Progress Update: Towards Playfighting

Hey all!

Let me change this week's progress up a bit - we'll have a look at what work is left to do before I release a small test playfighting build, and then I'll talk about the work I did afterwards.

Progress towards

I'm making this list so that it's easier to track the progress for you all. Let's lay out what work's ahead of the small test build - it might grow or shrink a little depending on circumstances as we keep going, but for now this is the list.

Small - 1 day of work

Medium - 2-3 days of work

Large - 4-7 days of work

LARGE: New run animation

I've been grinding through this recently, I've made good progress but it needs polish before I consider it done. So although it is large, it's more than half-done.

LARGE: Create a small 'trading hub' with shop, service, and quest NPCs

I want to create a central trade hub that you keep coming back to after finishing sub-regions - to buy things, to do quests, minigames, and so forth. I've started drawing some multistory wooden temple assets but after that we'll have NPCs to do.

MEDIUM: Create a tutorial to teach movement and playfighting

To teach movement abilities, fighting, and animations, I'm working on a tutorial area. I've done the movement parts, but I want some iconography to help understand what needs to be done, plus the Guidess will be there on a broom helping out and talking to you, so a simple new NPC sprite will be needed.

MEDIUM: Create new Plant Walker animation

The test build won't have all the entities, but I want the Plant Walker to be there so I aim to finish the animation rework.

LARGE: Create Purple Man water mini-boss

I'm adding a new entity - the purple tentacle puppeteers who also reside in the purple swamp. They'll start off as a mini-boss and maybe become 'special'/rare entities you can encounter anywhere. They shoot out a ball of purple water containing a tentacle, and disappear underwater before splashing out and doing damage. They'll have their own animation which adds work. The idle pose is already done-ish, and attack poses will be next.

MEDIUM: Create new Purple Tentacle animation

I'm redoing the purple tentacle animation - I've got a static frame fully done and will work to animate that next.

SMALL: Finish inventory and potion making systems

This is mainly a graphical interface thing, since combining ingredients is relatively simple.

SMALL: Finish playfighting player menu

MEDIUM: Make playfighting moves upgradeable

This means an NPC where you can buy upgrades, and the interface for doing upgrades, as well as implementing a stat upgrade system for each move the player has. The latter is in progress right now.

Playfighting

- I've added new projectile magic move I call the Mouth Vortex - it's a mouth that sucks entities into it, closes (with damage), and traps them briefly before they're released again.

- An upwards dashing move which also works as a double-jump, it's similar to the sideways dash/bump move except it moves up and has a different sprite/animation.

- I've also combined two old moves into one, a move where the player is emitting a continuous beam of magic down towards the ground while floating - it replaces one of the ground slams and a standing sideways beam move.

- In terms of the planned moves there's only really one left now - and it's in progress! It's a pinball style round bouncer that makes entities bounce away in the opposite direction. Similarly to the jump pad, this is placed like an object, but hovers.

Entities

I worked on making entities smarter. Entities can predict where you'll be when they do moves and you're moving in a direction, but to balance that I'm adding better telegraphing too so you can see them prepare for moves. This is in response to how fast the player can move sometimes.

In terms of making entities follow the player better - so less entities are needed overall. Purple tentacles now have their waterfall vertical dash/movement finished so they can keep following you as long as there's a connecting waterfall somewhere. Bush mimics have a functional relocate ability that allows them to find a new bush to hide in.

The spawn system now allows for unlockable and random entities. So as you progress, new entities will spawn, even in old areas, as long as the entity makes sense for said area.

Animations

I've started work on redoing one of the x-ray animations and giving it a side-view instead of top-down. This looks better in my opinion and is already the case for one of the x-ray animations.

I've re-added a feature I had long ago, the ability to ride a cloud while animations play so that you can still move around and you're not stuck in one place. The cloud does move slower and doesn't have special movement features beyond jumping, but it makes animations a bit less restricting. I'll probably make this an unlockable upgrade you can buy or find.

Environment

I'm working on two new environmental sprites: a stone jungle temple, and a wooden layered temple.

I've done some VFX work here again - the background godrays have been improved, and subtle fog now makes lights more visible and only appears in lights. The waterfalls have also been improved with a new waterfall VFX that is a bit more modular, and in theory less performance intensive.

...and that's it for this one. I'm gonna go back to 14 day progress updates now, so expect another one mid-March. Make sure to check the Discord meanwhile. See you then!