In this entry: Quests!


I've been working on the cutscene.


The cutscene is finished for now.

Today I've been fixing various bugs with it. This was the first full workday in a while, I'm feeling better now.


Today I was improving When Luck Runs Out - the first quest.

Here's a list of changes:

- Archer's equipment crate now contains an arc instead of a bow.
- Ria now moves to a more correct position when speaking with the player.
- Made minor improvements to quest's dialogues.
- Replaced old events with the new moment and encounter systems.
- Added an encounter: A rogue that offers to show the player a shortcut to Locul.
- The second rogue player meets is no longer aggressive.
- It will become aggressive if the player steals from the nearby crates. Stealing tutorial, kind of.
- Colored important parts of the quest log text.

The most important change is the encounter and moment systems.

In 0.5.0 and older versions, the encounters like the good rogue that gives the player iron helmet/gauntlets would start when the player would enter the encounter zone.

It wasn't possible to avoid the encounter and it would stop the gameplay until the player would go through the dialogue.

That's no longer the case: NPC encounters are now triggered by speaking with them, and non-NPC encounters start when the player interacts with what I call moments.

Here's an example of a moment:



It's another tool for my quest toolkit - I imagine I'll use a lot of these in the upcoming quests.

So that was another productive day, I'm getting back into the routine.


Today I have started working on the second quest: "Unemployment Crisis", formerly "Wanted Dead".

"Wanted Dead" is now a part of the "Unemployment Crisis" - the quest is no longer just about being a bounty hunter.

With the new dialogues, the transition from clueless immigrant to an amateur bounty hunter should be smoother now.

Also, they provide a little bit of normalcy that - I believe - will make more dramatic quests further into the story feel more special by contrast.


An incomplete workday, but "Unemployment Crisis" is even closer to being done.


I'll have to rethink this format because I don't like showing quest progress, so I won't have anything to show at times. Hmm...


I'm done with "Unemployment Crisis"!

Some non-spoiler progress - overhead icons:





Players will no longer need to guess if the character is interactive or not.

Anyway, since the quests are done, I'll be able to update the game again soon.

Just want to make several miscellaneous improvements first.

Today I have:

- Fixed missing shadows and missing building tile inside 2nd Strategic Fortification.
- Reduced bow damage, gave Archer equipment defense bonus.
- Renamed "Gold" to "Guldens". To not be confused with "Gold" as a material. Plus, more unique.
- Rogues now have 100 less health. To make it easier for the new players.
- Fixed bug: Having a full inventory will no longer destroy items inside loot containers.
- Reduced the amount of loot - the inventory won't fill up as fast now. It really was a problem.


Today I have improved the "Arrow Wall" ability.



Now it hits everything in a large zone, so it's more reliable and - while harder to avoid - will no longer cause "Why did I got hit, I was standing in between the lines?!" confusion.


Today I have:

- Improved introduction cutscene.
- Added "Ability ready" audio and visual hints.
- Fixed a few bugs.
- Nerfed silver arrow damage bonus because it was making bows overpowered.
- Graphically improved the overworld.



Now it has wood texture in the background - the idea is that the map is on a table.

Later I might add decorations like daggers, coins, coffee cups, and other items that should be on a Kayosian tavern's table =]


Today I have updated the demo!

I've also done some writing for the quest that comes with the next demo update: "Wanted Mad".
It's going to be another smaller update, the only goal I have for it is adding that quest.


Today I've done a bit more writing, but the majority of the day was spent making an area for the new quest.

Aside from quest stuff, it will contain several small iron ore rocks, loot containers, and three new enemy NPCs. Bonus content!


Today I have spent the majority of the available time to rewrite the "Wanted Mad" script.
Wasn't satisfied with the first version - this often happens when I write, I keep rewriting until I'm happy with the results.

Also decided to rename the quest to "Cold Commands".


Today I was continuing the work on the quest area.


A productive day!

