Hello everyone, It's been a while since my last post. Underlair's development is now fully halted as I work exhaustly on Archrebel. If all goes according to plan, I will return with proper funding through a publisher that recently reached out to me; it depends now on the success of Archrebel and this is why I'm putting all my attention on it.
I'll post again as soon as I have news.
Stay safe!
Hey everyone. It's time to add a new encyclopedia entry concerning skills. This week it concerns the polearm skill. The prominent feature of polearms is letting allies in the back rows in the formation grid to reach and attack foes in the front lines of battle.
I have nothing to add as I'm extremely busy with Archrebel's development. I can't wait to return to Underlair but it's simply not feasible at the moment. I just wish everything goes according to plan; I'm doing all I can for that to happen. ^^
Stay safe!
A new encyclopedia entry is now available covering the abilities that can be used with swords. There you will find some designations like Attack Level Modifier or Damage level Modifier, these may not make much sense for now, but don't worry, these will be covered in detail in the Combat encyclopedia entry.
Access this Sword Abilities here.
I keep getting questioned about how co-op will work in Underlair, and rightly so. Therefore, I finally added an entry in the encyclopedia that describes how it works. I also describe how players can circumvent permadeath using Rebirth sones.
The co-op entry can be found here.
The Rebirth stones entry is here.
The final set of classes for the encyclopedia is now available as well as an additional entry that describes the available actions during combats.
Access the scholar classes here.
Access the action-points entry here.
And what else is new? Well, I've quit my job; this makes me officially a full-time game developer. A bold move for sure, but I'll stay attentive to any job offers that may surface in the meantime, meeting my set of conditions.
While this doesn't happen, I'm working 12-14 hours a day on average on Archrebel, which is coming along impressively well. I will open a new blogger soon just to post about it as now I actually have the time to handle both projects. Nonetheless, I'm prioritizing Archrebel as it's far smaller in scope and key for Underlair's success.
Stay safe!
The psycaster classes are now available in the encyclopedia. While their perks' names on this set of classes remain the same, their functionality suffered great changes, and the results can be found here.
So, what's new about the whole job situation to become a full-time game
developer? Well, the response is tied with what chance will be brought to the
table next week. There are some pending issues at my job which involve going
to a new project, which may not fit my current needs and expertise.
As
destiny plays its card, I started working on Archrebel: Prelude to get
myself familiar with Unity's 2D functionality to create a proof-of-concept
strategy/roguelike game I had in the drawer for a long time.
To my
surprise, in 7 days, I managed to develop nearly as much as I had done
previously in 4 months creating my own engine and editor for the same project.
Sure I knew it would be faster but not this faster.
Below is the
resulting effort. I drew all sprites myself, learned to use tilemaps, tile
pallets, tile slicing, implemented pathfinding and got the grip of some
critical features like layer sorting, which was getting on my nerves at first,
and develop a grid (thanks to Code Monkey on youtube) to work with pathfinding
features when using tilemaps.
Another major entry is now available in the encyclopedia, this time covering more details of the Rogue class and its respective class specializations. The new entry can be found here.
I've concluded the first template entry for the encyclopedia regarding the playable classes. You finally get to learn more about the Warrior's perks. During the next week, I will create another entry for the rogue classes - there are still some aspects I need to consider for their perks and they will probably end up being different from what I originally described.
Apart from putting some effort into the encyclopedia, I've continued with the integration of the new characters' generator UI. It's about 75% done at this point and it has suffered some unscripted improvements. Also, the cooking skill has been replaced with camping.
Click here for a shortcut.
Stay safe!
So, here are the scholar classes. To my surprise, this was the easier set of classes to create, since each one of these class specializations is quite specific.
Now, with the class sets out of the way, I'm returning to the development of the new character generation screen, which is about 50% complete. If all goes according to plan, it will be finished during the next week.
After the UI gets finalized, I'll focus a bit on the site's encyclopedia which has been neglected for a long period of time - far too long.
I'm now off to watch a movie and after that, I will resume work.
Stay safe!
And here they are, the psycaster classes. I decided to change the procedural generator class's name and symbol so that each base class will be unique. Instead of 'Eye of the X' it will appear 'Disciple of X', where 'X' will be a fictional name.
It was a fun ride going back to my notes created almost a year ago. I've tuned some class specializations and changed some of the old perks. While everything is still theorized, the present information is quite solid at this point.
