Summary:
In which an apology is given; explanation is made for a missed blog-post; enemies continue to be prepared for the demo; a foe becomes visible in the aethereal; and a matter of damage sees change.
Greetings and salutations!
This week's screenshot shows some further prototype-art:
Phew! My apologies for having not posted an entry last week! To explain:
On the Sunday before last--that is, not the day prior to my writing this, but one week before that; the day prior to when I would usually have posted--I fell horribly sick. What's more, the week that followed proved to be a stressful one for me.
As a result, I fear that I wasn't in much of a position to write on Monday of last week. :/
Indeed, given the way that things were going, I elected to just take last week off of work, as sick leave.
In any case, I'm feeling largely better now I believe, and can report on the week before last, at least! And it was a week in which some things got done, I daresay:
As before, progress continued in the matter of creating prototype depictions of enemies, and of incorporating them into my new demo-level. And, of course, in implementing tweaks and fixes as I did so!
And indeed, I attended to a fair few enemies during that week, I believe!
I don't think that I'm quite done, but I do think that I'm close! ^_^
(Of course, a selection of bosses awaits to be dealt with...)
Here then is another collage showing a few of the prototype representations made during the week:
I also went back to one particular enemy--the ghostly Shroud--and implemented an intended feature:
You see, this foe has a tendency to fade in and out of visibility--it is a ghost, after all.
But conversely, the player has access to an ability that allows them to see into the ghostly aethereal--and which should thus allow them to see an otherwise-invisible Shroud.
So I implemented this! It called for some changes to the code of the enemy, and for some reworking in my "Aethereal Object" classes, but I believe that it is now done!
But not all work of that week was applied to enemies: I also attended to a matter of gameplay, of implementing a change that I've had in mind for a while.
Specifically, I removed "continuous" damage from the game.
You see, as I had it, certain attacks were dealt over time: the longer the target was affected, the more damage was dealt.
And this is fairly natural!
But is also has some drawbacks: For one, it calls for additional complexity in both handling the damage and producing a visual response to it, and for another, it means that such attacks may become negligible if passed through very quickly.
So, I have now replaced such damage with "pulsed" damage--damage that is dealt much as normal damage, but with rapid repetition.
The effect is very similar--but done thusly it works with the base damage-mechanics and effects--and furthermore at least deals a reliable minimum of damage.
That, then, is all for this week--stay well, and thank you for reading! ^_^
