Wind Carrier; Alpha 22.9.18

Hello all!

A larger changelog this week, with a few significant changes and a couple firsts. The S'Hae is being held off until next week because our play-tester didn't get to actually test it last week because I screwed the test dream all up. :p

Anywho, onto the changelog!


Changelog

-Added hit-sparks to anything and everything

-Added a moderate screen shake for melee attacks

-Adjusted some (read: most) attack animations to read better and generally feel better to use


Player Updates:

-Clamped the effects of MCM and Alacrity to 10% - 200% and 50% - 200% respectively

-Added the skills Bloodfire Engine I - III 
-The first unlocks a ritual of the same name, Bloodfire Engine
-Bloodfire Engine converts the mana cost of cards into health cost at a 10/25/50% rate, allowing the player to gain the Sanguine multiplier on spell cards even when mana is more than sufficient

-Added a 'Dismiss Current Ritual' button to the ritual screen
-Does as you would expect and cancels all active ritual effects


Item Updates:

-Added the Ember Cradle accessory
-First equipment to implement the unique effects system
-Has a chance, when player is hit, to spawn a patch of fire underneath the player which does level dependent amounts of fire damage to enemies


Enemy Updates:

-Increased the range at which enemies will despawn

-Enemies can no longer spawn as the player is

-Added the Ember Father Saurian enemy
-Ranged artillery
-Tosses explosive embers
-Rarely drops Ember Cradle Accessory

-Added the S'Hae

-Adjusted the Leonen Iron Head's attack ranges to make it more consistent
-Increased the size of his weapon collision as well


Bug Fixes:

-Fixed a bug where some enemy magic didn't have a proper element assigned to it

The hit-spark for fire element attacks. 

The hit-sparks look mostly the same, aside from the colour and the small particles that escape from the center. I may make those smaller bits larger to emphasize the element. 

Bloodfire Engine III

The first persistent ritual, or rather, it's final form. I intend to have all active rituals be accompanied by a particle effect to remind the player that they are active. It may change in the future, but this is what we've got for now. 

Persistent rituals will provide a unique, multi-level effect - nothing like simple stat bonuses. I've another in mind that gives a chance when spawning creatures to spawn 1-2 extra for free, for example. 

Bloodfire Engine was just the first that I had fully fleshed out, which is odd because it just came to me on a walk yesterday. I've had other ideas just percolating in my head, but nothing that completely got worked out.

Oh, as a side-note, adding Bloodfire Engine got me to get all the code out of the way and the couple new classes so that adding new persistent rituals shouldn't be too much work.

Note: all persistent rituals should save with the player, if not then I guess I suck. :p

I should really write out instructions for myself about how to implement a new this and that; it's getting kinda out of hand in a way. :p

Anywho, that's all I have for this week, 

until next time,

-Lucas Cady

Project Director

Wind Carrier; Alpha 15.9.18

Hello all!

Again, a short week, but the S'Hae is a hair away from being finished.

Let's jump right into it!


Changelog


-Added a back-plate to equipped items

-Increased the icon size for equipped items

-Adjusted the drop logic for items/materials from enemies.
-Now there is no chance that larger creatures (Haljuhurtta, S'Hae, etc.) will drop nothing
-The change has no effect on creatures that would only drop nothing or 1 thing at a time
(Faithless Hound, Vulpine Ritualist, etc.)

Player Updates:


-Cards whose mana cost is higher than the combination of the player health and mana will now appear in a dark blue in the hand widget


Bug Fixes:

-Fixed a bug where in the equipment screen, when unequipping an item, the hover text would remain

-Fixed a bug where the equipment screen hover text would become visible even if nothing was equipped in any given slot

-Fixed a bug where the scythe equip socket was 10 degrees off from where it should have been

-Fixed a bug where the talk widget was still disappearing too quickly

-Fixed a bug where: Fennoc Breath, Fennoc Gout, and Rockdancer's Descent were not rotating properly when used

A quick screen of the new wood-esque back-plate, along with S'Hae related equipment icons.

The S'Hae will be in the hands of our play tester this week, so if there are any unintended bugs with the way that it works, hopefully they will get found and sorted this coming week. Other than that I've one more piece of equipment to finish that I decided to add at almost the end and the texture for the S'Hae needs a bit of work. And then it's done! And I can start doing other things than working on it! Woo!

