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Notes

Took a while to get the animations to look decent. There are still issues. The walk looks a little bland. No animation was done to the hands, the run may need improved arm swing movement.

When moving around in the game the character is noticeably dull. The collision needs to be tweaked so player can’t stand in the air next to edges. The landing animation needs to be tweaked or something else does. There’s a delay in landing that make the player look like they are floating. Probably just needs to be sped up.

Issue I had trouble figuring out.

When exporting from Blender there are some settings specific for Unity. However I was unsure of the best options and it took a while of exporting and importing the model and animations. Still not sure of the optimal way but these setting got the best results.

Once exported, I imported the model and found it best to duplicate the animations and then move them to a relevant folder. I accidentally broke a setting in the Unity test area and couldn’t figure out what I broke so the camera didn’t follow the character as expected. Looked for about 40 minutes trying to figure it out.

Most time is spent figuring things out. :)

Good stuff I figured out.

I work better at animation in the evenings. I seem to get better results with less time struggling.

#blender #unity #animtation

I ran into an issue and it took me about forty minute to learn the solution. Was quite concerned about it until I found the answer. The option to turn on and off the FK/IK on the Auto-Rig Pro disappears from the Item info of the selected control when turned off. This was the first location I saw the setting so I wasn’t aware of other options. I search on my own, and looked at older versions of the rig trying to figure it out.

Eventually I was searching documentation for Auto-Rig Pro and saw an option under the Tool tab. Whew!

Bummer I didn’t find it on my own but very glad I did learn where to find it.

3D Character Notes

Used a Unity Asset Store purchased model for the main body. Altered the pants and shirt to add wrinkles and rolled up sleeves. Next I used DAZ Studio to generate a 3D male character. Imported into Blender and used Decimate Modifier to reduce the polygon count. Once I saw a good low poly wire frame I applied the modifier and traced over the head. Afterwards I edited to head a little more to improve it. Next I used Auto-Rig Pro to set up the skeleton and rig controls. Experience with armatures help make this the easiest part. Amusing since in the past this would be very difficult and time consuming. In a video demo of ARP there’s a mention of Voxel Heat Diffuse Skinning. Made the purchase and ran into some odd problems. One I figured it out I ran it with default settings. The first attempt was good but the fingers were still mix matched with weights. So I tried changing the Voxel Resolution to from 128 to 2048 but it was limited to 1024. Trying 1024, it ran on my computer for about half an hour before I shut down Blender and restarted. Tried 256 and the fingers still had issues. So I tried 512 and it worked well. There were still some minor issues with the skin weights so I went ahead and tweaked them by hand. There only some minor issues I may just ignore.

Character Work

Some older animations I’ve done

Using Blender and two powerful add-on for Character Animation. One is called Auto-Rig Pro The other is called Voxel Heat Diffuse Skinning. They have helped me quickly rig and skin this character model. There was a learning curve but it was pretty straight forward and they work well so I recommend them. The model is a mix of my own work as well as a Unity Assets Store I bought. I basically replaced the head and added some wrinkles here and there. The first part of the video shows the rig and a basic pass at skin weights. As you can see there are some issues, most notable is when the neck is moving a good portion of the chest. The second part used VHDS and then made some minor tweaks.

Uploaded an old commercial for the We Slay Monsters game. You can see it here on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5G-0uZbbqVY

Untitled Game

Hello,

Currently working on a simple and short video game. I was inspired by the game “Thirty Flights of Loving” by Blendo Games. It is an interesting and short game that had some nice abstraction to it that I quite enjoyed.

Figured it would be interesting to make a short game as well as document the process. This is a hobby so development will not be smooth and I still need to learn programming. I’m giving myself time to play around but ultimately I’d like to have a working game by the end of 2022. So set your expectations low.

Ray

1.1 Update!

First major update since launch! This update is mostly focused on big balance changes, which should increase the overall difficulty. If that’s not enough, we have added HARD MODE for those of you that want it even tougher.

