The movement part of the engine is up and running, so now the characters are all... well... up and running around the place. The engine is surprisingly good, and can do multiple jumps, diagonal surfaces, wallclimbing, wallgrabbing, swimming, high/low gravity, flying, gliding, dashing, reverse gravity, sideways gravity, bouncing on springs in any direction, wind resistance, being knocked back by attacks, recoil, etc. Basically anything.
I thought I'd add in some music and a logo at the end to make it fancier looking than my average youtube video.
I don't think I'll animate anything until I've finished off the engine, so expect static looking bears for the next few devlogs.
Still working on possibilities for the Style system; trying to figure out whether to let the player decide (as in, choose lightning or fire) or make it so they don't get a choice. I'm leaning towards the latter, even though it's a bit more annoying for the player if he gets something he doesn't really want, it'll make everything seem more streamlined. Maybe I'll make it so that whichever Style you use most gets more powerful, so you learn more Stamps of that Style.
I'm also not certain how Stamp Collection is going to work, but I think you'll get stamps by defeating bosses and optional quests. I would say you get them from levelling up, but I was thinking about how I could avoid the problem of people grinding (which I hate) without making it so fighting is worthless, or so that monsters don't respawn; and I've pretty much decided to make it so that nobody levels up.
I like the idea of people not levelling up in a quantitative way. The point of this game is to have the characters level up their personality, and the only way to do that is by advancing the storyline.
I didn't get to see much of that fancy engine in your video. But I guess we will get a glimps of them too soon?
Grinding isn't all that bad, it lengthens a games play time, if made properly. However I agree that a game shouldn't be based on it.
You could have both stamps and exp, so that stamps are used to upgrade the real powerful stuff like skills. Exp could increase things that are useful, but that doesn't have too much of an impact on the game.
If you plan to have many enemies, I recommend that they do respawn at least to some extent, as it isn't very fun to travel across empty areas. You could of course make the enemies so that they attack you in very specific locations, as in Chrono Trigger, but with free movment.
When do I get to see what the coolest character, Rat, looks like? Comment edited by Zezard on 8/11/2008
A lot of the things I can do with the engine just seem impractical in the game (like reverse gravity), but I don't see why I can't make hills or water. Maybe I'll put up a video of them tomorrow?
True, grinding isn't all bad, sometimes it's just what a game needs to make it feel more like an RPG and less like a series of cutscenes stuck together with empty plains that you need to traverse. And I kind of want to avoid xp and levels, it just seems to be such an obsolete game mechanic these days; but on the other hand I suppose it gives the player a sense of accomplishment, which is good.
I really like that idea of using Chrono Trigger style battles.
Rat won't be seen for a while, even though he's in the first mission (according to the current storyline, which I don't mind saying is going to take one of the bears down through the sewers/catacombs). Since he's playable I guess I could make him second, once I'm done with Brown...
So the fights will be sort of turn base sort of real time?
I think it would be cooler Tales of Phantasia for the GBA style, that was one my my favorite games of all time. Comment edited by Jon222 on 8/11/2008
I guess real time Chrono Trigger battles in a 2d platform world will be quite a bit as it is in Tales of Phantasia, but without random encounters. With that kind of engine it will be more flexible too.
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But I guess we will get a glimps of them too soon?
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