9/25/18 Development Update

Hi and welcome back to another development update for the game Hero Soul!

So I'd like to start this update with a revisit to the state system of the game. I've added some more interesting states that I hope will spice up the game more. Before states were really just stat buffs or debuffs granting stats or dealing damage over time. I felt that they were kind of boring so I've added a few more that change the way you must play. Here's an example of one, blindness, which makes it so you can only see in a little circle around you for some time. I'd love to think of more interesting state moving forward.

This week I also chose to tackle something that I have been procrastinating on for quite some time now, the rune and rune forging system. But before I get into that, I also chose to update the Arcana selection UI. For some time now, I have felt that the old UI for this system was a bit difficult to use with many needless buttons and gizmos. Hopefully now it is easy to figure out how to use.

Moving on to the Rune system there is still more work that needs to be put into it however a few things that have been causing me trouble have been implemented. The first is the card statistics and how they are displayed to the player. I wanted the UI for this to be purely visual and not just a comparison of numbers. So, the right of the card you are editing you will see the statistics for the card. As of now, the cards only display damage, velocity and knockback as statistics but I plan to expand and change this based on the card type.

This leads me to my second change. One of the reason I have procrastinated on working on this system was that the idea behind runes was that any rune could be used with any spells. This led to many conflicts because some spell effects simply did not work with other. For example a rune that caused the spell to home in on targets does not work with spells that grant players buffs. Because of that problem I had to reconsider how the system would function. So now, I've subdivided runes to only work with certain spell types I have implemented in the game. Some examples of spell types include projectile spells, targeted spells and buffing spells which each have runes that will work with them.

There still needs to be more work put into the system but I can say that it feels good to get over this hump and I am excited about how awesome this system is turning out to be! That's it for this week, I'll keep you guys posted on new fun advancements!

9/19/18 Development Update

Hi and welcome back to another development update for Hero Soul!

This weeks has been a big step forward in terms of development. The first major stride was the addition of the change remnant feature of the Hero Soul. The Hero Soul, for those who do not remember, is the modular talent tree system that players have access to while they play the game. Before it was not possible to reassign a talent on a specific tier when it was already selected. I felt that this was restrictive and did not promote experimentation with the interplay of talents, so now you are able to change the specific remnant on each tier as seen below.

Next off I worked a lot on the implementation of consumable items. Before, I cut work on the Alchemy system of the game because I found it too complicated and unneeded when paired with the other systems in the game. However this left a void in potion choice, with players stuck with the default healing and mana potions in the shortcuts for potion use. With the implementation of consumables, those shortcuts have been changed to accept any type of consumable. Following that health and mana potions now fit into the consumable item category. So now, instead of receiving x amount of health potions and x amount mana potions at the start of every level, players will need to keep their inventories stocked with the necessary potions for their adventures. This was a fun transition for me since it opened the design space for items from just being potions to all sorts of fun usable items such as bombs seen below.

Finally to wrap the update up, this week also brought much work to the 2nd level out the planned 5 levels of the game. I did a lot of work on implementing enemy AI so they are more interactive and challenging as well redoing much of the level design of the level entirely. Below is an example of a changed room for the level. Moving forward I want to further polish this.

That't it for this week! I'll have another update on the development next week.

 

9/10/18 Development Update

Hello all and welcome back to the development updates for my game Hero Soul! It has been a long time since I posted here! So what's changed since I last updated, well... a lot simply put. So, instead of getting into the nitty gritty I thought for this first update I would go over a sort of road map for development of the game.

So in its current state the game is in that delicious grey territory of the development process. Many of the systems and mechanics have been solidly established and now I am moving towards developing the narrative of that game to tie all the mechanics and systems together. Moving forward, there will be less updates on new mechanics and systems implemented and more updates about progress into the story.

So let's get down to brass tacks. There are still a few systems that need to be finished. Namely:

1. The Hero Soul Talent Tree
2. The Rune System
3. The Companion System

and of course a few additional miscellaneous systems that will need to change as development continues.

I currently have about 6/12 of the levels created and story wise, the tutorial level for the first character Cecilia is finished along with the first and second levels. Moving forward I would like work for the story to progress up to the 6th level by November.

That's pretty much it for now and I will return to the normal format for updates starting next week.