Project: Twisted Tower - Chapter 1
| Project Started: |
19th December, 2010 |
Last Update: |
5th March, 2017 |
| Project Owner: |
 HitmanN |
Project Members: |
|
| Project Type: |
Dungeon Crawler Platformer |
Project Progress: |
|
|
Progress!
|
Posted 5th Jun 11, by HitmanN
|
|
Since the last update I've been working on plenty of new stuff. Some of it I want to keep secret, to not spoil every feature of the game, such as the very first BOSS enemy, which is nearly complete functionality -wise, but here's a little something to show. See the screenshots.
Weapon/Spell scrolling buttons (Shot 1)
Requested by both of the current two testers, I've added configurable buttons to scroll weapons and spells, without having to go to inventory to switch. I've grown quite fond of these buttons too, now that they're in place. 
Ghosts (Shot 2)
A new enemy for the latter half of the Catacombs floors. Ghosts can be tricky if you haven't focused on magic a lot, because they're completely immune to physical damage. Melee attacks and arrows simply go through them. They're also immune to spirit and toxic damage, leaving only a few spells that can kill them. They can be frozen with ice magic though, for instance, and most of the magical enhancements for physical weapons can deal damage to them, such as a recently added Fire Branding spell, which converts 75% of a melee weapons damage to fire damage. Ghosts have limited HP, so if you have means to damage them, they're not that tough in the end.
In addition to their immunities, ghosts also have a special Shriek attack that causes paralysis for four seconds if you're too close. The ghosts are mostly slow and mind their own business, but they can also be unpredictable sometimes, floating around long distances.
Lush Halls of the Past (Shots 3-4)
After having played the Catacombs area a lot, the Halls of the Past area seemed very boring in comparison, and thus I decided to give the first half of the Halls some foliage (also suggested by someone in an earlier devlog, I think). The amount of foliage decreases the higher the tower floor, so only the first few floors have a lot of foliage. There's grass, small bushes and some vines.
Although, with the foliage in place, the Catacombs looks a bit boring now.  So I think I'll need to add something to there as well. The latter half of the Halls needs something unique as well.
Magic and proficiency brainstorming
Lately I've been thinking about the role of magic in Twisted Tower, its functionality, etc. I've come to the conclusion that something needs to be done to make it more accessible, and to better separate it from melee and ranged.
The problem currently is that magic tends to be a secondary function, which you don't need to focus on, to keep using it sufficiently. For instance, you can look for a weapon with high MGC attribute, and keep it as a casting aid, switching to it to cast healing and enhancements, then switch back to a high ATK weapon to do melee attacks. There's no reason to keep high MGC weapon in hand if you want to do any melee attacks. This is not how I want things to be. Magic should only be powerful and functional if you focus on it, and all weapons should be able to function as melee/attack weapons, or at least keeping them in hand even when not casting spells should have incentive to it.
How to achieve this is problematic though. Some options I've been thinking about:
* MGC focus weapons could have spell attacks, similar to charged staffs in Diablo, in place of melee attacks. Much weaker than manually cast spells and can't be aimed, but effectively making them different from melee focus weapons. They could also use Stamina to function, so you can't spam them endlessly in a row.
* MGC focus weapons (basically staff, and maybe mace or some sort of new wand weapon) could have a default 'Magic Channeling' feature, that shortens casting time or something. Instead of the usual casting animation, Arina would hold the weapon in hand, and it could be glowing or something.
* Proficiencies could heavily affect damage modifier. For instance, at the start of the game all weapons have a -30% modifier penalty because of lack of proficiency skill. By level 3-5 proficiency or so, the penalty could switch to -15% (Trained), by level 8-10 it could be 0% (Adept), by level 12-14 it could be +15% (Skilled), and by 18-20 it's +30% (Mastery). The problem with this one is that it only affects damage, not the bonuses provided by the weapons, so you could still benefit from level 0 proficiency if such weapon has a high bonus attribute. But... (see below)
* Limit bonuses from weapons by the proficiency level. For instance, let's say you have sword with ATK+3 and MGC+5. If your proficiency is level 2, you'd get ATK+2 and MGC+2 out of it. If you're proficiency is 4, you'd get ATK+3 and MGC+4, etc. Your proficiency would need to be as high as the bonus in order to get the full benefits. One problem with this is that in the beginning you can't benefit from anything until you have some proficiency. I could switch the default proficiency from 0 to 1 though, so it's not a huge obstacle.
* Introduce a cooldown/penalty to switching weapons. For instance 'Grip' or something. When switching to a different weapon, it could take a while before the bonuses and full stats become active. Thus, you don't want to be switching weapons constantly, because every time you do so, you'll be without bonuses for a short while. Problem with this is that if you're patient you could still wait for the bonuses to become active, then cast spells, switch to a melee weapon, wait for bonuses to become active, and continue playing with melee.
Any of these sound like a functional solution to any of you? :3
|
|
|
|
Is this worth a look? Let others know!  Favourite
|
Advertisement
!
