Eternaliths: Reclamation of Almyrigo - Saddle up!

(Formerly Trial by Darkbloods. I'll come up with some new flavor text later.)

Welcome to the land of Almyrigo, the great central contient of Terth, where the east and west seas meet. It's a land that's seen better days; at least, that's what everyone keeps saying, but nobody actually seems to be sure in exactly what way it was better, or how much better it was. All that anybody knows for sure is that they're surrounded by a dense, oppressive wilderness, a wilderness which divides what remnants of civilization survived from each other and pens them in, and which seems to be wilder than mere nature would allow. A wilderness infested by strange and grotesque creatures with thick, black blood and gleaming amber eyes, who, in spite of how different they are from each other in shape and behavior, all seem to have some common goal in mind, regardless of how much or how little of a mind each has.

As a person - human or otherwise - living in the 405th year of the Seventh Era, you share many of the hopes and fears of your fellow Redbloods. That said, though, you also seem to possess something a bit more. It takes courage simply to live in such a world, but you want more than merely to go on living. You want to cut through the wilderness from which the few who venture in seldom return. You desire to unravel the secrets that cloud the eyes of Almyrigo, and
to face the terrors that oppress its hearts. Perhaps because you want to be a person of great renown; a hero who will never be forgotten. Perhaps because you believe the preaching of the priests, who tell you that the reclamation of Almyrigo is the will of Almegas. Perhaps because you wish to see all of the land and all of its people for yourself. Perhaps because you would simply never wish the task upon another unfortunate soul. In the end, why doesn't matter that much.
What matters is that you've been summoned to your trial. Your...


Yeah, I know what you're thinking; "that sounds cool (if a bit cheesy) and all, but what exactly is the game?" TbD:RoA is, to describe it in the most concise way possible, a semi-non-linear action RPG with a semi-optional story. You won't necessarily need to clear every major area of the game to win, and for the most part every region will have its own individual story and its own isolated mysteries and problems, but there will also be an overarching narrative that'll become more clear and more complete the more of these stories you complete and the more bits and pieces of hidden lore you find scattered throughout the world.

When it comes to moment-to-moment gameplay, the game's main inspirations come from Souls-likes, the Elder Scrolls series, and Zelda games (especially BotW.) You'll explore a gradually-expanding world, using a very reflex and knowledge-based combat system to battle your way through dungeons of varying lengths, fighting off a wide variety of outlandish monsters with an equally wide range of collectible weapons and armor pieces. In your downtime, you'll hang out in towns, buying equipment, tending to your wounds, and chatting up local NPCs for hints (or for fun) while picking up the occasional sidequest. In concept it doesn't sound terribly remarkable, but execution is everything, and one of the main reasons I decided to make this game is actually to scratch an itch that I haven't found any other games able to scratch. The balance between skill and stats, speed and strategy, is an aspect that can drastically change how a game of this nature plays and feels, and I'm going about it in a way that I hope will offer the game a unique flavor.








The latest, greatest, and up-to-datest gameplay video:

It took a lot longer than the projected time of one month, but it's finally here!

Yes, that's right, the first playable demo is finally ready! Download it here!
www.mediafire.com/file/mrdy6sguwgerg4a/Dungeon+Demo.exe


Game controls:

A and D - Walk left and right, double tap either for a sidestep dodge
W - Grab ladder, climb up, angle attack or shield upwards
S - Climb down, angle attack or shield downwards
Space - Jump
Shift - Sprint
L Control - Dodge roll (while moving)
ALT - Toggle stealth mode, toggle feeding mode (if playing as a Jafanak)
Left Mouse - Standard attack, menu selection, move items in inventory
Right Mouse - Heavy attack
Middle Mouse - Raise shield
E - Interact with objects, pick up items on the ground
I - Open and close the inventory screen

General game information and tips:

Jafanak races (the canine-looking humanoids) have various universal abilities that human races lack but which aren't displayed in their individual race information boxes. Namely, they can feed on fallen monsters by standing over them in stealth mode to restore health, and they can climb walls at the cost of stamina by moving against them.

The cooking pots scattered throughout the dungeon aren't just for decoration; you can stand in front of them and press "E" to rest and restore health. If you don't know what's ahead and you're badly injured, a bit of time spent backtracking to a cooking pot will save you a lot of time in the long run.

