This week I've been keeping on going with the development of Revolver specifically the goal mechanics and the trait system. If you want to know more about the reasoning for the goal mechanics read last weeks post found
here. As for the trait system, for those that don't know, in between waves of fighting baddies the player gets to pick one of three randomly generated traits which aid the player
(although some do have negative effects too) that aid them in future waves, which quickly get a good bit harder. As for other general updates I've posted this weeks Revolver log below:
23/03/2015:
-Added a player injury sound to help players know when they are being hurt. Super important.
-Added screenshake code but will leave out for now as it messes with the lighting and the views for the larger map.
-Tweaked current perks for better balance.
-Created the terminal & floppy disk collision detection for the players goal.
24/03/2015:
-Tweaked the torch width to make the game easier to pick up. Originally players would have a harder time navigating the map.
-For a player to move to rTraits they now have to collect 3 floppy disks and insert them into a computer terminal AND kill x number of enemies.
-Updated the HUD to show floppy disks and when the player has used them "TERMINAL ACTIVATED". Which whlie a bit amaturish looks cool as hell.
-Re-made rTest (the main game room) to suit the changes in spawning, difficulty and player goal.
-Added a much needed health kit pickup. The longer lasting waves means the player needs a way of gaining some health. I need to edit the health perk to balance with this addition as it is currently much too powerful.
25/03.2015:
-Had game thoroughly tested for playability and balance (among other things). Results: Tense enough, not too frustrating. The player needs a decent chance to learn the controls, without this the player will struggle to get into the game. Tutorial level/area? My tester was able to beat the level the first time through, although he does have some experience with the game (about 5 minutes total).
26/03/2015:
-Designed the display for rTraits.
27/03/2015:
-Began building rTraits using actual clickable buttons (HOLY SHIT).
-Tweaked the reload speed perks to accommodate the permanent boost that the newly added reload speed trait gives.
-Began building a trait system where each of the three buttons picks a random trait.
28/03/2015:
-Turned bullet spread into a variable. Added a trait that increases the damage per bullet from 1 - 1.4 meaning that a 4 health enemy only takes 3 shots to kill. This trait also decreases bullet spread by 1 in both directions. The bullet spread variable will be useful for different starting character traits.
Onto more interesting things now though. I'm finally at the point where I can see the game "coming together" lots of different ideas have come together to make a reasonably fun whole. As well as that I've the 4 remaining milestones I've got to reach before the game is released.
- More enemies and rooms. I want to add a few different types of enemies (I have 3 more in mind) and different rooms. This is mainly for variety as I don't want players getting too used to the layout of levels or how to enemies work. Of course I want people to understand how to combat enemies but having a variety of enemies & rooms will keep things interesting for longer.
-More traits and character selection. As this is game is kinda like a rogue-like, a rouge-likelike if you will (I am so sorry) having a slightly different playthough each time is very important. With a nice list of randomised traits this is possible but with the addition of a character selection at start this is expanded just that little bit more. I'll also be adding different sprites for different characters but this will be covered by the next milestone.
-Overhaul all the art, sound and add gamefeel. This is the big one. Once most of the game is done on the mechanic side it's time to add animations, and player feedback like: muzzle flashes, enemies appearing to take damage (the players too I guess) and decent sound effects for everything. At the moment my game has a little of this with simple sound effects being made using
bfxr, a really neat little SFX tool, and with enemy knockback on hit. All of this however needs to be greatly expanded to make the game appear more professional. I also need to make a decent GUI because at the moment it is god awful and honestly it makes the game look so much worse than it actually is.
-Menu systems and achievements/a reason to keep playing. Menus are important. If made poorly it's hard to get across what you want. Players might need to know what game mode they are playing or what specific settings do. The amount of games where graphics options aren't explained or you don't know that quitting auto-saves. It's simple things like this that make the most unintuitive parts of a game, usually the menus, much easier to deal with. It's this reason that
SkyUI exists as a mod for Skyrim. I also need to add some sort of reason for the player to keep playing. I must mention here that there probably wont be some sort of end game. I might add a special level on wave 10 or something but what after the player has beaten that? By adding a simple achievement system that gives the player a reason to beat the game multiple times, in multiple different ways a lot more people will be inclined to keep playing, even after the first, third or tenth time beating the game.
So there we are. This is where I'm going with this game and that is all. I was going to write about how feature creep has basically ushered me into to writing this list (both for the sake of the game and my own sanity) but I'm going to leave that for next week as this has already gotten very wordy. Oh and I'll also be writing about a game I've been spending a lot of time with recently which any fans of Diablo or any other action RPG's should listen out for.
BONUS SCREENSHOT TIME:
Look at that maze like map, them gorgeous health packs and that enemy spawning.
-Beau
