I'm still working on changes inspired by tester feedback!
I've been really focused and productive all week! ...Which I just wrote about in a lot of detail, but I doubt anyone would really care so I won't bother clogging this post up with it.
The productivity's been a result of retreating into my bubble completely and avoiding doing anything remotely social, like replying to messages or reading more feedback that some people gave. I feel bad about not replying to things sooner, but the difference between getting lost in creative work and trying to engage with other people despite my crippling mental issues is like day and night. I'll need to get to that eventually though; I can't just focus on the creative side of things, unfortunately.
I wanted to focus completely on dev work though so then I could get to the point where I could update the alpha with the revised mechanics, so then I could start getting feedback about that and move forward with development. But everything takes so long, and I've not got to that point yet!
Most of the week was spent fixing bugs or recoding stuff behind the scenes. Most bugs don't take more than a few minutes to fix, though it's so frustrating when I lose like an hour to trying to hunt down the one line of code that's causing some obscure but game-breaking issue, which happened like three times this week. Grumble.
...I also just played the game a bit to record a gif for this post, and stuff I thought I'd fixed is suddenly buggy now. SIGH. I'll have to fix that next week. Here's a gif though:
Now the skill name capsule thing that appears is the same one you select from the radial menu, and the XP bar fills when the skill is used, showing if you "Level Up!" that skill. Feels satisfying seeing it right in your face like that, at least to me. (Should be lower down though; another issue I only just noticed!)
Some other stuff:
Save crystals bring up a slot selection menu! You're also fully healed after every battle, so saving is now their sole purpose.
I implemented the revised version of this damage predictor. Took a while!
I also updated this skill log. Took even longer! (And it's still buggy, I see from this screenshot! The rune percentages aren't being set, and the reaction bits are off; should say "Block" and 50% on some.)
Oh, I revised reactions; can't remember if I already mentioned that. Previously, they drew from stats on weapons - for example, one might grant +2 damage on a successful reaction - but here it's just 100% for a gold Hit, 150% for a blue Bonus, and 0% for a Miss. I might revise the Miss to be 50% instead though, based on someone's comment about not punishing failure so strictly. I could even make most of the reaction bar a 100% 'Hit' while the gold and blue sections are varieties of Bonus (125%, 150%, or something).
Now, when you press the menu button, you get this, from which you can access various menu pages without actually going into a menu. This is also where you trigger the 'party chat' dialogue from by pressing a different button when selecting a character option.
The idea behind this was to reduce the number of both menus and key presses required to access any one of them. I only added it on Friday evening though, so I'll likely revise it as I continue. I haven't added a working Lore page yet!
I've done a bunch more - as I said, I've been focused and productive all week, unusually so - but it's been mostly technical stuff which is important, but too tedious to talk about and not really possible to visually show. I rewrote most of the code for how skills, stats, and menus work!
I was hoping to be able to update the alpha and get more feedback, but I think what I'm going to do is rewrite the beginning section with more tutorials, then upload an update. I'm hoping that I'll be done with that by the end of next week. I'll try my best!
I also started and finished playing another game this week: Oddworld: Soulstorm. It's a 'reimagining' of a game I played and loved as a child, which got me thinking a lot about what people would want or be disappointed by in my own reimagining of MARDEK (Divine Dreams; Atonal Dreams is a prequel to it). ∞ Here's the post I wrote about it. ∞
I was trying to get those music albums out every week, but I've been so busy focusing on making changes to Atonal Dreams after the feedback - the thought that I "HAVE TO FIX THIS RIGHT AWAY" has really energised me - that I haven't put one up in a couple of weeks. There are 7 left, and the biggest issue is making album art; the music files are mostly ready. I'll get to it eventually!
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