Implemented new items that are required for the quest, added NPCs to the quest area, implemented quest challenges, moved the quest dialogue text into the game, finished making the quest area...

Nearly done.


Only minor improvements remain after today's work.



I've written a lot of dialogue for this quest, took a while to implement it all.


The "Cold Commands" quest is finished!

Now I want to do a competitive shooter game style "<character name> weapon icon, ability icon <character name>" messages whenever a character is killed and then I'll start working on the massive Luma city update.

Unfortunately, the "Cold Commands" will not be a part of the demo.

It's not an early game quest and I have made a decision to only include early game content in the demo.

The unabridged game versions will still be available on my Discord server, but the public demo will remain pretty much as it is.

So, that's this entry! I'm going to write more about the Luma city content in the next one.

Thanks for reading <3

This update adds an introduction cutscene and improves the available story quests.



Other changes:

- Improved Arrow Wall ability.
- Added the overworld system.
- Added Deserter Flat: An overworld area between Eastern Trilith and Moonrise Desert.
- Improved the start of the game: Fixed bugs, improved graphics.
- Gave interactive characters overhead icons.
- Archer's equipment crate now contains an arc instead of a bow.
- Ria now moves to a more correct position when speaking with the player.
- Made minor improvements to quest's dialogues.
- Replaced quest events with the new moment and encounter systems.
- The second rogue player meets is no longer aggressive.
- It will become aggressive if the player steals from the nearby crates. Stealing tutorial, kind of.
- Colored important parts of the quest log text.
- Fixed missing shadows and missing building tile inside 2nd Strategic Fortification.
- Reduced bow damage.
- Renamed "Gold" to "Guldens". To not be confused with "Gold" as a material. Plus, more unique.
- Rogues now have 100 less health. To make it easier for the new players.
- Fixed bug: Having a full inventory will no longer destroy items inside loot containers.
- Reduced the amount of loot - the inventory won't fill up as fast now. It really was a problem.

In the next update: Third story quest!

Have fun!

In this entry: Overworld, new story content, and changes to the development plan.


Let's get right into it!

As I mentioned in the previous entry, I have to change the development plan in order to complete the game faster.

I want to have version 1.0 in early 2022/late 2021.

That means that I have to drop more content. The content that takes the most time is areas. I've dropped a lot of areas already but just making fewer areas won't help this time.

If I removed more areas, I'd have to decrease the "size" of a story as well.
Can't have a global conspiracy without areas from all over the world.

Luckily, I came up with a solution: Instead of removing areas, simplify them!
In my game's case, the areas that aren't absolutely necessary to the game's story will be moved to an overworld.

This is inspired by an overworld in Wastelands 2.

Without an overworld, in order to let player access areas, I have to make areas between those areas as well, even if they aren't necessary for the story.

For example, I don't really need Eir Meadows for the story, but I have to make that area because otherwise, players won't be able to get to the city of Luma. Which I absolutely need.

There are definitely other solutions, but I feel like the overworld is the most elegant one.
It keeps the story intact.

I'm also changing my approach to developing the story. Previously the idea was to create all of the version 1.0 areas, then populate them with quests.
After making the Eastern Trilith area, I don't think that's a good idea anymore.
It's better to have a clear goal when designing an area.

So now the priority is the story - I'll only make areas that are required for the quests.

And so the new short-term plan looks like this:

1. Overworld system.
   
2. Overworld area: "Deserter Flat".
   
3. Introduction cutscene.
   
4. Introduction improvements.
   
5. Improve 1st story quest.
   
6. 2nd story quest: "Unemployment Crisis".
   
7. Incorporate "Wanted Dead" into "Unemployment Crisis".
   
8. Polish.
   
9. Release the new demo version.

Today I have already done some progress with the overworld system.







Improved the overworld graphically:



I'm now happy with how it looks, going to work on the introduction cutscene now.


I've been wrapping some things up. Now that it's done, I'm back to working 100% on LOTLW.

