Free/Libre Action Roleplaying Engine
I lowered enemy HP across the board. It shouldn’t be a chore to dispatch one enemy of equal level — this is an action rpg, after all. Enemies that take several hits will now stand out and appear tougher. This effect was present in Diablo, where by far most enemies died in one attack.
I’m working on a new cave map. It’s not populated yet but it’s looking great.
I also added SDL_DisplayFormatAlpha() calls when loading SDL Surfaces. This seems to greatly improve performance, at least on my dev machine (OSX) — hopefully it’s going to help on more platforms.
I’ve gone ahead and raise the level cap to 17. This allows one hero to unlock the entire proficiency and powers trees. The XP scale will be going through several iterations but should be fine for alpha purposes.
Added cooldowns per power slot (currently melee physical,
melee magical, ranged physical, ranged magical) for enemies.
While doing so I noticed that enemy ranged powers weren’t
using the global cooldown. No wonder they could shoot/cast
so quickly! I’ll check in the update tomorrow.
One more item off the list. Flare 0.11 is way overdue!
If you’re wondering how I made those Cave Tiles so that they seamlessly fit together, here’s a rough tutorial.
I want to take the time to do nice, polished, high-poly models. But instead I’m putting that time into Flare. The sprites I need are so small that quality models aren’t really necessary. A superb model might take me 80 hours; I could do a lot of Flare code in that time.
So I put together a simple skeletal archer and skeletal mage. They’ll serve their purpose: get something working now. It can be made prettier later, or maybe in a future game.
This has been the longest time span between releases for Flare. I hope to fix this soon. A few more things to go:
I’ve given monsters lots of great powers, but it seems silly for identical creatures to throw out very different powers. I want to be proud of each release… so it’s time to make monster varieties.
I got to play several great indie games in 2010. Even some very small experiences have left a strong impact on the way I see games.
I’ve put more hours into Minecraft than any other game this year, indie or not. My main save world hasn’t changed in weeks though. I built myself a luxurious castle and feel like a conqueror, but now I’m quite comfortable. Feels like I “won”. Maybe I should build a town surrounding my castle walls, or nearby cities or dungeons.
Minecraft is a 3D experience that isn’t overwhelming. The interface is simple, with the world divided into 1m^3 blocks. Most of the gameplay is taking a block or placing a block. Yet, with a simple set of blocks one can make anything. Minecraft also manages to make darkness scary again, without cheap tricks. Finally, Minecraft shows that a well-done algorithmically generated world can be inspiring.
To me, Super Meat Boy is all about polish. The cutscenes are well-done and add a specific attitude to the game. Meat Boy is squishy, bouncy, and leaves red trails and splashes everywhere. Accomplishments are loud and satisfying. Controls are impeccable.
Replayability is finely tuned — there are dark versions of most levels, secret levels and unlockable characters, rewards for doing levels faster (A+) or harder (bandages), and stats tracking for overall progress and number of deaths.
This keeps many players at it until they have accomplished everything possible.
I played a lot of Mighty Bomb Jack back in the day so I’m glad to see that movement mechanic brought back. I actually enjoy the game’s short length — it does well to explore the basic combinations of obstacles and movement. Here’s an example of a well-contained experience that doesn’t take years to produce.
With Flare I took on a project at the edge of what I can accomplish — been working on it a full year and still have a ways to go. After Flare I will probably make several small games. Mighty Jill Off is inspirational and shows how a game doesn’t need hours and hours of content to be fun.
Of course I also like the human themes explored in the very simple story. Sex doesn’t have to be gratuitous, or vanilla, or absent in video games.
To me this stretches what games can be. It’s an emotional piece of art with minimalist graphics and interaction.
I’ve been working on some tedious refactoring. I’ve got most of the powers moved to config file.
Some powers are a bit busted, temporarily. E.g. slingshots will shoot regular arrows. I’ll probably make a new graphic that works for both slingshots and arrows.
The powers not yet converted are the complicated ones: Multishot, Freeze, and Vengeance. Multishot will become a “multi-missile” base type where the number of missiles and the angle between each are options. Freeze will have a “repeater” base type where the number of hazards and the distance/delay between each are options. Vengeance will have an on_block component and a requires_buff component, plus will require a separate “buff” spell I think. I might have to make “buff” a new base spell type.
I’m getting some down time. Hope you are too!