Don't rush! Many enemies will punish you for being reckless and not using proper spacing and timing. Moreover, be careful that you don't bite off more than you can chew. Take enemies one or two at a time; if they manage to gang up on you, you WILL die.

Entering stealth mode not only makes enemies slower to notice you, it also allows you to hide behind certain large objects, barrels being the major notable example here. If you're sneaking while standing at the same position as a cover object, you'll go behind it and become undetectable. This can not only allow you to sneak past enemies, but can also grant the opportunity to execute a stealth attack. If that sounds like fun to you, you'll want to pick at least one weapon with a high stealth damage multiplier; the Adventurer's Knife is a good example.

You CAN choose any four starting weapons you want in the character creation screen, but I'd suggest finding a balance. A light 1-handed weapon, a heavy 2-handed weapon, a weapon with a long reach, and a weapon with a random gimmick that you like, is a good choice.

The main way to avoid taking damage before you acquire a shield is the dodge roll (left Control key.) Like your standard action game dodge roll, this maneuver makes you immune to most attacks for the duration of the roll, allowing you to easily bypass enemy attacks with a well-timed dodge. When you see an attack coming, dodge it, and then get in a few hits on the enemy during the downtime between their attacks. Rinsing and repeating will let you make quick work of most basic enemies.

A little tip about the inventory; the sword slot up by the main equipment slots is the equipped weapon slot, whereas the other one is a slot where you can put another weapon that you might want quick access to. Pressing the "X" button switches the items between the slots, allowing you to swap between two weapons without having to open the inventory screen and manually reequip.
 
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D

Deleted member 16767

Guest
Looks like it has a very good combat feel to it.
 
Looks like it has a very good combat feel to it.
I've found lackluster and/or unengaging combat to be one of my biggest personal turnoffs when it comes to action-RPG sorts of games, so getting it right, both in terms of challenge and balance and in terms of flair and impact, is more or less my #1 priority. At least gameplay-wise.
 
I haven't been very productive over the holiday season, but I haven't been entirely ignoring the project, either. Aside from making a few new enemies (which I'll show off later; they're part of an incomplete "set," so to speak,) I've also finished putting together one of several alternate player animation frames that is needed in order to make some of the less humanoid races look...well, less humanoid. I've also been working on a concept that I'm calling "lineage." Those two subjects segway nicely into each other, so here goes.

Shown here is concept art and spritework representing the Saular race, of the Jafanak lineage, with a few of their lineage traits being displayed in the bottom half of the second image. So, what the heck is "lineage?" Think of it as an expansion of the concept of player races. Each lineage encompasses multiple races, and while each race has its own perks and abilities, it also inherits numerous perks and mechanics from its lineage. While racial bonuses in this game are pretty standard RPG fare, lineage traits are a bit more juicy, offering non-human characters complete mechanical overhauls that make them feel fittingly distinct.

For example, here's a list of all of the traits that come with the Jafanak lineage (so far) :

Enhanced acrobatics:
Your light but robust body allows you to move with great speed and precision, and your claws and prehensile tail make you an excellent climber. Face and move against walls mid-air to scramble up them a short distance, and press [SPACE] while climbing to propel yourself backwards. Cancel out of a dodge roll with [W,] or press [SPACE] to cancel out and immediately throw yourself forwards with great force.

Small arms combat:
Your short, skinny arms offer minimal leverage, decreasing the power, knockback, and stagger time of your melee attacks by 25%, and increasing the stamina penalty for attacking by 50%. You also have a minor physical reach penalty on behalf of your small size, and are unusually susceptible to over-encumbrance.

Kinetic Killer:
Melee attacks deal increased damage depending on how fast you're moving when you land them. Combine speed, stealth, and heavy attacks to deal crazy damage!

Monster muncher:
Toxic monster meat is no match for your highly-evolved digestive system! Crouch down next to a fallen monster to feed, restoring 5 HP per second, until its food value is depleted or it despawns. This would normally be a bit overpowered, but in this case, it helps to make up for a rather small HP pool. Mmm...eldritch-y!
 
