Greetings and salutations!
This week's screenshot shows the return of an old foe, now with a new coat of paint!
The week just past was another bit of a miscellany--but perhaps most notably included a push into content-creation:
Monday, May 16. 2022
A Tutorial Moon
Summary: In which a UI bug is fixed; weapon-icons are reversed; a UI is reorganised; enemies may respawn--but generally not as they once were; an autosave is put in place; some writing is done; a start is made to level-building; an old enemy returns; and some new issues are discovered.
Greetings and salutations!
This week's screenshot shows the return of an old foe, now with a new coat of paint!
The week just past was another bit of a miscellany--but perhaps most notably included a push into content-creation:
Greetings and salutations!
This week's screenshot shows the return of an old foe, now with a new coat of paint!
The week just past was another bit of a miscellany--but perhaps most notably included a push into content-creation:
On the UI side, for some time I've had a bug that prevented players from typing into text-boxes (such as when naming a save-game) while using non-mouse menu-navigation. In the week just past I believe that I fixed this issue!
Perhaps more saliently, however, in the week just past I re-ordered some of my UI elements!
For one, the weapon-icons in the main game-view are now ordered in the opposite direction (top-to-bottom instead of bottom-to-top). This results in their matching the ordering used in the status screen, and thus makes for a more-consistent presentation.
But larger than this is the change to the save-load menu: it's been completely overhauled, with wider save-buttons and repositioning of both the screenshot-view and the control-buttons. All of this with the intention of allowing more space on the save-buttons for long file-names.
And that in turn prompted by the fact that I've implemented a more-useful approach to generating default names for saves:
Moving to the gameplay side, I have at last implemented enemy respawning!
Now, in some metroidvanias enemies simply respawn as they were first encountered: if on first entry to a room you encounter an enemy, with subsequent respawns you'll again encounter that same enemy in that same spot. (Barring changes to world-state.)
But I don't want that in Moons in Crystal: I want, I think, for the player to have a greater sense of having an impact on the world, and of making it at least a little safer.
So, I've thus instead implemented a system under which respawns draw from an optional secondary set of spawners, and select randomly from those. The idea is that these will offer lighter and more-varying opposition to the player--and indeed, will more-often include harmless "wildlife".
(And the system that I have in place should also allow me to change which secondary set a given room draws from, allowing for changes to the state of the world.)
All of this did, however, call for some changes and fixes to my handling of spawning, and of saving-and-loading.
Remaining with gameplay matters, in the week just past I also instated an autosave on exiting a major location (such as a moon).
As to content creation, in the week just past I did a bit of writing, adding for example drafts of codex-entries for various moons, if I recall correctly.
And with all of the above done, and my to-do list thus looking rather lighter, I took a step at last into the level-building phase proper. Specifically, I've begun work on a small "Vertical Slice Tutorial Moon"--a location in which to provide a tutorial for players just starting out in the vertical slice.
(I want this to be separate from the previously-shown "Vertical Slice Moon" because I don't want new players to have access to the things contained there from the very start.)
And it's for this location that I've brought back the worm shown in the first screenshot of this post: an old enemy left fallow since the Treasure Hoard Moon was cut, now finding new use as a starter enemy. With, admittedly, some changes to both behaviour and appearance.
That said, creating this location has--not entirely unexpectedly, I think--uncovered some lurking issues, things that I feel want for fixing before I move forward. For some of these I think that I may have answers (or indeed, one answer that--somewhat literally--covers multiple issues), while for others more investigation may be called for.
And of course, in the week just past I enacted 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! ^_^
Perhaps more saliently, however, in the week just past I re-ordered some of my UI elements!
For one, the weapon-icons in the main game-view are now ordered in the opposite direction (top-to-bottom instead of bottom-to-top). This results in their matching the ordering used in the status screen, and thus makes for a more-consistent presentation.
But larger than this is the change to the save-load menu: it's been completely overhauled, with wider save-buttons and repositioning of both the screenshot-view and the control-buttons. All of this with the intention of allowing more space on the save-buttons for long file-names.
And that in turn prompted by the fact that I've implemented a more-useful approach to generating default names for saves:
Moving to the gameplay side, I have at last implemented enemy respawning!
Now, in some metroidvanias enemies simply respawn as they were first encountered: if on first entry to a room you encounter an enemy, with subsequent respawns you'll again encounter that same enemy in that same spot. (Barring changes to world-state.)
But I don't want that in Moons in Crystal: I want, I think, for the player to have a greater sense of having an impact on the world, and of making it at least a little safer.
So, I've thus instead implemented a system under which respawns draw from an optional secondary set of spawners, and select randomly from those. The idea is that these will offer lighter and more-varying opposition to the player--and indeed, will more-often include harmless "wildlife".
(And the system that I have in place should also allow me to change which secondary set a given room draws from, allowing for changes to the state of the world.)
All of this did, however, call for some changes and fixes to my handling of spawning, and of saving-and-loading.
Remaining with gameplay matters, in the week just past I also instated an autosave on exiting a major location (such as a moon).
As to content creation, in the week just past I did a bit of writing, adding for example drafts of codex-entries for various moons, if I recall correctly.
And with all of the above done, and my to-do list thus looking rather lighter, I took a step at last into the level-building phase proper. Specifically, I've begun work on a small "Vertical Slice Tutorial Moon"--a location in which to provide a tutorial for players just starting out in the vertical slice.
(I want this to be separate from the previously-shown "Vertical Slice Moon" because I don't want new players to have access to the things contained there from the very start.)
And it's for this location that I've brought back the worm shown in the first screenshot of this post: an old enemy left fallow since the Treasure Hoard Moon was cut, now finding new use as a starter enemy. With, admittedly, some changes to both behaviour and appearance.
That said, creating this location has--not entirely unexpectedly, I think--uncovered some lurking issues, things that I feel want for fixing before I move forward. For some of these I think that I may have answers (or indeed, one answer that--somewhat literally--covers multiple issues), while for others more investigation may be called for.
And of course, in the week just past I enacted 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! ^_^
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