Pre-Alpha 1.43

Hello all and welcome to our Friday update. We have an actual sized update this week because, drum roll please.... I got fired! Woo! The details aren't really that necessary, just know that the sickness policies in America are ridiculous. No matter, I actually had time to work this week, and what I've done is in big part bug fixes that I didn't feel like I had time to do before. Along with that, I started to get through my backlog of things that I wanted to get done earlier, but never got a chance to. So, not a whole lot new new, but a whole lot, none the less.

So, here we go...


Change log, 1.43

-Scythe weapon class has been added to the game
-Fixed a few, frankly, embarrassing mistakes with the save system, which now works almost entirely as intended
-Updated all the item drops to use a generic mesh
-Added UI updates here and there
-Increased the stability of the deck
-Lengthened civ building even further
-The first of the Life Path logic has been entirely implemented
-I squashed an almost absurd amount of bugs
-Worked shortly on the skill system


Items Added:

-Crystal Scythe
-Marauder's Cross, armor
-Hurtta Fur Vest, armor
-Hurtta's Flight, scythe
-Hurtta Claw, dagger
-Hurtta's Barb, spear

Cards Added:

-Metal Mist, tier 2, a roiling cloud of gaseous metal which damages and burns things in its path
-Healing Bomb, tier 2, after a delay, the bomb detonates healing all allies and knocking back all enemies
-Frozen Standard, tier 3, drops a standard which damages upon impact, slows enemies, and speeds allies

Enemies Added:

-Updated the Haljuhurtta once again, more anims and logic

Quests Added:

-The Missing Mate

Coming Up:

Now, this really depends on whether or not I find another soul-crushing job next week, but:

-Bugs, bugs, bugs: there are still a few nagging ones that must be squashed post-haste; there's this particularly annoying one, the top half of the scythe anims don't work at all now... they worked when I originally implemented them, but for some reason specifically the left arm doesn't want to move :/

-Work on the skill system further

-Attempt to finally get the damn game ready for a demo

Now, with that, I tried and tried, ran though the whole output log, fixing errors and warnings as I could and I ran across a rather large one, that once investigated turns out to be rather problematic; this fixing of it is nothing more than replacing a node or two here or there, but I only found the error last night and worked diligently to rid the game of as much of it as possible before this post, but alas. Today, I plan on ridding the game of it entirely and attempting another build. That'll be my day.

But! Screenshots!

The shaman salesman! I'm not sure if I've shown this or not. :p

The crystal scythe along with the marauder's cross. 

The new drop meshes, from left to right: weapon, clothing, head items, accessories, warpaint, and cards (which isn't new.) I feel like the clothing and the head item meshes should be reworked, but I like the rest. (They spin! :p)

The Hurtta's Barb. I'unno, I always liked the thing that Monster Hunter did with its equipment, so ours will probably end up something like that, though without the slots and jewels and things. Since the Haljuhurtta is an aenahi of condensed air, its equipment is not even really made from it, just enchanted with the fine residue that is left over after it's death. 

The Hurtta's Claw, probably my favorite Haljuhurtta item.

Still sorta a work in progress, this and the Barb haven't been made into items just yet, the files are there, they were just made last night and will be completed either today or soon thereafter. But, the Hurtta Fur Vest.

Hurtta's Flight

The temple within your civilization, again, I have no recollection of whether this has been shown or not. :/ Maybe I'm getting old.

Just a shot of the hillside near your city, showing off my reworked stone mat. The dirt has also been redone, but I didn't snag a picture of it because it is just dirt. :p

But, I feel a lot better about my volume this week. I can only imagine the progress that would be made with a team behind me. Let us all hope that the winds of fate keep me working on this and not force me back into soul-crushing retail too soon. :p

Well, until next week, or later today, depending on how things go...

-Lucas Cady

Project Director

Update to Update 1.42 post :p

Lucas here again.

I had full intentions to do the regular blog post, but I found myself short on time before work. I'm glad that my wife could fill in for me. :p

Since we got the technicals out of the way, I'll start with some screenshots:

The bird skull necklace. 

Just a shot to illustrate the combo widget up below the HUD proper. 

The deck widget, needs cleaning up and beautifying, like everything, but it functions properly now.

The fire sprites summoned by the Fennoc Gout card. They will circle near you, causing burning damage to everything nearby, but should they take damage, they will condense and detonate shortly afterwords.

The card Fennoc Gout also causes a bit of damage to you, along with the AoE burn and summon. It can definitely deal a lot of damage quickly to you. Especially if you only have the one card in your deck for testing purposes. :p

And last, but not least, is the shop widget. Nothing special. But you can buy stuff now.

