Lots of stuff...

I added a locked teleport/key feature. It’s still bit limited, but makes good addition to feature list. Any item class can be set to be a key to a teleport instance, so for example you could set  BlueKey to to be key item for teleport01. Then when player steps on teleport01, a check is made through his inventory items, and if BlueKey is found, the teleport will activate.

I also added simple CampaignLoot system, you can specify item to be dropped by a NPC. So you can set up a dungeo room with 6 monsters, one of them carrying a key to the teleport out of the room – so player just can’t run through the room, he must kill the monster first… or die trying =)

I also created second spell, sort of frost flames… not really spectacular, but I’ll consentrate on the effect visuals later.

There is so much stuff now in the game, I need to create proper inventory system pretty soon…

Some shields... which one would you pick?

Today I switched to artist mode and made some concept graphics for shields. Some of them turned out pretty nice, and are ready to be imported to the game assets.  Swords and other bladed  weapons seem to be much harder to make, making a convincing steel is not straightforward, because weapons are animated, so painting reflections on texture might look stupid. I might try some gentle animated effect to achieve steel material effect… we will see.

Although I have had very little time to spend on the project, I have made good progress. I have introduced several new features to the engine, and everything is starting to come together.  It is actually starting to feel like playing a game. Marvellous! (more…)

After little rest, Im back on the project. Next big thing to do is to make the whole area system completely dynamic, so I can have multiple “campaigns” using the game system. (more…)

I just managed to get first sneak peak version of the game/engine out, you can find it  in Latest Build section, check it out!

Im pretty satisfied overall, but naturally there is lots and lots of things to improve. But now basic game mechanics are fleshed out, so it will be  easy to continue from here.

I have been crashing bugs and cleaning up stuff so I could release first sneak peak version of the game engine. There is still some work to do, but hopefully I get the thing out next week. (more…)

I did some preliminary spell coding.  For fire effect, I found an exellent example in depths of web, in Mike T. Henderson Blog. I converted the example to as3, did some integrating to the engine, and result looks quite good.  (more…)

In a comment to an earlier post, Callan kindly suggested a timesaving tip to speedup animation process.  This gave me idea to show a timeline snapshot, so you can get idea of the animation level I am aiming for:

Animating characters is fun ... but takes time

Yes, it is getting quite complicated… and to add some more complexity, one needs to consider framerate issues  with different computer setups…

Making monster graphics is fun, but I need to cut corners here too. Animating walk sequences for legged monsters takes time, so I try to make as many legless mosters as possible. Here are some fast monster designs I have made lately:

As you can see, all kind of floating ghostly monsters are ideal…  Naturally there needs to be large variety of monsters, all can’t be just floating balls and disks. But these simple designs will give me something to work with when setting up the combat system.

I have been on summer vacation, and travelling, so i haven’t had much time to code. But now I’m back =)

I’ve been working on area loading and saving. Saving is not complete yet,  but I probably get it ready quite soon. All collectibles (items that can be picket to inventory) and npc’s will be saved, so when you return to area, it will be as you left it.

I made the container looting “easy way” – items are just placed on the ground near the container. Works well enough, so I can proceed with other stuff:

Pick up what you need...

I’m also making the player weapon switchable, so once you loot a weapon you can actually use it. Weapons will have 3 different “modes” in the ui: lying on the ground (as loot), being in inventory and being used by player/npc.  I’ll try to use single image for each purpose, so graphics production load remains as small as possible at this point.

Also Shields will be switchable in similar manner.