Development Progress Week 12

Hey guys, Monkeydlu here

It's finals week here at my university, but work is coming along, although this is the first time I've become genuinely frustrated with this project.

I'm currently working with a the ccMenuAdvanced class, it's a pretty good class from what I can tell, but I still can not figure out for the life of me how to actually use it, but I need it because I need support for a scrolling menu for the list of skills a character can use in battle.

anyways, other than that, things I've done since last time:

-Set up the character info menu. Character status menu will have 3 tabs, each for a different page.
-Page 1 is general information, so all of a character's stat parameter values, a short desc, it's equipment etc etc.
-Page 2 is the soul page, it displays the character's 2 pieces of equipment, as well as 3 slots below each, and 5 souls with numbers on them indicating how many you possess. Click and drop will imbune souls to the equipment.
-Page 3 is the skills page, it just a skill tree of icons, clicking on an icon will show the skills name, desc, and pre reqs if any, as well as a learn or exit button.
-So far only page 3 is implemented, but it is fully functional, albiet extremely ugly since theres no graphics so all the skills is just a pink box. Correctly levels up skills based on their pre reqs, doesn't allow for skills that don't have it's pre reqs met to be leveled, and properly uses up skill points.
-Fixed a bug with how the animations were being handled in the battle, where enemy attacks would reset a player's timer bar.
-Started work on using a skill in battle. Having trouble with ccmenuadvanced.

well thats where I am now. I could post screens, I really could... in fact I should, but I'm so lazy and everything is so ugly haha.

Actually forget it lol, I'll post a couple >.>

This is the same characters selection, but it's showing off the sexy soul coloring system, where each character has a soul color. 

Every class has a base set of colors, for example, the Berserker shown above is 5 parts Red, 4 parts Green, 3 parts yellow, 2 parts purple, and 1 part blue.

Of course, every time you imbue a soul to it, it adds to that color (as well as gaining 1 stat point in line with the color) creating a uniquely colored soul for every character.

This is just showing the new battle system style, pretty simple. Similar to the old battle system, except it's just a traditional 2d enemy only battle screen. Still uses the FTL load bar system. A little menu very similar to the old one pops up at the bottom with 4 options of "Attack, Skill, Item, Cancel"

This is showing the skill menu tab of the character menus. The character menu opens when you tap the character portrait when in the dungeon map, and closes when you tap the same character again (or a x button I'll put in later on.) This completely works now, which is nice. 

Development Progress Week 11

Hey guys, Monkeydlu here

No screen shots either this week. Theres a few things I could show, but eeeeh, I'll hold back until I make some more progress.

Anyways, jumping right into the log,

things done since last time:

-started in depth work on the skills classes
-laid out plans as to how to actually handle character skills
-did a lot of planning work, typing up a few classes and their skills and stat sheets
-polished number formulas for stats

not alot to look at, but I managed to clean up a few more details about the game's functionality, especially numbers wise.

I've got a couple of classes very fleshed out, but not many, however I've got overarching ideas about all of them, but I'm pushing this work till I finish more programming.

Mostly, this week has been brain storming as to how to actually get the skills to all work together without a problem, and after a good bit of thinking and planning, I think I've got how I'll be tackling the management of skills programming wise.

Anyways, hopefully by next week I'll have the skills ready to be leveled up by the player and work!

Development Progress week 10, and some feature info!

Hey guys, Monkeydlu here.

so this past week had some pretty decent and consistent work :)

I'll just jump right to it,

Things done since last update:
-completed battle system's cycle, in which battle ends properly and updates on the map properly.
-overhauled the code using skills learned from overhauling the hex grid battle map system, making it significantly shorter and better.
-dungeon map now handles reactivation of a room after initially opening it, so the boss room after the boss fight now will take you to the next floor when you click on it again, and other rooms will be able to implement this quite easily as well, such as rooms with shops, puzzles, etc.
-updated the character and monster classes to hold things better and prepare for modifiers here and there during battle.
-created the "Soul Color" system, where the soul properly display's a character's affinity using a combination of the colors of their soul. This is actually pretty cool, as some interesting colors showed up.


