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Lunar Artifacts - Devlog (5)

Updates

Haven't done too terribly much this week. Just some minor tweaking.

Mana Regeneration Fix: (Maybe using too much from WoW, but if we’re not casting / charging an ability, we gain the wisdom modifier amount in mana every second, and while fighting, every 5 seconds. 

Leveling Up: We can level up now! Thinking about instead of killing monsters to gain experience, completing a scene would give you the level up. Would offer a bit more structure for this small RPG. It’s not a MMO. It never will be. So, I shouldn’t act like that’s what we’re trying to make.

Player Panel: Reflects the player level + allows you to unequip weapons now! (I can’t believe I forgot about the need to unequip lol)

Fixed Spell Damage: Accidentally had it where every spell would add to the overall damage the spell could do. I was wondering why a series of spells hitting for 3, 4, 2, 3, would suddenly give me a 25+, haha. Now it actually sticks to the spell’s damage + associated stat modifier from the entity casting it. 😁

Talent Panel: Got the framework for a talent system to help customize your character.

Talents

Only problem is I’ve added nothing, haha. At least it looks okay. The bamboo connecting the talents were the first things I’ve ever done in pixel art that I actually like looking at. So, hopefully it’s the start of actually making decent art.

[chibachitv]

Lunar Artifacts - Devlog (4)

Updates

Revamped the entire spell system. Before, I would set the min and max damage a spell could do, and when it hit the enemy, it picked a random value between that. (Boring!)

Now, we have weapons with stats, and when equipped it'll boost up your stats as well. If a staff has +3 INT, equipping it will shockingly give you +3 INT. From there, if a spell is affected by INT, then you'll get a damage boost as well!

Spell damage is now calculated from a random value between 1 and damage value + stat modifier (if applicable) + an extra 'd20 dice roll'. If it's 1, it fails. If it's 20, it's a crit. (Thanks for that, D&D!).

When we crit we just roll the damage amount again and add it to the one previously rolled. Again, thanks D&D!

Added a screen shake as well for when we crit. Still playing around with what values and how long to make it shake, but it does just feel powerful.

Next Steps

@AxolotlHime is doing all the artwork, and while I am absolutely terrible at anything not halfway passable programmer art, I am pretty good at UI, icons, etc., so I think my goal for the next few days / this week is to pump out like 10-20 new abilities + GUI and set up stuff like a big playground to start building how I want the player to progress throughout the game.

Also, the tutorial island is relatively finished... just gotta finish up the story-aspect and add some sounds, and it should be ready for testers to see how it plays on other systems!

Misc.

Also apparently recent builds of Unity / TextMeshPro? are having issues with release builds randomly not showing random fonts on macOS M1 builds. No issues on Windows, Intel Macs, or Linux systems, so I won't let this stop me! Just sucks I can't directly test a proper build on my system without dragging out my Windows laptop, haha.

Screenshots

[chibachitv]

Lunar Artifacts - Devlog (3)

Updates

Added actual art! :)

In-game menus, inventory system, questing / level objective system.

"Finished" a tutorial island / testing grounds.

It's finished but I'm still adding more to the enemy AI, and NPCs to help drive the story, as well as the quest text! Everything else fundamentally works.

Next Steps

Add a ton of art assets to help really flesh out the world. I have a ton of stuff I've purchased in the past, my own vague ability to make art, and my friend @AxotolHime helping me with actual custom art assets!

Start fleshing out how I want the game to progress + tell the story I want to tell.

I'm thinking of making a few basic zones to wander through and meet NPCs who send you on missions to randomly generated zones to retrieve treasures and such. Not sure yet just how I'll make everything flow together, but we're making this for fun. As long as it's fun, I don't care how long it takes to flesh stuff out.

I currently have an unused "Player Info" panel, and it hosts current abilities + player's equipped weapon. I think I'll break them apart into 2 panels.

Character Panel: Shows the player's name, portrait, and stat points which the player can customize. (Everything currently is vaguely based off of D&D with tweaks. I'll end up adjusting things as I see fit, but for now it's a good start!)