So, yeah, introduction cutscene.
After the player starts the game and creates a character, the cutscene will play.

First, it'll introduce the players to the game's universe: Magic, the Linked Worlds, Order Tempest, tainted lead, all the cool stuff =]

After that, you'll see for the first time the portal malfunction!

I will not be sharing the cutscene until after the next demo is released to keep things exciting. That means the entry will be a bit quiet for at least a few days.


So after a few hours of work, I decided to not make an introduction to the game's universe.
It's quite wordy, probably not required for the player to understand the story, and I really struggled to make it work.

The idea was to show text and have simple animations that would illustrate the text:

"Several things had to happen before it became possible for your life to change this way."

"Year ???: Discovery of magic."
"It happened so long ago that no one knows anymore where or when the first spells were cast."

[Glyps appear around the image of a world and then fade away]
[The camera moves away from the image]

"Year 774: Invention of the World Gates."
"The invention lead to the emergence of something that never existed before: A network of worlds."

[Camera moves to a group of worlds]
[Gate icons appear on them and lines connect them]
[Camera moves, more and more connected worlds enter the view]

"Year 787: Linked world wars"
"A cascade of conflicts that scarred the worlds. Something had to be done."

[Worlds shatter]
[Lines become broken]

"Year 864: Creation of Order Tempest",
"And something was done. Order Tempest, an organization to enforce peace was formed."

[Order Tempest flag icons appear near the world images]

"Year 884: Legalization of the tainted lead use"
"But to be effective Order Tempest had to gain the power to isolate worlds that did not want peace."
"Fortunately to the Order, the alchemists have created the tainted lead, a material that has teleportation disrupting effect."

[More worlds with the Order's flags]

"Year 928: Beginning of Kayos lockdown"
"Kayos was the first of the worlds to become disconnected from the Linked Worlds."

[Camera moves to the world of Kayos image]
[World linking animation plays]

"It was colonized because of useful crystals that turned out to have the nasty property of making people insane."
"The Order was forced to use the tainted lead and Kayos became the Locked World."

[The link lines disappear]
[Camera moves away to an image of a world with a gate]

"Year 1106: Your arrival to the Locked World."
"Figuratively all the stars in the Universe had to align for that to happen."
"You managed to get your hands on a voucher for something that was called seal charms."
"You were told that you can exchange it in the world of Ocia."
"All you needed to do is to use the World Gate and walk a bit."

[Camera stops]
[Screen fades to black]

I think I'll explain this in different ways - lore books inside the game and dialogues with NPCs, so nothing will be lost.

I was excited about making this cutscene, so I am a little disappointed. But considering how hard it was going to be to make text synchronize with the animations, make the animations, etc., it's probably the right call.

Not to mention that asking players to do so much reading so early in the game is not the best idea. The dialogue with the immigrant greeter is already a bit much.

So, yeah, I choose to be okay with this.
Going to take this as another lesson in not doing things, which is difficult for me, hah.


Did a lot of progress with the portal malfunction cutscene. Nothing to show yet, even if I wanted to spoil it.

It's going well, this cutscene is working, unlike the previous one.


More progress! Should be done soon.

The biggest news today is that the game has 700 wishlists now! Thank you =]


I think I was working on graphics this time.


Today I was working on cutscene's animations and audio.
Most of it works now, I could even probably say that it's done, but it still doesn't click for me.


Wasn't at home, no progress. Just going to post this entry since it's about time I've done that.

So far November has been a non-stop challenge, it's one of those dark times in development when weeks fly by and progress is too damn slow.

Got to say that I've been feeling less happy than usually and that's reflected in the amount of time I was able to work.

Will have to power though it. The improved plan and reduced content will help a lot.

Anyway, that is it.



Thanks for reading and until next time!

In this entry: Character creation UI redesign, demo update release.


Decided to redesign the character creation UI because it was too busy. I was suggested to split the UI into two pages, which was an excellent suggestion - this is why feedback is so important!