OK, soooo, we have a couple of classes pretty much fleshed out, won't reveal anything yet, but I felt like I should at least reveal a couple of formulas, or at least some info on the game mechanics wise.

Since this IS a rpg, characters are stat based!

So lets list out the stats!

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(RED)Strength: A modifier on how much physical damage you do, both with normal attacks and physical skills. You're attack damage is based off of your "attack" or power, of the weapon that character is currently equiped with, and then the damage you do is calculated in accordance to the relation between your STRENGTH, and the enemy's defense, so even if you have a crazy strong weapon, without enough strength, it might only do a percentage of it's damage, and vice versa, a really strong character can do several times the damage that a wooden stick really gives him.

(GREEN)Vitality: Another modifier that determines how much damage you take from all sources. When you take physical damage, that attack is first pitted against the defense value of your equipment, but how much damage you then take is again determined in ratio to the enemy's strength to your vitality. Magic damage is similar, where their damage is first pitted against your intelligence instead of armor.

(YELLOW)Agility: I guess they're all modifiers, but Agility determines two things. First, it determines your act rate, which is how long it takes before your character can perform an action again. This has diminishing returns, so at zero agility, it takes 10 seconds, at 10 agility, you average at 5 seconds, which is what most characters will be doing hopefully, but then capping out at 30 agility will only lower your act rate to about 2.3 seconds. Second, it determines your dodge rate. This has increasing returns.

(BLUE)Intelligence: This is pretty easy to figure out, but intelligence determines the strength of your magic attacks. It's used to calculate your attack, as well as the ratio of damage. It also determines your resistance against magic.

(PURPLE)Dexterity: This is the last color, and stat. Well off the bat, this affects your accuracy, but has diminishing returns. However, this stat is important for applying statuses and other effects, as well as any sort of skill that has a random proc. Dexterity will have increasing returns on status applications, but linear returns on procs of passive effects as well as multiple hit actives.

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Ok, so now that we have the stats out of the way, lets talk about character progression!

Because of the success of stat building progression, as well as my love for it since after all, I LOVE number crunching, progression of this game will also be stat based!

As such, there are no such things as "levels" in this game.

rather, every time you defeat an enemy, they will drop a certain number of "souls". Each soul has a color, and with these souls, you can strengthen your characters.

At the beginning of the game, each of your characters will have two pieces of equipment: a weapon, and an accessory. The weapon will provide your primary attack value, and the accessory will provide your primary defense value, with some exceptions of course. They can also contain some passive effects, such as abilities that proc, or applying statuses, or having certain properties etc etc.

So each of your equips will have 3 slots, and with this slots you can fill with the souls you collect!

Every time you imbue a soul to a character's equipment, they gain 2 stat points of that color! so a red soul means +2 strength. Of course the character's color will also move a little bit more in the red direction.

Now when you fill a piece of equipment's 3 slots, that piece of equipment will evolve, giving it different stats and effects based on the 3 color combination you used! A character's HP will also increase when ever this happens, of course based on how many green souls you used, as well as the class in question.

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So yeah, thats all, and now you know a little more about how my game is going to be like!

Hope you enjoyed it, some of these formulas are pretty traditional, but I feel like it's a very tightened and cleaned stat system compared to alot of things we have today.

Development Progress Week 9

Hey guys, Monkeydlu here.

Sooo, a couple days back, I decided to simply scrap the entire idea of a tiled battle system.

I kept looking at it, and while at the time I figured it was alot of more depth for not alot more of complexity, it actually wasn't that much deeper, and after playing etrian odyssey I understand that the kind of game I want to make is just supposed to reach out to a very specific niche anyways, soooo, I've decided to go back to a more traditional battle system very similar to a combination of Etrian Odyssey and FF IV.

This will also allow me to hurry up with progress, because there hasn't been alot of that :(

Anyways, I could upload some screen shots, but they're pretty bland, so heres what I've acomplished!