Ability Panel: I'm thinking of making the player's ability and progression work like a mix of WoW and GW2. What abilities you can use changes depending on the weapon you're equipping, but you can choose specialities, elements, equipment-unrestrained abilities, types of boosts and bonuses through some sort of talent mechanism.

Screenshots

[chibachitv]

Lunar Artifacts - Devlog (2)

Update

Working with a friend to add art to the game, we’ve finally arrived at having a decent spell system, monsters, and spell effects added once an entity has been hit by the ability.

So far, we’ve made an ice and fire spell. The ice will slow down the entity’s movement and periodically freeze them in place! The fire on the other hand adds a damage over time to the enemy. Tons of balance to get everything just right, but so far everything else is going super well! :) 

Maybe since I’m more of the programming-type and my friend is more of the creative-type, we’ll start some sort of named partnership. Sure I can continue just going by my name, but I’d love for us both to have a name to create and release things online! 

Anyway, here’s a gif.

[chibachitv]

Lunar Artifacts - Devlog (1)

I originally wanted to set out remaking Lunar Artifacts by making another bullet hell game (thank you Touhou 8 ~ Imperishable Night for the original drive to make a bullet hell!), just expanding on the story of the game I did so many years ago. However, recently I’ve had an itch to make some sort of dungeon crawling, randomly generated, item-collecting, rogue-lite-styled game still bound by a set in stone story. So, I think I’ve found my inspiration!

Story

Based on the Japanese folklore, and contender for one of the first (proto) sci-fi stories in the world, The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter (竹取物語, taketori monogatari) lays out the story of Princess Kaguya and her life on Earth, array of suitors begging for her hand in marriage, their quests to complete her impossible tasks, and finally her eventual return to the Moon.

In my retelling of the story, I’m either considering having another suitor (the player) being placed in the same time frame, or having the player introduced years and years later, finishing the task, and needing to go to the Moon to meet Princess Kaguya herself.

Characters

Dot (Player)

Young adult woman infatuated with Princess Kaguya. Thinks clearly she turned down all the male suitors because of lack of interest.

Strong, independent, loves alcohol. Think like Disenchantment’s Princess Tiabeanie but... somehow different. Huh. I’ll work on that. I had the idea of Dot before I saw the show, but now typing this out I realize they could be sisters. I’ll flesh out Dot a little more! Also taking inspiration from Aqua, because she's perfect.

Princess Kaguya

Lesbian.

The 5 Suitors.

I want to include them as either possible boss fights? Or maybe if I have this set at a later time, the ghosts of one or two could serve as a warning for upcoming areas, or they themselves could be the boss fights! I’ll figure it out.

Progress

So far, I haven’t got a ton made, but I do have the GUI almost working! I’ve got a row of abilities at the bottom that are interchangeable. Clicking on them, if they link to a spell with a cast time, it’ll show a progress bar. Also, have the GUI ready to show Dot’s remaining lives, current health, and sobriety level. (I figured making a mana system but making it alcohol-based where you can readily replenish it with drinks might be fun! Who knows!)

The next step is going to be making a variety of basic spells and abilities + trying to make some sort of tutorial level / make level one. Wish me luck! 🙂

[chibachitv]

The Ides of March

Story

The Ides of March have arrived and the Senate is gathering for a meeting. Lead by your long time friend, Brutus, and his brother-in-law Cassius; however, it was not merely a simple Senate meeting but an assassination plot! Someone takes a stab at you, Imperial Caesar, but you are able to avoid contact. You run out of the Senate building. Your vision is foggy. Assassins are everywhere. How long can you survive?

…beware the Ides of March!

Controls

Arrow Keys - Movement

Space - Start Game / Continue

Escape - Exit Game

Credits

Originally submitted for the Mini Jam 51 - Rome but I’ve continued adding updates!

Thank you very much to Kenney and Aleksandr Makarov for their art assets! :)

Links

Twitter | itch.io

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The Ides of March (Updated) - Devlog 2

Polish

This time I’ve decided to add a ton more polish. The darkness / restricted vision now faintly goes in and out, as well as add illuminations coming from campfires and such as well.

Thunderstorms

Also, I’ve decided to add a thunderstorm. I drank a TON of coffee last night, so ended up pulling an all nighter. (I can not do this anymore at 27. I’m dying. I am no longer in uni and can not do this omg.) 

