Progress Log #4

Breaking News

         The good news is that I got a lot of things done. The bad news is that the sprite sheet being displayed above is the only image I have to show off this week. It is very difficult to showcase improvements to enemy AI with images. Luckily, I'm planning to release the next playable demo next Friday alongside the next progress log entry, so that'll be a much more interactive way to show off everything I have done.  In that demo, you can expect a full-on playable level with higher functioning enemies, more stuff to do, and an objective with a real fail-state.  Yes, this is the standard you have to stoop to in order to be excited about anything I'll be putting out anytime soon. For now though, you're stuck here reading instead of playing.  Sorry.

         That sprite sheet is for the working animation for the UI indication of your current amount of "magic", which is of course what indicates how many spells you can cast. It sort of looks like the soul from Hollow Knight, except every one of those pearls only represents one point of magic, and you will see several of them lined up instead of only one. I just really like the "pool filling" effect, alright? It's sure as hell more interesting to look at than another meter without being much harder to make, so that's what I went with.

         The Kobolds can now track the player much better, even when the player is above them. In general, all ground enemies should now have a more effective and generic script to work with, so most of the hard work with enemies in general is done. The Kobolds can even cast "spells", which in this case just means sometimes throwing a knife at the player when far enough away. If needed these "spells" can even work with a internal mana system within the enemy's attack manager that would simply limit the rate at which enemies can cast them. Players and enemies use the exact same script for their attacks, which is what makes things so manageable and easy to modify/debug. Since this ground enemy script is essentially done, so is the AI for basically any ground-based enemy I would ever want to add in the game. This doesn't mean it's easy to add new enemies, but not having to reinvent the wheel is going to save more time than I can even really comprehend.

No More News

         Over the next week, I'll be finishing up the mana system and making that level that I just promised to build for the next demo. That's all I have. Peace.