Surprise bonus:

I've been working on the skill tree for the shaman. The ground work for it is up and running, I just need to work out the widget and actually populate it with skills. 

I like my skills to be interesting and actually do something for me, other than increase my statistics passively. Within the skill tree, there will be the passive skills, but there will also be tones of active skills. 

For example, I'm planning on having several skills, each which requires the last, for each weapon type. And these skills in question will lengthen or change the combos for the chosen weapon type, thereby allowing the PC to further their melee capabilities as well. 

Other news:

I had wanted this, as so many other posts, to be the post where I could finally say "Here's a link, try our very, very alpha game!", but alas. I still cannot find the problem with UE4. As before, it packaged just fine, but the packaged game did not want to run, no matter what I tried. I have a few more theories, so hopefully it will get solved soon.

Upcoming:

I'm not overly certain what I will be doing this week. I've so much planned out and ready to do, but not the time to actually get caught up with it. I plan and plan and plan every break and lunch at work, but it takes 15 minutes to work out the logistics of something like the shop widget, but it takes hours to implement. Well, let's see...

-The scythe weapon class is close to completion, just a few more animations and it should be good to go

-Finish working on the dagger heavy combo, I've got the first attack, a roll and backstab done. I just need to finish the rest of it

-Work on the skill system

Aaaand, that's about it. :p

I would love to be able to say that I can get 40 hours worth of work done on it and have hundreds of things to show off next week, but that is sadly not the case just yet. I can, at minimum, get around 16 hours of work done a week, maxing out at 32 on the absolutely-not-happening kind of weeks.

I'll surely have more than that to show off, but that is all that I'm really planning on. Oh! And trying to get the damn game to work when packaged.

Until next time...

-Lucas Cady

Project Director

Update,update! Change log, 1.42.

Hello, Hello!

It's Z here for change. Don't you dare think you can get used to me posting anything, at least until we manage to get a scanner (Partially because I don't feel like I have enough to post here for. Plenty on paper, not so much on computer).
On the good side, I have new coloring pencils that someone got me for christmas (Thank you, Lucas!), so I am able to actually color things now.

Either way! I am only here to whisper sweet nonsense words into your ears because Lucas asked me to post this change log thingymabob, seeing as he wanted it out before noon and... Well, he has to work like a boring person.

He'll be here eventually (Read; Later today) to tell you about what ever exciting things he has been plotting and if I remember right, post some screenshots.

But, without further delay, here's the change log!

______________________

Change log, 1.42

-Streamlined some more building logic
-Spent a while fixing bugs and errors
-Finished the light attacks for the dagger with the new combo system

Items Added:

-Bird Skull Necklace, another Vulpine racial item, accessory

Cards Added:

-Fennoc Gout, tier 3, one of the final upgrades for Fennoc fire, does massive AoE damage and summons sprites to fight for you


Enemies Added:

-Updated the Vulpine Trickster
-Updated the Faithful Hound


Combo widget Added:

Added a simple widget to the HUD that allows the player to better track at which point within their combo they are.

Deck Widget Completed:

I finished getting the deck widget up and running. The only feature that is currently missing is an alphabetical sort for the cards found within the player's deck.

Shopkeepers Complete:

I finally got around to refitting the shop logic that I had been using before and am happy to announce that they have been fully implemented.


______________________


Something I can say I've done, is thought up funny little location. Admittedly, mostly because I drew couple creatures I, for one reason or another, made the background information for. So, that'll eventually be a thing. Maybe.

And here's a couple icons I've done. Because why not?

This one is a very unfinished thing, but it was good enough for Lucas.

It's supposed to be a dagger thing, it probably reads well enough.

This one is supposed to be a... hat thing? I don't know, I'm sure Lucas will be happy to explain better. 

There, I have done something.

USEFUL!

With that, I am out!
G'nite, all of you sneaky people out there. :)

                 ~Z

Lucas-Edit: Both of those will be icons to more easily be able to identify found items and weapon types. 

Pre-Alpha 1.41

Hello all! Got a few cards and a few animations, but aside from that, the bulk of my work for this week was still dealing with the quest system. There were a few kinks to get worked out aside from the last widget, which has been finished at this point.


Change log, 1.41

-Changed the way that resources and mana crystals drop
-smooth lined the death logic for enemies
-added gathering animation
-added card throwing animation


Items Added:

-Still none

Cards Added:

-Scale Storm, a tier 2 upgrade of the little lizard card
-Scale Dance, another tier 2 upgrade of the little lizard card
-Hurriscale, our second tier 3 card, a direct upgrade of Scale Storm


Enemies Added:

-Updated the Haljuhurtta, changing some of its AI and making the particle a little less crappy


Quests Added:

-The Beginning, the first tutorial quest, just gets you acquainted with the idea of civ building.
-The Lizard and the Snake

Finished implementing the quest system:
The quest system is now fully implemented. There are still a few bits and pieces that are rough, but I'll continue to smooth those out in the coming weeks.