You know what makes every game better? Not looking ugly! In other words, I decided that a graphical overhaul was in order, and sooner seemed like a better time than later. I reshaded most of the decorative objects to make them look far smoother and more detailed, I devised a much more striking color scheme, and most importantly, I made the foliage on the trees not literally just a bunch of bush sprites clumped together. What do you think?




Also, since this thread is starting to turn into more of a dev blog than a forum thread and I want to start at least a little bit of a discussion, here's a more practical concept to talk over: the levelling system. It's something that I plan on doing differently, but I want to see what people think of it before I start going too all-in.

There will be perks and stuff to unlock on the side, but the real core of levelling up is what I'm going to call the "stylecraft" system for the moment. Instead of just gaining increased stats when you level up, you'll gain points which can then be freely assigned to various combat-related attributes. For example:

- Base damage multiplier.

- Swing windup reduction multiplier.

- Swing endlag reduction multiplier.

- Swing efficiency multiplier (swinging melee weapons costs less stamina.)

- Knockback multiplier.

- Individual weapon type proficiencies? (more impactful, but more specific, damage multiplier.)

- Stamina regeneration multiplier.

- Flinch resistance multiplier.

- Increased HP pool.

- Increased stamina pool.

- Dodge efficiency multiplier (evasive maneuvers cost less stamina.)

You would get several points per level, you could spend them individually on whichever attributes you wanted, and you could subtract points from any attribute at any time to re-spec into other attributes. Most of them would need to cap out at some point, but the sheer number of attributes to individually increase would prevent your character from getting too OP too fast. Then again, said sheer number could also make the system a bit overwhelming. What do y'all think? A great idea, a good idea that needs to be pared down a bit, a pointless and unnecessarily complicated gimmick, or a serious threat to game balance?
 
I like the look of that new foliage, especially the trees. Seems you've removed the dark highlights, improved the shading and made them more "clumpy".

looks really great! Time to ship it! ;)
 
I like the look of that new foliage, especially the trees. Seems you've removed the dark highlights, improved the shading and made them more "clumpy".

looks really great! Time to ship it! ;)
Thanks! And speaking of shipping things, now seems like a good time to talk about demos and timeframes. I probably shot myself in the foot a bit by starting a topic this early into development, but what's done is done, so I'll try and make the most of it. I was initially going to wait until the game's first major area was "finished" and fleshed out with at least an hour and a half or so's worth of content, and most of the character creation and progression systems were in places, but while I still do plan on eventually releasing a demo of that nature, waiting that long to release a playable demo at all would probably be pushing my luck a bit too far. So, here's the new plan; within a month or so, hopefully a bit less, probably a bit more, I'll try and have a "dungeon demo" out. This will feature:

- All playable races within the Human and Jafanak lineages, with all of their basic stats and starting abilities.

- A single dungeon of moderate length; short enough to be beaten in one sitting after you get a hang of the gameplay.

- Around 8 or so monsters to fight.

- A bit of basic treasure and looting.

- Some sort of simple boss at the end (more like a miniboss.)
 
Hey look, a video! And I've finally gotten around to adjusting the game's resolution so that YouTube footage doesn't look like deep-fried cow pie! Yay! Although it looks a lot nicer in the resolution that the YouTube mainsite displays videos at than the resolution embedded videos are played at, so if you REAAAALLY want to know how it looks, watch it there.


Technicaly not a whole lot of news here, but you can see a lot of the things I mentioned in previous posts in action; namely, a fully-functioning Jafanak player character with all of its basic lineage traits working, as well as a specific racial ability which the one I'm playing as in the video possesses. On top of that, though, there are also a few new enemies, a new 2-mode camera system (to make up for the reduced window size,) and critical hits (signified by a red flash and a subtle screen shake.)
 
2D action RPG. You got me hooked!
I'm glad you're interested, although I will admit it; I seem to have sort of walked in on these forums during a time when there's no shortage of 2D ARPGs in development. Or maybe that's just always been a dominant genre around here? Either way, I hope that I can do enough with this project to make it stand out.
 
After a couple weeks of spriting and coding, and another couple weeks of putting off recording footage for deep-rooted psychological reasons that not even I am consciously aware of, it's time for another update! This week's topic is: ranged combat.