-reworked the battle system.
-Loading, enemy party loading and player character loading done.
-Player party and enemy action bars done.
-Player attack command working. Damage calculations working.
-enemy behavior pattern skeleton working. Enemies can use wait and attack commands.
-ANIMATIONS, attack animations overarching skeleton working. Library of 1 animation, but a library non the less.
-Animations play and sucessfully pause the gameplay until animations complete.
-battle victory handled successfully. No real battle summary screen yet, but there is a space for it, it's just empty and after winning you go directly back to floor map.



So I will be aiming on doing the following now!

-continue to next floor after boss room is revealed.
-cleaning up battle system.
-input more classes.

my big goals are the following:
-start working on the equipment system of the characters, including the soul drops system plus upgrading your equipment.

thats all, I'm excited!

Development Progress Week 8

Hey there, Monkeydlu here.

So, last week was spring break, and thus I spent my entire week doing absolutely nothing.

I'm a horrible person.

Anyways, I've decided to go over the code of the project, and try and clean everything up. There is a lot of hard coding in the project due to my lack of knowledge with Objective C and Cocos2d, but I'm going to dedicate some time to learning how the code works a bit more and make sure I can make the code more efficient.

On a side note, I'm also currently working on a video project inspired by Daniel Floyd's "Extra Credits" series, so look forward to it! :D

Development Progress Week 7

Hi guys, Monkeydlu here.

I've made a good amount of progress again since last time, and the week isn't even over yet!

Spring break is coming up soon, so hopefully I'll be getting some decent work in on this project.

Anyways, I'm glad to say the battle system is coming along somewhat nicely!

things completed since last time:
-Unit representations on the battle grid completed.
-Battle map grid reworked to be handled differently with more accessibility.
-created linking methods between tiles, and if their occupied.
-created the move command for player units.

though although so far all I have is the movement system implemented, it's still pretty neat!

It sets up the basics so that attacks and skills and items can come much easier. Hopefully by the end of this weekend I'll have attack figured out. 

After that will come the enemy ai, and of course the enemy data base itself. 

After that, which should be somewhere around after spring break, will come setting up the custom sprite sheets and animations, still using place holders of course :(

but Skills and Items will come last. I will probably move on to work on the character status screen and dungeon progression before working on those. 

Anyways, I made a short little video showing off some game play for the first time, hope you enjoy! I'm excited about this project, it's starting to come together a bit finally!

Development Progress Week 6

Hi guys, Monkeydlu here

Ok, so I am disregarding the week of the Asian New Years Festival performance, because I just simply did not have time to touch this project at all, but since this the past week I have been doing at least a decent amount of work.

Anyways, things I've done since last time:

-got the battle layer to successfully generate itself.
-cleaned up a few more errors on dungeon map generation.
-started rouge ideas of character unit management and battle system management.

hmmm, but I guess thats it. Not alot to show for two whole weeks, I know, but hopefully the next week will be much much better. I plan on getting the battle system to be up and running by at least the end of Spring break.

After that, the last major item on hand is pretty much enemy AI, and the game will have a working skeleton.

As  a side note, I did dedicate some time this week to cleaning up my former project, a ERS Battle game, giving it some clean up and borrowing some graphics from The World Ends With You (Best game on the DS ever made btw)

I'm still currently looking for artists, so if you know any that might be interested in doing art for video games, please tell them to send me a e-mail at MingYang.Lu@Vanderbilt.edu

Thanks!

Development Progress Week 5

Monkeydlu here, progress has been slow due to other school related duties as well as Asian New Year festival preparations, as well as Fire Emblem Awakening being released for the 3ds (Best game of the year, go play it!)

Completed since last time:

- Dungeon Map exploration cleaned up
- Battle Scene calling
- Base skeleton class for enemies
- Reworked character class for battle system

And thats pretty much it. Not a lot of work unfortunately. I wish I could say this week will be different, but it might be even worse because of Asian New Year Festival here at school (which I am a performer for.)