Coming Up:
Now that I have my scheduled figured out at work, I should be able to plan a bit better about the amount of work that is feasible during any given week, and as such, for this next week:
-add widget to indicate which combo level the player is on
-continue working on the quest system, specifically what the quests do when they are taken, completed, failed, etc. (I'd like it to be a bit more simple to deal with, simply because I would like to be able to implement a large portion of the quests without having to recode stuff that is obviously going to be done with each of them)
-attempt to finally get the shopkeepers up and working, I've just got to do it but, like so many other things, I simply haven't found the time to do so yet.
-figure out why the packaged game is crashing and refusing to load at all
     -if at all possible, get the damn game up online for people to try :/ The last thing that needs to be done before this is getting the damn thing to actually play. It worked for the longest time, but then just as I got the damn AI up, the previous last problem, this thing arose. Such are the ways, I guess.

Not a bunch that is too interesting or even visible, but it all needs to get done. As always,  some screenshots.

The gathering animation, simple and quick.

The Little Lizard (which needs a better name)

A shot of the new mana crystal drop system. It feels better to be able to actually see what you have gained, at least to me. Plus there is a widget that I forgot to nab a screenshot of that tells the player exactly how many they have found.

The scale dance spell. It teleports the player, leaving a slowing area behind. I should really learn to make gifs. :p It would read better that way.

Scale Storm, essentially a massive AoE slow, that also deals a bit of damage over time. Hard to see when it isn't moving.

Hurriscale, an upgraded form of Scale Storm, larger AoE, more slow, same-ish damage. Also does not read well when not moving.

The quest menu widget, works as one would expect. 

I apologize if the last bit of the update seems rushed, that's because it is. I have to be leaving for retail hell about 4 minutes ago, so there you have it. But, what I have gained from these screenshots is that I really need to finally learn how to make gifs. It surely isn't that difficult, I've just never done it. But, until next time...

-Lucas Cady

Project Director

Pre-Alpha 1.40

Well, as I had guessed, we do indeed have a few significant updates this week. Nothing much to be seen, but a lot in the way of actually getting the game closer to a game that one could actual want to play for hours at a time. :p

I considered setting the version to 1.5 instead of 1.4, considering the amount of coding that was done this week, but I decided not to get too far ahead of myself. And thus, the change log:


Change log, 1.4

-Increased the length of civilization building significantly
-Implemented the Leonen race!


Items Added:

None, again. >.>


Cards Added:

-Little Lizard (which needs a real name), follows the player, doesn't do much else, or does he?


Enemies Added:

-Little Lizard (which still needs a new name), you'll feel terrible for murdering one


I fixed that damn AI bug!

I finally sat down and tracked that damn bug down and squashed it. The problem was that the AI were misreading the distance between themselves and the player because I recently changed the navigation system to use invokers as opposed to a static navmesh. But, it is no more! The bug, not the invokers...
Alas, one problem gone, another arises. I attempted to package the project to test once more, the packaging went fine, but the packaged game will not play. :/
Such are the ways.


And Followers!

Having squashing that pathing bug for the AI, it was just a simple bit of until I got the followers, and therefor, follower cards, up and running properly.


And Quests!

I'd been thinking over the quest system for quite sometime now, and today I finally sat down and worked it out. I am happy to announce that the quest system is now almost completely implemented. All that is left to do is add a menu that actually allows you to see which quests that you have taken. :p

As always, save last week, I leave you with screenshots, well, a screenshot.

Just a quick shot of the quest complete widget, along with the male lion's backside. I've a design in mind for the actual 2D art for the widget, with each race having a different border for the thing giving them a more personalized feel. 

For myself, I feel that I need to state, looking at the graphics of the game, we are still very much in Pre-Alpha, which should be obvious... mostly by the way that every post reminds you of this fact. :p 

But, I, myself, am not at all happy with the way the models look as of yet. There a few things that I am completely happy with, but the largest part of them need to be done again. Recently, the character models have been bothering me the most, especially the shoulder region. I'll be redoing them all, again, at some point, but as of now, I feel like adding more game play elements along with progressing the game with more options and content is more important. 

But damn, some of those models are ugly. Bleh. :p

Anywho, until next time,

-Lucas Cady

Project Director