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Scope creep happens to indie devs because, in the time it takes to make a game on you own, multiple new games from devs/series that directly inspire you will be released.
Signed, an dungeon crawler RPG dev who loves Atlus, currently fighting not to let Metaphor Refantazio make him reevaluate his whole life.
Finally feel like I'm breaking my "game developer's block" after basically writing off October!
I had like 5-6 appointments in my immediate family (I'm transport for us), car repair, multiple birthdays, two Canadian Thanksgivings, Halloween (as a parent), + more stuff.
Also I played through Metaphor Refantazio, Atlus's games are very important as inspiration for Labyrinth Lesmosyne, and I also got very, very sidetracked and glued to the election (which was demotivating in it's own right) in my free time, so I hadn't done much code. I had mulled over some design issues, and practiced some art without making anything usable, but finally I'm getting back to coding and have reworked a few important things, so I feel like things can get back on track!
Could be a while before I post another devlog, but I consider my unplanned months hiatus over!
Devlog #1
Ok, I've been working super hard on my game this week, and I have something to show off. Generally, I did not want to start doing Devlogs until I had what I considered a working prototype, and that's what this is. I think I'm at the point where a lot of basic things work, and I will be able to focus on building it out, which will make for more interesting regular updates.
So, what we're seeing in this clip is:
SPLASH SCREEN - just a test of animation and the flow of booting up the game, it will not be in there for long, I just threw random assets in.
SAVING & LOADING - The title screen is plain, the "Settings" option doesn't do anything yet, but the "New Game" and "Load Game" do! They currently go off of one filepath and save games are stored as JSON so I can edit them easily for testing, and they don't yet prompt "are you sure?", they just do it, and the functions work. I can save my game and all the party and player stats and values load in properly. [Not shown: there is a save button in the Pause menu, but that menu is very basic]
BATTLE UI - All is placeholder, and ugly, but I focused down on getting it to work. That means, while I was throwing buttons in there for testing early on, I spent major time reworking menus to work with controller instead. I may do KB&M support later, once the UIs are actually fully designed, but doing them in parallel while I'm changing things would not be nice. We can attack, you don't have to click "Confirm" anymore, just a controller button, we have spells/skill and items which can target either enemies or allies, and both single-target an multitarget skills exist and flash up corresponding selector arrows, after which you can confirm your target. Party members have an HP/MP display and the character whose turn it is will be highlighted on their turn
MESSAGE OVERLAY - As you can see, I've worked out the system to have messages give the player feedback in-battle which can also be used for dialogue out-of-battle. It works off of a queue containing both messages that auto-play and messages that you have to confirm before moving on, so I can mix-and-match as appropriate. I wanted to have this in place so I can soon implement NPCs and shops, and the battles make sense to both me and the player as I add more features to it.
When we load into this test dungeon, we see the old sprite for a demon, I redrew them, as you can see in the first random encounter. None of this is final though, these were also pretty quick I just wanted to discard the really lazy MS Paint-looking sprites If I'm going to be showing the game off more, I want it to be in a better light. I'm not even sure Demons and Bats will be common enemy types in the game, it's just for testing. Nothing that you're seeing is final, or even really fits the vibe in my, mind yet, but it's approaching something that looks like it has the potential to be a game.
After all all of this I haven't added any new enemy types, items, or skills yet, the assets aren't anywhere near what they will be like, no levels have been created yet, but I think what I have is a lot of the "structure" of a basic RPG. I ate my vegetables, the boring parts are functional, and it opens up a lot of doors for what I can develop next.
NEXT GOALS -
NPCs in the overworld (+Shops, need to have a way to acquire items, currently the inventory is hardcoded into a New Game)
Implement a method to recruit and dismiss new Party Members, they are also currently hardcoded for testing purposes
There are still lingering menu navigation bugs, but nothing that can't be fixed relatively quickly
Move the starting area to a safe-zone that can be built out as the main hub and create multiple dungeon rooms with different testing conditions
More visual feedback. Having enemies flash on taking damage and displaying damage numbers would be a good start, more complex animations can come later, including spell animations.
Devlog #17 - Big UI upgrade & the Anatomy of a Skill + buff timers
Finally got together a new devlog, and I actually think it's pretty meaty this time! A ton of my focus was on untangling the anatomy of what a Skill actually is in my game, and that also went hand-in-hand with UI upgrades, which are very much WIP
Character portraits are now visible in the Pause menu Summary screens - I needed the character sprites associated with the UI for party members for the next step, so I made them visible here as well. Other than that I have not polished the Pause menu at all, but now you can see the character in their stat screen.
In-battle character wheel & plans for UI regarding targeting - So I had this idea of having the party member who is targetted by a single-target attack (or the entire party in case of a party-wide attack) appear at the bottom of the screen, but because of all the information that can be on screen already, I don't want them to always be visible. My solution is a wheel that displays the selected party member, which can be used both when you are selecting them on your turn AND when the enemy selects one of them for a target. This wheel is not finished, but I have a rudimentary version of it in there to see how I like it.
