Vapourware Codexian Game Development Thread

[GoblinGrotto]

Nice graphics! Like a professional Ultima 8 look (Regardless of it's gameplay I always had a soft spot for the graphics in that game).

Thanks! No way I'll be able to match the details of that art, but I've always loved how it looks.

I was able to fix sprite draw ordering. It becomes a problem when sprites are bigger than a single isometric tile. It could be worked around if only character movement was stuck to the grid, but actually I prefer seamless movement by a whole lot.

I was looking into that as well for my game. In the end I went for this approach instead


It's far from perfect, too wide objects would still clip into tiles. But it should work for what I'm going for.

 

[CryptRat]

 

[Tweed]

I think I'd rather play a game about two Eskimos and their dog instead of Nightmare in Lisafrankland.

 

[CryptRat]

You can end the game without entering the dream world (except for the first minute, you start inside), it's kind of the hard mode though'.

 

[Moaning_Clock]

I'm jamming guys!

 

[Kev Inkline]

I think I'd rather play a game about two Eskimos and their dog instead of Nightmare in Lisafrankland.

 

[Justinian]

Is there such a thing as too many summons? No, I don't think there is.

Spoiler

 

[CryptRat]

The number of entries of the Dungeon Crawler Jam will be crazy, probably more than 150 and 200 is not unlikely, that's 7day-roguelike challenge levels.

 

[GoblinGrotto]

Wish I had time to join the Dungeon Crawl Jam. Kinda want to dust off my old crawl engine:

 

[Moaning_Clock]

My game for the Dungeon Crawler Jam will be a tower of the sorcerer/magic tower type of game, if you never heard of it, it's very niche. Deep Rune and Myth Bearer are also inspired from the game (and that is where I got the inspiration, I never played the original game). The genre relies heavily on resource management. You try to get optimally through the dungeon, normally you replay the game a couple of times until you finally got it and win - you absolutely can play yourself into a dead end and this is intended. Optimizing your route after winning is additionally fun!

I have a Love/Hate Relationship with themes but finally came up with the idea that you play a bloodmage. The health of the character is also your mana pool and every spell you cast takes parts of your life. When you level up your life is restored. So, you die to kill, and kill to live!

There are four spells available:
- Attack
- Magic Armor
- Create Key
- Fill Experience (you can fill enemies with experience to get more when you kill them)

You start with your attack spell but with each level up you can choose another one - your strategy depends also on the order but every order should be possible but some are harder than others.

I think Dungeon Crawlers work pretty well together with this type of game but as far as I know this was never done before.

Right now, the game is playable from start to finish. I just put the first two sounds into it. I'm also happy that I have a few small overworlds which are a great visual breakup from the dungeon; visual variety was one of the problems that accompanied my development of Sonucido.

Still missing:
- more sounds
- ambience or music
- save system
- ability to restart the game
- story text
- some way to change options (basics: fullscreen, audio)
- one dialogue
- a better win screen with functionality
- a better lose screen with functionality
- (optional) german localization
- (optional) trailer
- (optional) in-game credits (I could ship it with a .txt)

 

[Moaning_Clock]

My fiancee helped me with the color palette and I think this gives me an extra point for the graphics! The colors should blend together better.



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[CryptRat]

Wish I had time to join the Dungeon Crawl Jam. Kinda want to dust off my old crawl engine:

I hope you'll get back to it eventually, it looks great. In an ideal world you would use your isometric thing for battles.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Less than 10 items left on my TODO list, then it's testing/balancing time. The game plays like Wizardry IV with some elements from SaGa series. It's somewhat streamlined due to time constraints, but I hope people will like it.

 

[d1r]

Less than 10 items left on my TODO list, then it's testing/balancing time. The game plays like Wizardry IV with some elements from SaGa series. It's somewhat streamlined due to time constraints, but I hope people will like it.

Already looks more interesting than everything that our shovelware jew here has shat out in the last thee years. Can you show us more screenshots of the dungeons? Art style looks pretty gud.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Less than 10 items left on my TODO list, then it's testing/balancing time. The game plays like Wizardry IV with some elements from SaGa series. It's somewhat streamlined due to time constraints, but I hope people will like it.

