Almost done with the Swamp Hole dungeon! I'm working on the last of the three bosses you can fight there, and then I'll have to implement the life upgrade mechanic and the Seal mechanic! Afterwards I suppose I'll move on to some more bits of the main overworld, but that's for another day!
I've been working on The Swamp Hole for the last few days - and I had real-life events messing up my work schedule. Now you can open golden doors in order to find some special items in the dungeon. The question in dungeons is either you TAKE the golden key at the end and grab the Seal and Life Upgrade or you continue running around and fight more bosses in order to get the purified seal and a weaker but more versatile life upgrade.
Talk || Take indeed!
I've worked on the minimap for dungeons lately (it was a bit more trouble than I wanted because I'm still using the 8x8 map to show dungeons that span on a 12x12 grid) and more basic dungeon stuff. For instance, if you enter a dungeon and quit/die, you restart the game at the entrance of the dungeon while if you quit/die in the overworld, you just restart in the starting location.
I also implemented chests that open only when you defeat all enemies in a room. You can now get a key from one of these chests! Keys do nothing right now, but that's next on my list. Dungeons in Talk || Take are a bit of an oddity; There are seals and life upgrades to grab in them, but just TAKING them might be a bad idea in the long run!
I've been working on the game's dungeons in the last few hours, mainly designing them and thinking about how they'll work. I've also implemented the bow mechanic and now I'll make the 'first' dungeon, the Swamp Hole. It's not really the 'first' dungeon because you can tackle them in any order, but it's the first I'll implement!
I'm working on plenty of new map tiles, mechanics and other NPC interactions. The current one I'm working on is Linke, the Fletcher. She resides in the Gloom Woods and can sell a variety of bows to you. You can also try and steal her bow, but she's the first NPC to fight back. These 'challenges' wont be actual fights but more like mini-events where you have to do something specific. For her, it'll be to dodge her arrows and get to her position without dying. You could try doing it on your first go, you could try getting a shield, you could try coming back with a lot of hearts...
Or you could just not TAKE her bow and buy it instead, you monster :D
Almost done with the world map! Well, the map itself. I decided I was better making a map of the world before creating it all in-game. Now I have at least a general idea of how the world will look.
As you can see, there are a few areas in the world; Forest, Castle, Mountain, Swamp, Beach, Plains, Islands, Sea and Graveyard.
I've worked on the world map lately and specifically the map item that lets you see a more detailed map with some descriptions. I'll also have to code the upgraded one that lets you teleport to certain locations, since you can TAKE it from the cartographer NPC as soon as you see her!
I'm still unsure about what happens when you die. I was thinking about half your money dropping and you could go and pick it back up. This seems like a good compromise between flat-out losing half your money and not having any consequences for dying!
More NPCs! More enemies! Chests! Pausing the game properly! Next thing I'm working on is the Cartographer NPC, she can give you a map to help you with your travel and even upgrade it to a magic map that allows to fast travel... You could also TAKE it, I guess.
I've worked a bit more on combat and the world map at large, building the map in the order that the player could go to it. 9x9 tiles seem fine, but I might need more than a total grid of 9x9 to fit all dungeons. I'll try adding more NPCs and items and quests now! You can also now continue your game and start a new one if you wanna overwrite it.
I've done a fair share of work this weekend! You can now talk with the first NPC and get either a pickaxe or a great sword. You also can use the inventory and equip items and you can swing your sword to damage an enemy and the enemy can damage you as well! Next up is to make the enemy move, allow the player to die, and all kinds of stuff.
And yes, all my sprites are edits from Zelda on NES, but that's because I'm terrible at art. All tiles for the world itself will be 'original', but that's not saying much!
Today I started working on the dialogue system, which is an important part - but also not too overbearing - of Talk || Take. In today's screenshot, you can see how it kinda works. In conversations you can steal NPC's items in addition to talking to them. This will give you different equipment as well as changing the story. Doing so might change the gameplay slightly as well.
For instance, the first NPC you meet is a blacksmith, he's working on a sword to vanquish evil, but he's not done with it yet. If you talk to him and agree to help, he will give you a pickaxe; A fairly weak weapon that you can use to mine ore in order to help him forge that sword. You can also steal the sword he currently has. It's a good sword and will help you dispatch your enemies more quickly, however, to get it at this point in the game you'll need to steal it and that means you'll forego the whole mining ore sidequest!
I've decided to take a small break from Gacha Hell; It's still a project that interests me, but there's just too much content that needs to be created in order for the game to work and the content creation by itself is just grunt work; Unfulfilling and without instant gratification. I want to make a smaller game that could be completed in a few weeks without having to create tons of content. I have a great idea! It's basically 'Zelda x Undertale' and I've named it "Talk || Take". I really hope I manage to make my idea come to life in its entirety. Please look forward to it!
I already have a few things, the movement and entering buildings kinda works, the main menu (although very simple) is also already done and I have some of the main UI completed as well.
Still working on skills. It's a bit tedious. This week is games done quick so productivity might also drop a bit.
I've worked on creating skills for the game for the last week, I'm done with designing almost all of them and still need to implement them. I've decided to go that route since most of Gacha Hell is pure content.
I've been working on the battle system for the last two weeks and now I think I have a good rhythm and I'll just need to keep pushing and add new mechanics and content to the game. The core gameplay is there and I'll be able to refine it as I iterate during my own playtesting.
The last week was kinda low-productivity since I was watching the RPG Limit Break Speedrun Marathon, but I still managed to get some stuff done, now enemies have 'proper' 'AI' and will attack players with various moves depending on some small fuzzy logic rules. I still have some more pieces of battle logic to code, mainly the formula for damage dealt by attacks and then I'll have to code player action selection and the use of player skills.
I'm now working on the battle systems of GACHA HELL, right now I have to define enemy stats and skills based on their locations, so this week will see a fair bit of game design, which might start getting implemented later on.
I've been working on the map screen of GACHA HELL for the past day and it's almost done for now. I still have to code stuff for events and quests, but right now this is all I need. Only a few tweaks are left, but I should start working on enemy stats and stuff like that tomorrow!
This weekend I've completed the 'Character Edit Screen' where you equip various weapons and armors. It's a bit similar to the 'Party Edit' screen, but it has some slight differences. Now I'm working on the map screen and after that is the battle screen! The main loop of the game is almost done!
This week was all about skills. How they're implemented, what they are, how they're shown in the game. I still have a few tweaks to do here and there, but the basis for my skill system is more or less done. Next up is the character edit screen where you can change gear and stuff like that (which should be easy) then I'll move on to the map screen. Maybe with some luck we'll have some gameplay by the end of next week?