The two major types of ranged weapons are bows of the standard medieval sort, and some relatively-advanced firearms, based mostly around antique Civil War-era guns. At least, that's all you'll really find in the early regions.

Bows operate on a "charge and release" system, which should be familiar to you if you've ever played...well, any game with a bow and arrow in it, really. Holding down the fire button builds up pressure at the cost of stamina, and releasing it launches your shafted projectile of choice. The amount of damage dealt is determined by the speed at which the arrow itself is flying as it hits its target, meaning that height advantage is in fact very relevant when using a bow and arrow. It also means that the bows themselves don't technically have a damage stat, although they do have a velocity stat, which essentially covers for both damage and range.

The guns in this game, as stated two paragraphs up, are generally based on the more obsolete versions of their real-life counterparts, so while they deliver power and range that exceeds bows of the equivalent tier, they're also a bit slow and cumbersome to reload. They also have the advantage of not depleting stamina or requiring charging, but at the same time, their ammo is significantly more expensive, and FAR less common out in the game world. It's a bit of a toss-up, really.
 
J

JoselaiaroW

Guest
My god dude, I love to see other people making games by their way, it motivates me to keep with my project :)

It's the first time I see your game, and... It looks really fantastic, good work, keep it up! :p
 
Yet another kind-of-weekly-expect-barely-ever-weekly progress video! I should probably be working on setting up more of the basic systems that'll need setting up before the Dungeon Demo can really be made into a thing in any capacity. At the same time, though, a gameplay demo would be a bit of a waste if I didn't have a well-rounded set of monsters with which to populate aforementioned dungeon, so here's a look at a "miniboss" of sorts. It's actually intended to be more along the lines of a higher-level normal enemy for the game's first area, but it's probably going to appear as the demo dungeon's boss, so hey, here it is.

"Most creatures gain wisdom with age, but Zancronies are not intended to last long enough to do so. The few who are fortunate enough to outlive their expiration date are usually unfortunate enough to outgrow what little mind their creators gave them." - lore tidbit
 
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I can't think of anything witty to say; here's a screenshot featuring a background that I whipped up in a couple of days, because as much as I ought to be focusing on...like...actual features right now, I was feeling more artsy than codesy yesterday, and hey, I'd have to make one sooner or later anyway.

 
Another screenshot post, but this one is a bit more relevant. The Dungeon Demo is approaching fast(ish,) so here's a few small screenies of some dungeon-related stuff. The aesthetic is a bit on the generic "fantasy dungeon" side, and I didn't put a ton of thought into what it is or what purpose it served centuries ago, but hey, it's a demo room. I coulda done worse. Aside from a few tiles and a lighting engine that probably looks pretty rudimentary by this point, the screenshots also show off two new gameplay mechanics.

The first, shown in the screen second to the bottom, is hiding; a simple but in my opinion necessary expansion to the stealth system. If you sneak while positioned in front of certain large background objects, you'll go behind the object and become undetectable. This won't fool enemies who are already aggroed on you, of course, but it nonetheless makes sneak attacks far more...well, possible, really.

The second mechanic, shown in the bottom screen, is the ability to rest at firepits, campfires, cooking pots...you get the idea. Warm, cozy places. While resting, you'll regain 2 HP per second, which doesn't sound like a lot, but certainly comes in handy, since only 1 out of the 11 current playable races has universal, non-situational auto-regen.

 
It's been a while since I've posted any progress, once again, so here's a look at some enemies that I've designed over the past week or so. While working on the demo dungeon, I noticed that I was basically just placing the same two or three enemies over and over again, so I finally got around to finishing the basic normal units who collectively make up the Wormfen Clan. Goblin clans are in and of themselves a topic that could take up several more paragraphs, so for now I'll just say that you'll be seeing a lot of these guys in the game's starting region. They don't have any crazy gimmicks or complicated strategies, so you can probably guess what most of them do without much explanation.