Anywho, until next time,

-Lucas Cady

Project Director

Wind Carrier; Alpha 8.9.18

Hello all!

I'm almost on time this week!

This week I spent working on getting everything S'Hae related finished up and ready. I can happily say that 90% of everything for it is now complete. The only things left to do are: equipment icons, crafting recipes, and the small meshes for the its material drops. Oh, and couple of textures because I keep forgetting to do them. :/

Other than that, this week had a couple of quality of life changes, mostly dealing with card usage and the health as mana mechanic.

So, to the changelog!


Changelog

-Dropped items now have a particle effect to be more visible


Player Updates:

-Cards which cannot be cast with mana alone are now tinted red

-Added the Insufficient Mana tab to the card usage tutorial
-Outlines using health as mana

-Increased readability of card usage

I give you the S'Hae Shell, Shell Helm, and Magne Gauntlets!

The Shell armor focuses more on the defensive aspects of the S'Hae - specifically the magnetic armor that it generates for itself. 

And here are all the S'Hae weapons!

The only texture that is incomplete is the throwing ax - seen in the middle on the far left side. Everything else is done. 

I'm not making any promises, but we're getting very close the the S'Hae release. I'm quite excited because it is the biggest creature that we have put together to date. Let's just hope it isn't super buggy when I'm not watching it carefully. :p

Anywho, until next week,

-Lucas Cady

Project Director

Wind Carrier; Alpha Demo 0.1.2

Hello all!

As this week is a build week, you can find the new build: here

As for this week's changelog, there isn't a lot to write. I spent the most of my time working on S'Hae related things.

I had to cut one of the planned attacks for the S'Hae, but with that I can say that it is complete, save for the equipment.

I've designed both armor sets along with all the weapons. I've only managed to model two of the weapons, however.

The S'Hae Carver

-dagger

The carver is complete, texture and all, as you can probably see. I may want to do something more with the inside guard, but who knows?

The S'Hae Gouger

-spear

The gouger is mostly complete. I just need to finish the handle texture. Here it is seen without anything but coloured materials in Blender.

Anywho, that's what I got done for this week, it's not a bunch, but it is what it is. I'm a bit bummed that the S'Hae isn't completed yet, not much to do about it though. 

Until next time,

-Lucas Cady

Project Director

Wind Carrier; Alpha 25.8.18

Hello all!

Another week and more changes!

The biggest change this week is the official re-adding of the Leonen race. They are completely game ready now. Other than that, I worked on getting some quests fixed up along with the addition of a couple more.

Anywho, changelog!


Changelog

-Added a foliage density option to the option and pause menus

-Re-added the Leonen race for player choice

-Added more sound effects and a couple of open licensed songs

-Changed the way that the quest indicator worked, now it stars hidden, but becomes visible if a quest is available


Player Updates:

-After dying a non-Spirit Walk death, the player now has the option to teleport home instead of reloading the game
Note: If a player home is not found, the player will teleport to the hill where the game starts

-Updated the dodge animation, along with adding left and right directional dodging

-Added Spirit Walk tutorial


Enemy Updates:

-Made Enemy AI more aggressive

-Updated the Leonen IronEye and Leonen IronPaw to work properly with the new meshes


Minor Creature Updates:

-Minor creatures now play death animations as well

-Added a death animation for the Kiwi


Quests Added:

-The Windy Seas should spawn properly now

-Feeding Ardor should spawn properly now

-Added Dangerous Farmers
-Leonen

-Added A Few Leaves
-Vulpine


Bug Fixes:

-Fixed a bug where cities that hadn't been built yet were still creating the city name widget

-Fixed a bunch of incorrect normals

-Fixed the lack of collision on the Builder's Workbench

-Fixed a bug where spawning within a civ's stream radius would not properly set the civ's influence level

-Fixed broken attack animations on the Vulpine Poisondrinker and the Saurian Treefeller


Along with the mentioned changes, I also started designing S'Hae themed armor and weapons! Nothing concrete yet, however. And now, the S'Hae itself only requires one animation sequence and one more bit of logic before it is completely complete!

Note to self: Ilhkor'sei needs its weapons to be designed...

On that note, I have begun to redesign the Ilhkor'sei animations - they're rather atrocious right now...

Anywho, I'm hoping to have the S'Hae itself ready for implementation by next week, as next week is our next demo week. So, woo!