With two pages, I could arrange buttons in a more pleasant way.






Okay, now it's visually finished.

Besides doing that, I also implemented the "Random talents" button, began working on the "Random name" button, added confirmation pop-ups for canceling, and finishing the character creation.


I was fixing the PC.


Got my PC back, but only managed to work a bit on character name generation before I ran out of time.


The "Random name" button is now implemented and character creation UI is now linked - meaning it can be used without a mouse.

What's left is opening the UI when the player starts a new game and adding informational tooltips about talent point spending and classes.

This wasn't a full workday either, unfortunately - distractions and chores kept me away from the project.

But hopefully, this development drought will be over soon - I have no distractions planned for the foreseeable future and I'm excited to start working on the next big thing for Light of the Locked World =]




With tooltips for the UI implemented, character creation is now done!

Now I need to fix a bunch of bugs and implement some sort of analytics so I would get a better insight into how players are playing the game.

Maybe I could even get reports of the crashes that happen to the players - that would help a ton to get the game free of game-breaking bugs.


Nevermind, I won't be implementing analytics.
Getting feedback naturally is nice and oldschool anyway =]

With that out of the way, I jumped into version 0.5.0 polishing - I'm hoping to release it this week.

Fixed several complicated graphical glitches, made NPC AI smarter, and MADE GAME LAG HORRIBLY AAAAAA.


I have fixed the lag and finished improving AI.



This is how AI sees the environment now: Green is where it can move the character.

Besides that, I've fixed another batch of bugs, improved loot tables again, and made the Eastern Trilith area more enjoyable - during testing I've found out that there are a bit too many traps and that enemies are too difficult, so I've corrected that.




I've launched an update on this day.

The following days were emotionally difficult for me. After spending so much time working on the Eastern Trilith area, I have realized that Light of the Locked World as planned will take a lot of years to finish.

So I was in a very bad mood. But after doing a lot of resting and thinking, I've got a solution to reduce the development time.

I'm going to write about that and the improved development plan in the next entry.

So thanks for reading, and until then!

This demo update adds a whole new area - Eastern Trilith, tier 2 equipment for all classes, combat visual improvements, dozens of small additions, and bug fixes. I've done a lot in these four months!

Watch the trailer:



If you do end up playing the demo, please share your thoughts about the direction the game is going, report bugs, etc.

The feedback is - as always - very important.

The information about what's in the next update is coming with LOTLW Devblog #24.

Have fun =]

In this entry: Character creation, bug fixes, Devtober, competitive multiplayer, and me getting sick, which explains why I didn't publish an entry last week.




Started the day by fixing a few more bugs, then watched videos for my Devtober challenge.

One of the bugs that I fixed was here since I have added the interior system - and it was implemented last October, pretty crazy!

Now that the bug amount has been reduced to acceptable levels, I have started working on the small improvements - going to do XP, gathering, and loot reworks.

The loot rework is done:



Seems pretty good - every container contains something useful, but it's also not too rewarding.


Today I have been tweaking XP and gathering.

Previously XP was balanced through class XP modifiers.
For example: Warrior XP = 20 raw Warrior XP * Warrior class XP modifier of 0.5

The modifiers and XP were all over the place, so I've set all modifiers to 1.

I also increased the XP rate for combat classes - because NPCs no longer respawn, it's easy to run out of NPCs to train combat on, so fights must give more XP.

For gathering, I was changing numbers a lot. I wanted to make the gathering more consistent - for example, it wasn't uncommon to get 1 iron ore from large iron rock and that just sucks.

I also didn't like that gathering was creating a lot of redundant game messages, didn't like how junk items were distributed, etc.

After a day of work, things work better now. A few more improvements and I'll be able to start working on character creation, which is the next big task on my list.


​Began today's hunt for tutorials by trying to find a visual effects tutorial for pixel art. Soon I have realized that finding something that would work for Light of the Locked World's graphics and animation styles would be very difficult.

