Huge Update

So since we last met, I did some major overhauls. For one, the graphics for the map has been changed completely. I really liked the "idea" of seuratting the map as well as it creates a unique effect, however it's damn hard to effectively create art like that. I also have more experience pixeling than seurratting, so after some rough feedback from the #iDevGames crowd, I changed the art style.

The battle backgrounds will remain seuratted (mostly cause I don't have the time to pixel in 1024x768 backgrounds).

So besides revamping the art, I also added a new bad guy, the pigeon.

With the pigeon came with a few backend updates:

• AI now takes into account all of their abilities
• Special effects

I also tweaked the level scale for this game to be slightly accelerated to account for 1) no rest stops and 2) only one party member so far. Once your party expands, it'll be less brutal to spread out the leveling up love as you will have 2 party members to ding.

Also related to the level scale is I've fleshed out the beginning to end of "how strong" characters will be. This was pretty crucial as by setting the progression of Tandy, I can then set the difficulty of the enemies (which I've made challenging, but not impossible... but don't get over your head too fast, or you might find yourself kitty filet).

Lastly, I've set up SaveFile versioning. Mostly this will be for production, as I'm still heavily developing the game. If some change that is added that would seriously break the game if you loaded a bad save, it would be good not to load it. I highly recommend this for any game that utilizes saves.

Of Saves and Loads

So a crucial part of Felinity is now done: The ability to save a game and load your saves.

So there are many different save models in RPGs.

• Save at dedicated spots. Such as at an inn or church. This doesn't well for Felinity as she spends the majority of the time in the "wild" and I don't think she's particularly religious, being a cat and all.
• Save absolutely at any time. My approach is similar to this, but not entirely. You can save anywhere on the map portion of the game. Exceptions are when you are in the middle of a Dialog, or "actions" are running. I also do not allow saving in the middle of a Battle (I feel the potential to cheese here are far too great).

Probably the best part of having Save and Continue implemented is that I can now test different parts of my game more easily. At the very least, I can hack save files together to be where I need to be!

So what comes next:

I need to do some artwork for the post office (where you find the rat king), I need people in the post office (ya know, that's one thing that's horribly absent from my game. Cars and people).

After that I will be putting in more work into the Park. The Park is where we'll be meeting the next enemies. One of the things I have to keep in mind is level progression. I want people to level moderately quickly as this is a somewhat short game, but I must be careful not to progress the enemies too quickly, or Tandy may find herself overwhelmed if she decides to forego leveling first. The game rewards you modestly for fighting things much too hard (simply beyond your level), so that you're always brought up to the correct level for the area swiftly. The game also rewards you less so for staying in one area and grinding up. I don't want anyone to feel they need to stay in an area and level because "the next area is too hard".

Polish

It's a tad early for polish, but I wanted to start setting standard for the art in the game earlier in production. From previous iterations, mostly everything is more well defined.

Other things done is now you're able to die. Like when your character dies, you go to the game over screen and everything... which is of course incomplete, but that's better than your game being stuck in a soft-hang.


Download Preview

Rat!

So the moment of revealing has arrive. The first bad guy!

Ugly little rat isn't he? He's also full animated as well with attacks.
I think I did a fairly good job of creating our first enemy of the game. There will also be one variant of him for a later portion of the level.


Other stuff done:

• Tandy can now gain Hiss at Level 4. This is the first move that utilizes the Buff system. Unfortunately the game doesn't have a way to coordinate / visualize to you that the buff is on / fell off of you, but rest assured, it's happening there in the background!
•  Characters heal to full when they gain a level. This is mostly a difficulty nerf. Since there is almost no resting until the end of the first area (I may add that ability later), it became nearly impossible to manage yourself on Licking and level gaining alone. Don't worry, I'll make sure the game still remains challenging

Also with this post, the first time you can download and preview the game.

Download Preview

Memory

There are no cool gameplay or screenshots this post, merely update on progress.

Most of the past week has been spent tracking down and fixing memory related problems. Threading, and other misc things can cause all kinds of weird concurrency issues, and utterly obliterate your system (2 threads accessing a single opengl context apparently is grounds for a kernel panic).

That being said, there are plans, big plans in the coming week to see a lot more gameplay!

Saving

So I got leveling to work in that you can also gain abilities (or upgrade abilities). Thus Tandy gains her first ability, Lick.

In addition to this, I worked on Saving. Most of it is purely visual, but the logic flow is correct, and the only thing that needs to be done now is writing the file, and serializing my objects (I suppose that would be the important part of saving).

A video of this in action can be seen here

Leveling!

Little Tandy can now level up, with satisfying results!