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Well, since I'm already registered here anyway, I decided to show my
little probably overambitious game which I've been working on for around 2 years now.
It's a kind of a mix of JPRG and King's Bounty/HoMM series, written in C++ using SDL.
While the game is still an alpha, it has a lot of things done already (it's playable), but still much more to be done. I'd say purely code-wise it's mostly finished, but other things (content/story/mapping/art) are not even close, and sound/music, while supported, are non-existent :V
I'm doing this alone so the progress is not very fast, but I'm hoping to finish this someday.
There's no download yet, I'll release it once the game is good enough to be called a 'beta'.
Right now I just want to know if people are interested in seeing this finished. I'd also appreciate any help in the art/sound/music department.
Well, now for some screenshots, along with a description of some of the game's features:
Note: Alphes/alphes-style portraits are a placeholder and a lot of graphics/animations are still missing or not completely done (and thus look pretty bad), aaand since it's still an alpha, everything can change radically.
Screenshot link (http://solmyr2000.narod.ru/TouhouBattles/thbdemo1.png)
This is an example of combat. It's turn-based, with turn order decided by the character's Initiative stat. Speed is a different stat which decides how much hexes the character can move per turn. While they usually correlate, they do not ALWAYS correlate. For example, Sakuya has exceptionally high initiative for her average speed, while Youmu has low initiative, but high speed.
The characters can both move and attack in the same turn, although most strong attacks will be unavailable if the character has moved.
Screenshot link (http://solmyr2000.narod.ru/TouhouBattles/thbdemo2.png)
Outside of combat, there is a usual exploration map, with items lying around and enemy encounters. They are visible on the map and most of them can move, they will chase you if they notice you (if you are much stronger, they will run away from you instead). This is turn-based as well, they move when you move.
The world is relatively free to explore, although there will be some story/order-of-visit barriers.
Screenshot link (http://solmyr2000.narod.ru/TouhouBattles/thbdemo3.png)
Also, time of a day changes, and your party's sight radius decreases as well. That is, unless you have Wriggle in your party with the "Guiding Light" skill which prevents this. Aside from that, just like you'd expect, youkai are more active at night, and thus enemies' spawn rate at night is doubled. Time moves at a rate of 20 seconds per step.
Screenshot link (http://solmyr2000.narod.ru/TouhouBattles/thbdemo4.png)
Every character has her own skill tree with own unique skills, both passive and active. I tried to make every character feel unique, and hopefully I succeeded.
The game will have at least 65 playable characters (and around 40 are done already, although they are still missing some or all graphic/animations), but the long-term (e.g. I won't work on it unless I'm sure I'll be able to do it) plan is to have around 90, e.g. almost everyone.
Screenshot link (http://solmyr2000.narod.ru/TouhouBattles/thbdemo5.png)
Some attacks are powerful enough to be classified as Spellcards. Spellcards need to be "prepared", e.g. you need to put it in one of your character's spellcard slots. You get your first spellcard slot at level 5, second at level 15, and finally, third at level 30 (Patchouli has a skill which allows her to prepare 4 spellcards, and Kaguya can even prepare 5). Once you prepared it, you can use it once per battle, and you can't prepare any spellcard more than once (At the same time. You can unprepare/prepare spellcards as you wish, but you can't have two uses of the same spellcard.).
That's not the only difference. To actually USE a spellcard, you need to charge it first, which looks like this:
Screenshot link (http://solmyr2000.narod.ru/TouhouBattles/thbdemo6.png)
A spellcard takes several turns to be charged, with amount of turns equal to its level. Everyone has level 1-3 spellcards, some have level 4 (Reimu's Fantasy Nature, Yuyuko's Saigyouji Flawless Nirvana... aaand Yukari's train :V). Level 4 spellcards are pretty much insta-win spellcards, unless it's a boss fight, of course.
While it's charging, the character can't do anything, but the spellcard has its own HP value. You can't hurt a character unless you deplete the spellcard HP first, however, if it's depleted, the spellcard fails. Once enough turns pass and the spellcard is charged, you CAN but you don't HAVE TO use the spellcard (you can delay using the spellcard for any amount of turns), which means that you can use spellcards not only offensively, but defensively. Patchouli actually relies on this heavily as her spellcards are tougher than she is herself :V
Aside from the regular fights, there will be boss fights, which may (they usually do) have some unique quirks like this:
Screenshot link (http://solmyr2000.narod.ru/TouhouBattles/thbdemo13.png)
Bosses usually have a LOT more HP than normal characters, and they have multiple HP bars. The boss battles are divided into non-spell and spellcard phases, and each has its own HP bar.
During non-spell phases, bosses just randomly (or almost randomly) use some regular attacks and are not very threatening. Now, during spellcard phases, they usually follow a specific pattern with their attacks, and they are very powerful: as powerful as regular spellcards, but unlike regular spellcards, bosses use them every turn. Some spellcards may be completely different and unique, for example Flandre's Four of a Kind, as you might expect, creates three clones, which proceed to behave just like in a nonspell phase.
What's "charge" for regular spellcards is "timeout" for boss spellcards. You can timeout a spellcard by waiting enough turns. Some (usually the final ones) spellcards have no timeout and some can ONLY be beaten by timeout, those are survival spellcards. Capturing a spellcard gives you additional exp, while timing it out does not.
Screenshot link (http://solmyr2000.narod.ru/TouhouBattles/thbdemo7.png)
So, stats. Combat affects your "Force"-type attacks' damage (these are mostly melee attacks, but not always, shooting with a bow is also a force attack, for example), Danmaku affects your "Danmaku"-type attacks' damage (these are ranged attacks which (duh) involve danmaku), Accuracy increases your chance to hit, Evasion reduces your chance to be hit, Defence reduces damage taken, Resistance protects from status effects and debuffs, and Concentration is a "support" stat which does a lot of things - it powers up status effects, buffs/debuffs, healing and a few specific attacks depend on it for damage. Finally, it also affects your Spellcards' HP value.
The bars below the stats are affinities: Magic-Physical/Water-Fire/Earth-Air and Dark-Light. They are essentially resistances, and you can't have both - you are either resistant to light and weak to dark, or resistant to dark and weak to light. There are skills and items that increase your defence against the specific element, and there can be a "damage reduction" effect against specific elements, so you still CAN defend against the element without sacrificing protection from the opposite.
Also, affinities, except for the Physical-Magic one, are not static. Every character has a base affinity, like Reimu here has a base 50 affinity to light. That means her affinity can change from -50 to +150 by using attacks of the appropriate element. If she uses a light-element attack, the affinity will slightly (or greatly, if that's a spellcard) shift to light further, but if she uses a dark-elemental attack, it will shift to dark. Using elemental weapons also shifts the affinity.
There *might* be some secret dialogues or even bonuses/skills which require a certain character to have a certain affinity, usually something you wouldn't normally expect, like Fire Cirno :3
Below the HP and MP values there is a Power value. Some attacks require a certain power value to be used. Non-spellcard attacks require either none or 1, and spellcards require 1+levelofspellcard. Aside from requiring it, spellcards actually consume power, so it serves mainly as a cooldown between spellcards. By default, you can gain power by dealing or taking damage, but some characters have some skills which allow them to gain power for different things (Cirno can gain power for freezing, Eirin - for healing, Hina - for debuffing, etc.)
Power limit is 1 at first, but it's increased by 1 every 5 levels until it reaches 5. You can increase it further with some equipment.
To the right are status resistance modifiers (they modify the resistance stat when it's checked against that status effect).
Screenshot link (http://solmyr2000.narod.ru/TouhouBattles/thbdemo8.png)
Nothing unusual here, just inventory.
Screenshot link (http://solmyr2000.narod.ru/TouhouBattles/thbdemo9.png)
By default, characters start the fight in a vertical row formation, but you can customize your party's formation freely.
Screenshot link (http://solmyr2000.narod.ru/TouhouBattles/thbdemo10.png)
Marisa's danmaku is flashy, yep.
And another little thing. The characters' sprites are made of "bodyparts", and hair/eyes are colored by the game itself, so the game actually supports different outfits for characters.
For example,
Screenshot link (http://solmyr2000.narod.ru/TouhouBattles/thbdemo11.png)
:V
That's another very long-term goal, because it's pretty much only limited by art, not code.
The game also has support for multiple languages, and right now it has English/Russian/Japanese, and it even supports IME, although I'm unlikely to fully translate the game into Japanese just because I lack enough knowledge for that.
Well, that's enough I think. This post is already large enough. ;)
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This looks very promising so far. I like the style of gameplay and can't wait to see more.
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I am liking the screenshots and this game is very promising I like the skill tree idea but the battle set up , uhmmmmmmm what's with the hexagons? o.O are you able to move during combat? But other than that, I'll be looking forward to this :3
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looks like this have a really good concept and design, hope to see a demo soon.
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This looks really promising, and it's way more fleshed out than the average game. You definitely have my attention.
Are there any resources you're in need of?
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I am liking the screenshots and this game is very promising I like the skill tree idea but the battle set up , uhmmmmmmm what's with the hexagons? o.O are you able to move during combat? But other than that, I'll be looking forward to this :3
Of course you are able to move during combat, that's the whole point :)
Most attacks affect specific areas (there are a lot of different areas of effect, from basic circle or line area to something really weird like the "Ricochet", which bounces off the edges of battlefield), have a limited range, there are distance-based accuracy penalties (some attacks do not have distance penalties, but they are usually much weaker), and some attacks move the character while attacking. Reimu's Dimensional Rift teleports her, Marisa's Witch Leyline rams into the enemy, Youmu's Slash of Eternity teleports across the whole battlefield and hits everyone in a line, Chen has an attack in which she moves closer, attacks, and then retreats, and there are many more like these :).
For boss fights, moving is important. A lot of bosses' patterns can and need to be avoided with moving in correct fashion, and, for example, Cirno in a boss fight casts a very powerful evasion-against-danmaku buff which makes her basically impossible to hit with ranged attacks, so you need to get close. And you can only get close through the appearing/disappearing ice pillar puzzle :V
There are a lot of things to do with those hexes as well. Tewi can set up traps that do various things to enemies that enter them, Medicine can create a poison cloud, which poisons and slows down everyone who are standing in it, Remilia has a similar thing in mist which saps HP, Satori's Brain Fingerprint creates an invisible time bomb which explodes after a random amount of turns, Yuuka can create a poppy field which inflicts sleep, and can sometimes even trigger instant death :V There are, again, many more of these.
