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Offline toborprime

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Re: Savage :The Shard of Gosen
« Reply #30 on: November 07, 2015, 01:04:46 PM »
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For Screenshot Saturday, here's some of the new area, Blackfen, (and shameful ripoff of Demon's Crest, Ghouls 'n Ghosts) in action! This is where you'll find some of the more creepy enemy types I've been working on lately.


Offline toborprime

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Re: Savage :The Shard of Gosen
« Reply #31 on: December 22, 2015, 08:54:06 AM »
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The latest devlog is very gif-heavy, as well as containing music and such, so I'll just leave a few images here :)

For the full shebang, head here: http://www.planettobor.com/savage-devlog/2015/12/22/what-sorcery-is-this













Happy holidays, all!

Offline beingthehero

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Re: Savage :The Shard of Gosen
« Reply #32 on: December 22, 2015, 11:17:59 AM »
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I just want to know if you're going to have this in your game:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFYZNvKKWG4

Offline X

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Re: Savage :The Shard of Gosen
« Reply #33 on: December 22, 2015, 11:18:31 AM »
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Still lookin' good toborprime! Can't wait to play it  ;D

Quote
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFYZNvKKWG4

Okay that's badass for a game!
« Last Edit: December 22, 2015, 11:21:19 AM by X »
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Offline toborprime

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Re: Savage :The Shard of Gosen
« Reply #34 on: December 22, 2015, 11:37:20 AM »
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I just want to know if you're going to have this in your game:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFYZNvKKWG4

Holy crap!! I'd have to say, if I DIDN'T have that in there, I fail automatically.

Offline toborprime

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Re: Savage :The Shard of Gosen
« Reply #35 on: December 22, 2015, 11:38:48 AM »
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Still lookin' good toborprime! Can't wait to play it  ;D

Okay that's badass for a game!

Right??

And thanks, X! Can't wait to finish XD

Offline toborprime

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Re: Savage :The Shard of Gosen
« Reply #36 on: February 08, 2016, 03:46:44 AM »
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Time for another gif-heavy update! Same as before, this one also contains music, so I'll leave the link to the full  devblog post here: http://www.planettobor.com/savage-devlog/2016/2/7/201627-you-shouldnt-run-with-knives-but

In addition to new music, the post also contains things like new NPCs, new areas and prop art, and nifty new puzzles!
Here are a few snippets from it:












The game is going great and work is happening pretty darn fast!

Thanks all!

Offline theplottwist

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Re: Savage :The Shard of Gosen
« Reply #37 on: February 08, 2016, 04:34:53 AM »
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Every time I see this little guy running, I wish this game was out already. Looking awesome there, man.
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Offline toborprime

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Re: Savage :The Shard of Gosen
« Reply #38 on: February 08, 2016, 05:06:20 AM »
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Every time I see this little guy running, I wish this game was out already. Looking awesome there, man.

Haha! Yeah, he does have a bit of a goofy gait - one that has stuck around since the very beginning (second animation in the project). I have been too lazy to go back and fix it, since I'd have to do the same with every single other armor overlay, too. Definitely grown on me since, though XD

And thanks very much! Definitely ready to be finished :)

Offline Lelygax

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Re: Savage :The Shard of Gosen
« Reply #39 on: February 15, 2016, 06:22:15 PM »
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Good to know that it still strong and living.
(click to show/hide)
Hau auu~     

Offline toborprime

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Re: Savage :The Shard of Gosen
« Reply #40 on: February 16, 2016, 05:34:08 AM »
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Good to know that it still strong and living.

Alive and kickin!

Offline toborprime

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Re: Savage :The Shard of Gosen
« Reply #41 on: May 26, 2016, 06:42:04 AM »
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D'oh! I forgot to post some stuff from the March update here  :-[ *facepalm*

In any event, here's some progress on the project!







With all of the new elements and rooms I am creating for the game, I am slowly addressing my game flow concerns. Things like, "Is this too repetitive?" "How do I make these rooms more interesting?" have come barreling their way to the front of my concerns. Pacing things like interactivity, enemy placement, and things like powerups are a real concern for me. After all, how many times can someone smack something with a sword before it starts to get boring? Hopefully, quite a few times if the core combat mechanics are good enough, ha!

Structuring levels and rooms, I have started to notice annoying design crutches that I repeat. Like tunnel shapes and similar geography elements. It's like writing music -- you start to realize that maybe you are using similar progressions across multiple songs. This is not necessarily a bad thing in some situations, I guess, since this also evokes a certain style, but I feel it's necessary to be aware of so I don't wind up with a finished game and thousands of rooms that all feel too same-y!