 
F

FROGANUS

Guest
wow just glancing for now, but i really like your style of illustration and how that translates to the pixels.
great feeling of depth on the outdoor field scene in contrast to the dungeon- looking dank, yet flavorful.
hrm- how did those goblins get their teeth so white tho?
 
wow just glancing for now, but i really like your style of illustration and how that translates to the pixels.
great feeling of depth on the outdoor field scene in contrast to the dungeon- looking dank, yet flavorful.
hrm- how did those goblins get their teeth so white tho?
Funny thing is, I was actually considering giving the monsters black teeth at one point, since their bones are black, but it ended up just making it hard to tell that they had teeth in the first place, especially at lower resolutions, and especially especially in pixel art. I was also thinking of making them look a bit more yellowed, but then that broke the contrast with their beaks. Working in such small dimensions already forces me to alter designs a bit, so I'm prioritizing making it clear what things are supposed to be over making them look exactly how I intend them to look, if that makes any sense.

I'm also glad to hear that you like the field background; I generally consider backgrounds to be the weakest link in my artistic talent chain, whether pixel or full-scale.
 

So after doing a bit of slightly more extensive Google searching last night, I discovered that there's already a series of books titled "Trial by Dragons." I spent a while trying to come up with something that sounded cool and didn't contain too many long made-up dragon-words and still fit with the lore that I had in mind, and eventually, I settled on this conveniently simple word swap that allows me to keep the same acronym. I also used the occasion as an opportunity to scale down and spiff up some other aspects of the logo.
 
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It's been a good week or so now since I've posted any...REAL progress. So, here's a look at the last enemy I'm going to finish before I really start bigtime on putting together the demo dungeon. For real this time. Once I'm done with these guys, I'll have a good 12 different enemies to populate the dungeon with. That sounds good enough to me.



Anyway, these guys here are Dire Wylren, AKA "slaughterhounds." They have only one attack, but that attack is a very fast, unblockable flying grapple that'll hold you in place and deal constant damage; as well as leave you vulnerable to their buddies, who will be very eager to join in on the fun. They move swiftly and erratically, and will try to make you panic, mistime your swings, and waste your much-needed stamina.

(And yes, those are indeed mole nose tendrils. I don't know why I put them there, but I like how they look, so there they are.)
 
I've spent the last several days reworking some mechanics regarding weapons. Less in regards to gameplay mechanics, and more in regards to internal coding and design-related mechanics. Instead of going with my initial idea of every single weapon being entirely unique, I've decided to split them into various categories with specific movesets. The original idea might have been just a tad TOO ambitious.

Don't fret about variety, though; there are over two dozen types, each one with its own signature mix of moves and mechanics! And in typical RPG fashion, you'll also find plenty of unique weapons with their own perks and bonuses.
 

kupo15

Member
Wow the progress in the visual department is pretty great!
I would highly suggest removing and replacing all traces of the earliest prototype form found in your original post with a video in its current state. I'm sorry to say I almost didn't continue looking at the rest of this thread because of that video!

Keep up the good work! :D
 
Oh, it's getting close. It's getting ever so close! In the meantime, here's yet another screenshot. This time of the character creation screen that will be featured in the demo. There'll be a bit more to it in later builds, but I think this will suffice for now.



The main thing that I feel might require explanation is the row of buttons showing various different body types. While this may look like a feature for aesthetic customization, it's actually basically the opposite. As of yet, there aren't any different visual assets for different body types, but rather, those different body types essentially serve as stat bonus sets. So for example:

Thin frame:
- 40% stamina cost when dodging
+ 10% attack speed

- 20% melee damage
- 20% HP


Brawny frame:
+ 20% melee damage
+ 10% melee knockback
+ 10% melee stagger

+ 30% stamina cost when dodging
- 10% move speed
(Kinda hard to come up with a lot of natural-sounding downsides for being buff, heh)


Burly frame:
+ 25% HP
+ 20% Knockback and flinch resistance

- 30% stamina
- 10% stamina regen speed
- 10% attack speed


You get the idea.
 
Yet another little side-feature, you could say. Not terribly important to the demo itself, but it's a relatively simple thing that will be important later on, so I decided to just go ahead and do it. What is it? Some basic branching dialogue! Yeah, I know, really exciting stuff, but I want to keep things fairly up to date.

As much as I would have liked to make this a video, the game's reached a level of graphical complexity where my potato laptop can't get much higher than 30FPS while recording with Fraps. Which wouldn't be so bad, I guess, if only Game Maker's calculation speed wasn't dependent on its frame rate. So some screenshots will have to do, for now.