This looks really promising, and it's way more fleshed out than the average game. You definitely have my attention.
Are there any resources you're in need of?
The thing I need the most right now is monster sprites. Most monsters are an empty space, and I can't even draw a wolf. :V
P.S. Here's the example (http://solmyr2000.narod.ru/TouhouBattles/ricochet.png) of a ricochet attack. Also, the more transparent hexes highlight the distance penalty.
P.P.S. Oh, another thing I forgot to mention in the OP, the game will have two main characters (Reimu and Marisa, obviously :V). You'll be able to start as one or as the other. They start in different places, have a different character with them at the start (Alice for Marisa, Keine for Reimu) and have different dialogues. You'll be able to recruit the other main character, but that won't happen until around halfway into the game.
Also, you get a bonus for your main character. Both have three "shottypes", which give you an additional skill (Homing Amulets/Persuasion Needles/Ascension Kick for Reimu and Magic Napalm/Illusion Laser/Witch Leyline for Marisa) and +1 to base value of one of their stats (that means this will affect their stat growth with levels as well).
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You're trying to get this game going by yourself?
Welcome in the "trying to get a game done with one person" club! xD
Oh, for the combat you used the hex grid from HoMM3, my favorite game from the HoMM series! Nice! That alone is one reason to look forward to the game (although there are many others as well)!
Adding actual skills for every character to use seems definitely interesting as well.
I'm really looking forward to your game. It looks really promising!
[The main characters] have a different character with them at the start (Alice for Marisa, Keine for Reimu)
Is that just coincidence, or were you inspired by Gensou Shoujo Taisen (Fantasy Maiden Wars E) there? xD
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Oh, for the combat you used the hex grid from HoMM3, my favorite game from the HoMM series! Nice! That alone is one reason to look forward to the game (although there are many others as well)!
Adding actual skills for every character to use seems definitely interesting as well.
Yeah, and there is morale in this game which can give you a second turn or make you lose a turn, which is definitely not inspired by HoMM. Well, it's not -3..+3, it's percentage based, -100%..100%.
Luck is also in, but it works completely differently. It affects all random checks. A lot. Hina with luck debuffs + Tewi with luck buffs can make 1% a very high and reliable chance :3
Is that just coincidence, or were you inspired by Gensou Shoujo Taisen (Fantasy Maiden Wars E) there? xD
Yes. :V There are also many things that are inspired by LoT and GoS/DoD.
Aaand some more info:
Since I've been working on finishing the prismrivers and the three fairies, I thought I might tell you about combination attacks.
Not all attacks are performed by a single character, some attacks require multiple characters, and the Prismrivers/Three Fairies are the most notable users of these.
There are three kinds of combination attacks:
1) "Common" - to use these, all the participating characters must learn the attack (and prepare it, if it's a spellcard). When the attack is used, all the participating characters use it.
2) "Unique" (only spellcards) - to use these, only one character must (and only one can) learn the spellcard, and when it's used, only this character will use it.
3) "Free" (only normal attacks) - these are similar to "common" type, but they do not REQUIRE anyone, they may be used alone. If other characters can join as well, they will.
Combination spellcards have a single HP value, and you can attack any (or all) participating character to damage it.
As an example of "unique"-type combination spellcard, Eirin and Kaguya have Hourai Elixir: only Eirin can learn it and only Eirin can use it, but she needs Kaguya to charge the spellcard.
Another thing I can tell about is difficulties. There are four usual difficulties, and aside from numerical differences (which are most notable between hard and lunatic), there is one major thing and a few little ones:
The major thing is that a lot of boss spellcards have different versions for different difficulties. Most spellcards are divided in two versions: Easy/Normal and Hard/Lunatic, however, there may be a different version for easy or some really nasty ones which you'll only see on lunatic. And there are some spellcards that will not appear at all on lower difficulties.
As an example, Cirno's "Icicle Fall" hits a column, then skips a column, and so on, so you can avoid it completely if you are positioned correctly. That is on Normal. On Hard/Lunatic it changes into "Hailstorm", and it hits every column, so you can't avoid it just as easily. And on Easy, well, you know... :V
Other differences:
On Easy, all dead characters are always resurrected after battle. Normally, you'd need to go to "restoration point" to revive them (Mokou and Kaguya are a special case, they always revive even on higher difficulties). And on Hard and Lunatic, the HP/MP restoration per step on world map is halved.
Also, on easy all enemies start with 0 power, on normal they start with 1, on hard - 1 + half of maximum, and on lunatic - at the maximum, so they might throw their most powerful spellcards at you from the very beginning. Which is probably going to kill you since their stats are so much higher :V
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Videos plz, those screenshots look pretty good :)
Oh, for the combat you used the hex grid from HoMM3, my favorite game from the HoMM series! Nice! That alone is one reason to look forward to the game (although there are many others as well)!
Oh Yeah HoMM3 S2 :)
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Videos plz, those screenshots look pretty good :)
I don't think the game is ready for videos, I need to draw/fix some more sprites & animations first. And fix the goddamn freezing AI. ::)
Well, anyway, I'll show another screenshot.
There is a very curious instance of a combination spellcard which doesn't require multiple characters. It does need multiple units, however. Here it is:
Screenshot link (http://solmyr2000.narod.ru/TouhouBattles/doublespark.png)
:V
Yeah, she can clone herself. Aside from being required to Double Spark everything to hell, the clone can do whatever Yuuka can do and has the same stats and equipment, but it has much less HP, disappears after 8 turns and costs quite a bit of MP.
You also can't have more than one at once, of course.
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Since it's an RPG, don't you think it'd be better if you make no more than 2 difficulties?
Want the game to be easier?--> grind a few minutes :V
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There are also many things that are inspired by LoT and GoS/DoD.
As long as it isn't the grindiness from LoT and the constant accessory switch-around from GoS, I'll be looking forward to these inspirations. ^^
Difficulties, huh.
I have the bad feeling that I'll feel compelled to play on Hard and then losing to every single enemy. xD;
Ah well, I'll see.
First, you need to finish the game. I'll be cheering you on. ^^
I'd like to help you, but I don't really know if I have the time or the skill for that. My expertise lies in programming, but I can do a bit of spriting, too (all I've done are Sonic the Hedgehog characters, a bit humans and blobs, though), and I guess I'm decent at drawing.
I definitely can't help out with music, though. I wanted to try and make some own songs, but I never got around to actually doing it. (I really want to make a song using ZUNpets at some point in time. xD )
So, uh, yeah, I guess if you can't find anyone who will help you with your project, I might be able to help. But don't expect too much. Skill and time are slim. ^^;
You also can't have more than one at once, of course.
Dang it, and I was hoping to get an army of Yuukas. :3
Since it's an RPG, don't you think it'd be better if you make no more than 2 difficulties?
Want the game to be easier?--> grind a few minutes :V
I think more difficulties are a good idea, since it's more than just enemies with upped stats, but also requires different strategies with the bosses and more conservation of resources inside dungeons (item-wise).
Although, all of this is nothing a bit of level grinding could fix, huh. xD;
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As long as it isn't the grindiness from LoT and the constant accessory switch-around from GoS, I'll be looking forward to these inspirations. ^^
Nah. There are only around 50 levels (although the level cap is 99, you are very very unlikely to reach it), and you can't grind too much because experience gain drops if your level is higher (-25% if you are 3 levels above, -50% if you are 6 levels above and always 1 experience if you are 10 levels above). It DOES also increase if enemy level is higher though.
You also won't need to change items often. Party members, however... :V MP on higher levels is going to be really scarce and really slow to restore (on easy/normal - 2 per step, hard/lunatic - 1 per step. HP restoration is percentage-based, so it's much faster), so you'll probably have to use multiple parties.
But I have a system to save party presets and switch between them instead of individual characters (it's currently removed because of party change window rework, but it's still in the code and I'll re-implement it sometime later)
Speaking about experience, different characters have different level up rates like in LoT. For example, Rumia needs only 70% experience to level up, while Yukari needs 140%. Yukari's base stats are obviously much higher though. :)
Oh, and the level difference experience penalty/bonus is adjusted for them too, so it's fair.
Difficulties, huh.
I have the bad feeling that I'll feel compelled to play on Hard and then losing to every single enemy. xD;
Hard isn't that hard, it mostly makes bosses harder and makes general party survival a bit harder, but regular enemies don't get much stronger.
Lunatic, however...
To be more specific:
Easy: enemies get no level up statpoints to distribute between stats
Normal: like the player characters
Hard: enemies get a +25% bonus to their base stats
Lunatic: enemies get a +50% bonus to their base stats and DOUBLE the amount of statpoints
Hard is "strategic" diffculty, while Lunatic is "brute force" difficulty.
Dang it, and I was hoping to get an army of Yuukas. :3
Alice says you can have an army of dolls instead. :V You can fill a whole battlefield with these if you have a lot of MP potions and patience.
Also, about dolls: there are not 1, but 7 kinds of dolls. Basic doll, kamikaze doll, fairy doll, archer doll, poison doll, knight doll and the vampire doll.
Each can do different things and belongs to a different element. Kamikaze doll is fire and it can, well, explode, which destroys the doll but deals a lot of damage (it's based on doll's current HP).
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You also won't need to change items often. Party members, however... :V MP on higher levels is going to be really scarce and really slow to restore (on easy/normal - 2 per step, hard/lunatic - 1 per step.
That must really nerf magician characters. Although, in GoS they didn't restore MP at all (unless you had items or passive skills), so I guess I can be glad that it is restored a bit at least. xD
Alice says you can have an army of dolls instead. :V You can fill a whole battlefield with these if you have a lot of MP potions and patience.
Also, about dolls: there are not 1, but 7 kinds of dolls. Basic doll, kamikaze doll, fairy doll, archer doll, poison doll, knight doll and the vampire doll.
Each can do different things and belongs to a different element. Kamikaze doll is fire and it can, well, explode, which destroys the doll but deals a lot of damage (it's based on doll's current HP).
