Dev Log

#21

— Begin quote from "larsiusprime"

Super semi-broken but kinda playable build it is!

— End quote

Initial feedback:

  1. tried to open NG+ mode from a save file that had a well-advanced NG+ game already. Froze and corrupted the file. By restoring from a backup and hacking out the “plus” stuff from the save file, was able to start NG+ game.
  2. as you said, bezerker animation is well broken. Boost them above level 1 and they become slow as all hell.
  3. hacked save-game as you instructed to add a skull, but not showing in hermit store. I allow for the possibility that I did it wrong :slight_smile:

Rumpol3

#22

— Begin quote from "larsiusprime"

@Ceielo:

I like that idea! It’ll only work for the download version, since vanilla flash doesn’t support right-clicks, so won’t work in the Kong version.

— End quote

There is always the option for Strg + Left click to do that… that works in vanilla Flash as well ^^

#23

— Begin quote from "Rumpol3"

  1. hacked save-game as you instructed to add a skull, but not showing in hermit store. I allow for the possibility that I did it wrong :slight_smile:

— End quote

Further to the above, by trial and error I was able to work out that you need Class 3 skulls for the hermit… Is now working.

#24

Yeah, each hermit town asks for a different kind of skull as a proof-of-concept. If you eventually unlock each of them, you’ll find some use level 1 skulls, others level 2. Dunno why I made the first one require level 3.

#25

Fixed the Berserker animations. Uploading in a bit, eta: 30 minutes.

It’s up! Also put a little save file that should be useful for testing NG+. Most characters are ~ lvl 35, with unallocated skill points.

#26

Quick question Lars:

Any chance of getting one of your new artists to re-do Azra’s “moving on the map” or “standing next to her health and psi bars” icon changed to reflect the new art style? Currently the icon used represents her old, in your words, “like a cross between an 8-year old and Kim Possible” model, complete with not-there-on-her-current-incarnation belt pouch strap thingie and robes that drag on the ground, obscuring her otherwise-always-visible shoes.

Not a huge priority, to be sure, but I’d love to see an Azra sprite that does justice to her (much better looking) redesign.

Edit: fun with hastily slapped-together visuals!

azra_before_after.png640×611 369 KB

1 Like
#27

@Marak:

One step ahead of you :slight_smile: He’s already done those sprites, just haven’t gotten em into the game yet!

#28

All that work in MS Paint, all for naught! =p

Good to hear, and thanks for the quick reply. :slight_smile:

#29

Wednesday, April 4th, 2012

Sorry for the lack of posts recently. Been busy!

So, Anthony’s working on the NG+ stats and enemy/level design and I’m slowly adding features / fixing bugs / integrating art.

Over the past few days I’ve done the following:
[list=1]
:1nl68nux]Added lots more backgrounds from Karen (we’re at about ~55% of backgrounds in the latest build of the game)/:m:1nl68nux]
:1nl68nux]Added support for foreground elements in cutscenes/:m:1nl68nux]
:1nl68nux]Fixed a memory leak related to the party screen (redesign menu was instantiating and not being cleaned up EVERY time!)/:m:1nl68nux]
:1nl68nux]Fixed a memory leak from loaded data - I wasn’t converting XML nodes to Strings before storing them/:m:1nl68nux]
:1nl68nux]Uploaded our new %url% to the website/:m:1nl68nux]
:1nl68nux]Dealt with paperwork/contracters/etc/:m:1nl68nux]
:1nl68nux]Finished editing an article on our sales numbers that Gamasutra should run next week (originally slated for 4/4, but I wanted to revise it)/:m:1nl68nux]
:1nl68nux]Fixed various bugs (such as sellable uniques)/:m:1nl68nux]
:1nl68nux]Made a mockup of a revision to the options menu/:m:1nl68nux]
:1nl68nux]Profiled the game in search of memory leaks/:m:1nl68nux][/list:o:1nl68nux]

WTF. Something I just did makes characters disappear in cutscenes entirely. Whaaaaat? Long live SVN revert.
Okay, figured it out. Whew.

Adding all the new art to SVN. Wow that’s a lot. Feeling pretty good about background art. At this rate, we should be all done with backgrounds by the end of the month for sure, and might be able to get Karen to do a few bonus items if there’s room in the budget.

Characters are taking a little longer, but the quality is great so no complaints there. If Tyvon can keep up the pace of about a character a week, then by end of April we’ll have new backgrounds + new sprites.

Based on previous work, I imagine new monster designs and stuff should take a while to iron out all the kinks, so give that a while. I don’t have too many more features to do myself, so I’ll be doing a lot of bugfixing / art integration.