Features:

Introducing HARD MODE, available on any mission. Hard mode missions will *always* have a miasma, and monsters will have 30% more HP and 30% more Attack power. Completing dungeons on hard mode will grant you 500 gold for completion instead of 200 gold.

Balance Changes:

The difficulty of monsters as you go through chapters will now be harder. Prior to this update, monsters increased 10% in difficulty for each chapter (i.e. the monsters in chapter 5 had 50% more HP and attack than the monsters in chapter 1). This has been increased to 15% per chapter.

All monster unlocks in each chapter have been re-balanced to unlock in a slower fashion. It should average about 1 monster unlocked per mission, but could be more if you had a particularly good run (i.e. earned a lot of points).

UI Tweaks:

When visiting the shoppe before a mission, the randomize button will not show up if it’s use isn’t applicable.

A new reminder message has been added to tell people to upgrade their academy if they haven’t already by the third mission.

Bug FIxes:

Dungeons with unreachable spots due to prisoners or other special items blocking the way should now be more accessible.

Random “invisible” blockages in paths should no longer appear on maps.

Missions played after “winning” the game will no longer be *easier* than they were on chapter 1.

If you had a female hero in the shoppe, choosing to buy a helmet but then changing your mind will no longer leave the poor hero bald.

#Patchnotes #weslaymonsters #Steam #Indiegame

0.9.40.5 Mega Patch!

This is the last “big” patch before 1.0, and contains all of the things that I have been trying to cram in before release. There won’t be another patch before 1.0 unless something is busted :)

For a patch, this one has a LOT of new stuff.

Features:

Score is now something that’s easier to effect based on a players actions (important for the Challenge Leaderboards!). Playing combos now contributes to score; the better the combo, the higher the points scored for playing the combo. If you want a higher score, play more strategically and use bigger combos.

Non-steam platforms can now play challenge levels (but they won’t have their score recorded or have access to the leaderboards).

A new badge has been added for completing a game with your pet still alive.

Balance Changes:

Cows (and other burping things) are now immune to their own burps.

Pots Golems no longer have an extended range.

Gem of Hunger has been relaxed a bit, and a better in-game description of what it does has been added.

How damage is estimated & applied are now calculated the same. In the past, these were two different calculations and could end up being different. As part of this, how certain modifiers are applied has been changed. For example, Sneak Attack now applies to all cards in the combo.

As part of the above changes, Chaotic Power was changed to maybe fire per card in a given combo, instead of for the combo as a whole.

Also as part of these changes, Elementalist will no longer fire for non-elemental cards played in a combo with elemental cards.

Some missions are now limited to certain professions.

The order that cards are applied in multi-card combos is now deterministic. The order for each profession is as follows:

Wizard: Orb, Bowling Ball, Fireball, Crystal, Lightning, Staff

Warrior: Shield, Shout, Sword Jab, Sword Slash, Rubber Ducky, Head Butt

Rogue: Dagger, Beer, Decoy, Trap, Truncheon, Snakes

UI Tweaks:

2x sprites are now used for resolutions >=1600 width & >= 1040 height.

When doing Challenge Levels, you can view your points on the screen now, to see how you’re doing. In non-challenge levels, points are now available on the character sheet screen.

All usable items now have some flavor text associated with them.

Character stats have been added to the level up screen, so you don’t have to go view them to help choose the best level up perk.

The messages the headmasters hold up on their signs at the end of each game are now varied, instead of always being the same.

The monster character sheet has been adjusted to change the effects to only their icons. You can mouse over to view the text associated with the effect.

Effects have been completely removed from the Hero character sheet; they are on the screen already and don’t need to be duplicated.

Removed animation from miasma icons.

Added a bunch more mini-cutscene animations for various in-game bosses & rescuees.

Bug FIxes:

If you had a “left over” level up saved up when loading the game, sometimes that would freeze the game.

#Patchnotes #weslaymonsters #Steam #itchio #Indiegame

Update #40 “Ravenous Raven”

Update #40 is now live on Steam! This is our penultimate release before 1.0, which we’re currently scheduled to release on June 22nd (assuming no massive, game breaking bugs are found between now and then).

