It’s been already three months since my last update! I am excited to share what I’ve been working on, without further ado:
Gameplay
- Player can trade inventory items with merchants and match the offer using gold
- Tactical mode looks much better with smooth camera pan between NPCs, camera pan for ranged attacks, proper length for animations, time slow down on certain actions, and much more
- Targeting mode now displays the range that the player can use an ability; the targeted NPCs display an overlay color animation, and more
- Added continuous turn mode; the AI takes a turn every 2 seconds if the player hasn’t played his turn
- A lot of work on the ability, stats and item generation systems; I will share more on this later.
AI
- Reputation with merchant NPCs are updated when the player steals items from the NPC; the merchant will taunt the player, call the guards or even attack you if you keep stealing
- Guards now wander around town, attack nearby targets and come to the rescue of merchants when they get attacked
- Party members now heal injured party member, cast defensive spells, and more
- Tons of new NPC dialogues (HateGreet, Victory, FoundThief, CallingGuards, AttackingThief, CryForHelp, SavedFromDeath, DisagreeWithPartyLeader, MissedAttack, LowHealth, PartyMemberDied, etc.) and added weight for their random appearances
- City NPC AI is now processed offscreen if at least a chunk of the city is visible, NPCs can pop in and out of the visible game area
- AI and pathfinding are now fully done in a background thread; the framerate is a lot more stable than before
UI
- The viewport for the local map is now full screen. The UI is floating over the viewport.
- The party panel now looks a lot more refined with status bars of different heights, shadow outline around text, transparency, etc.
- Damage numbers now look a lot better with shadow outlines, scaling effect, better choice of fonts, etc.
- New comic book style dialogue bubbles
- Particles appear over rare/unique items
- Status bars over NPCs are now displayed only when the NPC is lacking health or is in conflict with the player; using CAPS LOCK displays all the status bars
- New look for main menu, world map generator, and other main screens
I made a few GIFs for your enjoyment:
- New viewport display with floating UI, continuous turn mode
- Tactical turn mode with camera pan and time slow down
- Trading inventory items with a merchant
- Stealing items from a merchant until they attack the party
- Ability targeting
- Caps Lock enables/disables status bars (except injured NPCs)
See you next time!