Big things left for me to do:
[list]
:1nl68nux]Super secret feature/:m:1nl68nux]
:1nl68nux]Get all the books to work, decide on final abilities/:m:1nl68nux]
:1nl68nux]Fix up endless mode UX (ie, better feedback)/:m:1nl68nux]
:1nl68nux]Various UI fixes/:m:1nl68nux]
:1nl68nux]Some backend stuff/:m:1nl68nux]
:1nl68nux]Memory optimizations/:m:1nl68nux][/list:u:1nl68nux]

#30

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

[size=28]BOOYAH:[/size]

defq_blue.png800×600 416 KB

[size=28]WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?[/size]

The meaning of this, dear reader, is that Mod support has passed it’s first proof of concept! (namely my terrible test mod that just makes the title screen blue).

I’ve been holding back on announcing this because I didn’t know if it would work or not. However, given that our artists and designers have more work on their hands than I do vis-a-vis straight programming, I figured it’d be worth a short detour and see if I could whip this up in a few days. So far, so good!

This will allow you to provide your own data files and images (and maybe audio, eventually) for the game. If your mod or the basic engine references an image that your mod doesn’t support, it will default to using the one embedded in the game.

More details to follow :slight_smile:

#31

Larsius, can we get a rough ETA? Weve been waiting on the full version for some time now :frowning:

#32

Hey there -

So, it’s probably still going to take a while. The main thing we’re waiting on right now is our artists. Here’s where we’re at:

Background art - 75% done
Character art - 30% done
Tile art - 0% done
UI art (optional) - 0% done

New programming - 80% done
Design work (sidequests/bonus levels, etc) - 10% done
New writing - 10% done

These things are being worked on in parallel, ie, by different people, but all in all I’d say we’re still a few months off. My goal is to be done before July 1st.

#33

O_O

a few months?! damn i thought it would be much less. oh well, i guess its all for the best. good luck with everything! ill be back after some time to check again. time goes faster if you arent keeping track of it :slight_smile:

#34

I kind of like the blue. :o
I really like the mod support. Any kind of scripting capability or is it strictly art assets and maps? Or maybe it’s still too early to say. :slight_smile:

#35

— Begin quote from "Shinigami"

O_O

a few months?! damn i thought it would be much less. oh well, i guess its all for the best. good luck with everything! ill be back after some time to check again. time goes faster if you arent keeping track of it :slight_smile:

— End quote

Yeah, we got a bit ambitious with this gold release. We kept trying to pare down the number of features, but then we’d think of something else and just have to work it in. Almost all of the art is being redone, there will be 7 new side missions, probably 4 - 6 epic/endless challenges, and of course the new enemy powers, new game+, and potentially some other features. I was hoping we’d be closer by now, but now we’re so close to something awesome that we want to aim high and do it right. :slight_smile:

#36

Has the scope creep at least slowed down a bit? :slight_smile:

#37

Mod support will include the following:

-Change all the art
-Change all the levels
-Change all the data

Data is the biggest thing.

Data includes overworld layout, items, what’s for sale in towns, character class definitions, skills, attacks, enemies, special abilities, spell stats, experience tables, cutscenes, tutorials, etc.

So, there’s no out-of-the-box support for writing custom script logic per se, but there’ll be a lot of power in just modifying data. No promises that it’ll be particularly stable, but we’ll see what we can manage and try to document it where we can :slight_smile:

#38

So, in other words…

#39

— Begin quote from "delve"

Has the scope creep at least slowed down a bit? :slight_smile:

— End quote

In general, I’d say yes. The only reason it’s not a firm yes is that I haven’t given Lars enough to do, so he keeps coming up with new stuff. Like apparently we’re going to have some mild crafting now. And mod support. Haha. I suppose that means we’ll be able to get localized too, which we’ve had a bunch of offers to do into multiple languages. No promises of course, but seems doable if mod support goes live.

But yeah, features are wrangled in fairly well. I’m hoping to significantly up that Design = 10% done number over this weekend so that we’re a lot closer there. Art is coming in at a better rate too - we didn’t originally count on that, but we’re actually redoing almost everything. It’s exciting and scary and awesome, but hopefully mostly awesome. :slight_smile:

#40

Quick update now that I’m back from Pascha!

  1. Art is coming along super awesomely. Latest stats:

Background Art: 80% done
Character art: 40% done
Tile art: 35% done

Our tile artist is cranking away really quickly, and Tyvon is doing a great job too. At the latest pace, I wouldn’t be surprised if the majority of the art is done by the end of the month. This is the single hugest change, so that should get us a lot closer to release.

On my end of things, I’m fixing up bugs and generally cleaning up the code. I’ll keep you guys posted. Thanks so much!