I tried to create an animation style that works with the graphics style - very stiff, blocky, no blur, etc. basically a 'bad animation' style. I suppose it's possible to make it less... that... by adding more frames, but the game will take about a year to finish if I'm lucky, so I should minimize the time costs as much as possible.

After failing to find an applicable VFX tutorial for LOTLW, I decided to learn a few things about coding and that was that.

No visible progress for the Devtober again, oof.

Back to actual game development - today I have:

- Slightly improved Sphere, basic Mage attack ability graphics.
- Improved production devices: Now they convert all resources instantly in 3 seconds.
- Fixed bug: It would say that the player is stealing when they weren't mechanically.
- Made combat music more stable - now it doesn't keep fading out.
- Made final improvements to gathering.

After that, I began working on character creation!



This is just a concept, nowhere near it yet.

Besides the usual features like buttons to rename, randomize, and graphically customize the character there are options that impact gameplay.

1)
Talents

Assign talent points to customize class experience rates.

For example, if 5 talent points are invested in Gatherer class, the player character will gain +100% Gatherer experience from all sources:

- 0 talent points: 0% XP
- 1 talent point: 100% XP
- 2 talent points: 125% XP
- 3 talent points: 150% XP
- 4 talent points: 175% XP
- 5 talent points: 200% XP

The talent system should help balance the game by letting players invest points into classes that are difficult to gain XP in and let players lock classes - this should create unique challenges.

2)
Main class

The player is able to choose their character's favorite class. That class will get various small benefits.

E.g.: The player will only be able to equip a unique Mage class weapon if their character main class is Mage.


Today I did some work on character creation UI - nothing to show still - and did new area testing.
Found a bunch of bugs so I'll be fixing them tomorrow.

If I'll be able to - I think I'm going to be sick, so might be skipping a few days.


Yup, I've caught a cold.
Today I fixed a few bugs and found a ton of new ones thanks to a long playtesting session.

Wanted to do something doing before getting down with the sickness.


(Oh, ah, ah, ah, ah)


Recovering. Watched my friends play LOTLW, was really awesome.


Just going to keep another day to continue recovering. Going to be hard, really want to get back into development =]

Finally uploaded competitive multiplayer footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMgIxF0dH6Q It has a lot of problems, but it does work - which I guess is really *sick* considering that this is functioning splitscreen PVP.


Made game run 0.3 milliseconds faster! That's it. Still not feeling strong enough to work longer than an hour.


Finally a full-ish workday! I was making a character creator.

It already can be used to change the appearance so it will be finished soon. The hardest part will be creating a text input system for a custom name, but I'll manage.



It's not much yet, but I am very excited about building this - the game will be a full RPG when I'm done =]

Anyway, today's Devtober video was about AI.

It got me thinking about AI in LOTLW:

1)

I could probably spawn random rogue/demon groups who would sometimes attack towns. Town guards could patrol outside the town as well. The "Good AI have goals". If I could pull it off, which really isn't that hard thanks to all those AI systems I have already implemented, it would create some interesting moments.

2)

When it will be possible to use consumables in battle, NPCs should bark something like "I need healing" before using a healing consumable so the player could react to that. "Good AI barks".

I'm also thinking about letting NPCs level up and showing a game message whenever that happens. E.g.: "Guard captain Aden has become a level 25 Warrior."

Another idea is to show kill messages that are common in multiplayer shooter games - e.g.: "Player A > weapon icon > Player B" - so the player would know that NPCs are fighting somewhere in the area.

This would make the game's world feel much more alive.




Getting there!




Today I was implementing character naming.

The reason why I'm not done with it is that I wasted a lot of time working on a virtual keyboard for text input.



Renaming UI mock-up.

The 50 of square buttons - virtual keyboard - would have been used for letters A-Z, numbers 0-9, and a few symbols.

But yeah, decided to not go for it because this only solves a minor inconvenience for PC players using a controller - with the current solution they will have to type their character name using a keyboard for like half a minute.

