In this entry: Quests!
November 17
I've been working on the cutscene.
November 18
The cutscene is finished for now.
Today I've been fixing various bugs with it. This was the first full workday in a while, I'm feeling better now.
November 19
Today I was improving When Luck Runs Out - the first quest.
Here's a list of changes:
- Archer's equipment crate now contains an arc instead of a bow.
- Ria now moves to a more correct position when speaking with the player.
- Made minor improvements to quest's dialogues.
- Replaced old events with the new moment and encounter systems.
- Added an encounter: A rogue that offers to show the player a shortcut to Locul.
- The second rogue player meets is no longer aggressive.
- It will become aggressive if the player steals from the nearby crates. Stealing tutorial, kind of.
- Colored important parts of the quest log text.
The most important change is the encounter and moment systems.
In 0.5.0 and older versions, the encounters like the good rogue that gives the player iron helmet/gauntlets would start when the player would enter the encounter zone.
It wasn't possible to avoid the encounter and it would stop the gameplay until the player would go through the dialogue.
That's no longer the case: NPC encounters are now triggered by speaking with them, and non-NPC encounters start when the player interacts with what I call moments.
Here's an example of a moment:
It's another tool for my quest toolkit - I imagine I'll use a lot of these in the upcoming quests.
So that was another productive day, I'm getting back into the routine.
November 20
Today I have started working on the second quest: "Unemployment Crisis", formerly "Wanted Dead".
"Wanted Dead" is now a part of the "Unemployment Crisis" - the quest is no longer just about being a bounty hunter.
With the new dialogues, the transition from clueless immigrant to an amateur bounty hunter should be smoother now.
Also, they provide a little bit of normalcy that - I believe - will make more dramatic quests further into the story feel more special by contrast.
November 22
An incomplete workday, but "Unemployment Crisis" is even closer to being done.
November 23
I'll have to rethink this format because I don't like showing quest progress, so I won't have anything to show at times. Hmm...
November 24
I'm done with "Unemployment Crisis"!
Some non-spoiler progress - overhead icons:
Players will no longer need to guess if the character is interactive or not.
Anyway, since the quests are done, I'll be able to update the game again soon.
Just want to make several miscellaneous improvements first.
Today I have:
- Fixed missing shadows and missing building tile inside 2nd Strategic Fortification.
- Reduced bow damage, gave Archer equipment defense bonus.
- Renamed "Gold" to "Guldens". To not be confused with "Gold" as a material. Plus, more unique.
- Rogues now have 100 less health. To make it easier for the new players.
- Fixed bug: Having a full inventory will no longer destroy items inside loot containers.
- Reduced the amount of loot - the inventory won't fill up as fast now. It really was a problem.
November 25
Today I have improved the "Arrow Wall" ability.
Now it hits everything in a large zone, so it's more reliable and - while harder to avoid - will no longer cause "Why did I got hit, I was standing in between the lines?!" confusion.
November 26
Today I have:
- Improved introduction cutscene.
- Added "Ability ready" audio and visual hints.
- Fixed a few bugs.
- Nerfed silver arrow damage bonus because it was making bows overpowered.
- Graphically improved the overworld.
Now it has wood texture in the background - the idea is that the map is on a table.
Later I might add decorations like daggers, coins, coffee cups, and other items that should be on a Kayosian tavern's table =]
November 27
Today I have updated the demo!
I've also done some writing for the quest that comes with the next demo update: "Wanted Mad".
It's going to be another smaller update, the only goal I have for it is adding that quest.
November 28
Today I've done a bit more writing, but the majority of the day was spent making an area for the new quest.
Aside from quest stuff, it will contain several small iron ore rocks, loot containers, and three new enemy NPCs. Bonus content!
December 1
Today I have spent the majority of the available time to rewrite the "Wanted Mad" script.
Wasn't satisfied with the first version - this often happens when I write, I keep rewriting until I'm happy with the results.
Also decided to rename the quest to "Cold Commands".
December 2
Today I was continuing the work on the quest area.
December 3
A productive day!
Implemented new items that are required for the quest, added NPCs to the quest area, implemented quest challenges, moved the quest dialogue text into the game, finished making the quest area...
Nearly done.
December 4
Only minor improvements remain after today's work.
I've written a lot of dialogue for this quest, took a while to implement it all.
December 7
The "Cold Commands" quest is finished!
Now I want to do a competitive shooter game style " weapon icon, ability icon " messages whenever a character is killed and then I'll start working on the massive Luma city update.
Unfortunately, the "Cold Commands" will not be a part of the demo.
It's not an early game quest and I have made a decision to only include early game content in the demo.
The unabridged game versions will still be available on my Discord server, but the public demo will remain pretty much as it is.
So, that's this entry! I'm going to write more about the Luma city content in the next one.
Thanks for reading <3