I have been working on several things lately: Keyboard shortcuts for quickbar, adding  soundManager,  combat calculations based on damage/armor lookup table, item cooldown and  restricting map teleporting. (more…)

While playtesting the game lately, I had noticed that the combat was bit boring, so I decided to try different approach. Instead of relying to automatic melee based on weapon speed, I set up an action based melee system. So now you need to “swing” the weapon yourself, by pressing the quickbar slot (  I will  also add keyboard support to the system later).

The combat is now much more dynamic and game feels much more responsive.  There still is weapon speed calculation, since once you have used the weapon, there will be cooldown period, and you cant use the weapon during it.  Same mechanism is applied to spells, potions and so on. Once again, I didn’t invent this, but just lended the idea from other games.

I have been working with the outdoor maps lately. I created a cliff  graphics, by modifying lostgarden.com free graphics.

So now I have hills, which give good gameplay possibilities in level design. Here are few screengrabs:

Here is a test level with some gates and mushrooms. I know the visual style of backgrond textures and items are not in perfect harmony, but thats just something I have to accept right now. I’ll polish everything once I have time (probably when I retire…).

Here is another picture, showing hill tile with water. I have just activated the Emerald Ring, and you can see the spell effect (the pink disk on ground) and those slimes are geting some serious damage.

Having hills and water will make level design much more versatile,  so Im pretty happy about this progress =)

I have made nice progress again. I implemented an  item transfer to the quest system, and I also have a world map teleport functionality up.

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I have been suprisingly productive lately. First I created those funny monsters  (check previous post), then I whipped up a Bog Imp, flying insect-like thing in mere seconds (well, it did actually take bit longer, to tell the truth) and now I have created a beautiful ghost mage lady. (more…)

I did some fast tests for a green slime / oozemonster and it appeared good, so I did some other “crazy” monster designs also.

Funny looking stuff. I’ll make them move relatively slowly and deal A lot of damage… so they are easy avoid – unless you get caught on narrow corridor with dozen of them…

The green slime creature is something that I have been fond of since game Times of Lore.  In that old rpg there were slime creatures in dungeons, which were relatively harmless but hard to kill, since hitting them would often make them split to two. Wonderfull stuff, back in 80’s…

In the latest build I just uploaded I am testing Google Flash tracker to get some metrics of player behaviour. This is just testrun, and only thing I’m tracking is dungeon rooms entered. But just that information can be valuable when fine tuning the game. (more…)

I had a small break in the development, but Im back again. Last night I fixed most of the combat bugs. I also have created a male player graphics. Not much clothes yet, but on the other hand, he will be going to hot places beneath ground. So no need for fur, really.

I’ll post new build once I have spare time.

Well, it’s a working title, you know.

Anyway, there is a new build up, with lots of new stuff (and some new bugs, I’m afraid).

Main features of the game are now present: combat, different areas (rooms in this build mostly), switchable weapons and shields, several different monsters (only 3 so far though), loot, chests with more loot, simple quest system, area effect spells and a handy teleport spell.

So why not head towards Latest build page, give it a try and drop some comments?

I made a world map test. Not sure how to incorporate this to the game, but now that I have a map, Im sure I’ll figure out how to use it =)

I find that having maps like this trigger imagination and you sort of “find” the story with no heavy effort.

[edit] Well hmm, yes, maybe I’ll use it as progression visualizer and  “teleport shortcuts” as everyone else is doing…

I have made good progress with the project. Item saving now works well, and I managed to create a quest system in a very short time. Here is how it works: (more…)