Remember the Accessory shop from Monday's post? Well, someone has to run it! Time for another portrait~
Remember the Accessory shop from Monday's post? Well, someone has to run it! Time for another portrait~
Remember the Accessory shop from Monday's post? Well, someone has to run it! Time for another portrait~
Next up, the exit/meeting room in it's present state! Time to start demolishing everything again ;)
I'm finally back guys, and just about ready to dive back into work!!
While I've been gone things haven't been standing still though, check out these things that Teddy has been working on, including a bunch of stuff I made like years ago that finally are making it into the game!
First up, and perhaps most importantly - new damage numbers! We've totally revamped the way these work. Take a look below for the old version:
And now, the new version:
So a bunch of things have happened here! First up, there will be tiny numbers showing how much damage you make with each hit, and a big number showing how much damage you've done in total within a limited amount of time! So long as you continuously damage an enemy this number will continue to increase. When you crit, the damage text flashes and there are pretty stars flying about! We also have plans to have the damage number increase in size the longer/bigger your combo is, and add some smaller stars to the crit-effect as well. But all in good time...
Another thing you might notice in the above GIF is - yes - Health bars above the enemies! Wohoo! I'm personally very happy about this update, as it makes hitting enemies much more satisfying when you can see their hp dwindle. True, you could do so before by checking the lower right corner, but it's just not as effective (at least, I kept taking damage while doing that) or as satisfying. The health bar will appear once you hit an enemy and disappears after a while after you quit dealing damage to it.
And YES, this means health bars in Multiplayer will be a thing! You'll be able to see the health bar of your friends when they go under a certain amount of HP, so now you'll know who really deserved that health orb, and who was the petty thief!
Teddy also added The Western Ruins to the game, so there's one more "Sorry this area ain't implemented yet" notice gone. You can't actually do anything here yet, except look at the scenery and battle a few slimes, but hey! At least it's not an annoying invisible wall:
Also, we've finally added the Buy Back feature, which we've talked about for a loooong time.
Shady Merchant is now officially your go-to guy for buying back anything you've sold in the game, and the Accessory Shop has moved into a building of its own:
Ok, ok. One more thing. In order to make it clearer when a quest has been updated, we're adding this new feature:
This is still an early work in progress, but the idea is that whenever a quest gets updated in some way, you'll get a notice saying 'Update' above your head, after which the corresponding quest window will flash in the upper right corner. If you're currently tracking another quest, it'll fade back to that one after some time, and if you don't track any quest at all it'll simply fade away. This is all to make it a bit easier knowing when you've done something that change the objectives of a quest, or if you're tracking another quest and 'accidentally' make progress in another, so you know what's going on.
We also plan on doing a ton of improvements on the in-game map before Fred is fully done with all the animations needed to implement the scenes in Tai Ming's third zone! There will be a ton of helpful trackers there, showing you exactly how much you've got left to do before achieving 100% on each area. But that's for another post!
From the first to the last room: time to take a look at the Shrine's exit/meeting room...
In this room, there will be a quite important flashback orb, showing you the priests trying to deal with certain horrible things that have happened in Tai Ming since your last time jump!
They will be in meeting by this long table, discussing... Things ;) There's also a scheduled guest appearance of an Arcade Mode character! Can you guess who?
Oh yeah, next week I'll be going back to my hometown for the funeral, so the blog posts will resume again next Monday (28th)! :)
In this post we'll take a quick look at some of the improvements/edits that will be added in an upcoming patch for the second Tai Ming zone!
Those of you who have tried the new Tai Ming areas on Frontline have probably noticed a bunch of sound effects missing...
Next up, making the ruined version of the first room in this sacred shrine! And this version might even show up in the game ;)
Time to move into the sacred shrine! What could be hidden in here?
As the years go by, even this sacred shrine is forgotten and doomed to fall into disrepair.
When last we left off, here's what the finished shrine looked like in the past (though in the end there will be a ton of people here as well):
Working on was pretty much a case of "how much of this can I ruin?" and then setting to work. The lanterns are broken or have fallen down, some of the pillars have fallen, there's some vines growing, the bells have fallen, statues have broken, cloth have ripped, and sometime in the past people began to move a lot of storage stuff outside of the shrine, leaving broken crates, jars and barrel there now.