With "Ravenous Raven”, we are feature complete for our 1.0 launch. We will be focusing on bugs and balance issues between now and launch, and there may also be a bit of polish added as well (touching up animations, changing some of the campaign wording, etc).

We have been in early access for a long time, and we appreciate all of the great feedback and ideas we have gotten from the community during this time. We look forward to getting 1.0 out the door!

Enough gabbing, here’s the release notes for this release:

Features:

Challenge Missions have been added to the game! These missions will be generated weekly, and give all players a chance to compete on an even playing field. Every player will get the same dungeon, with access to the same starting characters -- limited to a single profession each week. There is an in-game leader board that will show the top 10 people, and show you where you are in the leader board. A couple more notes:

Every dungeon in challenge mode has a miasma. It’s supposed to be challenging, after all!

The shoppe is closed for characters running through challenge levels

Likewise, these recruits are the rawest of the raw. They haven’t even been given the chance to learn any of the skills that you might have unlocked in the academy!

Challenge Missions are unlocked after finishing the third mission in the campaign.

Challenge Mission points don’t contribute to any unlocks for a chapter.

Challenge Missions can be repeated as much as you want to try to get to #1 on the leader boards!

The Hall of Records and the Beastiary have been separated. There is now a “Zoology Department” building in the Academy where your record keeps catalog all of the beast you encounter or might encounter soon.

Card Effects have been added. These are perks that are available for starting characters, or as level up perks during the game, and they provide extra effects when cards with certain face values are dealt. These four effects have been added:

4 the win: when a 4 card is dealt, earn 4 experience

Takes a 3 to make a Heart: when a 3 card is dealt, heal for 3 HP

Lucky 7s: when a 7 card is dealt, earn 7 gold

8 Gents of Shield: when an 8 card is dealt, gain a shield that absorbs 8 damage

Curses have returned to the game! People who have been part of early access for a while may remember these. They were way to powerful for monsters, and they have been tuned down significantly.

Balance Changes:

The 10,000 gold bonus for early access has been removed.

All flush attacks (3 or more cards of the same suit) were audited to make sure the damage they were doing was accurate, and that the damage was displayed correctly on the screen. In some cases (warrior attacks), the flushes were not doing the proper damage, and in others, they were doing the proper damage, but the predictive damage text was inaccurate.

Gem of Hunger is not quite so hungry. Before being sated, it will claim only 5% of your hero’s health. After sated, it will still claim 1 HP per turn. It now gives a +20 strength boost instead of +30.

UI Tweaks:

A new credit screen has been added. You can view it from the main menu, or see it when you finish the campaign.

A new animation has been added for shuffling your cards. It’s about time that a card-based game has shuffling!

The predictive damage shows as part of the selected combo information has been removed. It was always a bit confusing, because there were two different predictive damage displays being shown: One on the monsters themselves, which took into account the monsters’s defense value, and the one on the bottom of the screen, which was the potential maximum damage the combo could have done. They never matched, and I don’t think it was ever clear why, so I removed the one on the bottom, leaving on the predictive damage number on the monsters.

As a corollary, the display at the bottom of the screen *does* show the correct bonus damage that playing the combo will do, and all of these have been audited to ensure they are displayed the same way (some showed +25% vs +125% when they really meant the same thing, +25%. If +125% is displayed now, it really does mean double plus an extra 25%).

An animation has been added to the icon that shows environmental effects (things like burps, slime, etc), to draw the player’s attention that there is some trouble they might want to be aware of.

Tooltips have been added on the player’s character sheet to help explain what the different attributes do (Strength, Intellegence, etc).

#weslaymonsters #Patchnotes #indiegame #Steam

Shufflin’ Shufflin’

Finally got around to adding a shuffle animation to our card-based roguelike. You’d think that would be one of the first things you do in a card-based game. We like to do things the hard way :)

#screenshotsaturday #indiegame #weslaymonsters

New Features

One of the last new features I’m working on is adding special effects when you deal certain cards. As of now, I’m done with two of them. Here’s what they look like.