I’m really proud of how the lightning came out! I think I’ll write up a tutorial on how I did it later + include actual video with sound and better gifs!

[chibachitv]

The Ides of March (Updated) - Devlog 1

Back in April of 2020 I joined the “Mini Jam 51: Rome,” and it was a lot of fun! However it was right when the pandemic really started taking a toll here in Japan, and the workplaces were changing up regulations, figuring out how to divide people working from home, etc., so I never truly gave it a dedicated 72 hours to make. More like a nice 24 hours and some change.

It’s okay, but definitely that nice, cozy, “wow this guy really didn’t put much effort into it, huh?” kind of vibe. Granted, 2020′s entire mood was that, but still! 

The premise of the game is you play as Caesar on the Ides of March right as the Senate has decided to turn on you and stab you. (23 times!) You have to avoid them as long as you can while they gradually increase in numbers. And for a one-day made game, it was pretty okay. Fairly balanced, too! But lacked any sort of polish. So, that’s what I’ve set out to solve with a remake / touch-up! 

I say this is looking a lot better! Still needs some more polish, however. 

So far, I’ve added:

Animations for everything!

Slight stun when hit + a decent screen shake and sprite flashing. 

Before, the screen just shook, but nothing else. Felt somewhat lacking.

Lighting to simulate, in theory at least, a panicked tunnel vision, but I think it just comes off as being at night. 

The hope is to continue updating with a devlog every day. (More like once a week if I actually remember, hah.) Anyway, as I keep updating (more frequently hopefully), maybe I’ll actually get some sort of audience.

[chibachitv]

Off Course

Premise

My entry for the “Mini Jam 67: Void”! Taking some heavy inspiration from the film Gravity, you’re maintaining upkeep on a space station that’s lost connection with Earth. While doing a maintenance space-walk, a sudden meteor storm sends you flying off into space, and you need to find your way back with a spotty locator, limited fuel, and oxygen! 

Available on the itch.io webpage as an HTML5 browser game.

Controls

Space/Enter - Dialogue Progression

Arrow Keys - Movement

Links

GitHub | Twitter | itch.io

[chibachitv]

Weekly Game Jam 144 - Devlog 1

Working on my turn based rouge-like-ish game for this week’s game jam. Is it amazing? Nah, but it is half-way working.

Got player movement + enemy movement + all battle related functions working. Also based all player/unit stats off of D&D stats with simulated dice rolling + level ups. Everything seems vaguely balanced, but I haven’t implemented actual weapon-based attacking yet.

Other than that, in terms of “vague story + game play” I got a 中途半端 game on my way! これからも頑張るわ :D

I have a vision restricting mechanic written out on paper, but I wanted to get everything else working well before implementing that. Hopefully that is tomorrow’s update (if I remember to actually write it.)

As always, thanks, Kenney for first-class assets. I will eventually do something (like my badly made player!!) for full sprites! Maybe that’ll be tomorrow’s drunken adventure!

[chibachitv]

The Ides of March: A Caesar Story

Premise

It’s 2020, time for a fresh start, I tell myself. After having three months of apathetically going to work, coming home, getting drunk, and not doing much else, I decided let’s finally commit to finishing something!

Then the apocalypse began — cool. Work became hectic because even though we’re shut down, we’re still expected to show up and the older man who sits across from me just so happens to have a really dry cough. So, I figured if I’m going to commit to making something, I better do it now!

The Game

I entered the Mini Jam 51, which had the theme of “Rome” and the limitation of “the player must be the villain.” So I set our on my journey.

At first, I wanted the environment to be a little bit more complex with movement between a courthouse and the theatre of Pompey — maybe to retain some sort of actual accuracy. I also wanted the enemies to have basic path finding and not bump into one another and chase me around the world.

That did not happen. Instead they just run in a straight line across the stage.

OH WELL.

They eventually start throwing daggers at you, too. So that’s cool!

Controls are just with the arrow keys plus space for “menu” selection. It’s really basic, I promise.

I made the game using the Godot Engine, and with a recent switch to Linux, here’s to hoping I do everything with open source software from here on out! 

Links

itch.io | GitHub | Twitter