This week’s update is another short one. Work continues on the effects and powers systems, and in recent days I’ve been making sure that jumping, dashing, and sliding (as a result of being hit) all work correctly and are easy to recognize when they happen. This is a blend of making sure the code runs each event in sequence as well as dressing up the characters on screen with puffs of smoke for landings and colorful dashing trails.
In particular, the Long Jump is an early skill in Dungeon Acrobatics that serves as a poor man’s Blink. Given one round to prepare, the player can leap up to eight squares away, even into places the player hasn’t seen yet. It doesn’t allow you to jump over walls but you can still jump over obstacles, enemies and other hazards. The jump now has a nice satisfying arc over the heads of confused monsters.
Stick and Move is a Skirmish Archer power learned in Combat Kinetics. It’s a three square jump that also fires an arrow at the nearest target. You’re trading a bit of stamina for the ability to clear yourself from danger and keep a little bit of damage pressure on the enemy.
The other big work related actions this week were business based and decidedly unexciting. Spreadsheets, contracts, and doing a very bad job with invoices. Totally professional.
Finally, I’d like to share a link for a game that has recently piqued my interest. It’s not a roguelike, rather it’s another take on the mining, exploring and building genre. Signs of Life is set on a far away planet full of things both exotic and familiar. I liked a lot of what I saw in the video, specifically the ability to build up automated defenses. One of my biggest pet peeves with terracraft style games is that when it’s night time you’re swarmed by enemies, so you either work underground or wait for the sun to rise. Being able to build up some perimeter defense is very appealing. The snowmen in Minecraft do not count.
Signs of Life is also on Greenlight, so give them a look. If you’re really interested, they have way in depth updates available on their site as well.
Stay tuned for next week when I will be updating from a car on the road during the move and likely just posting pictures of terrified cats.