I just love how in every game Alice is the most interesting character with the most interesting (and unique) fighting style. The best examples being the fighting games, GoS and LoT. And MegaMari ^^
Although I'm disappointed in the lack of Shanghai and Hourai Doll.
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That must really nerf magician characters. Although, in GoS they didn't restore MP at all (unless you had items or passive skills), so I guess I can be glad that it is restored a bit at least. xD
There will likely be some MP regen accessories for them (they will be rare though), and Kaguya can regen MP natively with her skills.
Also, about "nerfs" - Remilia and Flandre are very powerful (Flandre has the highest combat stat AND the highest danmaku stat, while all of Remilia's stats are high except defence (which is only below average). Both have pretty bad HP and MP though), abnormally powerful even for their exp to levelup (125%), BUT. They can't fight in daylight. :V
Rumia has an ability to solve this - she can turn every battle "during the day" into battle "during the evening". So she's a nice accessory for Scarlet sisters.
I just love how in every game Alice is the most interesting character with the most interesting (and unique) fighting style. The best examples being the fighting games, GoS and LoT. And MegaMari ^^
Although I'm disappointed in the lack of Shanghai and Hourai Doll.
Shanghai Doll and Hourai Doll are attacks - normal and spellcard respectively.
So, another screenshot.
Since you haven't seen Marisa's start area yet, here it is (also, as you can see, I added shadows to trees, though they still need some fixing):
Screenshot link (http://solmyr2000.narod.ru/TouhouBattles/forestofmagic.png)
I haven't talked a whole lot about outside-of-battle "adventure mode", so I guess I'll say something.
The world is a huge interconnected labyrinth which includes the entirety of Gensokyo, there are no location transitions. Well, almost. Scarlet Devil Mansion, Netherworld, Eientei, Underworld, 2nd and 3rd floors of the Palace of the Earth Spirits (and three more places that I won't talk about because that's too spoilerific) are separate "worlds", but the entry point is still in Gensokyo (well, aside from Palace of the Earth Spirits obviously).
Also, to enter some areas, you need to get past a metallic or colored door by using a key. Metallic (bronze/silver/gold) doors are common and they require non-unique bronze/silver/gold keys to open. They usually just guard some treasure or minor area branches. Colored doors, however, are a major area separator which require an UNIQUE key to open. That unique key may be very far away from the door, but I'll try not to hide them too much (unlike metallic keys). There will be some teleporters and a "Portable Gap" (:V) item so that you don't have to traverse all the way back when you find that key.
While most abilities are used in combat, some characters have non-combat abilities. You've already heard about Wriggle's ability, so here are some more:
Sunny's "Hidden Escape" - enemy parties are stunned for some time when you retreat.
Luna's "Silent Ambush" - enemies have a chance to not notice you when you enter their line of sight
Star's "Animate Detection" - enemies show up on the minimap
Nazrin's "Little Dowser" - items show up on the minimap
Momiji's "Reconaissance" - shows exact creatures in the enemy parties
Three fairies' abilites are really damn useful on Lunatic :V
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Rumia has an ability to solve this - she can turn every battle "during the day" into battle "during the evening". So she's a nice accessory for Scarlet sisters.
I definitely don't have a problem with that. I like putting Rumia in the SDM team anyway (wouldn't that just be an EoSD team, then?). :D
Also, I assume that other characters (specifically humans) in turn are weaker at nighttime than during daytime? Aside from the outside battle changes you mentioned earlier.
Shanghai Doll and Hourai Doll are attacks - normal and spellcard respectively.
Forget what I said about me being disappointed. ^^
I really want to have Animate Detection and Little Dowser. They sound so useful. ^^
But that reminds me, are preemptive attacks possible? And if so, are they randomly happening, or every time you hit an enemy from behind on the maps?
Reconnaissance sounds useful as well, but I never use the HoMM3 equivalent of that ability either and just overpower my enemies with raw units/ Meteor Shower/ Chain Lightning/ Implosion. (I just love playing a magician hero.)
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I definitely don't have a problem with that. I like putting Rumia in the SDM team anyway (wouldn't that just be an EoSD team, then?). :D
Also, I assume that other characters (specifically humans) in turn are weaker at nighttime than during daytime? Aside from the outside battle changes you mentioned earlier.
No, but Remilia/Flandre ("Creature of the Night") and Wriggle/Rumia/Mystia ("Night Hunter") have skills which give them improved stats at night.
This also means that even if you use Rumia to make everything evening, the Scarlet sisters are still better at night. :)
Also, Luna has a skill to make her spellcards more powerful during the night, and Sunny - during the day. Star's skill works always, but it's weaker (total +18% instead of +30%)
But that reminds me, are preemptive attacks possible? And if so, are they randomly happening, or every time you hit an enemy from behind on the maps?
Preemptive attacks are a skill of a certain character.
It's called "Surprise Attack"
Well, yep, that's Kogasa. She also has the highest (100) initiative in the game.
Meteor Shower/ Chain Lightning/ Implosion.
Just saying, all three of these are in the game ;) Although Implosion is very very different (it's dark-elemental and short-range), it's still an incredibly powerful single-target attack :V It's an enemy-only level 3 spellcard.
Meteor Shower, too, is enemy/scroll-only attack, but one of the playable characters actually has Chain Lightning (and two of her spellcards are basically a powered-up Chain Lightning with paralysis
), guess who :3
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Just saying, all three of these are in the game ;) Although Implosion is very very different (it's dark-elemental and short-range), it's still an incredibly powerful single-target attack :V It's an enemy-only level 3 spellcard.
I just wanted to leap in excitement, and then I came to the "enemy only" part. We are all doomed. Doomed! xD
but one of the playable characters actually has Chain Lightning, guess who :3
Hm, since I can only think of one character who can use lightning (since Tojiko's ability is causing thunder, which is only the sound of lightning, but who really cares about that), I'm going with my favorite messenger of the Dragon Palace, Iku Nagae. ^^
Also, this entire talk about HoMM3 spells has made me want to play HoMM3 again. If it only didn't crash regularly on my PC. ^^;
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I just wanted to leap in excitement, and then I came to the "enemy only" part. We are all doomed. Doomed! xD
Well, I said "enemy-only", but it's not exactly enemy-only, there's Satori. And here's how she works:
She has NO normal attacks except "Mind Reading", which costs a lot of MP (all of her MP at level 1) and learns a random attack from the target (only enemies). If there are no attacks to be learned, it doesn't do anything. Not all attacks are learnable, only generic ones - unique character-specific attacks are impossible to learn. E.g. you can't learn Perfect Freeze from Cirno, but you can learn Ice Bolt. And not all generic attacks are learnable either.
She does have 3 spellcards though, level 1-2-3:
1) Terrible Souvenir - puts a powerful "bane" status effect on the target, which is pretty much a time bomb - if it is not dispelled, when the duration runs out, the target receives a lot of damage.
2) Brain Fingerprint - I already said about this one, it's also a time bomb, but it's multi-target and with a random duration
3) Terrifying Hypnotism - puts a long and powerful domination status effect on the enemy, which lets you control that enemy. That's actually the only player-usable attack which has a domination status effect. Well, if you only count minimum-plan characters. Extended character plan has another character who can do it.
Despite all that, she still has a sizable skill tree with plenty of passive skills. One of those passive skills is "Third Eye", which gives her a chance to learn attacks passively whenever anyone uses any without wasting MP. It doesn't matter who is targeting who. And yes, that skill is a reference to HoMM's Eagle Eye ;)
Hm, since I can only think of one character who can use lightning (since Tojiko's ability is causing thunder, which is only the sound of lightning, but who really cares about that), I'm going with my favorite messenger of the Dragon Palace, Iku Nagae. ^^
And that's correct of course :V
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Oooh, a HoMM-style Touhou fangame, interesting! :V How is the current progress in the game outside of the combat system, and though realm-building doesn't seem to be planned with the movement system you have, is there going to be recruiting followers like in HoMM games?
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Oooh, a HoMM-style Touhou fangame, interesting! :V How is the current progress in the game outside of the combat system, and though realm-building doesn't seem to be planned with the movement system you have, is there going to be recruiting followers like in HoMM games?
It's partially inspired by HoMM, but it's hardly a HoMM-style game (to begin, it's more similar to King's Bounty). You recruit characters more like generally in a RPG, some will join if you just find them and talk to them, some need quests to be completed and some need to be defeated in a boss battle... And some just kinda randomly appear and join once you fulfilled certain conditions :V
Although I have some ideas for a "mini-game" which works pretty much like HoMM. But it's not going to be done until after the main game.
As for the progress, technically, "everything works". And I think I'm finally done with the story too (dialogues still need to be done though).
What's not done is content, what I'm doing now is just adding more abilities, more characters, more enemies, more items, more maps and drawing more sprites.
The game right now has a total of 619 attacks, 461 passive abilities and 187 items. Around 40 characters are done out of minimum 65. As for maps, around 20 are done right now (each map is a 32x32 tiles chunk, Gensokyo alone needs 196 maps :V, and with other worlds, it totals 380 maps), but I'm playtesting and redoing them slightly to balance them out a bit. And only 11 enemies are done (and only 4 have sprites, heh) out of currently planned 210.
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One of those passive skills is "Third Eye", which gives her a chance to learn attacks passively whenever anyone uses any without wasting MP. It doesn't matter who is targeting who. And yes, that skill is a reference to HoMM's Eagle Eye ;)
I never really cared that much for Eagle Eye in HoMM3, but
I really love Blue Mage (= Enemy Skill learning) Satori. She's just so versatile. Although I mostly just use her as an additional Black Mage (like Patchouli) in GoS. xD
Minimum 65 [characters].
That's a lot! I already have difficulties in deciding who to take with me with the few characters you introduced already! xD
But at least that gives the players some variety. :3
That reminds me, do characters actually gain experience if they are not participating in a battle? Because with over 65 characters, it will be difficult keeping most of them on the same level.
it totals 380 maps
That's a lot of maps!