Anyway, I've also gotten around to adding some Ninja Gaiden-esque cutscenes:





You can check out a more word-y and image-y update here, if you're curious: http://www.planettobor.com/savage-devlog/2016/5/25/2016525-gaiden-mode

Thanks all! :)

Offline toborprime

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Re: Savage :The Shard of Gosen
« Reply #42 on: August 05, 2016, 03:26:26 AM »
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Greetings, all!

I've got a handful of things to show you and discuss, including an upcoming playable developer build (more on that below!) for the backers to try out.

Continuing to Solve the Platformer Problem

I've talked before about making the traversal within the game more "platformer friendly", in that I have a bunch of bad guys that aren't necessarily learn-able in the sense that they are much more reactive; the environment and player position largely dictates their behavior. I've been trying to solve this by adding enemies that have a more dependable, hazard-like set of rules.

I've added a couple more baddies to my arsenal of insidious creatures that fill that hole:





First, we've got a new enemy that I've affectionately dubbed "clingjaw". It's mostly a static monster; it's claw clinging to the ground and walls, with segments and a head that move about in relation to its claw position. It's great for "blocking" the player's progress, forcing the player to figure out a way around the thing (hacking it to pieces is always a good option).

Another beastie I've been messing around with is the slime (finally - yay, slimes!). The basic variety just sort of wobbles around and will occasionally launch itself at the player. Since it's design is so basic, I've kinda gone hog-wild with it, producing a bunch of different varieties and appropriate palette swaps:



The Blue Slime is the derpiest of the bunch, as pictured above. The Red Slime is a bit more aggressive, and has an attack animation. The Green Slime behaves like the Blue Slime, but upon death, pops apart and produces a series of hazardous acidic droplets. The Purple Slime is the real jerk and can cling to ceilings, drop onto the player, and attack him like the Red Slime.





Also, for anyone interested, I've been using a free piece of software that's saved me a ton of time to map out enemy behaviors:

Visual Understanding Environment -- http://vue.tufts.edu/



Beats the heck out of scratch paper!

Also, I've finally dropped in a working collision-based spike trap -- simple, and a no-brainer for games like this, but it's great to have it in, now.



Subterranean Forest

In addition to the newer Devil's Shade forested area, there is a new underground forest zone, Helsgarten, that connects to it along the path to the Highlands area on the overworld map.



For this, I've been able to reuse a ton of assets to create a new area. For example, tree tilesets have been reused to create sort of organic pillars, inverted roots allow me to create trees that "grow" upside-down, along with inverted grass tiles.

Seasons and Random Encounters Redone

I have been working from a very convoluted and clunky system that draws the appropriate seasonal tiles, based on the season and biome you're currently in. I've scrapped a LOT of that particular way of doing things, and simplified stuff like crazy. For example, I used to have a layer dedicated to "green grass", and another layer dedicated to "summer weather". Likewise, I had a "winter snow" layer, and a seperate "snow" layer for the Northern regions of the game where snow falls year round. Apply that logic all across the other areas of the game and you can probably start to see how unmanageable it eventually becomes.

I've cut all that out and now just have a global "summer weather" layer, "fall weather" layer, etc., regardless of the zone type you're in. Having redone that, I've also gotten rid of the old random encounter system -- or at least shaken it up a bit. In conjunction with the old seasonal rendering system, I had a set of rooms that would ALWAYS be randomly picked from when you triggered a random encounter on the world map. The array of rooms picked from would always be the same, regardless of your current biome, and then "skinned" appropriately based on biome and the current season/weather situation.

Nope. No more. I now have biome-designated rooms that will be appropriately picked from. This also lets me create signature geometry styles based on your current region, adding some much needed character to each zone.



See?! SO MANY less tile layers! And less headaches, as another positive result!

Drawing Pipeline Redone

The old way of rendering the day/night cycle got the boot, too. I used to clumsily "draw" a semi-transparent rectangle over the front of the screen with a color appropriate to the current time of day -- I hated it and always wanted to change it. So, I rolled up my sleeves and did. The rectangle made it hard to see the screen in a lot of cases, especially at sunrise, dusk and full night.

Now, instead, I blend a color into the application surface (the end result of all the game's drawing events -- or, the screen and what you're seeing every frame). This gives me a lot more control over adjusting the color values of what the player is seeing, while still maintaining readability over your character and environment. Blues are now bluer at midnight, oranges and reds are more apparent at sunrise and sunset, etc.