No screen shots this time! :(

Battle System Mock Up and Info on the Game

Hi guys, I've started coding the battle system yesterday, and after playing around with a few mock ups, I think I've finally come to a battle system design that I really like. Heres the mock up :D

So, in this game, your characters never "level up", rather, they progress through the continuous fusing of "Colored Souls" to a particular character. There are 5 colors for the souls, RED, GREEN, YELLOW, BLUE, and PURPLE. These souls will be collected from every enemy, and also as treasure. They can also be offered at alters in order to heal your party, so you need to balance between using the souls to strengthen your characters, and using the souls to keep your party healthy.

All classes start off with a specific spectrum for their colors, valuing 5-1 for each color.

Each of these colors then, also represents a statistic of that character. Red is Strength. Green is Vitality. Yellow is Agility. Blue is Wisdom. Purple is Dexterity.

The calculations for this game will be somewhat of a hybrid between the formulas of Fire Emblem, and Etrian Odyssey 3, so go look them up if you're interested :)

ANYWAYS, about this mock up.

The battle system will be, as you can see, a tactical battle system.

It will use input very similar to that of Final Fantasy IV, or a more recent example, FTL.

Basically, all of your characters will have a "charge" bar, standardized to 5 seconds. Each character has a modifier attribute, that will range from 60% to 140% of that 5 seconds. When the character is charged, you can tap that character to pause the game, and input commands for that character.

You do not have to tap a character immediately when he/she is finished charging, and in fact, thats the main reason I went with this system, but there are a lot of different strategies which would require the delaying of commands in order to make sure things happen in certain orders.

Anyways, more info will be revealed later on, but as for why there are colors on the hex grids!

The colors of course represent the 5 color system the game uses. When a character, or enemy, is standing on top of a hex, the stat of that color is going to be increased by a percentage for that character.

As to what the percentage will be. The outer ring will get a 20% increase, so a STR of 10 will become 12 on a red tile. The inner ring will get a 40% increase. And finally the middle tile alone will get a 60% increase!

This is pretty important, because this means gaining the middle ground can lead to huge rewards, but also put that character in the most danger. This also gives worth to characters who specialize in not combat but the manipulation of grid colors.

Anyways, that is all! Hope you enjoyed the update :)

Development Progress week 4

Hi, Monkeydlu here, and here is the first progress update post :)

Completed since last time: (even though this is the first post lol)

- Finished the object classes for characters. 

- Finished character selection screen. Player has a party of 3 characters. 15 classes male/female. 

- Finished storing player party and the basic gameplay scene. 

- Finished dungeon generation and basic exploration. 4x4 grid map of 12 rooms (4 empty). 

The way dungeon exploration will work is the dungeon is randomly generated, there are 12 rooms, and 1 starting room. You can explore rooms that are immediately next to rooms already explored, and you progress through the floor that way. This idea was inspired by Dungelot, though originally the dungeon exploration was going to be very similar to that of Binding of Issac, after playing dungelot, I decided that this method of exploration is much better for a simpler rpg, especially one on the iphone touch screen. 

Dungelot is a really neat little iphone rogue like that I do recommend at least playing the free version for. It's not a very deep game, but it's fun, easy, and very quick to play. It's a game of repetitive grinding, but it's presented in a very fun an crisp way thats definitely perfect for the smartphone. 

Also Binding of Issac, you should know it already, if not, google, and then get, and then play :D

Screen shots!

(all images stolen from the wonderful game series Odyssey. Etrian Odyssey 4 is coming soon guys! It's an awesome dungeon crawler series and totally recommended if you like NUMBER CRUNCHING lol)

 

Welcome to the Dev Blog!

Hi guys,

This will be the official development blog as of now of Team NumberCrunch.

The team comprises of me, Monkeydlu, and my partner, RedWrath5.

We are currently working on a project for the iphone named "Souls of the Lost", it is a strategy rpg rogue like dungeon crawler. More information will be posted soon as more progress is made :)

At any rate, welcome to Team NumberCrunch's dev blog.

I will be handling all things code and design related, and Redwrath5 will be handling all things gameplay content and balance related. We need a artist and musician, but I guess I'm an artist, and RedWrath5 is also a musician... though we're definitely not pros, so if anyone's interested in helping us with either, feel free to send us a email, as soon as we have an official team email set up hahaha. (keeping this professional)