Sorry! I mean it! I am terribly sorry for writing this development diary so late! But one thing after another piled up and prevented me from doing this (and releasing new stuff :( ).
So let's not waste any more time. For today's huge topic list we have:
Item weight
The magician Merchant
Animations
Auto explore
Kicking stuff! Oh yeah!
Keys
Improved story telling
Eventful levels
Other stuff
As there is a lot to cover, I might not go into too much details, feel free to ask for them!
Item weight
How this end up working is as follows:
The comfortable amount of stuff you can carry depends mainly on your strength.
Now depending on that amount, 3 things can happen:
You are light weighted: To achieve this state you have to carry less than a 20% of your comfortable carry amount. This gives you a 15% bonus on speed (affecting the amount of things you can do per turn) and a 30% bonus in agility!
You are neither light weighted nor over weighted: Between 20% and your comfortable carry amount. Nothing happens, this is the boring state.
You are overburdened by your stuff: You are carrying too much! You get a speed and agility penalty relative to the amount above the comfortable level. This might be small at first but very but if you are so stubborn as to continuing with your quest for accumulating stuff!
All in all, a fairly dynamic and interesting system!
The Magician Merchant
Ever wondered how in deep dungeons overwhelmed by horrifying creatures there are whole shops set up for the lonely adventurer that passes by every decade or so? Well I have, and I don't buy it!
There must be something sneaky to it! And there is, I found it! They use a tracking potion to tag their potential customers and then use a portal to go wherever they are! Clever sneaky bastards!
Now, seriously, merchants in Rogue Empire do not have items lying on the floor that you have to pick up. You interact with them with a small interface:
Eventually in towns I might add shelves of access with the same items you can buy, but it's not a priority.
Animations
One great addition to the game is hitting animations! For the moment this is done only for the main character, to give him protagonism, but let me know if you thing all monsters should have it!
Auto explore
A requested feature that I had to include eventually! Auto Explore lets you do well... that. You hit the 'x' and your character starts to go through all the places he hasn't been, dropped items and eventually when nothing is left the exits.
To any fellow Programmer:
It is interesting to point; I developed this using a something called Dijkstra Maps! Credits to Brian Walker of Brogue. You can find more about them here: RogueBasin
This is a very versatile and powerful tool, if you are into programming, I recommend you to check it out!
Kicking stuff! Oh yeah!
Who doesn't like to kick stuff or someone? You don't? Well, you don't know what you are missing!
Anyway, kicking got into the game and is a think now in Rogue Empire! From doors, items to walls (might be dangerous for your health), you name it!
Keys
Do you know what key element appears in most rpg games?
Keys in Rogue Empire, come in different shapes and sizes! You won't have a one and only universal type of key. On the other side you won't have one unique type of key for every container laying around. It's more in the middle ground, some keys open some doors and other keys open other doors. The idea is to have a balance between "one to rule them all" and "Oh my good yet another new closed door for which I need yet another key!"
Another small mechanic is that keys might break with usage, so thing carefully if it's worth opening that door!
Improved story telling
I decided to give a second iteration to the story telling. It is shown in quasi star wars style, but moving vertically. Here is a GIF example (it has low quality so it's not so big):
Eventful levels
Eventful levels are levels that have something special about them. At the moment I implemented two of them:
The collapsing dungeon: When in this dungeon, the dungeon collapses and chunks of ceiling fall everywhere! This poses an additional challenge when moving around this dungeon.
The high spawning dungeon: Monsters spawn like crazy here. This is a place in overdrive, where you can have as much as 3 times the usual amount of monsters!
Once the player traverses this place he gets a cool reward for his troubles! It is important to note, that in the future I plan to make other eventful levels that are not necessarily something bad or challenging for the player.
Other stuff
There are a lot of smaller additions I worked on the game and I will condense them in bullet points!
Improved tool tips so they scale correctly with the screen.
Added tool tips to the action bar objects.
Improved status effects UI
Added resting icon.
Added 10+ spells that can be used with wands
Added more than 20 new wearable items
Added new monsters
Added Christmas hat (exclusive for this release) :)
Improved several effects of outdated abilities and spells
Closing comments
The game is growing a lot, but there is still a lot to do!
I hope to release the next version of the game tomorrow for patrons and Monday for everyone else!
The coming days are complicated with all the festivities and I won't be able to do much sadly. So I expect the next development diary be mid-January.
In case you wonder, you can get the download link for the latest version of the game at our patreon profile or in this site there is a link to a post with the installer.
Please you support the game! If it is within your reach, support Rogue Empire at patreon.com/roguempire! You can also follow us and spread the word about the game in Twitter.com/RoguEmpireRPG or facebook.com/roguempirerpg. Anything helps, no matter how small!
So I should say:
Happy Christmas and Happy new year!
