Spellery

Firstly, on the gameplay side, I've reworked the "empowered" form of the "Lightning Flail" spell.

This spell, in its base form, fires out a great ball of vibrant electricity, which then bounces around the environment and enemies as it tries to return to the player.

And previously, its empowered form was... more or less just the above, except that there were two balls of electricity, and they were bigger. I was not content with this.

Now... well, it's similar, but I hope at least a little more interesting: instead of two large balls of lightning, it fires several smaller ones all around the player. These may not last as long as the standard lightning-balls, but they may, I suspect, make for good room-clearers.

Remaining somewhat with gameplay, in the week just past I finally implemented a simple "note" system! In short, this allows for simple reminders to be given of things that the player has learned or been tasked with.


(Sorry, no, there is no "Kitten Moon". The entries shown in the screenshot just above are almost all stand-ins. )

And continuing with matters of menus, I discovered that I had omitted to implement non-mouse navigation for the options menu. In the week just past, then, I rectified this oversight.

Turning then to effects, there have been a few changes in such matters. Some of these are fairly straightforward: effects can now incorporate an initial delay; a "firing" effect has been added to the Deceived Acolyte's "skull" attack; and objects now flash when hit.

But perhaps more interesting is that, as shown in the first screenshot above, a new effect has been implemented--one that is intended to convey spell-weaving!

In short, this portrays threads being fashioned to make a spell-form--then vanishing in a flare of light as the completed spell is cast.

The exact design of the weave is not set in stone--indeed, I intend for it to vary from spell to spell.

Currently only one spell has been implemented: that used by the Deceived Acolytes to call up skeletons from the bones of the Ossuary Moon.



Moving to matters of audio, once again work was done in the week just past towards adding sound effects to the game.

This proceeds somewhat slowly, I will confess--audio-work is, I fear, not my strong suit. Still, I have implemented a few sounds.

Further, I've made some changes and (I feel) improvements to the code that handles sound.

As to what to do beyond those sounds that I manage to create myself, my thoughts have moved in a few directions on this matter.

For one, I want to get at least some done myself, and to then attempt to put together further sounds using royalty-free audio. If I do end up hiring someone, this may at least allow me to reduce the cost of doing so.

And for another, my current major milestone is to produce a "vertical slice" that I might put in front of publishers. I wonder, then, whether it's important for such a build to have polish in all fields--especially in fields for which I intend that my proposed budget include an amount for the hiring of a professional.

I don't know: On the one hand, I don't want to undermine the game's probability of finding publisher support. On the other, I don't want to shoot myself in the foot by straining to polish something that needn't be polished...

We'll see! :/

And finally, there were various tweaks, fixes, and changes that don't seem worth detailing here!

That, then, is all for this week--stay well, and thank you for reading! ^_^