So I realized that I haven’t published any recent screenshots even though the game looks a little bit different than in the really old posts. So here is one, sporting the newest character design for Cate.

I recently played around a little in the engine I constructed for this project before I put it on ice and was surprised to see how smoothly it ran. There were no irritating frame rate drops and I still have a few ideas of optimization that I haven’t implemented yet. I’ll make sure to continue on this game pretty soon, I have too many visions to realize before I can give it up. :P

Hi, anyone who feels like reading this!
After a long time of little progress and many set backs I have finally gotten the time, inspiration and tools to continue with this project. It’s summer holidays for me, except for a few summer courses I’m taking for fun, and I have returned to the country side of my childhood island to refuel my inspiration (and live for free at my parents house).

Though I took up this particular project just a few days ago, I have already built some things that became instantaneously useful such as the basics for a flexible physics engine. This engine is now more developed and mostly implemented, and allows for many features in the coming game to be included easily.

The voxel engine has been looked over as well. It’s now much more controlled and potent than it was before.
I feel so satisfied with my recent progress that I am actually going to add another percent of completion (very symbolic though, it is probably more finished than that).

There is still more to be done with the physics before I continue with the battle system, but I’m making progress…

Yeah, I got my laptop back, after about half a year of pain and confusion. Everything is there, so I’ll proceed working on this project as soon as I have done some upcoming exams.

The videos are old, and laggish, so I’ll probably upload something soon. To make this log a little more interesting, I’m attaching a poster-like picture which is half finished.

This project is currently on hold, as some bacon fat accidentally leaked into my laptop. The hard drive should be ok, so it’s mostly a matter of getting a working machine again. It will probably be like 2 weeks until I get it all as it should be again… :C

The last thing I accomplished before this little incident, was that I had just made various arm movements possible for the idle and walking animations of Cate’s sprite. I had also made two arm-objects which are to be used for things like fencing and shooting.

Hi again!
Now the base for the inventory is complete. It consist in a circle menu which can be rotated clockwise or counterclockwise. If there is an item which you can have multiple of in a slot, a stock counter will appear next to it.

It handles three types of items; edible, drinkable and throwable stuff. There are also a lot of items which will serve a more specific use, like the Chain Sabre, but these are handled with their own sets of events.

The information about the effects caused by items is stored in an array object. The first 50 columns are reserved for edible items, the next 50 for drinkable. The 50 after that are for throwables, and higher are specific artifacts. Depending on the type of item, the information is handled differently.

I don’t think I will use all this room that I have made for items, but I don’t want to run out of it when I realize that I forgot to include cake as an edible item. :P I want the items to be a little like in River City Ransom, where you buy and try a little of this and that. Not like Secret of Mana 2 where you get tons of stuff which you never have any use for. XD

A problem I have thought of before, but which became very concrete for me now, is the difficulty of making good controls. All inputs are custom variables, but there is still the problem of finding good combinations of these, and events in the game, as there are much more than 6 things you can do.

I use 6 buttons excluding the arrows and 2 of these are item and magic buttons. When these are pressed, other buttons work in a different way. When the item button is pressed, left/right (will change to up/down as it is useful to be able to move side wise while using an item) rotates the inventory and the action button uses the selected item.

I think these controls might work if you play the game with a game pad and use the buttons on the back of it for item and magic activation. I’ll see how it works when I get home to my apartment and game pads in a few days. :P

Now I will fix the holster and draw events for the Chain Sabres and pistols, and then begin working with the battle system! :D

Do you have any ideas for what could be included or changed with my project? Just something to comment on? Give me your input, it feeds my motivation.

Zup?
Cate can now do some swimming, on the surface of water, and also dive beneath it. Animations are not there, but it’s just a matter of making them and putting them in their place.
Cate can dive and swim in 8 directions under water, there are more angles though, to make the rotation look smoother.

Old events have been adjusted and merged, so that my engine, though probably not more efficient, is easier to overlook and understand.

I will either make these swimming animations now (can do it later as well, I have preliminary animations for them) or start to work on the inventory.

There will basically be three types of items; edible stuff (eg. potions and food), throw-weapons (eg. knives, bombs) and equipment (eg. chain sabres, pistols, artifacts). Cate will only be able to hold a few things at the same time, though additional item slots can be found as upgrade items. I hope that this will offer a choice of strategy for the player. You can either stock up on items that heals you, you can choose to not carry the sabres or the pistols in order to have some extra throwables, or you can choose to only carry powerful artifacts that boosts your stats, and one weapon, or just use magic… We’ll see…

It’s devlog time!
Not as much as I would have hoped for has happened since the last update, at least the progress has not been were it should have. :P

Cate’s face has now been added to most animations, although it has yet to be adjusted for the emotion meant to be displayed during each move. I have adjusted the scrolling so that it moves smoother and I have experimented a little with how I am going to produce the various areas, once I get that far.

I have added an underwater distortion effect which I am satisfied with, and have tried different methods to create dynamic light in dark places, no satisfying results there so far…

The status bars and such have been put where I mean to have them, but the magic and item slots and objective compass are not finished yet. Next I’ll make the swimming code and animations, then I might finish the item stuff so that I can implement equipment like the chain sabres in an appropriate way.

Oh, I have also made a rain effect for the game.

If anyone has some really smart ideas of how to make good light and water effects for a game like this (with mmf2 and its extensions), please feel free to post your ideas (and secret techniques). ;)

Howdy!
Progress is slow but steady. Some new stuff:
Brake animation when turning while running, climbing (coded and animated) on walls, in the ceiling and in the background.

I have also made several adjustments to the movement engine, both to make it better and to get rid of some events (math is really useful).

Some preliminary water has been added. I want to have prettier water in the future, but what I have now is sufficient for making the swimming part of the movement engine.

I will add some more animations and fixes to the movement, to make the transition between animations and the movement of the sprite smoother, then it’s time to begin working on one of the main weapons, the sabres. This will require that I finish the item engine to some extent.