 
Been a while, eh? I've finally completed enough of the Demo Dungeon that a video feels warranted, so here you go. Yeah, I found a solution to my video recording woes, so expect to see footage a bit more often again. I still have a bit of the main drag left to finish, along with a few more side-passages, a boss, and a bit of loot, but all in all it's coming together quite nicely.
 
K

ketogenicGG

Guest
This looks good! But why the character is behind some of tiles, like barrels?
 
This looks good! But why the character is behind some of tiles, like barrels?
That's the hiding system; if you sneak while in front of certain large background objects, you'll go behind them, and enemies that aren't already aware of your presence will be unable to detect you. It's pretty basic for a stealth system, and I might flesh it out a bit more as time goes on, but for now, it works.
 
D

Deleted member 16767

Guest
You're getting close to two doors. The door of "should I continue with years of work on making a full release?" or the door of "well, this was a good learning experience, but I don't have the time to work on it because...".

You realise:
1. You don't want to make something you spent loads of time on open source just to let someone else earn money on it.
2. Personal life.
3. Stress and your brain just says "lay this off now".
4. You can't enjoy things that you enjoyed before because the project is taking up too much space.

I wish you good luck and hope you enjoy what you are doing for the next couple of months or years. I myself have decided to not work on making games. I may now and then upload something to the marketplace though.
 
The construction of the dungeon itself is more or less complete, so now all that's really left to do is make a bit of loot and a boss. Which means, of course, that it's back to spriting! Since the Demo Dungeon is supposed to represent an early-game dungeon which is optional but not particularly secret or hidden, none of the loot is too visually-exciting, so here's a look at the boss instead. He won't be ungodly difficult or have any crazy gimmicks, but he will be designed in such a way as to really show off what the melee combat system has to offer.

 
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F

FROGANUS

Guest
Nice progress! The hiding mechanism does look cool, seems like a challenge though, to indicate where this is possible, prevent exploitation, bugginess etc. I'm sure it will work well in game..
Small aesthetic suggestion- if the level is so dark such as this dungeon, maybe you can darken the menu and gui just a little to maintain the mood (just during these areas)? 2 cents..
Keep it up, would def try a demo at some point. ;')
 
By now, I'm at the point where there aren't really any cool new features to show off for the Dungeon Demo; most of what's left is bugfixing, finishing a few visual assets, writing a bit of flavor text, and deciding what exactly will happen after you beat the demo boss.

Aside from the various items you'll find hidden throughout the dungeon (which I don't want to spoil,) all that's really worth showing off at the moment is this small tweak I made to the lighting system. Now, to enhance the tension and atmosphere within dungeons, light sources will only emit light if you have a clear line of site to them. Probably not the most elegant way of doing things, but I wanted a method that wouldn't hurt the aesthetic or be too taxing (there's already a spot in the dungeon where the game slows down, and I'm not really sure why.)

Also, don't mind the door in front of the pillar. That's just a temporary shortcut to the end so that I can test and tweak the boss easily.

 
Do you know what time it is? That's right, it's demo time! Check the OP for the download link, controls, and other useful gameplay information that you'll want to read before you jump in. Have a good time, and tell me what you think! Too hard? Too easy? Something not working? The sooner I know, the better for everyone.

As for future plans, the next demo will be the Elmerra Demo; it'll feature a mostly-finished version of the game's first major area, towns, overworld, dungeons and all, along with a greatly-expanded character creation system, and several other features. While the Demo Dungeon is basically just a quick gameplay teaser of sorts, the Elmerra Demo will be a bit more of a complete look at the game's mechanics, progression, and world.
 
Well, any thoughts? Anybody? I hate to come off as impatient, but I was really hoping to get some feedback on difficulty balancing in particular before I started working on the actual main game's content. When you've done testruns of the same basic level and fought through the same enemies with the same movesets in the same setup as many times as I have in the months leading up to the demo, it starts getting a bit hard to gauge just how difficult everything would be for a first-time player who's going in blind.
 

Morendral

Member
I thought it was overall good. Please don't take the following criticism as overall negative, it isn't.