The anatomy of a Skill - I really had to think this through to untangle a lot of the ideas about how to present information clearly while having a lot of interacting and flexible choices for Skill design. I had come up with a lot of passive abilities that sell the feeling of each character/class, but for example, a Poison boosting passive is only as good as your range of active Poison skills, so I needed many active Skills in each category. I also want things like Fire and Ice mages, while having Fire and Ice feel more interesting than different kinds of elemental damage.
What I have so far - Any active attacking Skill (meaning not Passives, Healing, Status, or Buffs/Debuffs) can be, independantly, either Single-Target or Multi-Target, Single-Hit or Multi-Hit, Magic (costs MP and can be silenced, but has more variety and power) or not Magic, Ranged (bypasses time cost of attacking into many summons but loses accuracy) or Melee (the opposite), have an elemental Type (Fire, Ice, Elec, Poison, etc whatever I need) and a melee damage type (Cut, Pierce, Bash, with their own advantages).
Elemental types aren't rock-paper-scissors, they have more bespoke effects. Instead, Fire spells feel like Fire because they inflict the Burning status. Ice spells can slow or freeze enemies, etc. Skills with those tags though, are made more effective by certain passives. As for Melee types, Pierce skills should bypass Defense buffs, Bash attacks scatter summons, and Cut attacks may deal extra damage on crits (maybe, unsure). A Fire Sword attack, for example can be a Single-target Single-hit, Magic Melee Fire Cut attack, and I can balance it all with MP and Time costs.
That's a lot, I know, and the goal is to make it as simple as possible in the battle UI to strategize, but also make the game very flexible and interesting.
Skill tags & properties - Skills in battle display tags that represent the above properties, so we are always clear what we are working with.
Skill and Item description boxes - Now we can read what our Skills and Items actually do in battle! This will also greatly help me to write down the actual current implementation of skills and balance them while playtesting.
Stat buff turn timers - Stat buffs are now applied on individual 3-turn timers (for now this is by default 3 and maxes out at 3, but that could change). Reapplying a buff resets the timer to 3, but while buffs and debuffs counteract each other, buff don't reset the timer unless they are on the positive side, and vice versa for debuffs (ie you can only extend debuffs with debuffs). An alternative approach would be to have a queue of effects with their own timers, where a bunch of buffs and debuffs can be active at once, meaning if the buffs expire, you could be left with a set of active debuffs, but I think using one side to cancel the other works well in concept, I have to think on it some more.
Such a long post, but I've been thinking about this all for like 40 days since the last one!
Devlog #16 - Switching party members mid-battle + more abilities
After several weeks of planning out abilities and enemies/party members, I have more implementation this time, and part of that is introducing the mechanic to Switch party members mid-battle! Normally, switching in will mean that the new party member's turn is used up (possibly using time on the Battle Clock as well), but there will be a passive ability for roguish types to enter without a penalty.
In addition, more abilities have been implemented! All have temporary names in the prototype so I'll just list some effects;
A spell to cure blindness
A spell to cure Poison
A spell which applies some Regen to the entire Party, or counteracts some Poison is they are Poisoned
A skill that acts as a Defense buff
A skill that sacrifices Speed for a larger Defense buff
A skill that sacrifices Defense for a large Strength buff
A passive ability that has a chance to summon minions when casting magic skills
Multiple summoning abilities for minions that still need to be implemented
Those are just a few I've implemented piecemeal while working on the Switch mechanic, next I'll be pushing farther into implementing skills, particularly to complete existing enemy types and their enemy AI (how they choose which skills to use as enemies)!
Devlog #15 - Implementing more abilities/mechanics + Item Loot
Just a quick update this time, largely an extension of the last devlog, but this time going from ideas for classes and abilities to putting them into words and translating that into implementation.
I go over my approach to design more in detail, and mainly I've been knocking off some of the passive abilities, as they are both somehow easier but also force me to get certain underlying mechanics right to implement them.
In addition, enemies now drop items from a loot table, and the poison mechanic has been reworked. Also, summoned minions now provide a protective purpose by hindering enemy attacks against yourself.
Things are going slow, but steady right now I'd say! I feel as though I've been getting bogged down by distractions in my dev time lately. For me personally, the election season is a big culprit of that (and I'm not even American, but can't look away). But, I'm trying not to break the chain, and get that productivity back steadily!
Devlog #7 - Shephard and Lumberman enemies + new Necromancer animation, summons flee, and new status effects!
Alright, I'm really excited about this one, it's a big one!