Already looks more interesting than everything that our shovelware jew here has shat out in the last thee years. Can you show us more screenshots of the dungeons? Art style looks pretty gud.

No time for that, just wait until the jam is over and see for yourself.

 

[Moaning_Clock]

The day is almost over and I got quite a lot of stuff done, to refer back to the list:

Still missing:
- more sounds
- ambience or music
- save system
- ability to restart the game
- story text
- some way to change options (basics: fullscreen, audio)
- one dialogue
- a better win screen with functionality
- a better lose screen with functionality
- (optional) german localization
- (optional) trailer
- (optional) in-game credits (I could ship it with a .txt)

Additionally:
- Improved Color Palette
- Made it possible to choose no spell (to combat accidental casting)
- Added Help text
- Added the option to quit with ESC (but you need hit it twice)
- A couple other minor improvements

Almost done! Plenty of time left!

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Testing the game while adding remaining scripts. This situation struck me as funny.

 

[CryptRat]

You nailed it.

Mine is child dream themed. You can create your party of 3 from 5, and combat takes place on a grid.

The lion can make critical hits, the pirate attacks all adjacents enemies, the mage can use a bunch of damage spells as she gains levels, the firefighter a bunch of stunning ones and the astronaut buffing ones.


You can use a ration to enter the dream world (with a slightly different layout, for example at some point invisible walls become visible, candy trees appear which allow you to use ice to advance ...), and will be ejected after a while (when the children are hungry). Inside the dream world each type of character unlocks a special ability : the pirate allows you to walk into water, the firefighter will extinguish fire walls (which are effectively walls), the lion will warn you when you're adjacent to a hidden door, the astronaut jumps above holes and finally the mage will automatically decipher coded messages (they are all coded in a different way).

I made a video of playing a small part of the game :

 

[Tweed]

Colorful Dreams keeps making me think of Color Dreams.

 

[CryptRat]

It's live, by the way : https://cryptrat.itch.io/dull-reality-colorful-dreams

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Out now: https://surt-r.itch.io/demon-lord

 

[Moaning_Clock]

Done! https://smokesomefrogs.itch.io/the-blood-mage

 

[Twiglard]

Added Z levels from -8 to 7, but only 0 to 2 are enabled in the editor right now. Player characters aren't meant to walk on anything but the zeroth Z level. This is unlikely to change in the future due to pathfinding, combat AI and game balance issues.

 

[TheDeveloperDude]

Any idea how to make this better graphics?

I know only about the Medieval Total War series.
But look this, dots are fighting dots. It looks as a real mess. Yes you can zoom in, but are who using that feature in a serious battle?

 

[Nathaniel3W]

My fiancee helped me with the color palette and I think this gives me an extra point for the graphics! The colors should blend together better.



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I skipped a few pages in this thread. This looks familiar though. Do you have a sparkly turd enemy in your game? Are those walls around the level? Stretched textures make me irrationally angry. I think it would look better if your wall texture had the same pixel density as the other textures. The new palette isn't necessarily better or worse. I think the right palette depends on the feeling you want your game to evoke.

Less than 10 items left on my TODO list, then it's testing/balancing time. The game plays like Wizardry IV with some elements from SaGa series. It's somewhat streamlined due to time constraints, but I hope people will like it.

I really like that dithering. That's a fun CRT filter you have going on too. The ability names are a bit childish. Where are you getting your battler sprites? You just taking other images and running them through a contrast filter? The pixel work looks too clean for just that, so I'd imagine you're actually putting some real effort into making them. But then again, I could have sworn I saw a Naruto that you copied/pasted into your enemy lineup.

Any idea how to make this better graphics?

I know only about the Medieval Total War series.
But look this, dots are fighting dots. It looks as a real mess. Yes you can zoom in, but are who using that feature in a serious battle?

You're asking how to improve your graphics? Are you just shitposting here, or do you actually not see any way to improve your graphics? Can you literally not think of anything that would improve the look of your game?