Character select - lots of choices, some references to stat boosts and whatnot. I just went with the first one as I'm not really into start crunching personally. I couldn't really see the benefits of some of the other races from just my initial impression looking at them.

Weapon selection screen - was pointless to me, I'm not familiar with your game. Just give me something basic. If that is for debugging, take it out of the demo.

Walk animation - looks a little stiff, the arms don't move enough.

Inventory - took me a little bit to figure out which sword was equipped.

Torch - Why can't I equip the torch in my off hand? It was about the same lighting level without it so I ignored it.

Rats - decent easy starter enemy

Other enemy thing - much harder, I couldn't block their attack, nor stun lock them by constantly attacking so I couldn't figure out how to not take damage. I fought them till I died and then called it quits.

Again overall good IMO the difficulty isn't bad but the combat mechanics need a tutorial or improvement to avoid damage to the player somehow. Otherwise it's not fun.

Best of luck
 
Okay, it seems that there's less of a problem with numbers and balance, and more of a problem with a lack of information. So, I'll try to give a better explanation of the combat mechanics. I might also make a walkthrough video sometime within the next couple of days, but for now, a quick written tutorial.

The main way to avoid taking damage before you acquire a shield is the dodge roll (left Control key.) Like your standard action game dodge roll, this maneuver makes you immune to most attacks for the duration of the roll, allowing you to easily bypass enemy attacks with a well-timed dodge. When you see an attack coming, dodge it, and then get in a few hits on the enemy during the downtime between their attacks. Rinsing and repeating will let you make quick work of most basic enemies. If you don't quite get what I'm saying, just watch the "5 Minutes in the Demo Dungeon" video in the original post.

Also, a little trick about the inventory that I forgot to mention; the sword slot up by the main equipment slots is the equipped weapon slot, whereas the other one is a slot where you can put another weapon that you might want quick access to. Pressing the "X" button switches the items between the slots, allowing you to swap between two weapons without having to open the inventory screen and manually reequip.

As for the weapon selection menu...well, familiarizing players with the game's different weapon types was the whole point. Weapon variety is a major part of the game, and letting the player pick and try out different weapon types from a screen that they'll be sent back to if they die seemed like the most elegant way to let the player experiment. Even so, I'll consider having the player's starting arsenal be a bit more restricted in future demos. If that'd make the early game less overwhelming, then it's what I'll do. I want my game to be complex, but I don't want it to be needlessly confusing.

Protip: Try using the Adventurer's Shortsword, the Adventurer's Axe, the Adventurer's Spear, and the Adventurer's Cudgel. They're all fairly basic examples of their parent weapon types.
 
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Morendral

Member
Videos are great, but that stuff should be in the game as a tutorial. I don't know of anyone that gets a game to put off playing it until they watch a video about it first. I understand that you have out this information out there already, but it needs to be in the game, taught to the player in a fun way, and part of a whole self contained package. Demo or full game, that is usually the one and only time you have with your user to grab them.
 
Alright, I'll be sure to include a playable tutorial of some sort in the next demo. To be honest, I just thought it was generally considered acceptable to exclude things like that in what's basically a pre-alpha demo; I haven't really played any other early demos on this site (or on my old stomping ground of MFGG) that come with an in-game tutorial. And in the end, the primary purpose of this demo was less to generate hype and interest, and more to get an idea of what the balancing is like and what needs to be changed, so that when I DO start promoting the project more heavily and on more sites, it's in a good state. Reasons legitimate and illegitimate aside, though, lesson learned; the next demo will have you start with less options, and will explain more clearly what to do with the ones that you have.

Speaking of progress and later versions, here're some more development screenshots, showing off the day-night cycle. As you can probably guess, you'll find things at night that you wouldn't find during the day on your travels; some good, some bad.

 
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Apapappa

Member
I don't know if anyone has mentioned this yet but I think the backgrounds need a little bit of adjustment to help the player to discern between what's foreground and background.
Something like this (put it in a spoiler to not clutter your thread):
AlmyrigoBG.gif

Obviously this is a very crude edit and you don't have to do it exactly this way, just thought I'd give you some feedback.
 
