Hey everyone!
Been heads down a bit working on code to transition saves to the new chapter. I’m making steady progress on chapter 1, currently outlining the battle map first before I do any environment design. This will give me a solid foundation to build off of as I know how the “flow” of the chapter is going to go. Expect much more combat than in the prologue!
Also, I may be in the market for a writer, but it depends on how my finances shape up. I wouldn’t ever expect someone to work for free, and I don’t think offering a cut of revenue would be sufficient payment this early on in development. What I am realizing is how much of a gargantuan undertaking all the different parts of the game are solo, so I may be looking to create a team in the future. Nothing set in stone though, but DM me if this sounds like something that might be interesting to you or if you know someone who would be interested?
Back to actual updates! Here are some new characters being introduced in chapter 1:
Playable
NPC
Enemies (recolors for variety)
Some other quick updates, I got some feedback that the tutorials were too “stacked” together, and should be spread out to when the actual action is happening. So I did just that! Low quality gif, but I think it gets the points across. Basically the tutorials will pop up for each action the first time it shows up in a turn.
A couple of things that I’m looking to change AFTER I finish chapter 1. I will poll these changes once I have chapter 1 out and playable, as players will have a lot more combat to base their preference off of. However I’d love to get any early feedback you all have!
Attack UI: I’ve had thoughts of trimming down the UI by a LOT. Right now it takes 5 clicks just to do a basic attack on a unit. 1 - click the unit to show movement range, 2 - click the tile to move to, 3 - click the ‘Attack’ action, 4 - Choose the weapon, 5 - Choose the target. This can be optimized to just the essentials. Since the turn system allows one unit at a time, we can remove choosing the unit and show the movement range automatically for the next unit in queue. The UI would be one bar at the bottom, showing all the weapons you can equip, and if you hover over it, the abilities you can use with it. Items, class, and personal abilities will show in the bar too. Then you’d just select the target once you’ve hit a weapon/ability and you’ve trimmed down 5 clicks to just 3 a turn, which over the course of the game would be massive!
Turn System: I’m thinking of simplifying it a bit and only allowing one attack per “turn” per unit, but the endurance stat will decide who goes first. Right now I’m running into a balancing issue where i never want player units to have low END because that means someone’s favorite unit might act way less than others, which wouldn’t be a ton of fun. Making this change still rewards high endurance by letting them strike first, but that’s it. It also makes the “algorithm” of who goes next much easier to understand at a glance.
Shields: Right now shields operate as a % chance to reduce damage by a set amount. 50% to reduce incoming damage by 5, for example. This leads to the player needing to do more calculations, and also a potentially frustrating RNG factor against enemies where you keep getting your damage reduced. Whereas with your units you don’t want to have to rely on a 50% chance to keep them alive. I’m thinking of changing it to shields acting as an added “health bar” that recovers each turn. So at the start of each units turn their shield would refresh to block 10 damage, for example. Weaker shields would block less, heavier ones more. But the damage absorption would only happen if they get hit, so it’s a good way to keep your units topped off without overly relying on heals.
That’s it for now, stay tuned for hopefully a new map in the next update!
