23 hours
I've done the screen where you can look at your GEAR, I'll add options to sort it by type, power and ID at some point, but right now it's good enough. I've also started working on level 2, which introduces loot and gold. I think the game is going at a right pace, but I hope it starts picking up next week when I don't have speedruns for charity to watch :)
Time spent on the game so far: 15 hours
Tutorial 2 is almost done and that marks the beginning of the 'actual' game, since after tutorial 2, you start fighting for a good while. I still have a few kinks to work out too, like the damage being dealt not registering properly. The core concept of the game is to get a bunch of different gear, so I'll have to be careful with balance and gear creation. The way you unlock new gear to buy (and upgrade, maybe? I'm thinking about upgrades) is by completing challenges. The progress of health and attack (and the scaling of enemies) is also something I'll have to think a bit about.
Time spent on the project so far: 10 hours
The AGBIC jam has started and the concept is making a game based on the Famicase 2016 entries; which is an art thing where you make fake (but real looking) Famicom carts. I've chosen Item Connect (http://famicase.com/16/softs/09.html) which is inspiring me to make a puzzle RPG that I'm going to call GEAR LINK. I have the core idea of the game, but I don't have much in terms of gameplay yet. With this week being SGDQ2016, it's a bit difficult to work on it as much as I could, but no excuses! Here's what I have so far!
Time spent working on the project: 5 hours
The General G³ fight is done as well, so now I'm free to move on to State-9, the second to last area of the game! I still feel that the light gun is too strong, either that or my bosses take more than one hit per attack, but that's debugging I'll do later. In three days, I'll more or less start work on the famicase-based gamejam, so 100RTBD will be on hold again!
Currently working on: Continuing the story
Time spent on the project so far: 740 hours
Screenshot: General G³ fight
The FirstClass F³ fight is pretty much done, it's a bit annoying because you have to ghost/unghost to get around the walls and hit it, but it's not too bad of a boss fight. It might be cheesable with the light gun as well. I have the impression that the Power of Three boss fights are too easy, but I'll work on that more on a later balance pass. Only need to make General G³ - which should be done tomorrow - and then I'm done with this part of the game! This bodes well since I'm starting a new game jam on july first!
Currently working on: Continuing the story
Time spent on the project so far: 739 hours
Screenshot: FirstClass F³ fight
Ensign E³ is almost done, but I'm still not sure about a few things; Do I want it to be hit when it's in the middle of the screen? Maybe I should prevent that. Also I'm not too keen on the projectile pattern it shoots right now, since it's super hard to dodge. I'll probably tweak that a bit.
Currently working on: Continuing the story
Time spent on the project so far: 738 hours
Screenshot: Ensign E³ fight
Defender D³ gave me a bit of trouble because the way I want it to work is for its shield to absorb bullets and unleash attacks when it has absorbed enough, then go off for a while, then go back up. I messed around with a few ways of doing this, but I think I've found the best one and implemented it.
The Power of Three bosses aren't that bad, but try beating them at level 1 and tell me what you think ;)
Currently working on: Continuing the story
Time spent on the project so far: 737 hours
Screenshot: Defender D³ fight
Colonel C³ is done and I've started work on Defender D³, I'll probably be done with the Power of Three fights this week and then I'll be able to move to State-9, Tempo. Good boss fights are kinda hard to make, but I hope they'll be fine! Colonel C³ spins its sword around and moves around the room, when you shoot it, the sword gets bigger, making it even more dangerous. I'd recommend using a small number of powerful attacks instead of plenty of weak ones!
Currently working on: Continuing the story
Time spent on the project so far: 736 hours
Screenshot: Colonel C³ fight
This boss rush of the "Power of Three" series is all about dangerous high-risk fights. At this point in the game, the player will still have plenty of options to defeat them, so they're not too difficult. I do have to keep in mind that me finding a boss easy doesn't mean that everyone will, so I try and make them on the easy side. Brigadier B³ is done, and now I'm working on Colonel C³, which should be done tomorrow! Watch out for that giant blade, Admiral!
Currently working on: Continuing the story
Time spent on the project so far: 735 hours
Screenshot: Brigadier B³ fight
Now this is for real, the boss rush starts, six rooms where you have to fight the Power Of Three series. This is going to take a while and balance out all of these 'empty' rooms that take about 15 minutes to create or so. The percentage of overall game completion based on the number of room is kinda iffy because there's much content in the game that isn't tied to specific rooms, but at the same time rooms require the generation of that content, so it kinda evens out.
Currently working on: Continuing the story
Time spent on the project so far: 733 hours