And that's all I have for now,
until next time,

-Lucas Cady

Project Director

Wind Carrier; Alpha 18.8.18

Hello all!

Not a whole lot this week either, I spent two more days this week out of the house dealing with various things that needed dealing with. Good news is now we are actually running off a proper modem instead of a mobile hot-spot. So, woo. :p

The largest change this week is a new death state. I explain it in full below, but basically, when it is up, the player will enter a Spirit Walk mode which allows them to regain lost health/mana based on how well they do during its duration.

I also plan on adding the option next week to allow the player to teleport home after a non-Spirit Walk death. Because losing progress isn't fun, but being teleported home is better than actually losing experience, items, and way points. At least to me.

Anywho, changelog time.


Changelog

-Minor Creatures, depending on the type, now have a chance to drop various materials on death

-Adjusted card code to make it more efficient

-Increased the detection range for allies


Player Updates:

-Once per minute, when the player would otherwise die, they will enter a mode called "Spirit Walk" where they will detach from their body and gain increased movement speed for the duration. Time will freeze for everything but the player and spirits will begin to spawn and the player can collect them. Each spirit will either heal the player 10% health or mana. Once the Spirit Walk duration has ended, the player will resume playing as normal with the percentage of health/mana that they collected.

-Added the skills Strength of Spirit I -III
-Multiplies the duration of Spirit Walk, from death and from cards, by 1.5/ 2/ 3 times respecively


Card Updates:

-Added the Time Dilation card
-Tier 1
-Slows time for all but the player by 80% for 5 seconds

-Added the Spirit Walk card
-Tier 2
-Upgrades from Time Dilation

-Added the Mana Overload card
-Tier 2
-Currently only obtainable from enemy Carving Dolls as a rare drop or as their capture, and as a rare gift from benevolent Carving Dolls
-A Carving Doll appears and charges, taking mana from the player to increase the scope and damage of the attack
-Explodes dealing damage to all in the AoE


Bug Fixes:

-Fixed a host of cards which weren't properly damaging everything that was necessary



Another week without screenshots? Hmm. I really need to take more screenshots. Bleh

I also spent a fair amount this week working on the S'Hae - the fabled creature that doesn't seem to be coming at all. By my count, it still has four damn things that I need to make it be able to do before it is complete. Of the remaining things, only one of them will require anything that I haven't done before, so there's that. This is the biggest creature that we have ever made (code/asset wise, not physically) and is shaping up to be an interesting one. I'm learning quite a bit from it about AI: both AI in general and where ours needs to be improved. After this creature, the next "big" one should be easier to handle. It doesn't help that this one requires completely new interactions and status effects (to me.) It'll probably also have two armor sets, which will make more sense after it has been revealed properly.

Note to self: Design S'Hae armor sets...


Anywho, until next time

-Lucas Cady

Project Director 

Wind Carrier; Alpha 11.8.2018

Hello all!

I'm working off a shitty mobile hot-spot right now, but our modem should be here by next week... hopefully.
I haven't gotten a whole lot done over the course of the last two weeks. I've spent the majority of it setting up our new apartment and settling in, along with dealing with a sprained ankle that I got from trying to get everything moved up to our new apartment too quickly.
I also spent a fair amount on company related planning and really thinking and devising ways to make Wind Carrier feel and play better.
The changelog is fairly sparse this week, as one could imagine. So, lets get to it.


Changelog

-Adjusted the speed and various other variables within the building management system to make it feel better to use

-Civ Cost now appears in the overhead management widget for the selected building, along with the building interaction widget that spawns when interacting with a sign post

-Adjusted some code within the enemy parent class to make it more efficient

-Added a visual indicator for creatures over the player's level


Enemy Updates:

-Carving Doll
-Now has a 20% chance to spawn as a benevolent variant of itself
-Currently, the only benevolent type it can spawn will heal the player significantly and may gift a resource. Afterwords, it will immediately despawn


Bug Fixes:

-Fixed a bug where the weather actor wasn't properly attaching itself to the player when they used a transform card
-Fixed a longstanding bug where the Vulpine Ritualist would only cast Fennoc Fire at the player no matter their target


Yeah, told you so. :P

I expect next week's changelog to be a bit more close to the norm. I finally sorted out my notes for the S'Hae and I've been working on a couple of minor creatures to populate the world with. But, yeah.


Until next time,

-Lucas Cady

Project Director