Welcome to yet another post! We did a good chunk of stuff since the last update. Map progression is a constant thing, so we will try to post pictures every post, but we don't want to show too much of the map and spoil the layout. Aaron is out of town for a week, so we worked some extra hours to crank out some of this post before he heads out. Let us know how you like the development so far!
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This post is the beginning of all the major additions to the gameplay we'll see in the demo! With the map having a section completed, and the AI backbone completed, we could begin on modeling, animating, and implementing some AI.
Up above is a gif showing a variety of Slime types with their animations. All of this is subject to change, and none of it is finalized just yet.
Below is showing off all the different Slime colors you will see through the level.
The first mob to be added is the Slime. We won't go into any detail on the Slime, as we want some stuff to be a surprise still, but so far here's what we added. Texture randomization, so the color changes for the Slime. All the attack animations, movement animations, and idle animations are completed and implemented. That is about 9-10 animations or so.
Their texture is not final, as we want to do a little more work to it in the engine. They will be slightly glowing so you can see them know the dark easier.
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This is a GIF of the current level of the AI retreat system. Above the head is the current stamina vs the max stamina the AI has to work with. At a certain level, the AI will decide to retreat from battle to regain their strength to fight.
Everything is adjustable per mob, from their retreat distance, time to heal, and stamina reservoir minimums.
Each and every AI will have this system, possibly with the exception of the bosses, but we have yet to come to a definitive conclusion.
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We programmed the AI mage system to a basic level. The damage is accurate, and it's path system for the spell works. The mana reservoir works as planned, and the spell distance, size, and power is editable based on the spell and mob. The animation of the spell will be made for each mob/new spell we produce, so this ball in the GIF is just a place holder for us.
At the end, we end up being killed by the AI and it walks away to patrol and/or fight the next player nearby.
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The ranger was also completed. It's pretty much just like the mage, but it's damage type will be physical rather than magical. We don't have a GIF since it looks super similar to the Mage in its current state.
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The map has been greatly optimized. We found that some of the old rock models had too many vertices and were hard to render. This was due to our inexperience with modeling at the time, so we created new models for the game which gave us a 20-30% FPS increase, along with fixing light rendering, crystal rendering, and nanite/LODs for the various models. More optimization will happen as we go, so this isn't the end of it.
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That's all for this update. We hope you all enjoy seeing the progress jump up in scale. Our goal is to get a full playable demo out to everyone as soon as possible so we can play test the game, see where optimization needs to happen, minimum PC specs, and what gameplay features need to change. We'll continue updating with every new bunch of content we produce, and we will give you an update when there is a release date for the demo. Stay tuned!
