December 8
Today I have finished implementing kill messages:
They are important to show the outcomes of fights, especially when the fights are happening offscreen between NPCs. As a bonus, they show the character names.
With that out of the way, I have uploaded version 0.5.4 to my Discord server and started working on version 0.5.5: Eir Meadows!
To be able to make the city of Luma, I need to implement Eir Meadows first. Eir Meadows is going to be a large overworld area.
With Eir Meadows I'll also add the encounter system which will make overworld areas very interesting.
Basically, whenever the player is in the overworld, there's a chance that an encounter will appear.
Interacting with an encounter in the overworld will transport the player to a small area with randomly chosen enemies and objects.
Encounter ideas:
1)
Combat encounters.
The player will be taken to an area with several enemies.
It could be demons, rogues, or Locul/Eastern Trilith/Eir/Luma guards.
2)
Silk grass.
The area will contain silk grass that the player will be able to gather.
3)
Traveling merchant.
The area will have a merchant with a random inventory.
It's very likely that encounters will be a source of infinite content - enemies, merchants, and silk grass will be refreshed whenever the player enters the encounter area.
I could always cap the number of encounters the area would spawn, but I'm not sure if I want to that yet.
So to summarize, the current short-term goal is to make Eir Meadows and populate it with encounters.
I have started working towards that goal by adding area transition hints:
They are small arrows that show where the player needs to go to enter a different area.
This will be important later.
December 9
And Eir Meadows has been added! The next step is coding the encounter system.
December 10
Began working on encounter systems.
Because I've changed my mind about how encounters will work, it's more accurate to call them overworld events.
These "!" icons keep appearing and disappearing every X - to be decided - seconds.
The player no longer needs to move for the events to appear.
The icons can be interacted with - doing so will transport the player to the event area.
So today I have implemented some of that.
December 11
Today's progress:
- Implemented systems for leaving and entering the event area.
- Random NPC generation system expanded to create random event characters.
- Implemented an event NPC spawner system.
That's pretty much all of the overworld event basics, going to start polishing and adding new content to the system soon.
December 13
The first of the event areas. The event areas will be generic like that so it would feel more like they are different parts of Eir Meadows.
Might add more interesting and rare event areas in... far future. It's good enough for now.
Also, this is why I needed the transition hint arrows - with hint arrows I can make areas that aren't bound by suspiciously conveniently placed rocks/barricades/pits/etc.
December 15
Today I have added two remaining event areas and fixed several bugs in the event systems.
Also, I have gone through some old accessory items and changed their stats:
- Silk cape health bonus increased to 30.
- Silk sash health bonus increased to 10.
- Pink cape health bonus increased to 35.
- Red cape health bonus increased to 40.
- Red gloves health bonus increased to 10.
- Red sash health bonus increased to 15.
- Enchanted cape critical hit chance bonus decreased to 3%.
The accessory health bonuses stayed unchanged, while health numbers have gone up with combat changes, so they became less useful - which I am fixing now.
About enchanted cape - it was never meant to keep the 9% critical hit chance. It only made sense during the early stages of the game when it was - if I remember correctly - the only source of critical hit chance.
December 16
Added the remaining overworld events.
As planned, there are 4 events:
- Fight 1-3 demons.
- Fight 1-3 rogues.
- Fight 1-3 guards of Locul or Triliths factions.
- Trade with a traveling merchant of Locul or Triliths factions.
There are 5 types of traveling merchants:
- Weapon merchants: Sell iron/silver maces, staves, beacons, swords, and bows.
- Armor merchants: Sell iron/silver body armor, leg armor, helmets.
- Supply merchants: Sell healing kits, healing ointments, crystalized aura, bottles.
- Material merchants: Sell iron, silver, alchemical silver, unstable pigments.
- Instruction merchants: Sell ability instructions.
Merchant inventories are randomized - for example, an armor merchant may have:
3 x Silver body armor
1 x Iron glyph hood
OR
2 x Light silver leg armor
OR
...
Rogue and demon events.
Anyway, another new thing is a merchant price modifier.
As the name suggests, this modifier increases the prices of items in the merchant's inventory.
This will be used to create interesting merchants and control the item economy.
For example, this is a new merchant in Eastern Trilith:
I have mentioned in other entries that teleportation spell instructions will be locked behind combat and exploration challenges.
This has not changed - this is simply an option for players who will fail to find or lose the original teleportation instructions.
That's why the modifier is 1000% for this merchant, the players are still meant to find the instructions in the world.
December 17
Made finishing touches to Eir Meadows and uploaded version 0.5.5 on my Discord. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhupYdfz67I That's all for this entry, in the next one I'll be writing about Luma - Capital of the World, LOTLW's first city area, and my next goal!
Thank you for reading =]