I hope making all of these dungeons won't bore you to death (which happened to me when I was making an RPG once). ^^;
But it's great to see that you've got a lot of content to explore planned. ^^
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I never really cared that much for Eagle Eye in HoMM3, but
I really love Blue Mage (= Enemy Skill learning) Satori. She's just so versatile. Although I mostly just use her as an additional Black Mage (like Patchouli) in GoS. xD
Who even cared about it, but here it may be useful, who knows :V
That's a lot! I already have difficulties in deciding who to take with me with the few characters you introduced already! xD
But at least that gives the players some variety. :3
That reminds me, do characters actually gain experience if they are not participating in a battle? Because with over 65 characters, it will be difficult keeping most of them on the same level.
No, but they join at a decent level (the average of your highest-leveled characters, although there is a minimum and maximum cap of experience on join for every character, so overleveling before recruiting them won't help much) and since you'll be using multiple parties, it should be fine.
If they ever fall behind, the level difference gives more experience (and that's besides the fact that higher levels need more experience and higher level enemies give more experience), so they will rapidly level up if you bring them with you.
Also, experience is divided between all participating characters, so a few-character party will level up faster.
All of this is subject to change, if I find that it doesn't work well, I'll change it.
By the way, some characters are available way earlier than they are supposed to be recruited, so due to minimum exp on join you may break the game a bit if you somehow manage to get them very early. (there is one optional character that is recruitable in chapter 1, but it is expected to be recruited only in chapter 3, and the game only has 4, so that's about half of the game later)
It won't be easy to get these too early since they're boss battles, but if you do, well, you get your reward :V
And some random info: I recently checked how many characters are mandatory (i.e. you can't progress in the main storyline without them), the end result is 23 characters. Out of both 65 and 90, since all of the extended plan characters are optional.
More detailed, including all characters:
In chapter 1, there are 33 recruitable characters (7 mandatory, 26 optional)
In chapter 2, there are 24 more recruitable characters (6 mandatory, 18 optional)
In chapter 3, there are 26 more recruitable characters (9 mandatory, 17 optional)
Aaand in chapter 4, there are 7 recruitable characters (1 mandatory, 6 optional) (all of the optional characters here are in the extended plan)
That's a lot of maps!
I hope making all of these dungeons won't bore you to death (which happened to me when I was making an RPG once). ^^;
But it's great to see that you've got a lot of content to explore planned. ^^
Initially, I planned much more, but then found it was an overkill and drastically cut down on the world size (old Gensokyo was LARGER than all worlds combined now), since it was really hard to fill all that space. I don't want pointless empty areas too, most maps will have at least something interesting.
Now it's much better, and since different places have different map structure and design, it isn't that boring making them. For example, the area I'm working on right now (Nameless Hill
) isn't even a labyrinth, it's a relatively open space with some passages here and there. That open space isn't very safe though, because of poison clouds that damage your party.
...and Bamboo Forest is traditionally going to be fun. Lots of dead ends. Really long dead ends. You won't realize they're dead ends until you pass through multiple maps with multiple forks :V
Well, they aren't empty, but I expect getting to Eientei to be a challenge.
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65 recruitable characters for only 4 chapter? how long is the estimated playtime for each chapter? and is there any plot justification for them to be included in the party or it just "f**ck logic this is Gensokyo" and defeat means playable?
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65 recruitable characters for only 4 chapter? how long is the estimated playtime for each chapter?
I don't know the exact playtime (that's hard to estimate now), but every chapter will be pretty long. (except maybe Chapter 4, since it's just the final dungeon and final boss. Well, extra areas and extra boss as well
) Chapter 3 will most likely be the longest.
There aren't so many chapters because the game tries to be a somewhat free exploration game. The chapters only change when something major happens in the story, and colored doors/keys somewhat correspond with that, major area unlocks are placed in the middle of Chapter 1, start of Chapter 2, start of Chapter 3, middle of Chapter 3 and Chapter 4. In Chapter 1 you're able to access around half of Gensokyo and four other worlds.
and is there any plot justification for them to be included in the party or it just "f**ck logic this is Gensokyo" and defeat means playable?
Depends. For some there is, for some there is not. Well, there is a silly excuse at least in most cases. :V
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I guess I'll mention some of the technical details.
First, 1024x768 is not the only resolution, here's a 1920x1080 screenshot:
Screenshot link (http://solmyr2000.narod.ru/TouhouBattles/19201080.png)
Battles don't scale though, they look like this:
Screenshot link (http://solmyr2000.narod.ru/TouhouBattles/19201080battle.png)
And second, the game is highly moddable, you can add your own (or edit existing) characters, abilities, items, edit the map and when the game is more or less done I'll revive my currently disabled scripting system, letting you add custom animations, events and dialogues, so you can pretty much redo the whole game :V
Here is one passive ability:
$Ice_Fairy
{
-1 -1 1
0 2
BONUS_STATUS_POWER 12 0 STATUS_FREEZE 0 0 None
Ice_Fairy_2
}Or an item:
$Ring_of_Protection
{
3 11
BONUS_STAT 10 0 STAT_DEFENCE 0 0 None
500 0 0 0 0
ACCESSORYTYPE_NONE
}Shouldn't be that hard to at least edit them. :V
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Well, it's been two weeks, so I'll say something. :derp:
Map progress is now at 47/377. While I was mapping, I did some structural changes, so now it's 2/3 of Gensokyo + 5 worlds in Chapter 1. And more characters available earlier as well. It's now as free as I could possibly get without breaking the story. SDM and Eientei got reduced (27->22, 16->9) and another world was expanded (16->25) so it's now 377 maps instead of 380 total.
Poor Eientei, it was 36, then 25, then 16, now 9. If this continues, Kaguya will have to live on the streets.
There's some progress in dialogues, AI and boss fights as well.
And some info about weapons:
Aside from giving bonuses like +stat and +% whatever, weapons give you additional attacks and determine the character's "basic attack", a free melee attack which is performed by simply clicking on an enemy without selecting anything (i.e. just like you would attack in HoMM). Without any weapon equipped, it does very low physical damage, but if you equip a weapon, its power more than doubles.
There are 8 weapon types: swords, knives, axes, spears, maces, staves, bows and guns. Different weapon types have different basic attacks:
Swords have a strong and decently accurate attack, and that's about it.
Knives are very accurate, deal low damage, but strike twice
Axes are as strong as swords, less accurate, but they modify critical hit chance by 50% (i.e. if it's 10% it becomes 15%)
Spears deal average damage, but are very accurate and can hit two targets - the target enemy and the enemy behind it (it only receives half damage, however). It's like dragon's breath in HoMM :3
Maces are fairly accurate, slightly weaker than swords and axes, but they pierce 10% defence
Bows do not change the basic attack; instead, they add a "basic ranged attack", which lets you shoot (as long as there are no enemies nearby) for no MP
Guns do not change the basic attack and add a basic ranged attack as well, but unlike bows, it's completely different for different guns.
Staves are weak and inaccurate, but they have more attacks and a simple elemental attack as their basic ranged attack. It still costs MP, however, so it's only for convenience.
Most characters can wield 2 weapon types, but some can only wield one (like Youmu, who is sword-only), some can wield 3, one character can wield 4 and one character can wield all of them. Guns are generally stronger than other weapon types, but rare and few characters can use them.
Clothes, if they will ever be included, will allow additional weapon types, like that Madoka costume allowing bows to be used.
Also, weapons determine the element of most melee attacks, including the basic attack.
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There are 8 weapon types: swords, knives, axes, spears, maces, staves, bows and guns.
So no character specific weapons? Yet again, seeing how many characters there are, making character specific ones would be kind of ridiculous, wouldn't it?
Axes are as strong as swords, less accurate, but they modify critical hit chance by 50% (i.e. if it's 10% it becomes 15%)
Okay, I know that I will not use Axes. I hate missing, and I'd rather not crit at all rather than miss a lot. xD;
Bows [...] add a "basic ranged attack", which lets you shoot (as long as there are no enemies nearby) for no MP
So basically how ranged attacks worked in HoMM3. ^^
How glad I am that I usually play Tower, with 3/7 units being ranged. And then the enemies feel my Implosion. :D
Most characters can wield 2 weapon types, but some can only wield one (like Youmu, who is sword-only), some can wield 3, one character can wield 4 and one character can wield all of them.
Dang it, now I want to guess who the character with all weapons is! xD
My guess is Gilgamesh from Final Fantasy. :D
(I would do a serious guess, but I'm kind of clueless. ^^; )
Clothes, if they will ever be included, will allow additional weapon types, like that Madoka costume allowing bows to be used.
Now that sounds interesting! ^^
Also, weapons determine the element of most melee attacks, including the basic attack.
So I assume that enemies/ characters have/ can gain resistance to the weapon types.
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So no character specific weapons? Yet again, seeing how many characters there are, making character specific ones would be kind of ridiculous, wouldn't it?
There are some weapons that are restricted to a single character. Laevateinn (sword) and Gungnir (spear) for instance ;)
Characters which have an unique weapon usually start with them and you will probably be able to upgrade them somehow, but I'm not sure about this yet.
Dang it, now I want to guess who the character with all weapons is! xD
That's a surprise
.
Now that sounds interesting! ^^
Yeah, aside from that, clothes will redistribute stats instead of giving straight bonuses. So different clothes is like a different character :V
So I assume that enemies/ characters have/ can gain resistance to the weapon types.
No. Every weapon has an element - physical, magic, fire, water, air, earth, light or dark. With a regular weapon (or no weapon), all attacks with "weapon-based" element will be physical. But if you equip a "Flaming Sword" these attacks will become fire-elemental.
Also, about elements - some attacks are multi-elemental instead of a single element, say, Physical/Fire - half of effect is physical, another half is fire. Or Weapon-based/Water - in this case, it's always half water, but another half depends on weapon's element.
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There are 80 maps now, I decided to stop and balance things out. One important thing is enemy level scaling, fixed levels don't work so well in an open world. If your best characters' levels are high enough, enemies' levels will scale up, but they won't increase beyond the creature's maximum possible level. Well, that's how it works on Normal and Hard difficulties. On Easy, level scaling is disabled completely, all enemies will be at their minimum level.
On Lunatic... :3 Imagine if monsters could grind. Well, here, they kinda can. Their level grows with time - it won't go beyond your best characters' levels, but it's not limited by anything else - even level 1 slimes can become level 50 if you wait long enough. And yes, they will still give the same puny experience as they did at level 1.
