Here’s something I’m trying out:

It might be a bit artificial but it communicates two key mechanics: you get healed when you move to the next area, and you’re rewarded with gold for getting there fast.

I’m now working methodically towards the goal of getting to a solid alpha version with all of the main gameplay in, from starting the game up to a big ol’ boss fight, hence this essential, structural stuff. Next I’m going to set up a tutorial to guide people around the game properly, bit by bit – so that’s movement, combat, using spells and using items. These are the highest priority items on my to-do list, so down they go 😀

When I reach the end of that list – and there’s another 36 items on there, plus no doubt a few extra will clamber on – it’ll be time to really start letting people see what CQ2 is about. It’s too early to tell when that’ll be yet, but I’ll keep you posted!

I’ve added some real jerk AI.

That guy on the right is an archer. He’s slow but he runs away from you, staying at range and slinging arrows every half dozen turns or so. You don’t want to run across an open field or fight through melee enemies to get to a couple archers – you won’t make it! You’ll have to use the terrain or flank ’em.

This kind of enemy – something weak  that runs away from close combat and is  dangerous from a distance – is one of the ways I’m hoping to round out the tactical challenges in CQ2. I’ll be using the same model for enemy spellcasters: enemies who hang out at the back and debuff you or buff and heal their allies. Finally I want to mix in some tough, really challenging enemies every now and then who need to be taken on very carefully.

The other major thing I’ve done this week is move my task list into FogBugz, so once I’ve established my velocity over the next few weeks I’ll be able to start showing off burn down charts and predicting a rough release date. For now, at least I’m enjoying racing my estimates. 😀

Since Monday I’ve been doing some general bugfixing and busywork, but on Thursday I got bored of Cardinal Quest II development and went back to the first game to do something that’s been long overdue:

Cardinal Quest I now has a save game system, ready for the phone versions. This’ll go out in an update for desktop users sometime in the next month or so, to tide you over while the sequel’s in development. 😀

And now I’m getting ready for Ludum Dare. About a thousand games are going to get made this weekend; I’m doing mine with Flixel for a change. See you on the other side…

With the consumable changes out of the way, I’ve gone on to fiddle with the skill system a bit. I’ve taken a little inspiration from Dark Souls and added a second spellcasting stat, Faith. Magic users now have to be concerned with both Faith and Intelligence.

I’ve colour-coded all the skills in the game to fit into one of three categories.

• Magic skills have a red border, recharge based on Intelligence and can be instantly recharged with Mana Potions
• Holy skills have a light blue border, recharge based on Faith and can be instantly recharged with Offerings
• Physical skills have a green and gold border and recharge when they feel like it. They aren’t influenced by stats or consumables, so they’re good for characters with low magic stats.

It’s a bit ugly because I’ve just jammed those borders in without adjusting the art, but it gets the point across. 😛

Magic skills include damage-dealing stuff (Fireball), debuffs, unit control (Charm, Polymorph) and teleporting. Holy skills include buffs for yourself, crowd control (Fear, Sleep) and healing. There are only a handful of Physical skills at the moment, but I’m planning to expand that with a broad range of minor or utility skills.

The system adds another dimension of character customisation, asking you to work with the items and skills you find to pick stuff that works together. If you find mostly Magic skills, you’ll have to emphasise Intelligence. Find Holy skills and you’ll have to emphasise Faith. Find a mix and you’ll have to pick which is more important to the playstyle you’re developing with that character.

I’m feeling pretty good about the core systems now! It might be hard to believe, but the recent changes – especially consumables – have made a huge difference to how the game feels. One playtester today had a go and, afterwards, didn’t believe they’d been playing for over an hour. It’s become a much fuller and more diverse game almost overnight; I can’t wait to start rounding things out with more content. 😀

A “panic button”, in game terms, is a skill/item you reserve for emergencies that makes the emergency go away.

I’ve been overhauling the consumables system and I think I’ve settled on something that works. You can hold, at most, five consumables. They don’t stack. There are currently 16 different consumables and I have plans for more. And a lot of them are panic buttons of various kinds.

Like this:

Or this:

“Summon Elemental” gives you a friendly level 6 elemental who will happily cut through a dozen bandits.

Both of the above are actually starting items for those classes right now. They’re incredibly overpowered – but they’re single-use items, so it’s okay! Temporary overpowered stuff is awesome; it makes you feel like a badass, but you still need to fight through most of the game without it.

Meanwhile you’ve got a belt limit of five consumables and you’ll find more on every level. And some, like the Summon Elemental scroll, are strongest early on in the game. So… you’d better use ’em up.

The consumable on the left in both of those shots is the Ankh. That’s a special item that resurrects you when you die. Everyone gets one to start with, rather than the life you start with in CQ1. Unlike that life, it’s inconveniently taking up one of your precious consumable slots. I’m considering doing something fun with it in a Dark Souls kind of way where you can, instead of saving it, choose to use it straight away to increase your maximum hit points by 2 and play on without a safety net.

All told this feels way tighter than the old system, plus the consumables can be way more powerful and diverse. I’m looking forward to dropping a few super-rare items in which do some really cool stuff, if you’re lucky enough to find them. 🙂

I’m back from Easter!

I should have put up an “away for Easter” post, huh. NEVER MIND. I’m back, and I’m trying to figure out potions. I don’t like how they work, but I haven’t settled on how to update the system yet.

First possible solution was to cut the potion types down to two: health potions and mana potions. You’d only have two slots, and only ever find those two kinds.

They look so lonely!

That’s one solution, but it feels really basic. What I think I’m going to try next is a system where you can find different potions, scrolls, possibly wands and so on… but they don’t stack. So there’ll be less of a focus on health potions, and you might find some really weird single use stuff.

The game’s skills largely fall into one of three categories; either they’re things you do to prepare for battle (buffs like Berserk or debuffs like Freeze), things you do routinely in battle (like Fireball or Uppercut) or ways to handle emergencies (Heal, Teleport, Charm Monster). Most of the old potions had effects which fell into the first category – temporary boosts to stats which would be good to apply before a tough fight. I’m going to try to switch over almost entirely to consumable items which fall into the last category: stuff that saves your skin when you’re in trouble and all your skills are depleted, but in excitingly different ways. Here goes!

Accidentally introduced a bug today that gave the dog apocalyptically gigantic damage.

Oops.

Besides that, I’m pretty much done with the popup work. One last popups shot, featuring the talent tree popups:

Okay, this stuff isn’t very glamorous – but it makes all the difference when someone new to the game enjoys themselves and happily clears the first level within a few minutes instead of going “huh?” a lot and not really engaging with major systems. The game makes sense now, without any introductions or explanations. That’s huge. 😀

A little more usability work and bugfixing over the next few days, then it’s onto new stuff – like enemy variation, full talent trees for all the classes and some kind of boss fight.