The biggest part of my week was finishing three animations for enemy types in the game. These are the third, fourth, and fifth animations I've even done (first two being the Snake and Sheep summons), and I feel myself getting better each time.
the Necromancer - I've had an idle blocked out for this guy in solid colours for a while, he's been in my other devlogs, but finally buckled down and did the shading and colouring. I'm thinking to give him a Skeleton or Zombie summon, which may be my next animation, as I have a matching status effect for them nearly worked out.
the Shepherd - Next, and this is my most recent work - the Shepherd. This idea came from the Sheep summon, who I introduced as a summon which could put you to sleep. I needed status-inflicting summons, thus the Sheep. I thought a Shepherd with the ability to summon Sheep and a passive ability to keep your summons around longer (shepherding them around) that you can inherit onto any summoning class would be perfect. And I'm happy to say, both of those abilities are implemented, making the Shepherd my most complete enemy type to date!
the Lumberman - I did this animation before the Shepherd, and I may rework it later on, because musculature is f-ing hard man, but I had an idea for physical attacks to, in contrast to magic skills, be more used for a variety of tactical targeting scenarios, each with advantages and drawbacks that make sense for the implied weapon type. I thought up a Cleave (not implemented yet) ability that's meant to evoke a Guts-like (Berserk) warrior who cuts down many enemies at once, but applies a big penalty on the user when an armoured foe is caught up in it. It works for an axe, so I made an enemy whose "thing" is that they're an axe man, so started with a lumberjack. I started with a normal human skin tone, but my animation blocking was temporarily green, and I liked copper-y armour and weapons for him, so I tried making him look like oxidized copper as well. I though the idea for a metal man who chops down trees was pretty cool, and here we are!
New status effects - I also designed three new status effect icons for inflictions I have planed. I showed the Sleep and Poison ones last time, and a version of those effect is in the game (I added green to the Poison icon).
The new effects are Blindness, Charm, and Fear. Only Fear is partly implemented so far. The plan for Charm is probably typical. Have allies attack each other or heal the charmer. For Blindness, I like the idea of forcing a random target more than lowering accuracy (maybe a mix of a little lower accuracy, but also randomizing your target making it a risk to hit an enemy that could retaliate against you, I feel that could make some interesting encounters).
As for Fear, that is partly implemented. Fear causes your summoned minions to flee, and I'm toying with the idea of having it block or cancel some kinds of buffs (can't raise your Attack Power if your party member doesn't feel brave enough to attack, that sort of thing). I want to give the summoned minions a protective effect so that you need way do sift through them to land meaningful attacks.
Minions have to be able to flee, so I made it so that they can (complete with an animation). They also now flee at the end of battle, which the Shepherd's passive ability stops (it will eventually be a percentage chance to flee).
In addition, while character's with swords and arrows might go directly for the summoner, I added another new Smash ability (imagine warhammers, clubs, etc.) that hits both the enemy itself and causes some if it's minions to scatter, thinning the herd.
I have some other changes to assets and the code, but that was already a lot! This really felt like one where, at least a small number of more complete ideas fit together really well!
I'm planning out all the classes for recruitable enemies/party members for my game, and I currently have an initial core of 41 ideas and I'm making a big spreadsheet for their stats, skills, and fusions. Then once they're really hammered down I can work on filling out the ranks with classes that conceptually fill in more interesting gaps and niches and mechanics.
I've been pretty offline for a few weeks either slowly doing that or busy with others things during the end of summer, or just catching up on some reading, and lost my flow for a couple of weeks, but hopefully I can get back into gear now!
As a teaser, here's a rough draft of just the names for classes I'm considering for Labyrinth Lesmosyne's core classes;
Alchemist, Assassin, Barbarian, Bard, Battlemage, Cavalier, Charlatan, Chronomancer, Cleric, Cultist, Dark Knight, Druid, Enchanter, General, Hunter, Illusionist, Knight, Lumberjack, Magic Knight, Martial Artist, Medium, Monk, Necromancer, Ninja, Paladin, Pirate, Psychic, Pyromancer, Raider, Rogue, Sailor, Samurai, Scholar, Shepherd, Sorceror, Thief, Valkyrie, Vampire, Viking, Warrior, Witch
While most of this list is me filling the ranks with traditional RPG classes that LL needs (names not final), others, like Lumberjack, Sailor and Shepherd, which I've shown, I've been thinking of as more job-themed proto classes that can be found in the early game, and for example the Lumberjack might be a fusion component for a Barbarian, and Sailor might be one half of a Pirate. I want to add more of these to form a first tier and have a basic set of - for lack of a better term - D&D adjacent classes serve as the second tier.
Then, others on the list already are ideas from a sort of third tier - the Raider being a product of a Hunter and a Thief, or the Valkyrie which arises from certain fusions involving Vikings, maybe Viking + Cavalier. This too is ground where I can generate many new ideas from fusions of the core, and expand the third tier, which should be mostly filled out with conceptual multiclass fusions. The tiers aren;t rigid though, and some fusions might result in an earlier tier class with the opportunity to inherit more powerful skills.
I'm probably going to have enough of the table done to talk about it in detail in a devlog this week, even if not all the details are ironed out.