I don't know if anyone has mentioned this yet but I think the backgrounds need a little bit of adjustment to help the player to discern between what's foreground and background.
Something like this (put it in a spoiler to not clutter your thread):

Obviously this is a very crude edit and you don't have to do it exactly this way, just thought I'd give you some feedback.
Hmmm, I'm not sure if the color difference should be quite that extreme, but you do raise a good point. I'll do some messing around and see if I can add a bit more contrast between the foreground and the background.
 
Now that the demo is out, I can finally start showing off and discussing things that have more to do with the game as a whole. Here's a mockup of the map screen, and my concept on how pseudo-open-world traveling will work in a 2D sidescroller.


Every icon on the map represents a point of interest, such as a camp, a town, a dungeon entrance, etcetera. These points of interest are connected via lines, which represent what I'm just going to refer to as "roads." A road basically functions as a level of sorts, but instead of having a specific beginning and end point, each end of the stage simply warps you to one of two points of interest. You can select any point of interest adjacent to the one you're currently at (represented by a downward-facing arrow) to enter the road connecting them, from the side which corresponds to the point you're starting from. Simply reach the other end of the stage and walk off screen, and you'll be warped to the destination that you selected. It sounds kind of complicated when I try to explain it, but that's just for lack of analogies. Here's an illustration that'll make the concept clearer.

concept.png

Before you say that sounds like too many levels, keep in mind that these roads aren't exactly going to be your standard sidescrolling platformer stages. Most of them will be fairly simple and naturalistic in design; less "levels," and more 2D terrain designed to give the world a bit more life and scale and break up the dungeon crawling.
 
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For once, I actually got a thing done kind of quickly! Here's a look at the basic travel mechanics in-game, along with some footage of the day/night cycle in action.
 
This plays way better than it looks (and it already looks pretty good!). I had a ton of fun with the demo - combat is slow, but deliberate. It's tense, and feels like combat is an actual event in the game, rather than just a time waster. If you haven't played the demo, give it a shot. I was surprised - it's great! =D
 
This plays way better than it looks (and it already looks pretty good!). I had a ton of fun with the demo - combat is slow, but deliberate. It's tense, and feels like combat is an actual event in the game, rather than just a time waster. If you haven't played the demo, give it a shot. I was surprised - it's great! =D
Thank you for the praise, and especially for the recommendation. I'm confident that people will enjoy my game - at least, certain kinds of people - but as with any project like this, the hardest and often most emotionally stressful part is getting people to pay attention in the first place.

Also, now that the bump chain is broken, this feels like a good time for another screenshot. This one's actually been up on my DeviantArt page for a day or two now, but for some reason I just haven't gotten around to posting it here yet. It's a look at the exterior of a WIP inn. These humble buildings are actually going to be one of the more important kinds of points of interest in the game; there where you'll save your progress, sleep through the night (if you so choose,) rest off some of the more stubborn status afflictions, and buy useful consumables like food, bandages, antidotes, and ammo for your ranged weapons. You'll be able to do all of that and more at towns, too, but inns will be far more common on the map, and who knows; sometimes a chatty traveler is just a chatty traveler, but sometimes, a chatty traveler will know some secrets that a chatty villager won't!


Also, as a little bonus, have some completely unrelated concept art of one of the non-playable races:
 
Just a bit of a random development update, showing off a new unfinished monster. Because that's at least a bit more exciting than showing off the data structure systems I've had to set up to make visited map spaces stay uncovered and area names only display the first time you visit a new point of interest.


While his primary mode of attack looks a bit silly, it's no joke when you encounter him in enclosed areas; if you want to get around him, you'll need to get a running start and time your rolls well or take a lot of damage. While most of the tougher melee enemies will try and control your pace, this guy vies to control your movement, so be aware of your surroundings. Don't end up between a rock and a hard place!
 
Another week, another screenshot; this time, of the interior of the previously-shown building. It's not much, but it contains a fair number of reusable assets, and I also used it as a space to test some new sorts of background character concepts, like the non-interactive NPCs having a chat between each other at the table, and a puffy cat thing that periodically goes between sitting and walking and makes a cute face at you if you stand next to it.
 
Another progress video, this time showing off a few major gameplay systems that I've developed over the past few days. There are still several more systems and mechanics that I'll need (or at least want) to get out of the way before I start working on dungeons and overworld routes and such, but all in all, I'm well on my way.
 
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