Greetings and salutations!
This week's screenshot shows some changes to the encounter that's had in the Crystal Moon:
The week just past was perhaps largely a gameplay week, with a few other things done besides:
Monday, April 4. 2022
Crystal Lights
Summary: In which an encounter is reworked; a little wildlife is added; two new variant enemies are implemented; the "DLC proof-of-concept" is advanced; planets may have "points of interest"; the message-UI is moved; the handling of ship-skins is changed; and a work-in-progress feature is mentioned, but not detailed.
Greetings and salutations!
This week's screenshot shows some changes to the encounter that's had in the Crystal Moon:
The week just past was perhaps largely a gameplay week, with a few other things done besides:
Greetings and salutations!
This week's screenshot shows some changes to the encounter that's had in the Crystal Moon:
The week just past was perhaps largely a gameplay week, with a few other things done besides:
As shown in the main screenshot above, the encounter in the Crystal Moon has been reworked again!
In short, as I recall I had remained unsatisfied with what I had: It had felt unchallenging, uninteresting, insufficiently "geometric", and a little too "bitty". I wanted something more engaging, and something that better fitted with the crystalline theme of the moon.
And in the week just past, some new inspirations came to me towards that.
Now the crystal creatures of the moon remain stationary where they appear, each firing their bolts of light in a set direction. And with those bolts now elongated, they thus describe patterns in the dark of the moon's interior.
They remain all stationary--but one, that is: a single creature, glowing brighter than the rest, detaches from the pattern to give chase against the player, harrying them with a constant rapid-fire stream of light. Should that creature be destroyed, another will detach in its place, and so on until there are no more creatures left.
And this, I find, seems to work better than what I previously had! I may give further thought to the encounter--there's a strategy for dealing with it that alas keeps the player away from the patterns made--but overall I feel rather more pleased with it now than I did before, I do believe. ^_^
Remaining with creatures, in the week just past I implemented a few more.
To start with, something harmless: a small, scuttling creature called a "Bone Mite" that constitutes the wildlife of the Ossuary Moon. These simply wander about a given room--or run from the player when approached. They're also rather fragile: a single hit is all that it takes to kill them!
Less harmless are two new enemies that are, essentially, offshoots of the Deceived Acolytes that I believe that I've previously shown. One of the player's actions in the Ossuary Moon impacts the Acolytes greatly, and from the change wrought by that impact a schism forms.
One group hews to what was, and seeks its return. Though their power grows and they take to wearing black, they otherwise remain much the same as they were. These are the Deceived Cultists.
The other group rejects what was and tries to chart their own way. Eschewing the necrurgic powers of summoning and binding, they have found new arts--such as those that allow them to graft four skeletal arms to their narrow frames. These are the Dark Sorcerers.
You should see both below, a Dark Sorcerer on the left, and a Deceived Cultist on the right:
(Although note that I haven't yet implemented the logic that produces these new forms in place of the Deceived Acolytes!)
Moving away from such things, then, in the week just past I did a little more work on the "DLC proof-of-concept" that I have in mind for the vertical slice. Specifically, I implemented the majority of the single quest that is part of it, providing an NPC who seeks a pearl (the pearl previously added to the DLC's Whirlpool Moon), and who reacts to being given said pearl.
Further, I added music to the various parts of the DLC solar system.
The abovementioned NPC is found in the single planet of the "proof of concept", and implementing them was thus aided by a new feature: "Points of interest".
These, in short, are markers that may appear on planets, representing locations or characters that the player might want to explore. Further, they may be initially hidden--indeed, I daresay that most will be--and can then be revealed via scripting.
You should see such a "point of interest" below--it's the blue light, with the player's on-planet "spark" representation visible near the bottom:
On the UI side, I adjusted the positioning of the "message" UI, shifting it up to touch the top of the screen. This causes it to less overlap (and thus clash with) world-titles, and to overall look better, I feel.