Lunatic should be truly a survival game now - while you will outrun level scaling in the beginning, it WILL catch up eventually. No matter how much you might overlevel, it WILL catch up. :V
On the positive side, if you really like grinding, it should be possible to reach level 99 on Lunatic, since the level difference penalty won't stop you anymore.
Characters which have an unique weapon usually start with them and you will probably be able to upgrade them somehow, but I'm not sure about this yet.
And I implemented a simple crafting system for this.
Basically, you will find recipe items which you need to right-click in your inventory to craft something. All required ingredients are listed in the recipe's description.
Crafting might go a bit further than just upgrading weapons...
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If your best characters' levels are high enough, enemies' levels will scale up, but they won't increase beyond the creature's maximum possible level.
Oh, the enemies scale in levels. That might make things more interesting. It worked well enough in Final Fantasy 8, at least. ^^
Not that that will affect me all too much, though, since I'm usually underleveled most of the time. xD;
On the positive side, if you really like grinding, it should be possible to reach level 99 on Lunatic, since the level difference penalty won't stop you anymore.
Speaking of FF8, is there a damage cap in your game (like 9999)? Because if so, then leveling up to level 99 might actually be a bad thing (on lunatic). xD
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Oh, the enemies scale in levels. That might make things more interesting. It worked well enough in Final Fantasy 8, at least. ^^
Not that that will affect me all too much, though, since I'm usually underleveled most of the time. xD;
The level scaling is mostly there to let you visit similar-level areas in any order without enemies being too easy or too hard. Unless it's Lunatic of course, there it's just another way to screw you up.
Speaking of FF8, is there a damage cap in your game (like 9999)? Because if so, then leveling up to level 99 might actually be a bad thing (on lunatic). xD
No, there is no damage cap, it's pretty pointless.
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Well, some news and random things.
1) For more variety, enemies now have randomized equipment (they have a chance to drop it, too) and 1-2 random personality traits. Personality traits affect the way AI behaves.
For example, someone with a "Vengeful" personality will attack those who are attacking them, or someone with a "Selfless" personality will try to help (heal/buff/dispel) others, but not self. If you have Satori in your party, you will be able to see your enemies' personalities. Right now there are 46 different personality traits, but I'll add more.
Also, encounters, random equipment and loot are now un-hardcoded so it's possible to mod them too.
2) After a lot of testing, I decided that power should also affect actual stats - every point of power will now raise all stats (except HP/MP/speed/initiative) by 5%. If you have a spellcard active, your power is considered to be at full. Even if you had less than full before you charged it.
That actually was a special feature of a particular character before, but now it applies to everyone.
3) Day/night effects in battle
Screenshot link (http://solmyr2000.narod.ru/TouhouBattles/nighteffect1.png)
Screenshot link (http://solmyr2000.narod.ru/TouhouBattles/nighteffect2.png)
Screenshot link (http://solmyr2000.narod.ru/TouhouBattles/nighteffect3.png)
That "copy-paste all the trees" background is ugly, I know, but it's still better than empty space before I guess :V
4) Random screenshot of Sakuya's ultimate skill
It was done long ago, in fact it was the first field effect in the game, but anyway: Screenshot link (http://solmyr2000.narod.ru/TouhouBattles/zawarudo.png)
5) Random screenshot of Patchy's huge skill tree and her ultimate skill as well
Screenshot link (http://solmyr2000.narod.ru/TouhouBattles/patchyphilosopher.png)
The description is cryptic, so I'll explain what it does - "Elemental Amplifier" increases all damage dealt by 4 primal elements (fire/water/air/earth). 100 power means +100% damage. This, as a field effect, applies to everyone, both enemies and allies.
Simultaneously, this skill puts an elemental barrier with base HP of 1000 (actual HP depends on concentration and will be much higher) on Patchouli, which absorbs all damage dealt by these elements.
So, basically, it doubles elemental damage output while making her almost invulnerable to it. Quick action just means that activating this skill doesn't end her turn (Sakuya's World is also a quick action), so you can use that double damage immediately.
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Nice stuff. I will be looking out for this.
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So, what I've been doing this month.
AI can now use almost every attack and is far smarter. I can't say it's done because AI is something I could improve forever, but for now it's more than enough.
That was one of the two last major programming challenges left to do, the other one being multiplayer
, and I won't touch that for quite some time.
AI improvement also helped me a lot with balance. It's easy to detect overpowered/underpowered attacks when AI uses them like crazy/never uses them at all. Somehow Youmu (who was nerfed two times before) was still overpowered, so I nerfed her yet again.
I also finished two boss battles, some sprites, fixed a lot of bugs, and completed some things that I've been avoiding since long ago for some reason.
There is a new feature - weather. Like in SWR, each weather has its own effect, and some characters now have abilities which give them bonuses during specific weather.
It changes randomly during exploration, but several characters (I'm sure you know who is one of them) can change weather in battle, although it will revert back after the battle ends.
And random stuff, here are some of the more interesting passive abilities:
Reisen's "Depths of Madness" - if Reisen inflicts confusion on someone who is already affected by confusion, she will also inflict a random status effect
Meiling's "Spirit of the Chinese Dragon" - when Meiling is attacked and attacker's combat/danmaku/concentration (based on attack type) is higher than corresponding Meiling's stat, Meiling's evasion is increased against this attack (the larger the difference, the larger the bonus). This ability puts Meiling's weakness - very low Danmaku stat - to very good use.
Ran's "Kitsune's Trick" - if target's Accuracy is lower than its Evasion, Ran uses target's Accuracy stat instead of Evasion when determining chance to hit
Mokou's "Spontaneous Rebirth" - if Mokou is dead, she has a chance to resurrect every turn. She can do that an infinite amount of times, but she can't resurrect if someone is standing on her "corpse".
Tewi's "Great Luck" - if Tewi fails any random check, she can try again, but only once per check
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More progress:
- I did several playtests to test game mechanics, AI and difficulties. The results:
- I was (finally) satisfied with the gameplay. That boosted my enthusiasm quite a bit :V. Game mechanics are "done" until the beta when, well, your feedback kicks in.
- On Normal, the first boss took only one attempt, on Hard - 10 attempts, on Lunatic - lol it's impossible without grinding. For regular fights it isn't as drastic, although playing on Hard resulted in me adding autosaves :derp:. Overall, I'm pretty satisfied with difficulty balance, so I can say that is "done" as well.
- Also, losing in a fight is now not an instant game over - if you still have some alive characters and you can retreat (i.e. if you're not in a boss fight and not in a dead end), if you lose, you will retreat. You can pick a new party afterwards.
- AI is acceptable, although there are some issues which aren't fixed yet since they're rare and hard to catch.
- Well and as always, plenty of bugs were found (one of them was gamebreaking and ended my first playtest) and fixed. Some convenience features were added too. - New animation system, which allows for an easier addition of new animations and more "personalized" animations, some new animations too (different idle animations for different weapons), they are still very crude though.
- Hair/eye colors can now be randomized for enemies. With this, all those generic fairies will have different stat distribution, personalities, equipment (that also means different attacks), hair/eye colors, hairstyles and (potentially) clothes (that also means different elemental affinites).
- Instead of putting potions everywhere, I added herbs which regrow over time. You can create potions out of them using the crafting recipes.
- I optimized almost everything that could be optimized without redoing half of game's code (and things that need changing that much are only slightly slow, so it's not a big issue).
- GUI improvements. You can see some of the changes here (along with some other stuff):
Screenshot link (http://solmyr2000.narod.ru/TouhouBattles/GUIchanges.png)
(by they way, windows weren't movable before, now they can be moved if you hold alt)
Also, answering the earlier question about playtime, if you extrapolate my results from playtests, you would need around 60 hours to complete the entire game. That is only a guess though and a long way from now (only 3 hours :V 2,5 years work, 3 hours gameplay, hurray. That was 40 minutes in march though, so it's finally moving somewhere!).
What still needs to be done before I'm able to release a beta version:- Main story for the first half of Chapter 1 and all associated quests and dialogues.
- Human Village, which is a huge task by itself
- 4 characters; while completed on paper and perfectly implementable, they are still not actually added
- 21-34 maps (depends on whether I'll include one more area in "the first half" or not)
- 18-24 enemies (same)
- 1-2 boss battles (same)
- 8-10 character sprites (same)
- Indefinite amount of items
- Still some GUI stuff left to do, and quest log needs a major rework, it's just plain text now
- Side quests and all associated dialogues
- More battle obstacles, and different obstacles for different terrain; some non-hardcoded way to control them
- Battle backgrounds for all included terrain, also redo current ones
- All generic character animations need to be added or fleshed out
- Tileset needs to be reworked and smooth tile connections need to be done for all included terrain
- As many monster sprites/attack animations as possible in the mean time
That's a lot (and I may have forgotten something), but I hope I can manage that by August.
Oh, and I could always use some more ideas for side quests (or maybe even a chain of side quests). They can be just about anything and involve just about anyone, I'll try to fit them into the game. :)
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- On Normal, the first boss took only one attempt, on Hard - 10 attempts
10 attempts sure sounds like a lot. ^^;
What was the reason you needed that many? Because you didn't know the correct strategy (even though you implemented the boss), because you were underleveled or because you had some terrible luck with the RNG?
I want to be prepared for when I eventually try out your game. :D
- Also, losing in a fight is now not an instant game over - if you still have some alive characters and you can retreat (i.e. if you're not in a boss fight and not in a dead end), if you lose, you will retreat. You can pick a new party afterwards.
That sounds like a nice addition. I sure could have made use of that in GoS. xD;
That reminds me, I still need to beat the final dungeon of that game.
- AI is acceptable, although there are some issues which aren't fixed yet since they're rare and hard to catch.
Good luck finding them!
Just a (semi random) question: do you have automated unit tests or are you testing everything by hand?
Instead of putting potions everywhere, I added herbs which regrow over time. You can create potions out of them using the crafting recipes.
Sounds interesting. I just hope it won't become a tedious task. xD;
I optimized almost everything that could be optimized without redoing half of game's code (and things that need changing that much are only slightly slow, so it's not a big issue).
Ah, optimization. I don't know, I've never run into the problem that I needed to optimize anything in my projects.