As you may have noticed, I'm not using the traditional Battlemage and Archmage names as they are not particularly compatible with the world of Underlair. There is no concept of magic in Underlair, 'spells' are referred to as abilities and these abilities are the product of using cerebral waves that can manipulate matter to an atomic level. There is no concept of 'magic' damage either. Damage is strictly based on logic, i.e. throwing a rock with psycrum abilities will cause impact/crush damage and not magic damage.
Next week, I'll present the last set of classes belonging to the Scholar branch. I'm curious to see how it will turn out as I haven't thought about their icons yet.
Stay safe!
Sigh... I thought I wasn't going to post anything today as I was not really liking the symbol for the thief. Alas, I finally came up with something I liked after experimenting with ideas such a loot bags, diamond symbols, and whatnot.
There isn't much to add, other than tomorrow I will resume working on the UI. Next week's post will be about unveiling the Psycaster classes. Do let me know if you have any questions regarding the functionality of these classes - I really need to start working on the Encyclopedia. So much to do, so little time...
Stay safe!
[EDIT]
Outcast's description modified. Thanks for the heads-up Moorkh!
The UI development is going well and I can already use it to preview world maps directly in the game. As I keep developing it, I decided to make a brief pause to unleash my creativity so I could have something meaningful to post here ;). Below is the current set of planned classes that will be accessible for warrior-type characters.
The specialization classes are unlocked by joining guilds associated with the base class. Characters will need to increase their rank within the guild and pass a challenge related to the specialization class they wish to unlock (side quest). The Eye of the Warrior class is an exception to this as it will require other ways of unlocking it, which I won't spoil, for now. :)
This was a fine week of vacations. I managed to finalize the UI's mockup for the character generation as well as having a blast playing Massive Darkness table game with my soulmate.
I believe that the new UI provides a cleaner way of generating characters, with a new approach to the information available when choosing classes.
Hello everyone! Following the acquisition of the new vector graphics software: Affinity Designer, and the development of the in-game UI design, I decided to tackle the whole UI aspect of Underlair to make it easier to maintain and with a cleaner look. The new style is strongly inspired by a well-known game; try to guess which one is it. :)
Below, is the mockup of the options set menu players can configure when starting a new solo or co-op game.
The options present in the screen above are not 100% established and will be modified. Still, they grant a solid overview of what it attempts to achieve. The world generation algorithm settings and the preview window will provide more options and information players can access to better understand the world's outcome using their custom settings.
Although I really like the old stone background in the character generating screen, it is far more time-consuming to create and maintain; all that stone denting and cracks were done by hand. I'm currently revamping it using the new art style for consistency's sake. The next update will be about showing its revamped version.
Stay safe!
[Edit]
UI image updated. 2x times!
It's time; I had enough with Inkscape. Its quality has been decreasing with each new update. Speed never was its strength, but it has reached a point that I have to wait several seconds whenever I want to move the view with filters active. Then there are the bugs; for some reason, changing blend modes between layers stopped updating the viewport unless I use zoom in-out to force a refresh. Other problems include vector glitches - the image below shows what I'm getting when zooming in the rectangle on the left.
For extra fun, the latest update of Inkscape crashes while opening my latest Inkscape files, and this my friend, was the last nail on its coffin. Therefore, this week was all about finding a replacement for Inkscape. After checking out some alternatives and running some tutorials, I really thought I was fraked finding something as efficient and easy to work with at a decent price. Adobe Illustrator offers a complete mess of UI, while CorelDRAW offers a clumsy experience with poor Grid management, both coming at a very high cost to the point it insults hobbyists. So, I was forced to extend my search for less-established solutions.
Alas, fortune hit yesterday! Affinity Designer is a nearly perfect experience. Its UI is simply amazing and it has a very good grid management system. In a single afternoon, I became nearly as proficient using it as I'm currently with Inkscape, which I've been using for 7 years.
Affinity Designer packs all the features I need for UI design in a more convenient way when compared with Inkscape itself. Its only drawback is its inability to trace images, but I guess I can use Inkscape for that. I really thought that it would be an expensive solution, but its single-purchase license of less than 30€ was too good to be true! In other words, it costs roughly the same as a monthly subscription of Adobe Illustrator or CorelDraw!
So, for now, I'm redoing some work using the new software, but since I'm now on vacation for the next 2 weeks, I might have something to show next week.