Not worth my time.




It's done visually.

I still need to:

- Implement the "Random name" button.
- Implement the "Random talents" button.
- Add tooltips for talent buttons.
- Improve the name generator.
- Make creator UI open when starting the game.

This will happen in the next entry.

To end this entry on something exciting - I have postponed/canceled Spellscarred Desert and that means the updated demo will be released soon - next week or the week after that.

I hope that is as exciting to you as it is to me =]

Thanks for reading and until next time!

This week I'm hoping to finish the Eastern Trilith area, clean up the accumulated bugs, and do a few reworks - class XP, combat experience, and loot.



The week started with GDWC launching a new vote round which includes LOTLW - exciting!
The results should be mentioned further in this entry.

Anyway, today I have been working on small features.

1)

I have fixed bugs with banisher dialogue. Banisher is meant to take the demon pearls from the player and give coin pouches, and the whole thing was filled with bugs.

Negative gold values, "Give all pearls" working like "Give one pearl", dialogue accessing wrong inventories, ugh.

But it's in the past now.

2)

I have implemented the silk grass gathering.
Now it's possible to equip a new tool - iron sickle - and use Gather ability to get raw silk grass from silk grass plants.



There are only a few of those in the game right now - most of them will be in the upcoming Eir Meadows area.

3)

I have filled the matter kilns of the new area.
There are 5 of them:

- V1: Silver and iron weapon recipes.
- W3: Silver and iron armor recipes.
- L6: Processed crafting material recipes. E.g.: Silver ore > Silver > Silver glyphs.
- R6: Efficient armor and weapon recipes. This kiln is in the abandoned fortification.
- T5: Another kiln in the fortification. Claymore, beacon, arc, and amulet recipes.

These will be fun to use and discover!

4)

I have added the new teleportation spells!

- Desert Gate: Teleports to Locul.
- Battlefield Gate: Teleports to the battlefield between 2nd Strategic Fortification and Eastern Trilith.
- Long Street Gate: Teleports to the Long Street in the town of Eastern Trilith.

Desert Gate and Battlefield Gate instructions are hidden in the Eastern Trilith area, while Long Street Gate instructions will be found in treasure chests of Spellscarred Desert.

Teleportation spell instructions will be rewards for exploration and combat - unlocking every teleportation spell should be like a small quest.

It's inspired by Gothic 3 Forsaken Gods and RuneScape. These games make unlocking fast travel methods very rewarding.


The day was full of interruptions, so I didn't work as much as intended.
What I managed to do is add drying racks and make the rock grinder in Locul work.

Rock grinders and drying racks are what I internally call "Production devices".
They turn materials into different materials.

Drying racks turn raw silk grass into dry silk grass, and rock grinder turns junk rocks from mining into ore. Pretty simple.

Production devices should make crafting more varied, more grounded in the world's reality, and they are interesting assets to decorate areas with.



The joke is that I have implemented grinding today. Literally =]


Today I have:

- Made some adjustments to battlefield NPC placement.
- Added the last of Eastern Trilith assets: Door to Spellscarred Desert.
- Fixed many bugs.



The Eastern Trilith area is now officially complete!




It's October again and I'm joining the Devtober​!
Many people seem to choose the challenge of working on their projects every day of October, but it's no challenge for me.

I confess that I'd rather spend 10 hours coming up with my own solution through trial and error rather than watch a 5-minute tutorial.

Would be great if my trial and error gave good results - unfortunately, I often feel like I'm reinventing the wheel AND not doing it well.

So I am going to try to do as many tutorials as I can during October - ideally for something I can quickly implement into Light of the Locked World for visible results.


After 7 years of game development, I still don't know how to implement sliders. That's embarrassing! Sliders are so useful - everything I tried really doesn't replace them - and my own trial and error sliders feel awkward to use.

So I have followed an excellent tutorial by HeartBeast and it's done!