Unless you count rewriting half of the code periodically because you implement a new programming pattern (like the component pattern or the builder pattern). In that case, I do it a lot. xD
Anything specific you needed to optimize? For performance? Or just for better re-usability and readability of the code? (I'm just curious ^^)
I could always use some more ideas for side quests (or maybe even a chain of side quests). They can be just about anything and involve just about anyone, I'll try to fit them into the game. :)
If you need a chain of side quests, just use the Moriya Shrine. After all, they've set off the chain of events causing the Touhou games from 10 - 13. It should be easy for them. xD
If I can think of any interesting side quest, I'll make sure to tell you. ^^
What exactly are you looking for in the side quests, though? Quests to recruit Touhou characters, like "Spirits are coming out of the underground! Go and do something!", leading you to recruit the Satori etc., just a random villager side quest like "bring me item X from dungeon Y" or something completely different?
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10 attempts sure sounds like a lot. ^^;
What was the reason you needed that many? Because you didn't know the correct strategy (even though you implemented the boss), because you were underleveled or because you had some terrible luck with the RNG?
I want to be prepared for when I eventually try out your game. :D
Well, I needed like, 10% more exp to level up, but I decided to try and beat it below the "intended" level.
First attempt failed because AI decided to heal itself until I run out of MP (Bosses have infinite MP) :V. I stopped it from doing that.
The problem was correct attack usage to fit just right in MP reserves while doing enough damage, and one attempt was failed because of a miss with 95%! chance to hit (the boss had, uh, 4 hp) :ohdear:
Also, I was playing as the worst possible starting character for this fight (MarisaA). Disregard that, ReimuC is probably the worst one, I need to test her by the way.
Still, there's a huge gap between Normal and Hard because Normal consists only of one non-spell phase, while Hard has a spellcard. And you need to break it ASAP or you're dead.
Just a (semi random) question: do you have automated unit tests or are you testing everything by hand?
By hand :derp: Yeah, can't do anything about this anymore. 60000 lines of code is too late.
Ah, optimization. I don't know, I've never run into the problem that I needed to optimize anything in my projects.
Unless you count rewriting half of the code periodically because you implement a new programming pattern (like the component pattern or the builder pattern). In that case, I do it a lot. xD
Anything specific you needed to optimize? For performance? Or just for better re-usability and readability of the code? (I'm just curious ^^)
Minimap is a very very very performance-critical thing when you have a world consisting of 200k tiles (at 1920x1080, expanded minimap fits almost entire world into one screen at minimum zoom, heh). Now it caches pretty much everything at every zoom level so it's only slow when you first load the game or zoom it.
Wall-rendering was also a bit too slow (all these trees are automatically connected, I just put where the walls are. Four walls around a tile form an impassable "forest"), now it caches pre-generated tiles too.
Other optimized things are fairly minor, mostly rearranging rendering order and grouping stuff to make it as fast as possible.
What exactly are you looking for in the side quests, though? Quests to recruit Touhou characters, like "Spirits are coming out of the underground! Go and do something!", leading you to recruit the Satori etc., just a random villager side quest like "bring me item X from dungeon Y" or something completely different?
Oh, right. Quests to recruit characters are already written and I don't need these.
I basically need some side stories, maybe involving a character or several characters that are already recruited (or maybe I can place it before that character is recruitable).
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one attempt was failed because of a miss with 95%! chance to hit (the boss had, uh, 4 hp) :ohdear:
I know that feeling. ^^; [link] (http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h200/ShadowNCS/GST_Reimu_Results_LP2_zps4b9ecd9d.png)
By hand :derp: Yeah, can't do anything about this anymore. 60000 lines of code is too late.
I'm using that excuse with 25,000 lines already. xD
Let's just hope nothing breaks. ^^
Minimap is a very very very performance-critical thing when you have a world consisting of 200k tiles (at 1920x1080, expanded minimap fits almost entire world into one screen at minimum zoom, heh).
Oh. I hadn't thought that a minimap could cause this much problems. But I does make sense, I guess. ^^
I basically need some side stories, maybe involving a character or several characters that are already recruited.
Alright. If I can come up with something, I'll tell you. ^^
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(and things that need changing that much are only slightly slow, so it's not a big issue).
That was really wrong. :V
So I radically cleaned up a lot of bad old code, improved error handling, sped up texture loading roughly by 30% (got rid of SDL_image and did it with libpng directly), reworked the way rendering is handled, nearly halved memory usage and fixed many old little bugs I haven't noticed before.
Rendering is now managed by a global rendering queue which handles most interactions (all of them except texture/shader loading) with OpenGL. I had a lot of GL calls all over the place so it was pretty chaotic and hard to control (and really hard to find what's causing problems). Because it prevents excessive GL state changes, it's also much faster.
I have dropped support for OpenGL1.X (OpenGL 2.0 is required now) because it was too much of a burden and a hell to maintain. Workarounds are either awfully slow, take a lot of time to write or outright impossible. It's not really needed (who still doesn't have GL2.0?) anyway. It may still work with GL1.5 if required extensions are there, but that's not guaranteed.
That took a whole lot of time of course, and I definitely won't be done by August, but the code is much nicer, faster and cleaner now. Further cleanup is required in some places, but it's just a matter of time.
Now for the things from todo list:
- Main story: Significant progress here, but far from done. Aside from just "more events/dialogues", events and dialogues are now completely independent from source code, so it's way easier to add/edit them now.
- Human village: Untouched (this one is scary)
- Characters: Done
- Maps: No new ones, but I redesigned start areas. Before, they were a very chaotic random labyrinth. I felt that it was creating a "heavy" atmosphere, so I made them less like a labyrinth and more "free" and added roads to give the player a clear direction. These areas are supposed to be roads after all, and even Forest of Magic was giving more sense of direction because it has a branching tree structure and not a random one.
- Enemies: Done with a few exceptions, because I'm not sure about their abilities.
- Boss Battles: Done, but not tested.
- Items: Untouched (that'll come together with new maps)
- GUI: *Almost* done. This took much longer than I expected (about two weeks of just GUI work). It's a long chain of "hey, this could be much better if..."
just like the entire game pretty much. - Side quests: Still on the idea stage (in-game there is a grand amount of 1 side quest)
- Battle obstacles: The system is done, but no new obstacles.
- Battle backgrounds: New grass background, but it's barely better. Aside from that, nothing.
- Tileset: Water is now (shader-)animated, one new tile type (dirt roads, huh), new tile connections.
- Character sprites: 1/8
- Monster sprites: Untouched (that's very sad.
Empty spaces Flying names will probably be there for a long time). Oh wait, there IS a new sprite! A recolored slime! :V - Character animations: I got rid of remains of old animation system and removed simple old one-image sprites, combining everything into a unified bodypart-based system.
- Attack animations:
I wasn't quite happy with how most special effects looked, sooo I made a particle system. Here are some new attack animations that use particles:
Screenshot link (http://solmyr2000.narod.ru/TouhouBattles/particlemasterspark.png)
Screenshot link (http://solmyr2000.narod.ru/TouhouBattles/particlefantasyseal.png)
Screenshot link (http://solmyr2000.narod.ru/TouhouBattles/particlefantasynature.png)
Projectiles and scripts were redone almost completely. Their implementation was very old and bad (and slow, it's now 5 times faster) so it direly needed that.
Previously, an attack needed a projectile type and script as parameters, and scripts used that projectile type.
While I could use the same script for many attacks with this approach, it lead to many copy-pasted projectiles that only differ slightly. And considering that projectiles have a lot of parameters, that turned projectile data files into a huge mess.
Now projectile data file only defines textures and animation frames and everything else is done through a script. Of course, if I copy-paste scripts instead of projectiles, it wouldn't be much better.
So now it's possible to pass variables to scripts in the data files. If SCRIPT_BASIC_SHOT creates a few circle bullets with 10 speed, SCRIPT_BASIC_SHOT projectile_data: projectile='ICICLE' speed='14' creates a few icicles with 14 speed.
Projectiles can have scripts too, but they aren't absolutely required - if there is no script, it will use the default behaviour of that projectile type: bullets will move directly to their target and will create an explosion once they reach it, explosions will play an animation, lasers will just appear and disappear.
Well, I already had attack scripts and projectile scripts before, but there are three new types.
Since I want particles to be available more than just for attacks and projectiles, I have added scripts for units and objects as well. Both of these can create particles too, and not only that - unit scripts may be used later for the random idle animations, but that's very low priority.
Also, weapons can emit particles too. For that there is a third new type - "emitter configuration script". These are used to create an emitter on a weapon, which will work automatically after that. It's less flexible, but it does its job:
Screenshot link (http://solmyr2000.narod.ru/TouhouBattles/particleweapons.png)
Aside from that, you can also use these scripts anywhere to set up emitter data, but that's not necessary.
By the way, scripts were finally exported out of the source code to external files. I decided against reviving my own failscriptlanguage and used AngelScript instead.
Also, a small nice new feature - units in battle now have hitboxes and if, say, 5 out of 10 bullets in the attack miss, these 5 bullets will also miss visually. Before, it would always look like as if they all hit.
This won't work for all attacks though, since for area attacks hits/misses are calculated individually for every target and I have no idea how to animate that.
It's like I'm making a danmaku game instead of RPG. Well, it's Touhou after all. :V
Oh, and I caught the stealthy AI bugs, but one of them miraculously disappeared when I was trying to fix it. :derp: It probably *didn't* disappear, but I can't reproduce it anymore. Maybe I accidentally fixed it, I don't know.
I also caught a funny new bug where Sakuya could make all AI units stuck "because every hex adjacent to them is unreachable". Mad time-space warping skills :V
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(I'm new...how to do introductions...)
I think this is going great! I like the ideas, and everything looks fantastic!
As a budding game dev myself and a fan of RPGs, I can't wait to get my hands on the beta! :D
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Thank you, I can't wait to actually finish the beta. It feels so close, but the small things just keep popping up :V I've just finished the teleporter system, and now I'm doing levers, traps etc. (somehow I forgot about these two things) Because of teleporter system, I had to make a new window for a world map, I also had to make it possible to switch the world map between worlds and make it load fast, and for this I had to fix up the minimap AGAIN. Aaand I had to add emitters to dungeon tiles because the teleporters (and also fire effects, lava tiles etc.) could definitely benefit from that.
