So what's the latest from your friendly local game dev at Kyoti games? This is the monthly progress report that will show you that Scourge of the Reptiles is building at a good pace.
A week ago, the game had a booth for two days at Adelaide's Anime and Video Game Convention (Avcon) and here is a snap of the new Snow (Level 7) demo that was run for players. There was in fact a first demo featuring a fight with skeletons attacking from high rocks, and this was the second day demo where the fight was with NightFeathers (Troodons). These large birds can spit Frost balls that inflict Cold Exposure, a condition that drains Stamina until you warm up at a campsite fire. With the new Dire Wolf mount along with the original HornBeak (Gallimimus) mount, its not a super hard fight even when you are surprised and start the combat stunned and facing the other way. The tactical trick is to use the trees as cover, get close, and thin their numbers from the flank - don't get surrounded in the open. It was fun watching players figure out the gist of the combat options and proceed to the core of the combat, which is the tactics - some needed a bit of guidance from the dev! Over the course of the two days, I made a short list of suggestions to take home and found a few obscure bugs to fix. Players were generally quite thrilled with it.
Back at the ranch, Act 2 is coming along well. I have completed the build on the first two levels of the 5 level act, and the third is underway. I can't spoil the content about these, I won't even tell you what the biomes are. I will say that the world expands significantly in this Act into places never dreamed of by the tribal characters. At current rates I think there is less than 3 months of level building left. After that it's all Quality Assurance!
I will say that the game now has two boss escape sequences - fights where you must actually run away from the enemy using terrain, spells, and just generally being as fast as possible. Two is enough for this game, they are very time consuming to build.
New features? Hard to talk about without spoilers (code updates are now mostly needed for specific creatures and plot events) - but I now have a good way of getting daylight shadows (time of day will angle, stretch, and fade the shadow) to mix with indoor shadows (cast away from light sources like torches and spells) in places like buildings where the light is dim due to having a roof and a small windows. It looks great.
I now have fight victory conditions that can change if you make different choices in the preceding dialogue - effectively splitting quests in two directions; so you can be quite evil if you like.
I now have items that grant you spell powers simply by wearing them - not just wands that cast spells if you hold and use them.
Well thats it for this month, chat again next month - with any luck, Act 2 will be done by then!