zaterdag 24 augustus 2013

Week 34 - Update.

Did some more work, finally fixed some of the threading issues. It was interesting, and frustrating. Now on to fix the speed system. Did make one minor GUI improvment. Almost impossible to spot.

And I thought I had fixed the, generate mob at same spot as the player bug. Seems I did not. Added that to the bug list again. Probably related to placing groups of mobs at once.

Update: Fixed the double placement bug, and some other minor bugs. But now the BasicMonsterAI is now not providing proper move action objects to the mainloop. So none of the monsters act. Easiest. Game. Ever.

donderdag 15 augustus 2013

WIP Screenshots.


This is how it looks now. Current looks based on the work done by Will Thimbleby. This will change later.

Currently each monster and player starts with a body composed of a tree structure of bodyparts.
As you can see here. The torso supplies slots for the arms, legs, head and tail slots. All of which are filled, except the tail slot. The monster of Frankenstein did not have a tail.

Body parts from monsters can be chopped of randomly, as can yours. But that has little effect. Only different modes of attack are gained from body parts. It is possible to chop off multiple bodyparts in one go, but so far the implemented body part structures are not complicated enough for that to really be effective.

The body part system is lacking in the fun factor. I have been wondering how to make randomly swapping out of body parts fun. (And the body parts display can also use some work). There is also the problem of chopping of the head of the player. Instant game over. That is not fun.

vrijdag 12 april 2013

Getting the first strike.

keithburgun from dinofarmgames was wondering if they could do away with the skip turn button, as the most common usage for it was to simply get the first strike in on the monster.

He correctly points out a few problems with the 'skip turn to let the monster come closer' feature. Suggesting to just remove the skip turn function.

I was wondering how to do better, dislike removing basic options. Any skills that allows waiting for a turn should now be checked or penalized so they cannot be wait abused. Leading to developer complications, and player frustration. "Why can't I wait a turn?"

Perhaps, have some sort of bonus for moving into the dangerous zone next to the monster. Some sort of charge attack, or defense bonus. Or make the mobs smarter, and also wait a turn, perhaps using ranged low level weaponry where appropriate (tossing those junk items it picked up earlier, or body parts, or parts of the scenery, there sure is something interesting to be done with this).

Giving a defense/dodge bonus if the mob moved last turn would be interesting. And solve some of the problems with waiting. This bonus only applies if the mob moved last turn, if a turn is spend using any other skill/ability the bonus is lost. With the skill system I want to implement (more on that later, I made it needlessly complicated). Could have certain situations give more or less defense. A mob with the expert tumbler skill getting a higher bonus.

A charge bonus sounds even better. Or have certain combat skills that work automatically. A skilled fighter gets a attack/damage bonus if he makes an attack in the direction he attacked last turn. Using these powers would be automatic, so the player needs to learn no new keyboard combinations. It will need to give feedback to the player. So they know that a special attack was performed. And to make it easier for players to see requirements for special attacks, any special attacks triggered should be added to a game wide help system.

So, now I'm thinking that I should implement a monster that shouts when it moves next to the player, giving any nearby monsters (and itself) a temporary attack bonus. This should prevent players from waiting to long to attack.