And it looked like a small task in the beginning :derp:
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Looks really cool! I can't wait to play the beta.
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Sorry that it's been a while since the last update but thought I'd just ask anyway. You've talked about improvement to the GUI, but do you plan to give it a aesthetic look? If so how do you have it setup? Like a line of text or through a image file like PNG?
I ask this because your game looks very interesting. (Plus getting low motivation for my own custom project and need some inspiration really) And I'd like to see if I can make a UI for the game. whether you use it or not Is really up to you, I'd just like to see what I can do on a fully custom job. I do have some experience as (not sure if the English patch ish done yet) I helped redo the UI for Nightmare of the Sleeping girl, some parts have to heavily customize.
Also I use to do sprites for items a other things years ago too so not sure if that can help.
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Sorry that it's been a while since the last update but thought I'd just ask anyway. You've talked about improvement to the GUI, but do you plan to give it a aesthetic look? If so how do you have it setup? Like a line of text or through a image file like PNG?
I ask this because your game looks very interesting. (Plus getting low motivation for my own custom project and need some inspiration really) And I'd like to see if I can make a UI for the game. whether you use it or not Is really up to you, I'd just like to see what I can do on a fully custom job. I do have some experience as (not sure if the English patch ish done yet) I helped redo the UI for Nightmare of the Sleeping girl, some parts have to heavily customize.
Also I use to do sprites for items a other things years ago too so not sure if that can help.
(Most of the) text is rendered using freetype outlines, i.e. from font files (you can change the game font in the config file if you want), but the backgrounds, overlays, and non-standard ("fancy") text (it's only used twice though) are in PNG files. As for aesthetics, I tried to make something better than boring gray but it didn't end well. :derp: I would appreciate any help with that of course.
Btw there are no updates because I kinda burned out for now. Well, that always happens when I leave myself zero free time and barely get any sleep - setting deadlines you cannot possibly meet is dangerous lol :V There is still a lot of progress since the last update but I'll leave that for later when I resume working.
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Would it be possible if you PM me the PNG files? I'd like to use them as a base to work around them. That is if its OK with you if I can work on them if possible.
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Well, apparently I'm able to work again, so here is the progress since the last update that I didn't already mention (teleporters, traps, tile particles, world map rework). It's less than I wanted to do, but still something.
- Main story: About halfway there. I slightly regret my decision to make two main characters, because that means double the work for dialogues. Well, it's too late to change that, and since I'm always writing two completely different dialogues anyway, I try to make every main story character far more prominent in one of the routes - for example, Patchouli gets to speak much more in Marisa's route. So, despite the fact that mandatory characters stay the same in both routes, the "main characters" will be completely different - not just two initial characters.
For others, there are optional branches that you'll only see if that character is recruited. They're usually very short or even one-line because otherwise I'd end up with absolutely ridiculous amount of work to do.
Dialogue is problematic to write though, I can't just do it whenever, only during those "flashes" of inspiration :V - Human village: I made some preparations, but not yet
- Maps: They're all there, but some are still empty and some need polishing. They won't be completely done even after it though - maps need more decorations (e.g. SDM won't have any furniture yet), but that's a purely cosmetic thing and I'll leave that for a later version.
- Items: Plenty of new items, and "adventure items" were implemented - these are consumables that are used not in battle, but on the map - doubling hp/mp regen speed, doubling experience gain from battles, making your party invisible, stopping time for a while and the like; Also, there are now reset items in the game, even two of them - first resets only invested statpoints/skillpoints, second resets everything, including experience and used bonus items
- Side quests: Some "collateral" progress due to main story, but in-game there is still only one side quest.
- Character sprites: 3/8
- Attack animations: They are slowly being transitioned to the new system
Other stuff:
Back in January, I said:
But I have a system to save party presets and switch between them instead of individual characters (it's currently removed because of party change window rework, but it's still in the code and I'll re-implement it sometime later)
Well, that took a while, but it's finally back: Screenshot link (http://solmyr2000.narod.ru/TouhouBattles/team9.png). I decided to merge party presets with formation saving, so you can save both the characters and their formation instead of saving (and then setting) them individually.
And there is a little yet significant change in the game mechanics.
In a far, far away galaxy, long time ago its original incarnation, affinity worked not just defensively, but also offensively - boosting/reducing the power of the attacks. E.g. 100 affinity would double the power of attacks of that element while halving the power of the opposite.
It made neutral affinity effectively useless, and that's why it was removed. However, after encountering some balance issues and looking at it once again, I thought that with just a little adjustment, it would work very well. So I brought it back, but scaled the effect down and made it unequal - now it's a 20% bonus/33% penalty at 100 affinity.
Also, I have improved the save file format to prevent saves from breaking whenever I add something new in there and changed how some things are saved to make them more future-proof.
I can't guarantee 100% compatibility, but saves will never completely break in newer versions.
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So, I playtested the game once again while fixing bugs, adding missing content & improving stuff along the way.
The game has grown a lot since the last playtest, it's now full beta length sans story events and quests - about 8-10 hours long. It took me an entire week to get through this jungle of bugs :V
Thankfully, there is now a script console which makes it far easier to fix broken games and "imitate" missing events.
I actually reached the point when spellcards come into play and decided to change them a little bit: spellcard slots are now blocked after being used once. You can restore them by visiting a restoration point or by using a bomb item. I don't think you'd ever run out of spellcards in a single battle - you're far more likely to run out of MP or power, so spellcard preparations lose their meaning as a resource if they're just battle-scope. This change also encourages using more characters which is good.
Experience is badly balanced at the moment, but I can't really do anything with that until quests are there since it's a major source of experience.
I'll probably reduce the amount of exp from battles when side quests are there, so that you won't overlevel too much if you fight everything and won't be too underleveled if you avoid fights often. I'll aim for something like 1/2 exp from regular battles, 1/4 exp from quests & 1/4 exp from bosses.
As for the other progress:
- Human village: There is now a very basic (but functional) placeholder version of it, it needs a lot of graphical work to be done properly
- Maps: I wish I could say it's done, but I really feel the need to redesign Scarlet Devil Mansion. Well, other than that, done.
- Enemies: Done. Most areas now contain at least 1 spawner which spawns higher-leveled creatures that normally appear in later areas - basically, "minibosses" (it's usually 1 high-level creature + several "normal" creatures).
At first they were just rarely spawned by normal spawners, but that could absolutely screw you up if you happened to be unlucky enough (like me :derp:) to meet them in every single encounter. Some minibosses (especially late game) are unique and won't ever appear as regular enemies. - Boss battles: I may add another boss fight (not sure yet, I'll decide when there is more side quest progress), but old ones are done and they were properly tested & balanced this time. (Only on normal difficulty though - I'll test hard next time)
- Items: Done, but I may add a few more.
- GUI: Done, at least functionality-wise.
- Battle backgrounds: Unfinished snow background
- Tileset: Some new stuff for the Human Village
- Character sprites: 4/8
- Monster sprites: 1 new sprite
- Attack animations: Several new ones, along with continuing to transfer old ones to the new system (& improving them)
Some screenshots:
Sunny's skill tree + Fatal flash (http://solmyr2000.narod.ru/TouhouBattles/sunnyskilltree.png)
Implosion attack (http://solmyr2000.narod.ru/TouhouBattles/implosion.png)
And a (somewhat spoilery) screenshot of the world map (http://solmyr2000.narod.ru/TouhouBattles/mapscreenshot.png) (blue arrows are teleporters)
Well, most of the gameplay stuff is now pretty much done, it just needs some polishing. What's left is story and graphics. I'll try to focus on the former, since graphics are not THAT critical. Hopefully it won't take too long :)
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How much coding knowledge did you have prior to starting this game. I don't want to be rude or anything but I'm really curious since this is one of the few western Touhou fangames that's made through pure code.
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How much coding knowledge did you have prior to starting this game. I don't want to be rude or anything but I'm really curious since this is one of the few western Touhou fangames that's made through pure code.
Well, a decent amount (about 4 years of experience). I had nearly zero knowledge of opengl though (that's why graphical code was such a failure and had to be rewritten).
I made several smaller games before (text-based dungeon crawl RPG, text-based strategy game and very simple shmup), but this is the first big project.
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Thanks for replying.
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Well, I got distracted by coding something else for a while, but there's still quite a bit of progress.
- Main story: I decided to divide chapter 1 in two - it's very large and the first half and the second half have a very clean and obvious divide, there is even a "final battle" for the first half. Even the amount of available characters is almost equal. Beta still won't have the entire chapter 1 - it'll be missing the final segment of it.
I completely overhauled chapter 2 (now chapter 3) because it was pretty short & empty ever since I made most of its areas available earlier, in the "new" chapter 2. Some characters that were unjustifiably left out of the main story now play a role while not changing their optional recruitment status. I also demoted one of the characters to optional while making her subordinate mandatory instead (plus events related to them are more spread out, start earlier and make a lot more sense). It was kinda weird when you got the master much earlier than subordinates :derp:
Also, while I was strictly adhering to a linear sequence of main quests before, now that's not the case - there will be multiple parallel main quests. Introducing "problems" immediately before solving them wasn't quite helping the story :V. You'll still have to solve all of them to finish the game. Or not. One quest might be main but not mandatory. It will affect the ending - there'll probably be 3 endings - (Any main character, this quest is completed), (Reimu as main character, this quest is not completed), (Marisa as main character, this quest is not completed).
If I ever get to doing the "extended plan" stuff there might be another (the "true") ending if you complete that quest & also recruit a particular extended plan character. So yeah, what I'm saying is, all of the standard endings are a bunch of lies.
- Side quests: 5 new quests + some cleanup in the quest system - they're now purely on scripts, the only hardcoded thing about quests left is integers that are used to store quest progress (2 bits per objective + 2 bits for overall quest status, so that limits quest objective amount to 15, which is plenty I think). Well, there is one exception, but for a good reason - it's a grand side quest which spans all five chapters.
And it's another reference to HoMM, just take a look: Screenshot link (http://solmyr2000.narod.ru/TouhouBattles/grailmap.png). Would be cool to have an actual touhou-themed mosaic background instead of that grey, well, I can TRY.
- Battle obstacles: Uh, giant mushrooms
- Battle backgrounds: 1 new (animated!) background plus some progress on the forest of magic background.
