Summary:
In which levels are completed; fossils adorn terrain; text is written; as is level-logic; the use of a quest-item is finished; a miniboss sees changes; solar systems heal; a new trap is made; a holiday is announced (with bearing on the next blog post); and a seasonal well-wish is given.
Greetings and salutations!
This week's screenshot(-excerpt) shows a fossil discovered in the "Halls of the Ancients" region of the Ossuary Moon:
The week just past was perhaps somewhat of a miscellany-week, a week of various and varied bits of polish and finishing:
To start with, I think that I have the levels of the Ossuary Moon complete! (Or rather, as complete as I intend them to be for the demo.) I won't say that it's impossible that further tweaks will be made, but for now I believe that part of the work to be done!
This included various bits of decor and polish in the levels themselves; the addition of elements to appear after the liche's defeat; the placement of further spawners (and perhaps tweaks to extant ones; I forget); the instatement of an interaction that grants a "point of interest" on the local planet; and, as shown above, large fossils in the terrain of the "Halls of the Ancients".
(You may note a visual difference in the fossil shown in the first screenshot and those visible in the screenshot just above...
)
Furthermore, various bits of text were written, primarily but not exclusively for the Ossuary Moon, and pieces of level-logic were coded for the Ossuary Moon.
Further still, I completed work on that quest-item usage that I believe that I mentioned in last week's blog-post.
And last of this set of changes, I made some alterations to a miniboss found in the "Halls of the Ancients", altering its behaviour and damage-dealing to be, I feel, a little more fun to encounter.
Stepping away from the Ossuary Moon and into more-general gameplay matters, I decided in the week just past to institute automatic healing while the player is flying a solar system.
In short, I realised that healing items didn't respawn as enemies did, potentially leaving the player short if they were to make several visits to a given moon. Some automatic healing then alleviates that issue, I hope: while the player may not get more items, they can at least top up their health.
This does I think still mean that healing items are useful while on a moon: they now provide a means of pushing ahead without returning to space.
On the other end of the matter of health, in the week just past, and inspired by a game that I was playing, I implemented a new trap!
This trap, in short, haphazardly places damage-dealing objects within a given rectangular area. The nature of these objects is not specified by the base-class, potentially allowing multiple variations; in the case of my "proof of concept" version, now placed in the "Hall of Traps", they take the form of gouts of blue fire.
And once again, there were changes, fixes, and tweaks enacted in the week just past that don't seem worth detailing here!
In extraneous matters, let me note that I intend for my annual holiday to begin at the start of next week!
I do still intend to post an entry into this blog on that Monday, covering whatever is done this week. However, there will thereafter be no more blog-entries until the week after I return to my work. As I intend a three-week holiday this year, that should, I believe, mean that the next blog post is due to be posted on Monday the 16th of January, 2023!
On which note then, let me say: whatever you may observe or celebrate at this time of year (if anything), I hope that it's a happy one for you. ^_^
That then is all for this week--and indeed, for this year! So stay well, and thank you for reading! ^_^