This also allows me to do fun stuff with my light sources during the evening and night times, "cutting out" a circle around, say, a torch, where I don't want any color blending:



On top of that, the transitions between day and night on the world map have gotten a lot smoother and more varied (albeit a little buggy at the moment), also thanks to now applying color transitions to the 3D fog:





Story Sequences

With the content that's in the game and already finished, I'm going back and tightening up existing story sequences and cinematics:



New Update Schedule - Playable Build

From here on out, starting this weekend, I'll be posting weekly updates on the project's progress -- I've gotten into a bad habit of releasing updates every 4-8 weeks -- no good and I'm sorry about that! ... Which brings me back around to the subject of getting a playable build to you!

Within the next couple of weeks, I'm aiming to release a playable build to the backers and those who picked up the game via the Groupees Greenlight Bundle, containing the first few areas and such brought up to a polished and near release-worthy state. Polishing up and finishing the content that comprises the first chunk of the game will give me a good idea what it will take to finish this game, as well as getting feedback from anyone interested in giving it a go!

There are several things that I'd like to get in place before doing so, like getting a working save system in place, now that I know what it looks like to progress through the game (things like tracking opened/unlocked doors, solved puzzles, defeated bosses, completed cinematics and quests, etc.). I'll keep you all posted as I get closer!

'Til the next update, have a great one!

Offline toborprime

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Re: Savage :The Shard of Gosen
« Reply #43 on: August 08, 2016, 04:59:42 AM »
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2016.08.07 - Bug Hunt
Good Morning!



This update sees a general lack of shiny new visuals to show off, but there's plenty of messing around going on under the hood. The battle to get the current content up to a release worthy standard for a playable build continues!

Bug Fixes

There are a TON of these little jerks lurking in the game, and I've prioritized a handful for the playable demo.

- A couple obnoxious ones have come about thanks to my fiddling with the day/night cycle:



You can see the drawing of the torch gets weird during a fade-in/fade-out, as well as when you triumphantly pause the screen and hold your newly discovered item aloft (so much for fanfare).

- Hitting treasure chests, especially when they are up against a wall triggers a bug that causes the chest to REFUSE to open unless moved:



- Opening your inventory screen turns off the day/night drawing effect:



- Opening your inventory also turns off the seasonal check for future rooms that you transition into. You can see the second room deciding it's just gonna draw ALL the seasonal tile layers... because it hates me:



- Certain (and only certain, of course) falling hazards ignore your shield (game needs hardhat):



- If you have a shield equipped when entering and exiting a doorway, things get real screwy:



- Blood particles, when hitting a solid that can potentially move, don't move along with the solid object they've landed on:



Minor Improvements and Fixes

Things aren't all doom and gloom, though! Here are a handful of tweaks and fixes I've made this week:

- I can't remember if I've addressed this already, but you can now grab one-way ledges (the background platforms you can jump up through and land on top of. This certainly makes traversal feel better and more fair:



- Picking up liftable objects and enemies is faster. Again, a minor tweak, but it feels a LOT better and less sluggish. The minor speed adjustment feels like it improves survivability, since you are vulnerable during this animation:

Here's the slow lift:


... and the lift after the tweak:



- The new Clingjaw enemy has been fixed -- segment spacing has been improved, and when the head and segments meet a solid object, they are easier to see -- attacking segments did not carry the damage over to the "head", and the enemy now dies correctly:



- Biome detection has been simplified when on the overworld. The pink ovals you see on the map used to set the active biome when the player object collided with them. Now, the active biome is set when the player collides with a random encounter based on proximity to the pink object. This cuts down on collision detection on the map:



- Weighted pressure plates used to be... um... yeah. See the before and after for yourself:



Save System

I've started to plot out how this thing is going to work now that I have enough junk to track, like:

  • certain doors and gates opened/unlocked
  • cinematics and story events completed
  • quests completed
  • bosses killed
  • character level, inventory, general progress tracked
  • certain items found
... and a host of other things. This is a daunting prospect, but one I'm slowly getting to grips with and figuring out.

Playable Build Checklist

In addition to all of the previously mentioned tasks and issues, here's a general rundown of everything I'd like to have completed and/or addressed in the next couple weeks so you all can give it a try!

  • finish first NPC village including (finally) a vendor
  • finalize dialogue bits and interaction with the NPCs in the mining prison
  • GUI improvements
  • redesign UI interaction with gamepad and keyboard
  • implement save system
  • finish burning village story events
  • finish Tra'Tibowt boss fight
  • updated impact sprites (like jumping on an enemy's head and stunning them)
  • more general and universal sprites for the overworld encounters

That about covers things for this week. I'll keep you all posted with another update next Sunday.

Have a great rest of your weekend!

-Matt

Offline Kale

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Re: Savage :The Shard of Gosen
« Reply #44 on: August 08, 2016, 03:05:09 PM »
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Gotta say, I'm not a fan of the old school look much..... but damn it, if it's animation is not smooth as fuck! Looks freakin' awesome.

What's the price you're looking at?

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