- Tileset: Some more tile/wall graphics & not exactly tileset, but - lots of new mini-sprites for NPCs and encounters. Most encounters (except bosses) will look like fairies. I originally wanted to use smaller versions of sprites of leading creatures, but I think animated player-like sprite looks better even if it's always the same. Would be nice if player's sprite changed depending on first character in the party, but that would require quite a bit of work, so maybe later.
Have a Cirno (http://solmyr2000.narod.ru/TouhouBattles/minicirno.png) - Character sprites: 8/8 + improvement of some old sprites + more weapon sprites
- Monster sprites: 5 new sprites
- Character animations: Bodyparts can now consist of multiple images & be colored on per-image basis. So basically I can now combine/color anything to get new bodyparts - that greatly reduces the amount of stuff I need to animate. Hair/eye coloring were also moved to this new system.
Also, quest markers were added. They're disabled by default, because, well, you're supposed to find stuff by yourself instead of being pointed where to go, but if you're lost or can't be bothered to explore everything you might want to enable them.
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Oh nice Cirno! How did you make her? Any tips on making a custom sprite? (Made one a while back but still feel it's not original enough)
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Oh nice Cirno! How did you make her? Any tips on making a custom sprite? (Made one a while back but still feel it's not original enough)
Well, it's a small sprite so it's very simple pixelart. You just need to make a decent template & you'll be able to mass produce these sprites by editing the old ones, I can make one with all animation frames (well, it's only 9 frames with only 3 being significantly different) in around an hour.
Here's another sprite, Alice: (http://solmyr2000.narod.ru/TouhouBattles/minialice.png)
The big in-battle sprites however take hours upon hours and still look far from perfect :V
Well, at least they're definitely improving:
(http://solmyr2000.narod.ru/TouhouBattles/oldnewspritescomparison2.png)
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Still catching up on this thread but what I see is extremely impressive so far. Definitely looking forward to the day we can give this a spin.
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I haven't said anything in a while, huh.
It's nice to see your project is still making progress. ^^
The overworld sprites look really cute. ^^
And wow, that's some great improvement you've made there with the battle sprites! The latest Alice looks pretty good! ^^
Although I personally think her dress is looking a little too bright, but that might just be me.
Anyway, just wanted to let you know I'm still following your project, even if I'm silent. ^^
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So, I was playing Wasteland 2 / EU4's new expansion lately :derp:, so progress isn't really that big (absolutely zero in story), but at least I partially solved the very, very old problem - the problem of mountains (and "tiered" tiles in general).
I was trying to avoid doing them before beta release actually, but I NEED them for the Hakurei Shrine area, so, yeah, can't hide from that issue forever :V Their graphics are not yet finished, but the new height system works correctly.
I have COMPLETELY redone the way trees and the like are drawn. Basically, it's now even more automated - instead of being put together as pieces of "walls" (that's now only used by actual walls), their positions are now procedurally generated using world id & tile coordinates as input. Decorations like mushrooms, flowers are also generated this way. The generated data is cached, so there's almost no impact on performance.
Here's how it looks: Screenshot link (http://solmyr2000.narod.ru/TouhouBattles/treedemo.png). Now there are no repeating patterns - it's all (sort of) random and I can mix different tree sprites (not used on the screenshot).
Aside from that stuff, I did some balancing. I rebalanced stat growth/effect to prevent low-level items from becoming obsolete too fast (average stat sum at level 50 went down from ~2200 to ~800, but all effects of all stats were increased). The stat growth was so fast (1->2 was a 40% increase + 5 statpoints, now it's 20% + 2 statpoints) that item tier "upgrades" just couldn't keep up. Now items will stay relevant for a bit longer & constitute a larger portion of character's stats.
Also, I changed how status resistance modifiers work - they're now resistance thresholds (http://solmyr2000.narod.ru/TouhouBattles/resistancethresholds.png). Instead of multiplying resistance stat, they are now substracted from (or added to) the BASE power of status effects (before stats apply). So a character with status resistance threshold higher than base power of the status effect will be completely immune to it, no matter how high concentration of the status user is.
And having high resistance is now much more beneficial (it wasn't really worth it before) - resistance stat, aside from its normal % status power reduction, now significantly increases all resistance thresholds if it's higher than status user's concentration .
Domination status effect got a rework - it was too similar to charm when AI used it (except dominated characters could use spellcards while charmed couldn't). Now it's a bit different - domination status effect is now always infinite, and it only cancels if:
1) It's dispelled by any dispel effect
2) The one who put the status is killed or "insane", i.e. affected by any mental status effect (confusion, berserk, charm or domination)
And charged spellcards are now broken when domination is applied or cancelled, because otherwise it leads to silly exploits :V
Also, speaking of berserk, it's a positive status effect in this game - that's why there is no resistance against it. What it does:
1) Unit is controlled by AI and only uses its basic melee attack
2) Defence and evasion become 0, half of sum of defence & evasion is added to both combat & resistance
3) All damage dealt is tripled
Flandre
can voluntarily put herself in an infinite berserk state and fully heal herself at the cost of 5 power (all power unless you have +max power items) and all of her MP. It's also a 0 AP action, so she'll act immediately afterwards.
Although I personally think her dress is looking a little too bright, but that might just be me.
I have reduced the brightness a bit, closer to older sprites' levels:
(http://solmyr2000.narod.ru/TouhouBattles/alicechangedcolors.png)
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This is so cool. Not only is this an American fangame, but it is one made with code. I really wish I could be of assistance, but I'm not very good at... anything besides story so I'll just wish you luck.
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This is so cool. Not only is this an American fangame, but it is one made with code. I really wish I could be of assistance, but I'm not very good at... anything besides story so I'll just wish you luck.
Russian :derp:
And thank you, of course. :V
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And charged spellcards are now broken when domination is applied or cancelled, because otherwise it leads to silly exploits :V
But we like to use exploits! :V
Just kidding. Good you found that potential exploit and fixed it. ^^
Also, speaking of berserk, it's a positive status effect in this game - that's why there is no resistance against it.
Can enemies use berserk on you? Because if they can, that'd be total trollage. xD
I generally don't like the berserk stat. My characters tend not to attack who I want them to attack. xD;
(I still consider it as a positive status, though. Even if I don't particularly like it. Although the berserk stat in your game does sound powerful enough to be useful. ^^)
The sprite looks better now (to me, anyways) . :D
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Can enemies use berserk on you? Because if they can, that'd be total trollage. xD
No, it's strictly used on allies/self. There might be an exception to that (as a side effect for one of the attacks) for playable characters, but enemies never.
Also berserk status is very rare - it's on par with domination in rarity.
Charm is a regular occurrence though, and if your damage dealer gets charmed, oh god. :ohdear: It's especially bad in Marisa's case since Reimu gets Keine who specializes in dispel (and also because charmed Marisa is very very dangerous).
I generally don't like the berserk stat. My characters tend not to attack who I want them to attack. xD;
(I still consider it as a positive status, though. Even if I don't particularly like it. Although the berserk stat in your game does sound powerful enough to be useful. ^^)
Well, AI under berserk will always attack the nearest enemy (forgot to mention that), so it's pretty predictable.
It's very powerful (especially for characters with low attack stats, but high defence, evasion, or both - berserk will boost their damage output tremendously), but 0 defence/0 evasion mean that characters will take A LOT of damage and die very quickly. They'll also be high-priority targets for the AI.
Flandre's not really well fit for berserk (she's already a very extreme glass cannon), but her specific case is a desperation move - hence "lose all power/mp, heal all hp" thing.
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Well huh, RL intervened so I don't have much progress again, not zero though - some revisited/edited dialogues, a few new battle obstacles, bugfixes and a new system - I decided to expand defensive options a bit (I really wanted to avoid any significant gameplay changes, but this one works very well) - there were plenty of ways to attack, but not quite enough ways to defend - just buffs. Not even HoMM-like defend was in... well, it was, but as a pretty rare self-buff.
Now everyone can use these 3 actions:
"Defend": increases defence by 50% * (50% + % of remaining action points)
"Evade": increases evasion by 50% * (50% + % of remaining action points)
"Wait": increases initiative by 10 * remaining action points, so you'll act earlier next turn
There are also 2 alternative actions which can be enabled with certain skills for certain characters:
"Protect": replaces evade. Grants 50% * (50% + % of remaining action points) of character's defence to all nearby allies.
"Graze": replaces defend. Sets evasion to 0 while adding evasion * (50% + % of remaining action points) to defence.
Finally, there is "Spellguard": replaces both defend/evade (and their alternatives) when spellcard is active; costs 10% of spellcard's MP cost, but decreases all received damage/status power by 50% + 5% * (spellcard level + 1) * (50% + % of remaining action points). If spellcard is broken, stops working. Unlike defend/evade, spellguard is still useful for low-defence/low-evasion characters.
All of the above work until next turn and are disabled if the character is incapacitated (by paralysis/sleep/freeze/petrification). Evade/graze are disabled if the character is affected by evasion-disabling status effects (all incapacitating statuses and blindness/entanglement) (Reimu got a new skill, "Intuitive Evasion", which prevents evasion disabling & lets her evade even if she's blind; there are also several new & changed passives that affect defensive actions in some way).
Morale, which would normally give you a second turn (and it will still do that if you wait) will instead increase the effect of defensive actions - they will have a full AP effect plus additional 50%, e.g. defend will give +100% to defence. Spellguard gets +1 to spellcard level instead of +50% bonus.
Also, shields (a type of accessories), which previously gave a high chance to grant a very big bonus to defence against a particular element (some shields give bonuses against multiple elements and some give bonuses to resistance against specific status effects), now always give that bonus when the character is defending or using spellguard, and 1/10 of it otherwise.
That makes them a lot more useful since they're no longer reliant on random chance, and powerful shields can trivialize even level 3-4 spellcards.
I probably won't have much progress in the next month either, but if everything goes well I'll resume the active work in February. (if it doesn't, I'll have to freeze the development for a very long time, but that's not very likely (at least I hope so))
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Good luck with this. I am a fan of King's Bounty and Heroes of Might and Magic series.
Heroes of Might and Magic 6 was cool, but the DLC was not. The auto downloads take forever and sometimes your save data gets overwritten by save data on their server.