I am liberated from no-slider-hell! So happy!

It did take me the rest of the day to fully integrate the sliders into my UI system so it's a bit scary. I don't really want to only do tutorials. Might have to change the plans that if it becomes a trend.


Today I have done a tutorial about a 3rd-party text renderer for GameMaker and now I can do this:



Big thanks to DragoniteSpam and JujuAdams!

Now that I know how to do it, I'm not sure where to use it, but I guess I'll figure out eventually.

Today I have also fixed several complex bugs, the game is becoming playable again =]


The day started with GDWC results: Light of the Locked World - 3rd place.
Thanks to all who have voted for the game!

It's not a big achievement, but I am very happy that the game has participated in the championship - I've got some views, new followers, and proof that my reach isn't that small.

It's great.

Today's Devtober progress:



I've learned a lot about shaders and implemented a saturation slider!

Thanks to Gaming Reverends channel!

I'm hoping to do more of his tutorials in the future - shaders are a very powerful tool for making graphics and I want to become good at using them.

That's all for this entry, until next time!

Voting for Light of the Locked World is going to end soon - this is your last to help our game to win this round of Game Development World Championship!

Vote here: https://thegdwc.com
(No registration needed)

Thanks <3

Hey all,

Light of the Locked World is participating in Game Development World Championship: It would be really awesome if we could make the game win this round.

To vote for the game, simply go to the GDWC website and click the "Vote" button under the game logo.

Link: https://thegdwc.com/

Thank you in advance <3

If you're not convinced, check out a trailer I made for the upcoming demo update: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fGLzDeCUiI Until next time!

I have started working on demons!

I have mentioned demons many times before - they are aggressive and indestructible flesh beings powered by magic.

Magic in the game's universe is aura-based. Everything in this universe emits aurae - and they can be manipulated to alter reality.

Mages use physical and mental glyphs - mental images - to create the specific aurae required to produce desired results. This is what spells are - a sequence of actions and glyphs.

It's possible to cast a spell that will a cast spell itself and loop forever consuming aurae of the world.

Demons are the result of incredibly complex spell loops and it is why they are indestructible:
You can destroy the flesh form of a demon, but a spell loop will keep going and eventually recreate it.

So, yeah, I've known what they are for a long time. I only needed to figure out how they would look.



Eyeless demons.
The first concept of the demons. Demons with wrong eyes - wrong amount, color, size, etc. - are common, so the initial idea was to make demons without eyes.

I also made them look unlike animals so it would be easier to animate them.

But in the end, I decided that I can do better than that.



Antler demons.
Idea #1: Bony antlers. Usually, demons have horns - giving them antlers would be pretty unique.
Idea #2: Eyeless creatures look kind of boring. Give them two eyes to avoid wrong eye cliche.

Couldn't go with it because no matter what I did, eyes looked weird and antlers had contrast problems with high-value backgrounds.



Cyclopean demons.
Just wanted to see how it would look, didn't plan to do it because of how unoriginal the look is.



Masked demons.
These are fun! The winning idea.

These demons cover their faceless heads with masks. They assemble the masks themselves from stolen and scavenged materials.

The problem with other demon concepts was that they lacked personality and didn't blend well with other things in the game's world.

Masked demons don't have these problems and - again - it's just such a fun idea! I had to go with it.

After I figured out the look, it was time to start coding.

I'll have to make changes to pretty much every part of the character system to make non-humanoid characters work. For example, I want them to use a simpler animation system to make implementing a lot easier.

Only changed a few lines of code today, it took a while to figure the demon look.


Today I was coding demon systems.

For example, because demons don't use items like humanoid characters, I had to make a system that allows me to set custom stats for characters.

There's a lot of automation when it comes to setting stats, so I had to disable all that to keep initial demon stats intact.

The result:



It may look like a shovel, but it actually is a demon =]
As you can see it can attack and it has a custom set of abilities.

