Next step? I'm not 100% sure, but I've been brainstorming the mapping section, which will be a simple traversal game where you use up resources, get into combat with enemies blocking your way and eventually make it to a boss. I'd like to randomly generate it.
Today I finished with the basic turn loop. This means that each turn, action orbs are generated, can be ordered however you wish, and when actions happen, characters properly take damage and when knocked out they cannot act. When a team is eliminated, the combat ends. It feels nice to have it done.
I wanted to work more on troubleshooting the HP/MP bar initialization and removing 0HP characters from combat, but I needed a debug setup first, so I spent today on that instead. Not exciting, but necessary.
Finally got some stuff to show. I have a working turn cycle, placeholder icons for the orbs (which represent character actions), a basic combat log, and a UI that updates like it should. Next is removing units from combat when they hit 0 hp.
Feels weird to say this, but my weekends are really filling up. I'd have liked to put more hours into this, but I honestly had too much other IRL stuff to do. I've had (mostly) open weekends for so long I was surprised when suddenly they weren't.
This week I did a lot of code cleanup. I was happy with the new gameplay sample which I posted here last week, so I moved that into the current project. I also removed the old gameplay scenes.
On the writing front, I defined route progression rules and wrote about half a scene.
The orb can be an attack, a heal, or they can affect other orbs. Ordering them well will give you a good turn where you deal a lot of damage and take little. I want to add more, but I'm just starting there to get the guts of the gameplay working. This will be much easier to implement than tactics.
The screenshot is a preview of what I intend to do with the gameplay. In many ways, it's completely different than the tactics game I started with, but in other ways its similar. The idea is that when a turn starts, both enemies and allies create orbs that represent an action. You then sort those.
Been debating when exactly to post progress, but I realized the simplest answer is the best one: just do it. First off: writing is going well and the artists continue to make progress. The more I write, the more tricky things are becoming - I have to make sure things can't happen out of order.
Also, welcome to my new profile? A bit of a bummer post to start things out, but like I said, I'm sure I'll come up with something before too long. Not like there's a shortage of things to work on.
Hello all, just checking in, letting you know I'm still working on the game. I got into a rut. I don't think I'd have fun playing my game. I'm chilling on coding the gameplay and just writing until I know the game I would have fun playing. I'm not too worried, I'll figure it out.
