Hello everybody! Today I will do a small development diary for what was done this week and what to expect for next week before the next release.
Ok, so today's topics are:
New Fonts
Souls (Prelude Exclusive)
Hunger & Effects
Item weight (preview of next week's development)
Merchants (preview of next week's development)
New Fonts!
Something that was needed very badly and had a huge impact on aesthetics: Fonts!
So basically I replaced the boring Arial font with something more unique. Check it out on the screenshot and let me know what you think!
Old Fonts vs New Fonts
Souls (Prelude Exclusive)
So one thing I wanted to provide is a way for a new player to understand where to go to progress in the game. Especially in the prelude that is supposed to show the game and mechanics to new players.
With this in mind and furthermore enhancing the story of the game I added this small souls that float deeper into the dungeon towards... something ;)
Souls floating to the stairs
Hunger and its effects
One thing featured in many roguelike games is hunger and Rogue Empire is no different. The way hunger is handled in Rogue Empire is a little more friendly than in other titles:
First of all, the character has many different food/hunger phases: Bloated->Full->Satiated->Hungry->Empty. Each state except for satiated has different penalties and even some perks:
Bloated:
Character recovers energy (action points) 10% faster. Also consumes 10% more food.
Character heals (naturally) 20% faster.
Character's agility and perception is temporarily reduced in 20%.
Full
Character recovers energy (action points) 5% faster. Also consumes 5% more food.
Character heals (naturally) 20% faster.
Character's agility and perception is temporarily reduced in 10%.
Satiated: No effect
Hungry
Character recovers energy (action points) 10% slower. Also consumes 10% less food.
Character heals (naturally) 50% slower.
Character's strength and intelligence is temporarily reduced in 10%.
Empty
Character recovers energy (action points) 20% slower. Also consumes 20% less food.
Character doesn't heal himself naturally.
Character's strength and intelligence is temporarily reduced by 20%.
Character slowly consumes himself, manifested by a slow loss of health!
Standard stuff so far right? But you might have seen the key difference: Being on an empty stomach does not mean you immediately die, no! Being on an empty stomach is bad yes both in game and in real life, but in rogue empire it means your character slowly consumes himself, loosing hp over time.
This avoids the "But wait, why did I die?!!! Oh I forgot to eat right..." situations :P
Item weight
Ok, this basically is futurology, as I didn't work on it yet. I have put off this development log enough so I will tackle it next week.
Item weight is the way I mean to handle inventory limitations. As any rpg game you having a system in place to limit the amount of items a player can carry is very important:
From the development point, its an item sink. This means you eventually sell old items or drop them as you don't need them. Although in roguelike games this doesn't matter much as you rarely destroy any items.
For the player you achieve several effects:
Give some choices of what and what not to pick up.
Give a new desirable stat (how much to carry) linked to the characters attributes, talents and classes.
Add a small layer of plausibility to the game that increases a little immersion.
Like hunger give some penalties for going over the limit with carrying stuff.
So that is the rationale behind it, hate it or love it, I am just the developer :P
Merchants
Another thing planned for next week. Self-explanatory really, the only thing worth mentioning is that I don't plan to do merchants like regular roguelikes where their items lay around on the floor (in my early experiences with roguelike games this was very confusing to me and got me actually killed), but actually build a small interface for bargaining with them.
Closing comments
As you can see this development weeks are focused mainly on adding deepness and strategic decisions to the game. These, I consider also important to reach a mature level for the game.
Next Friday I won't release a development diary but better yet the next game version ;) As always, first for patrons and later (+1 day) for everyone else.
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!
Hope you like this development diary!
See ya!