Development Update

For video-based devlogs see my YouTube channel. The updates will also be published in written form here in Steam. These updates follow approximately every 4 weeks.

New Features

Old Library Dungeon

I have been actively working on the dungeon since the last devlog. From the planning the dungeon is finished and I started with the effective implementation.

As you can see in the background, I started with all the details and the implementation of the concepts. It is planned that except for the main room and the entrance, the complete layout of the dungeon can be changed by the player. The player is also given the opportunity to activate and deactivate energy fields using special crystals. This gives the opportunity to explore new areas. The boss of the dungeon is roughly sketched, but not yet final. What do you think could be a typical boss for the dungeon?

I can't and don't want to spoiler more at this point. This is because I still want to give you the opportunity to explore this dungeon for yourself later, once the game is released.

Damage Indicator

From a comment from a colleague, I improved the visual feedback when an opponent is hit.

Since I don't want to show blood in my game, I decided to make the enemy flash red briefly when damaged. This is visually very recognizable. I think at a later stage when I make the combat system more complex, I will add some additional effects. Furthermore, the shader for this representation is designed so open that I can also change the colors and intensity so that I can also represent poisoning or burns visually better.

NPC Concepts

What has been missing from the worlds so far are NPC's. They are essential not only to liven up the world, but also to get quests or to create a certain bond between player and NPC. Therefore I have created various concepts of NPC's. Important here was for me that these are very individual and playful. This is something that always excites me in Legend of Zelda, anime or JRPGs. Still briefly in advance I would like to mention that these are only concepts. I deliberately decided against designing the face or adding colors. I do this so that I can freely express myself in 3D modeling according to my abilities and imagination.

Now let's take a look at the concepts.

As you can see, all NPCs have their own traits and characteristics, which makes them special. However, I would only like to go into detail about the last concept: Ryan's soul. As already mentioned, there will be a more complex combat system later on. It is important to note that not all abilities are available at the beginning. This is where Ryan's soul comes into play, which is supposed to teach and unlock these abilities.

That's why the soul also has its own sword, which is important. This is similar to Twilight Princess, where you are also trained in a separate world by the Hero's Spirit. Since it is the representation of the soul and therefore does not fit directly into the main world, it is only visible in the shadow world. Additionally, the soul is Ryan's companion, similar to Navi, Fi or Ezlo from Legend of Zelda. However, I don't want to make him as intrusive as the mentioned companions. It is only necessary to learn the skills with him. Otherwise, it is up to the player to decide how often he wants to receive tips.

Alpha 11 & Alpha 12

As we already know, new alphas of Godot keep coming out. This time it was Alpha 11 and Alpha 12, both of which are very important and bring us closer and closer to a beta.

Let's take a look at Alpha 11 first. This one had problems again and showed me a blank page with errors on startup. After browsing the files, I found that a lot of the UI was corrupted. Godot changed the hierarchy to a flat one and gave me strange names. I was then allowed to redo the complete UI based on the previous alpha and the state in GIT. Still, this alpha brought many fixes and a cool new movie maker mode. I used it directly for the recording in the dungeon. This is not recommended for live gameplay, because it is very laggy even in lower resolution and you have no sound during playback. This is of course in the video then no problem, there you have the set FPS and audio.

An Alpha 12 has also been out for a few days now. This has changed the way fonts are handled. Therefore I had to re-import my fonts. After that I had to reimport them into my theme. Unfortunately it kicked out the theme everywhere in the UI, so I had to go through all the elements with UI and relink the theme. Starting the game was not possible before and there was no error message. According to the news from Godot, we are getting closer and closer to a beta. This also means that we are getting closer to a feature freeze. So it is then also clear that all features are added and you can work with them. Since more developers will then try out the engine, it can be assumed that afterwards mainly bug fixes and optimizations will come.

New “Rework 3D” series

Further I would like to announce here a new series with the name "Rework 3D". Namely, I have taken the approach to improve the game visually again and again with the current know-how of me. Also there are currently some placeholders, which are not really nice to look at. For example all the vegetation, chairs, benches, tables, houses and NPC's. Instead of doing this secretly, I would like to document this on YouTube as well. I think it will be mainly uncommented videos, where in faster playback time the 3D models are created or revised. I will also try not to include spoilers here. Due to transparency, I would then always briefly show at the end in the devlogs which 3D models were changed.

What are my plans for the coming weeks?

The following things are planned to be implemented in the coming weeks.

• Continue with the Library Dungeon

• Implement the shadow world with Ryan's soul. Both for cutscenes and a learning area where you can later learn the new skills.

• Create possibility to load scenes in the background

• Implement cutscenes, which can be loaded dynamically