There's still a lot of fun things I'd like to add, but at some point I had to stop myself, or I'd keep going on this for days! Maybe I'll go back and add some more stuff before everything gets implemented though :)
Feel free to share ideas on how to add further destruction to this map (so long as the building itself remains intact)!
Now that the base version of the Shrine exterior has been completed, it's time to think about the various ways we can spice this up and make it look more unique!
And so, it's time to begin making the Third Tai Ming zone for real. I can't believe we're finally starting on the last stretch of this dungeon... It's taken a looong while for sure :D
Hey guys, instead of making a regular post today as I intended, I'm here to announce a short blogging break until Wednesday.
And now, time to start working on Zone03. Today we've been prototyping most of the area, with the exception of the final two rooms (one which will house the Mimic boss, and one which will feature... something else).
Some of you have already noticed that after finishing the first zone, it's possible to get stuck, with the time warp portals disappearing. While this isn't quite working as intended, the truth is that once you've finished an area, you'll only be able to return to it in the present time.
We have a couple of reasons for this, and it wasn't an easy choice to make. I mean, of course it would have been great if you could always go back to finish any puzzles or secrets you might have missed. On the other hand, we felt like the area would have a bigger impact once you realize that when you've seen all there is to the story here, you can't go back to talk to the people again. They have passed on already and belong only in a distant past which you shouldn't have had access to in the first place.
We also didn't want the player to feel frustrated because they can't go back to, say, the first zone, and simply try to convince Zhamla or Sizou to change their ways once you realize how events in that zone turned Zhamla from a young, optimistic boy into a serious and rather obsessed young man.
We could have just simply not mentioned the fact, or thrown in a line about not changing past events, but again, this way felt like it'd have more of an impact.
Now, obviously you're not supposed to get stuck anywhere in the present. So how are we gonna solve the fact that there are a ton of blockades that you need time travel to get past?
Cue this guy:
This fellow is a traveling adventurer (with dreams of becoming a Collector, perhaps?) who you'll meet many times on your journey. Once you've finished the first part of Tai Ming, he'll arrive to move things out of the way and create a passage that you can use as well. Once you're done with the second zone, he'll move on and do the same there.
So what about all the treasures you might have missed on your first play through? Worry not, you'll be able to get them later in the game, through various means (we have a bunch of ideas), so missing an item in Tai Ming won't affect your 100% completion if you manage to find it somewhere else later.
After all, hundreds of years have passed since the time when Tai Ming was a bustling town, and it's not unlikely that once you stop messing around with the time jumps, someone simply moved the items somewhere else.
With this new information, it might be worth going through Tai Ming one more time to see if you missed any secrets, would you say? Head out and collect! The 100% completion awaits you!
We have a couple of reasons for this, and it wasn't an easy choice to make. I mean, of course it would have been great if you could always go back to finish any puzzles or secrets you might have missed. On the other hand, we felt like the area would have a bigger impact once you realize that when you've seen all there is to the story here, you can't go back to talk to the people again. They have passed on already and belong only in a distant past which you shouldn't have had access to in the first place.
We also didn't want the player to feel frustrated because they can't go back to, say, the first zone, and simply try to convince Zhamla or Sizou to change their ways once you realize how events in that zone turned Zhamla from a young, optimistic boy into a serious and rather obsessed young man.
We could have just simply not mentioned the fact, or thrown in a line about not changing past events, but again, this way felt like it'd have more of an impact.
Now, obviously you're not supposed to get stuck anywhere in the present. So how are we gonna solve the fact that there are a ton of blockades that you need time travel to get past?
Cue this guy:
This fellow is a traveling adventurer (with dreams of becoming a Collector, perhaps?) who you'll meet many times on your journey. Once you've finished the first part of Tai Ming, he'll arrive to move things out of the way and create a passage that you can use as well. Once you're done with the second zone, he'll move on and do the same there.
So what about all the treasures you might have missed on your first play through? Worry not, you'll be able to get them later in the game, through various means (we have a bunch of ideas), so missing an item in Tai Ming won't affect your 100% completion if you manage to find it somewhere else later.
After all, hundreds of years have passed since the time when Tai Ming was a bustling town, and it's not unlikely that once you stop messing around with the time jumps, someone simply moved the items somewhere else.
In celebration of having completed my part of Tai Ming's second zone, I decided to take a quick break from the asian theme and move back to Evergrind City and its surrounding fields!
