Crunch Day #2: Diving right in! + Help needed.

I actually spent the whole day yesterday setting up not only just my work space, but my apartment as a whole, trying to make it the ideal 'studio' environment for this project. One could say that it was a method of procrastination (and you'd be sorta correct. :P )

But a good work environment is key here. I must feel comfortable with my surroundings, and focused. I needed to get rid of certain distractions (the internet is a terrible distraction, so I'm also working on distancing myself from that as well)

today I'm attempting to just dive right in to the project itself! I've decided to work on the project in multiple segments each day, sdtarting the day off by working on bits of graphics. And then diving into the code about mid-day (after lunch) and maybe ending the day by fixing certain bugs or touching things up.

I'll do what I can to update everyone here on the progress...

Also, yeah, I really need some help on getting things out to the brony public about this project. I'm hardly giving myself any room on searching out popular brony comunities to post about the project. If you'd like to help me out, then feel free to post around on certain websites/forums/blogs/whatever, or you can send me a link or two for me to do the postings myself!

I already have a few places in mind such as Ponychan, and the Canterlot forums. But I think I should hold off on major news blogs such as Equestria Daily until I have something good to show (I'd advise any helpers in that as well, but if you think it worthy to do otherwise, then who am I to hold you back?)

If you do make any posts about the project, please let me know so I can check it out! :)

Thanks in advance!

10-1-13 - Crunch Month... it begins!

Like being on the brink of a storm, the month of October looms over this project. A perfect deadline waiting at the far end of it all. This is it, folks, the one month where I literally work my fingers to the bone and/or until my brain shrivils to a prune from the copeous amounts of problem solving / planning and thinking needed to piece together this fifth (and last) major test demo of Spikes Quest.

I call this month Crunch Month. Labelled as such because of all the work that I'm going to have to squeeze into this one project. This month will be like a long and torturous journey filled with 4 hour sleep nights. Several gallons  of really strong iced tea / coffee. Several trips to the sink to wash the sleep from my eyes, several broken keyboards (from being repeatedly bashed into my skull out of frustration) frequent changes to my work station(s). Almost an endless stream of blog updates to document it all, and me growing as pale as a vampire from the lack of sun (mark my word, I shall not sparkle the next time I see daylight!).

Yes, it will be just like old times. Remember those weeks following Demo 4? take that and possibly multiply it by 2.

And despite how terrible it all sounds, I'm actually looking forward to it! I remember how well Demo 4 paid off, and I have good faith that demo 5 will be ten-fold in that reward!

So here it begins, my friends. Go forth, tell the world (or just the Brony Community), project Spikes Quest is about to make a huge, ambitious and very epic return!


Fly, my minions, FLY!

note: there will be a halfway point for a small reveal this month (originally planned for the 8th (my birthday) but that's  not completely absolute...)

9/22/13 - Rings Defined

I finally figured out what sort of rings Spike will be able to acquire throughout the game. Below are eight different rings each with their own magical properties. There may or may not be a ninth mystery ring [a quest item], but I wont go into detail about that one ;)

Rings described from left to right / top to bottom:

Heart Ring:
Slowly reginerates your health, at the expense of your magic meter.

Green Orb Ring:
Slowly reginerates your magic.

Blue Orb Ring:
Reduces the use of your air meter by 1/2, enabling you to swim beneath water or lava twice as long.

Silver Diamond Ring:
Increases your luck in finding bombs / arrows / health hearts / and magic jars

Shield Ring:
Decreases the damage you receive from enemies by 1/2 (not effective on spikes, drowning, or roasting in lava (when you dont have the fire charm)

Morning Star Ring:
Decreases your magic usage by 1/2

Mirror Ring:
Reveals hidden paths and ghost blocks [at the expense of your magic meter.]

Gold Diamond Ring:
Increases your luck in finding coinage (money)

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Again, let me remind you all, you can only have one ring equipped at a time. So there's no mixing of the varying powers.

9-12-13 - Inventory Screen Preview

Its high time that I should post another update. And show off some progress :P

Its still a bit early in development and its the reason I havent posted any updates in the past week. This has been one tedious bit of the game to work on, having to integrate an actual inventory screen to the game. And while it looks good now, its still missing quiet a few important elements which I may start updating on since I've revealed it here just now.

A few things to go over here...