On the technical side, I had realised that my approach to ship-skins didn't mesh well with the idea of DLC. Thus in the week just past I reworked that approach; what I have now should, I believe, allow for both different skins and different ship-parts to be found in DLC adventures!
Likewise on the technical side, I also began work on another new feature, and made some progress towards it, I do believe--but that's not ready yet to be shown, I feel!
And, once again, there were changes, fixes, and tweaks enacted that don't seem worth detailing here!
That then is all for this week--stay well, and thank you for reading! ^_^
In short, as I recall I had remained unsatisfied with what I had: It had felt unchallenging, uninteresting, insufficiently "geometric", and a little too "bitty". I wanted something more engaging, and something that better fitted with the crystalline theme of the moon.
And in the week just past, some new inspirations came to me towards that.
Now the crystal creatures of the moon remain stationary where they appear, each firing their bolts of light in a set direction. And with those bolts now elongated, they thus describe patterns in the dark of the moon's interior.
They remain all stationary--but one, that is: a single creature, glowing brighter than the rest, detaches from the pattern to give chase against the player, harrying them with a constant rapid-fire stream of light. Should that creature be destroyed, another will detach in its place, and so on until there are no more creatures left.
And this, I find, seems to work better than what I previously had! I may give further thought to the encounter--there's a strategy for dealing with it that alas keeps the player away from the patterns made--but overall I feel rather more pleased with it now than I did before, I do believe. ^_^
Remaining with creatures, in the week just past I implemented a few more.
To start with, something harmless: a small, scuttling creature called a "Bone Mite" that constitutes the wildlife of the Ossuary Moon. These simply wander about a given room--or run from the player when approached. They're also rather fragile: a single hit is all that it takes to kill them!
Less harmless are two new enemies that are, essentially, offshoots of the Deceived Acolytes that I believe that I've previously shown. One of the player's actions in the Ossuary Moon impacts the Acolytes greatly, and from the change wrought by that impact a schism forms.
One group hews to what was, and seeks its return. Though their power grows and they take to wearing black, they otherwise remain much the same as they were. These are the Deceived Cultists.
The other group rejects what was and tries to chart their own way. Eschewing the necrurgic powers of summoning and binding, they have found new arts--such as those that allow them to graft four skeletal arms to their narrow frames. These are the Dark Sorcerers.
You should see both below, a Dark Sorcerer on the left, and a Deceived Cultist on the right:
(Although note that I haven't yet implemented the logic that produces these new forms in place of the Deceived Acolytes!)
Moving away from such things, then, in the week just past I did a little more work on the "DLC proof-of-concept" that I have in mind for the vertical slice. Specifically, I implemented the majority of the single quest that is part of it, providing an NPC who seeks a pearl (the pearl previously added to the DLC's Whirlpool Moon), and who reacts to being given said pearl.
Further, I added music to the various parts of the DLC solar system.
The abovementioned NPC is found in the single planet of the "proof of concept", and implementing them was thus aided by a new feature: "Points of interest".
These, in short, are markers that may appear on planets, representing locations or characters that the player might want to explore. Further, they may be initially hidden--indeed, I daresay that most will be--and can then be revealed via scripting.
You should see such a "point of interest" below--it's the blue light, with the player's on-planet "spark" representation visible near the bottom:
On the UI side, I adjusted the positioning of the "message" UI, shifting it up to touch the top of the screen. This causes it to less overlap (and thus clash with) world-titles, and to overall look better, I feel.
On the technical side, I had realised that my approach to ship-skins didn't mesh well with the idea of DLC. Thus in the week just past I reworked that approach; what I have now should, I believe, allow for both different skins and different ship-parts to be found in DLC adventures!
Likewise on the technical side, I also began work on another new feature, and made some progress towards it, I do believe--but that's not ready yet to be shown, I feel!
And, once again, there were changes, fixes, and tweaks enacted that don't seem worth detailing here!
That then is all for this week--stay well, and thank you for reading! ^_^
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