Not sure how to feel about the narrative focus. Sure i like such RPGs(Torment, Pillars, Divinity etc) but after i play them once that's it. It could be hit or miss though, even more modest GM creations with a story were successful.
For being less time consuming i find the procedural generation better choice, actual level design/handcrafting is more work, no?
But it's your call, i really like to see more updates, so keep up the good work and post more! Real life can wait
Yeap, it´s not a easy choice, but to do GREAT procedural generated games that makes sense all the time does take time too... IT´s hard to do something procedural generated that pass that feeling of playing something new (and making sense) every time...
It´s even harder with GML. Not impossible.
Maybe with the narrative focus this took more time on design itself than code. This also taking GML in consideration.
I took some time to get the Tiled2Binary, but now I can make a handcraft map in minutes and plot just plug and play. This was the main thing in the refactoring, because if this process was very time consuming I would probably drop the project.
For sure this is a boss fight game and there is a "linear" path on it... But I have a friend that is writing a plot for me and we´re taking in consideration where conversations can change the path to the end.. For example, we have a boss where you can talk with him about some special information that only certain NPC can unlock to you. With that option, you find his emotional week spot and you can clear it without a fight.
But to tackle the situation of replayability, the arcade gameplay feeling will help with that. In the combat you have some sort of combo system that incentivate the player to kill and hit faster, I can put some challenges in local areas... Also, I´m thinking in some extra modes after you finish the game that is relative easy to implement. One example is a survivor tower with procedural difficult level
Also, I´ll not really toss out the code that I already have. I have a complete dungeon map generation system... I´ll use that in one of the bosses, where the area is a maze that always change paths.... never one player will have the same dungeon.
For now, I just want to refactor the project to be able to put content fast... this is the main priority. Izoproject as it is already is a playable roguelike experience, with all the systems there... I took notes on the bad and good parts and now I have a better view of what I want to achieve with this project ( with a good reality glasses on it)
So yes.... it will take time, but I´m still trying to make the game that I would like to play... I´m learning so much during this process that I´m really just aiming to release the game and say that I´m capable of it, with the best quality possible.