Lucky 7s: When you are dealt a card with a face value of 7, you get 7 gold!

Takes 3 to make <3: When you are dealt a card with a face value of 3, you heal 3 Health.

#weslaymonsters #screenshotsunday #indiegame

Update 39 “Terrible Teether”

Update #39 “Terrible Teether” is now live on Steam and itch.io!

Another big release, with lots of new stuff, and big balance changes. Because of this, a full reset will be performed with this update; we want to see how the new balance changes effect everyone’s ability to move through the game.

This is our antepenultimate update before 1.0, and with this release, we are almost feature complete. There are a couple of new things we’re working on for Update 40, but we’re planning on that update being mostly bug fixes, balance tweaks, and polish. We are aiming for Update 40 by the end of May, and 1.0 min-June.

Full list of changes for this update:

Features:

The shoppe in the Academy behaves differently now. At the beginning of each mission, you now have the opportunity to purchase items for your recruit (including extra potions and discard runes) from your shoppe, and as you increase the level of items in the shoppe, better equipment will be available to purchase for your recruits. If you don’t like the equipment that’s presented, you can pay 50g to get another assortment of random items.

Dungeons can now have miasmas. These are negative effects that make the dungeon harder. Seoc from the Steam forums suggested this idea, and I liked it so much, I pretty much did exactly what he suggested (mostly). Many of the Dungeon Mods he suggested have been implemented as miasmas.

A new badge has been added for completing a dungeon with a miasma.

The Hall of Records is finally open in the Academy, along with the Beastiary. Check out your progress in the game, learn interesting facts.

Pets are back! I think we finally nailed the pesky bugs that were plaguing some players. Pet AI has also been tweaked to be a little better (pets shouldn’t wander off randomly now).

A certain mission in Chapter 3 has been “happied” up. Seoc from forums point this out, and we agreed.

A new achievement has been added for winning the game.

The original sound track DLC has been published to Steam. All early access customers will get this for free. If you own this content, a button has been added to the main menu to open the folder that contains the album.

A new gem has been introduced: Gem of Hunger. It steals your life gradually, but gives a huge strength bonus when used. You have been warned.

Balance Changes:

Monster hit points, attack and defense have all been raised, and the rates at which they increase as monsters level has also been increased.

As you progress through the campaign, monsters will become increasingly more difficult (essentially +10% harder for each chapter in the campaign).

Combos that contain more than one card have been made more powerful (to encourage their use against harder monsters).

Runes of Discard no longer consume a turn to use (to encourage their use to help build combos against harder monsters).

If you fail a dungeon multiple times, the difficulty will be adjusted slightly to make that particular dungeon easier.

Due to the changes in the way the shoppe works, new recruits will no longer come with their own items or weapons.

UI Tweaks:

A tooltip has been added for prisoners that need rescuing or things that need doing in the dungeon (trees that need to be cut down, for example).

A new animation has been added when keys are found in the dungeon.

Status effect tooltips have been updated to show “per turn” damage for things that actually cause “per turn” damage (Snaked, Sticky Barf, etc).

Added a button on the chapter intro screen to skip boring flavor text, if you want to hurt our feelings and not read our amazing story.

Multiple bosses of the same type are now combined on the final scorecard (the gold given is the same, they are just shown once instead of multiple times).

Bug Fixes:

Fixed a bug with the Gem of Balance (wouldn’t cause any problems, just show a red error message in the console).

Changing sound preferences (music & SFX volume) now properly saves those settings.

Things that are “snaked” will no longer attack pets.

Loot pinatas are now “truly” random and wont show up in the same place if you fail a dungeon and retry that same dungeon. Sorry, loot scammers.

Fixed some stuff around how missions were assigned to areas. This was causing problems for some players.