I've been dwelling into the gameplay mechanics and redesigning some aspects of it. As result, I had to scrap the common inventory functionality trading it for the good-old-independent inventory system per character.
Welcome back! A lot of things happened since I last posted. For starters, I've made the PayPal donations amount public and activated google's AdSense for some extra income (give it a click!). Soon, I will also begin to donate to the treasury; I just need first to recover my monthly budget from the last investment I did by purchasing several Unity tools for Underlair.
One of the assets is visible in the image below, which provides day-night cycle, weather, volumetric lights and fog, sunbeams, and other features. Other changes are present in the UI. I've tuned down some colors and made the avatars' blood darker. I believe this works better with the game's dark atmosphere.
Following some feedback exchange with one of the enthusiastic supporters of Underlair, under the alias of 'shoTgun', I've restructured the psycrum pool into, what I believe to be, a better approach for representing the levels of psycrym (mana) of each psycrum pool available.
The dark spheres are psycrum pools that haven't been unlocked yet, while the colored ones are unlocked pools. The large dented "sphere" or general psycrum pool, indicates the psycrum available in the character's body, which is the combined score of all unlocked psycrum pools.
The general psycrum pool, is also the representation of the psycrum available for executing actions requiring no affiliated psycrum, these are called neutral psycrum actions. For example, executing a power attack with a melee weapon, will force the general psycrum pool to draw psycrum randomly from one of the 3 unlocked pools.
The general psycrum pool is always unlocked and available for executing neutral psycrum actions. In order for characters to access other psycrum pools, they will need to find NPCs that can provide the appropriate training.
"In the world of Underlair, most living creatures have psychic abilities, this includes wildlife, monsters, and even plants. All characters in the game (both PC and NPCS) are capable psycasters and can train any skill or ability. However, some may emphasize a physical approach instead of a psychic one."
The in-game UI mockup has been in development for nearly a month now and was modified dozens of times before reaching a satisfying functional state.
Underlair is not a simplistic dungeon crawler and doesn't feature side-stepping-dancing combat mechanics as the main tactics to defeat foes. Combat is built over a strategy formula, infused with several RPG elements. This results in a heavier and more informative UI, where critical information needs to stay permanently visible for easy access and management.
Below is an image containing some details of each UI element. This simple image consumed a whole week to work. Mostly because it forced me to rethink some mechanics and also because got a BSOD right when saving the file, resulting in the loss of 6 hours of work; punching the desk and screaming at the screen was also featured.
I will now begin the arduous task of making the UI functioning in Unity. The mockup image will be cut into several elements and I still need to study some implementation aspects of it. I'm not sure how long this will take. I'll try to post at least once per week from now onwards, that is, if time and development permit me to have something useful to add.
As I keep working on the UI (which is being somewhat restructured for best functionality), I'm sharing a screenie that shows some changes in the character generation menu. Following some feedback, I've changed the main attribute color codes to a less vivid tone to better fit the atmosphere the game presents.
The most prominent change concerns the main attribute controls that have been converted to arrows and placed close to the attribute score itself, instead of laying on their own panel with the '-' and '+' symbols positions inverted.
After figuring out the basics for the multiplayer, it is now time to tackle the in-game UI. Bellow, is a teaser of the unfinished UI, focusing on the party formation, which I believe, will provide a unique feature for combat mechanics. Warning! It may not work as you expect. ^^
The first steps towards co-op have been achieved! Using Mirror, Underlair now supports a Server-Client approach for co-op gameplay, where one player will host a session for other players to join in.
Bellow, is an in-game image showing 3 players connected, represented by placeholder 3d models and one first-person view. Each group of characters represents a player. You can see that, depending on the player count, the characters controlled will change accordingly.
After a serious experimentation process for nearly a month, I finally have something that I'm happy about. In this video, we will have our first look at what an Underlair is prone to feel and look like.
I'm now continuing with the experimentation as other aspects of Underlairs still need to be considered. Hopefully, I won't take as long for the next update.
The unground cave / Underlair generator system is finally taking shape. I've been working on it for two weeks now. I really thought it would be easier, but I was confronted with several problems which would break the surface algorithm, so I decided to make them independent; more code but less hassle.
After taking care of some Unity problems and performance issues, I showcase in this video some of the new changes, including a brief overview of some creatures that will feature in the game.
