Devlog: Medusas, Food, and Extras (Patreon)

Enemy Behavior: Sine Wave

If you recall, I'm building enemy behaviors as separate, external functions that I can simply call inside an enemy, instead of hard-coding specific behavior for every individual enemy.

The classic Medusa Head flight pattern is now implemented. The arrangement is a bit more complicated than my old engine, but is technically easier to apply to enemies now. It also has functionality to scroll with the camera vertically.

So, for our Bat enemy, I can say: Run Horizontal Movement Behavior, then Run Sine Wave Movement Behavior. That's all that is needed for this enemy to perform its basic actions.

Another benefit of this system is that I can easily update the sine-wave pattern mid-flight. CV3 has a Flying Skeleton enemy that moves in a sine-wave pattern that increases in speed & length as it gets closer to the player, so this should allow me to do something similar.

Score -> Gold

The old demo features a bare-bones score system; collecting money & killing enemies raises the score and eventually results in a 1-UP. However, it was never balanced properly, and thus would almost never result in an extra life.

I've changed this into a proper currency system. Now, when players collect money, they are collecting an actual currency that can technically be spent in shops. I'm apprehensive about having to balance an economy -- but this may be more interesting.

As of current, it also behaves similarly to the currency in Dark Souls / Zelda 2. When players die, they'll drop 50% of their Gold. Players can recollect half of that if they manage to reach the spot of their death. So if you had 100G, you'll drop 50G, but can reclaim 25G.

Modifiers

I've begun implementing "Game Rule Modifiers" that can be toggled on / off. This allows me to test different interpretations of a mechanic, but some may also be accessed by players to modify the experience eventually.

One example of a modifier is: Cheap Sub-Weapons

The default cost for sub-weapon use depends on the item itself. For example, the dagger costs 1 WP but the axe costs 3 WP - the idea is that stronger weapons are more expensive to use. This follows the philosophy of modern Vania-likes.

The alternate cost (accessed via modifier) is closer to that of CV1; sub-weapons now cost much less to use. As a result, the dagger and axe both cost 1 WP.

Experiment: Rondo Backflips

Although it's currently only intended for developer use, I've added a Rondo-style backflip. At any point between the START of a jump and the point of DESCENT, pressing [ JUMP ] causes the player to jump AWAY from the direction they are facing. This can function as a tiny double jump that requires a bit of work or even "undo" a jump -- but a player needs to act fast, since they lose the opportunity to backflip the second gravity starts to pull them down.

I don't know if it's sticking around. It's not a very simple & clean maneuver and it will affect the balance of levels, and I don't have much experience with Rondo. But I'm willing to experiment.

Food Pouch

Another feature has been added -- Food Pouch, inspired by the Sub Tank in Megaman X. It serves as a tool to make the game a little easier.

Typically, acquiring food will heal players up to max HP -- and any excess food will be wasted. With the Food Pouch, any excess healing or food will now be stored as portable rations, which can be used at any point via the player's inventory. The pouch can hold 10 HP, which is approx. the entire length of Elayne's starting HP bar.

Small Changes:

Players now drop all sub-weapons on death (resets to dagger).

Players now lose all ammo on death.

Firebomb sub-weapon added. Its flame lasts 2 seconds and deals a possible max damage of 18. The values in the old demo is 14 max damage over 1 sec.

Concerns:

Let's talk about how enemies currently take damage.

The player's weapons create a hitbox that follow it. When enemies contact that hitbox, they take its assigned damage, then enter an invincibility state. That invincibility will last 15 frames (20 in old demo). This prevents enemies from taking constant damage -- otherwise an enemy that SHOULD take 4 hits will die in 1 hit.

But if I want to create a weapon like Bloodtained: CotM's Magic Charm (Holy Water), which does damage over time, we run into some issues -- let's look at some numbers...

The Firebomb in the old demo lasts 1 second and deals 2 damage on contact. When the bomb hits the ground, it creates a flame that does 4 damage. In the old demo (20 iframes), this will mean enemies would take a max of 14 damage altogether.

CotM2's Magic Charm lasts 2 seconds and deals 2 damage on contact. When the Charm hits the ground, it creates a flame that does 3 ticks of 4 damage per tick, so enemies would take a max of 14 damage altogether -- the same exact max damage.

... But if I make my Firebomb last 2 seconds, enemies will take MORE than 14 damage. This is because damage isn't delivered over ticks, but rather when the enemy's iframes run out. Thus, the flame now deals more total damage; a possible max of 18 (2 damage every 15 frames).

I don't want the flame to do less than 2 damage per hit in order to maintain 14 max damage, as that might feel too weak if the enemy only touches it for a brief second. But a damage value above 2 might feel TOO strong with the new iframes and Firebomb length.

That means I may need to re-evaluate my damage calculation in the future. Perhaps instead of giving enemies 15 iframes whenever they take damage, I may need to make it so that different weapon attacks will determine different iframes. For instance, the whip may give 15 frames of invincibility, but the firebomb gives 40 (40 goes into 120 frames three times -- three ticks). As a result, the firebomb will be able to deliver 14 max damage again -- but that will require quite a bit of rewriting.

Recent development has been slow.

Don't forget to eat & sleep.