#weslaymonsters #Patchnotes #indiegame #Steam #itchio

Building the Hall Of Records

One of the features that we have had on the list for a long time is the “Hall of Records”, where players can go to see the history of their accomplishments in the game. One of the reasons that I haven’t worked on this so far is that user interfaces are hard. Especially with how we’re currently building them. We started the game before Unity had a decent built-in UI, so all of the UI elements are essentially hand crafted (using some Toolkit 2D UI elements).

When I’m building a UI, I (almost) always start with a sketch. Here’s what I imagined the Hall of Record UI would look like:

At the top is some basic information, and then a nifty bar graph showing how many times the player has died, and at what level. Given that We Slay Monsters is a roguelike, we’re expecting lots of deaths, and I thought a graph would be fun! Below that, a list of all badges ever earned, and a Beastiary, showing all monsters ever encountered.

Then I went to work, laying this out in Unity. Here’s what this ended up looking like:

As you can see, I had to make some changes from the original sketch, but a lot of it ended up pretty much how I imagined it. The biggest change was the necessity to move the Beastiary to it’s own panel. I just couldn’t fit everything I wanted in this one place. Here’s the Beastiary:

The Hall of Records will be in Update #39, which should be done within the next week or so.

#weslaymonsters #gamedev #gamedesign #ux

Getting to 1.0!

Just wanted to give everyone a quick update. With the campaign mode now complete, we're in the process of putting the finishing touches on everything, and getting the game out of early access. Here's our current plan for updates: 0.9.39 - First round of balance changes (making the game harder), various features & bug fixes. 0.9.40 - Another round of balance changes, campaign mode tweaks, final round of features. 1.0.0 - Final round of balance changes, bug fixes, polish. We're going to aim for (at most) 2-3 weeks in between each of these updates, so we're hoping to "release" the game out of early access in the next six weeks or so. Here's our plan for release: Everyone that has purchased the game in early access will also get a copy of the soundtrack! Still figuring out how to do this :) We will introduce a bundle that includes the game and the soundtrack in addition to being able to just buy the game. There will be a price increase when we launch, still determining the final price for the game and the bundle with the soundtrack. So, if you have been on the fence, get it now while it's still cheap! Finally, I wanted to send a huge shout out to everyone that's played the game and shared your feedback. The game is what it is because of you, and we appreciate everything everyone has shared with us.

Update #38 “Grumbling Goat”

Update #38 “Grumbling Goat” is now live on Steam and itch.io!

This is a huge milestone for us. With Update 38, the campaign mode is now complete (well, sort of, read more below). Battle through the Institute of Evil to discover the evil behind the problems that have been plaguing The Land!

The story needs to have a few more tweaks, and we’ll be working on those next, but with this update, we’re calling it “done”. We now being the push to get the game out of Early Access -- there’s still stuff we want to do, but we’re close to being feature complete. The biggest thing left to do is to balance the game. It’s too easy, especially as you upgrade your academy. This needs to be fixed so it’s more challenging.

Features:

Chapter 5 of the campaign now live!

A new item has been added: Gem of Balance. It provides a benefit for being in your inventory, and a super-buff when used.

Balance Changes:

Monster’s ability to see and target the player was effected by a flaw in logic; monsters should be able to see and attack the player slightly better now.

Some dungeons (only a few for now, more coming later) have locked doors. Find the keys!

Things without ears are now immune to the Warrior’s shout ability (This included Blobs, Eyeballs, Meandering Shrubs, Worms, Skeletons, and Walking Trees).

UI Tweaks:

Named bosses with “taunt” less often now.

Warrior’s shout animation has been improved, and there is now a visual animation on monsters effected by shout (they are “cowed”).

A glow has been added to make missions on the main map stand out more (Thanks Zoltan!).

Which buildings are clickable in the academy should be clearer now too.

Tweaked the wording for enhancements to existing item in the shop (they now say “Make XXX better”).

Bug Fixes:

You don’t get double bounty gold for killing chickens; the headless versions will no longer give bounty or show up on the scorecard.

Fixed a bug with the animation for summoned monsters where the monster would appear full size for a brief second.

Long boss names should no longer overflow on the character sheet.

#weslaymonsters #Patchnotes #indiegame #Steam #itchio

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