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Dev Log # 6 Demo Construction Part 1

The next thing I want to do for this year is start to work on construction for what will be the demo of the game whenever it goes on Kickstarter.

This means I need to write a script(done, but will probably talk about this in a later Dev log), design levels, and block levels using prototype assets.

I spent time working on the later two things this month.

There's a concept in DND called the 5 Room Dungeon that is a dungeon philosophy for each room or area of a typical DND dungeon. It goes like this:

Guardian/Entrance - The thing guarding the dungeon from you or other people in this world

Puzzle/Roleplaying Challenge - Exactly what it sounds like

Trick or Setback - Something that impedes progress that is unexpected

Climax, Big Battle, or Conflict - The biggest fight in the dungeon/boss

Reward, Revelation, or Twist - The resolution to the dungeon in one way or another

And these can go in different orders. Based on how it serves the level.

Obviously, this isn't game structure. So with this in mind I was curious as to how it could imply to video games, specifically to Golden Sun which is one of this games inspirations. So I looked at the very first dungeon(using this video).

Using that structure, it obviously lent itself pretty well to that structure which I found interesting.

The main difference is that the setback, usually, isn't one room. Its a series of rooms or puzzles that make up the whole area. Thats how games usually treat it. With that in mind, I started designing and thinking about my own with this stuff in mind.

Entrance

Excuse my scribbles, but this is what I got for the first area the player will explore when the game starts. It immediately teaches them a later mechanic(hopping on rubble/pillars). The central object on the pyramid is a story point, after which, you leave the same way you came in

2. Puzzle

This second room has a jump puzzle with optional routes. 1 route leads you to the next area and the other route leads you to a treasure chest, incentivizing the player to explorer and go off the beaten path.

The room to proceed has a big gap that can only be crossed after the player learns the ability to create bridges out light, after a brief cut scene and tutorial.

The goal is to try and get both of these(and hopefully more levels) done by the next months update. I started blocking the entrance and it looks like this.

I'll show off more designs and implementations next month. Thanks for reading !

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Dev Log #5 - Treasures, Items, and NPCs

Alright for this month my goal was to mess around with UI and my items a bit. I started by creating a tentative pause menu like this.

Not all of those buttons are implemented yet, but I did decide I wanted to start with the item system.

The Item system utilizes Godots dictionary capabilities.

These items can be found in various ways in the game, but in this case treasure chests and npcs can give out items too so I prototyped that.

This is a treasure chest in this test version.

This is going to be an NPC in this test version.

The goal was to have the NPC have some test dialogue and give an item, and a treasure chest able to give an item as well.

Here's what I ended up with:

With that I have pretty much the building blocks of an RPG the plan with this now is to start creating a demo that will be playable with a Kickstarter launch. This is the farthest I've made it in the outline since the set back with switching from Unity to Godot so pretty excited to start tangibly building stuff.

Anyway, thanks for reading and see you next month!

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Dev Log #4 Common RPG features + Exploration scene

So this month I got more done earlier than I thought:

Create an exploration scene

Connect that exploration scene to the battle scene

Have transitions from exploration to battle then back to exploration

Implement part of the magic system in the game

Start the inventory system

Managed to do all of those in some way shape or form!

The exploration system involved looking at some of my favorite games to see how they handled it, one of them being Golden Sun.

One of my favorite games ever(and kind of underrated), but the Psynergy system in that game I always thought was pretty cool. It's essentially a magic system that allows you to traverse the world, and I thought the mechanic in its base form would do well in my ARPG.

Here is a quick video showing it off:

So I spent some time implementing an exploration scene like that of my own, and implementing one of the many exploration magics in the game. Its all still in the prototyping phase with simple geometry to symbolize the player and the enemy, but it gets the point across.

When its polished there will be a transition screen akin to a lot of other RPGs, but I wanted to get the basics down before worrying about polish.

I'll talk more about the inventory system next month as well as some primitive dialogue systems.

Thanks for reading!

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Dev Log #3: Impit Animations + Battle Scene

Hit my goals this month:

This month I had to:

Finish the rest of the attack animations for the Impit

Implement a battle state system, begin match, end match etc

Implemented a guard mechanic to respond to enemy attacks

Added a style meter

Pretty busy month but I ended up hitting all of my goals. I won't be going into detail about all of those mechanics(maybe at a later month) butI will be talking about the enemy attack animations I did and the the battle state system.

Impit Spike Attack(Rough Draft)

A spikey, easily telegraphed attack. I kind of loosely based this off of Kirby but there was no 1:1 reference but it ended up working out. Its kind of hard to guard.

Impit Move(Rough Draft)

Kind of maleable goopy move. Not much else too it and I didn't use any reference aside from trying to look at how jello moves when you drop it. There was another move but honestly... It would be kind of reductive since it was a movement based attack like the jump I've already shown.

Here is a look at the full battle scene, with all of the enemy attacks.

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Dev Log #2: Hitstun

Alright, I added the attack animation from last month in the game which reminded me I needed a hitstun animation for the player when he gets hit(and the enemy). I'll also need to program the Guard/Parry mechanic to work on enemy hit, but that's for next month.

Since this game is inspired from fighting games, I studied DBFZ stun animations to see how they work. Here's a random video I found with me going frame by frame on this one.

Seemed pretty simple to me. It goes from idle to a sudden jerk back, probably so the impact is hit and then it spends the rest of the time recovering. I used this philosophy on two rough draft animations.

They kind of look like a weird dance without context/motion but in game they serve their function.

I added them in game. Heres a bit of footage with some combos at the end.

Thanks for giving this a read!

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Dev Log #1: Impit Jumping Attack! WIP Spent the week working on the attack for the most basic enemy in my game. It's a kind of jello creature who changes its shape to do different attacks.

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Hello, world!

Gonna post game stuff here sporadically. Thanks for stopping by!