Hello everyone!
In case you have missed, this Monday the Alpha 0.4.0 was released on Itch.io, featuring the new trading mechanics.
After the final touches for the new update, I debated a bit about what should come next, and decided that version 0.5 will be focused on basically adding more fun encounters to the game. Basically, there are 5 possible encounters at the moment, but they all feel kinda basic samey.
So, for update 0.5, I plan of adding a new full-fledged dungeon, with a new enemy type. And, most importantly, I want this dungeon to feel more interesting and interactive than the current encounters.
For this, I have decided to create a nest of giant spiders. I already had the art for the spider ready from earlier game prototypes, but I want to evolve it to have more exciting abilities.
I knew I wanted the spider to live in an underground cave, so I started thinking about what I could use to populate the dungeon. The most obvious answer was cobwebs. The player can get entangled in them if not careful, reducing their movement speed, and alerting all spiders nearby. I mocked up a little sprite to test my idea in-game. The spiders can also have a skill to shoot these web at the player!
So now I have created a new problem for the player. Now I started to think on how it could be overcome. Obviously, hacking the web would work, but then I thought about a staple mechanic in sandbox games, as well as the standard way of dealing with spiders: Fire!
So, I spent a good part of Wednesday working on a fire simulation (that still lacks any art or sound design). Basically, I mixed the fire spread mechanics from Rimworld (fire spreads to another flammable tile up to 2 tiles away) with the concept of an "environmental turn" from Baldur's Gate III. In the end, it looks something like this:
Finally, I was thinking about how I can leverage the new lighting system for the spider caves, and came with the idea of glowing mushrooms that can also be harvested, although I'm not sure what the effect is gonna be yet.
Overall, I have started a lot of bits and pieces to make this a good dungeon, but haven't finished any of them yet, so I can't put it all together into the cohesive dungeon that I want. Hopefully, by next week, I will have something more concrete to show!
This is it for this week!