Demons look like that because at the moment the variables that control the appearance of characters are set to -1 for demons.


Today I have worked on demon graphics.
I have made animations, masks, implemented custom animation system I've mentioned earlier, etc, and demons are now done!



Suprizingly, implementing a new enemy type only took three days.


A rather boring day - I was fixing demon bugs and trying to implement interior shadows.


This day was full of interruptions but when I managed to get to LOTLW development, I managed to implement most of the NPCs - town guards, merchants, prop characters, and rogues outside the town.


Today I was fixing various bugs and continued implementing NPCs.



People!



New merchant's inventory - this merchant sells consumables that are supposed to restore aura. Something went wrong though. The game is very buggy at the moment - that always happens towards the end of developing a large chunk of content.

Going to have to start fixing things soon.

Important Eastern Trilith town NPCs:

- Legate. Sells faction items and a silver claymore to friends of Triliths faction.
- Armor merchant. Sells T1 and T2 body and leg armor, helmets.
- Aura merchant. Sells crystalized aura.
- Material merchant. Sells T1 and T2 materials.
- Banisher. Bring demon pearls to a banisher to get gold and Triliths reputation.

Demon pearls are the new items that will be dropped by demons. They aren't just a source of Triliths reputation - it will also be possible to equip them. They will be like magic orbs but will increase curse chance instead of critical chance.


I can't sleep, can't stop thinking about the game.
Let's see if writing them down will help me fall asleep. Might as well add more content to the entry.

Recently I've become dissatisfied with the game - defeating enemies instead of killing them just isn't satisfying and enables grinding.

I think I am going to remove the entire defeating idea and make NPCs fight players to death.
Once they will die, they won't respawn.

This means the world will start feeling pretty empty after the player goes through the area killing enemies, and I don't like that.

The solution is to add a few non-hostile NPCs in each combat zone who don't have to be killed.

Another problem is that there will be no way to farm enemies. Once they are dead, the items they own are gone from the game. Because NPCs can take items, and because players drop items on death, this makes deaths very punishing.

A small price to pay for a more rewarding experience. Might even make the game more engaging by raising the stakes. If what, I can implement a system that allows players to negotiate with the enemies and buy taken items back.

This also introduces a risk of breaking quests and other sequences if the player loses the required items on death.
I'll have to be very careful with quest items.

This 'experience rework' should help reinforce what the game is supposed to accomplish - satisfying exploration, immersive mechanics, and 99% grind-free gameplay.

Yes, this is what circulates in my head most nights.
Sometimes I want to improve my game so badly that I can't fall asleep, so I don't get enough rest, and can't work as much. Which increases the hunger for development further.

Vicious cycle!

Anyway, 25th September here I go!


I spent the day making a trailer for the upcoming update.

Here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fGLzDeCUiI
Today I was implementing new items.

The highlight of that is the iridescent hood:



This powerful item will be a reward for doing Spellscarred Desert - I'll write about it in future entries.

I have also implemented two new keys, which are needed for Spellscarred Desert, demon pearls, tier 2 consumables, raw silk grass material, and instructions for the new teleportation spells.

To finish the Eastern Trilith area I still need to:

- Implement banisher.
- Make a new asset: Door to Spellscarred Desert.
- Replace one group of enemies in the battlefield area with a powerful demon.
- Make demons drop pearls.
- Add raw silk grass gathering.
- Add drying racks that turn raw silk grass into dry silk grass.
- Add new teleportation spells and hide their instructions in the new area.

Once all of that is done, I will start fixing bugs and making small changes.

I will:

- Do an XP rework because currently there are problems with XP gaining.
- Do a loot rework because I am still not satisfied with what items the containers contain.
- Improve the NPC name generator.
- Fix the good old building depth bug.

After that, I will implement character creation, options for colorblind people, player data tracking, and add Spellscarred Desert.

Then it will be the time to release the 0.5.0 update.

So that's the plan =]

Thanks for reading and until next time!