The top bar is the actual in-game hud bar which I've also added to the inventory screen (perhaps the laziest thing I've done in the game so far instead of just adding a proper stats panel :P ) Here you can view your HP which is displayed in the visual form of hearts. Then you can view your current fire breathing power (first little window next to the hearts) and then eventually your current item-in-use in the second little window (not yet properly integrated) After the item and power windows you see your current MP useage. I've explained how this works in another blog post, with the use of a proper magic meter and then the magic container jars which acts as your max-magic increase system (you collect these magic jars throughout the game each one increasing your maximum magic usage)

Moving away from the game's hud bar and to the Fire Power panel, you see your five major fire powers that your able to select here on the inventory screen (as well as toggle through them on the game via the L and R trigger buttons and the keyboard buttons 1 through 5). This panel is pretty self explanatory and is currently the most functioning of the current three panels.

Moving down to the next panel, this is your Items panel.  Here you can see all the major equipment type items that you'll be able to collect and use throughout the entire game. I'll go over this more in depth in another update (but I suppose you can guess what most of these items are and maybe even have a vague idea on how they work). There are five jars that you can collect, used to store certain potions and other things (I left one jar out just to show what the empty jar slot looks like... simple cosmetics, that.). The question Mark item is a placeholder for your quest items, which will not be function-able in Demo #5 (quest items as in the items that you collect from certain npc's, take them to other npcs to collect the next item and so on... Ex: most Zelda games, Donkey Kong Country 3, etc)

That last little panel just displays the Ability Charms that you've collected. I've explained how these little charms worked in another blog post and I think I've also explained that you dont have to equip them. Once you've collected them, they auto equip themselves and your able to use their functions instantly.

That's all I've got for now. I'll post more updates on this development in later days. As always, stay tuned!

9-1-13 - Magic Rings

Three rings for the Alicorns in their great halls.
Seven for the Earthly Ones in their wooden barns.
Nine for the Pegasi in their cloudy lofts.
Four for the Unicorns in their Magic Circles.
One Ring for the Dark Lord on his Evil Throne.
In the world beneath Equestria where the Shadows lie.
One Ring to rule them all. One Ring to find them.
One Ring to bring them all and in the darknmess bind them.
In the world beneath Equestria where the shadows lie.

lol, just kidding. None of that has anything at all to do with this game. 9_9;

But there are a few different magic rings to collect and each one has its particular use.

Magic rings in this game are used to increase luck, whether it be for collecting certain objects such as magic crystals (used to replentish your MP) or heart crystals (for replentishing your HP)

Or they can be used as a regen item (health or magic slowly regenerates)

You can only have one ring equiped at a time and as to hows many types of rings there are and how they will all work, its a system I'm still working on.

I like the idea of having a ring that increases your luck as well as having other rings used for regeneration and other things, but its a system that needs to be perfectly balanced for this sort of game. Perhaps I should study up more on such things from the Castlevania games. :P

If anybody has any suggestions for this system, please let me know something! I'll actually be making another such post once this system is all figured out. So stay tuned!

8-26-13 - Magic Meter Usage and Fire Power Select

In today's this morning's update I'd like to go over the usage of the magic meter and the three ways you will be able to select your fire breath powers.

The magic meter functions like most magic meters resembling that of the ones from Zelda but with a slight difference.

throughout the game you will be able to collect four magic upgrade jars each one increasing your magic ammount by a whole bar. These four jars will be displayed above your magic meter and according to how much magic you still have, the jars will show either full or empty (this would resemble the health meter from the metroid prime series)

The meter has already been put in place and it already also has its usage. currently certain fire breathing powers use the magic meter such as Magic Breath, Ice Breath and Spark Breath . And there may be some items that may put your magic meter to use too.

Speaking of fire breath powers, I've added the convient feature where you can toggle which fire breathing power you want by tapping the secondary left and right shoulder buttons on your gamepad (or the left and right alt buttons on your keyboard)

You can also select your power by tapping numbers 1 through 5 on your keyboard (1 is for your default fire breath, 2 is for ice breath, 3 is for magic breath, 4 is for spark breath and five is for the dragon blade) think classic Doom here with the gun selection method. ;)

Cureently I am in the process of building an inventory screen where you will be able to also select your fire power as well as your in game items as well as a few other things you'd normally see in an inventory screen. Also, I must brag, the in game's hud looks rather spiffy! Wish I could show you guys what this stuff looks like, but I already swore to not reveal anything until my birthday on October the 8th... So I ask that you be patient. I'm at least updating the blog here about the progress. so be happy with that ;)

Anyway, that's all I've got for this update. We just finished having a birthday party here at my apartment for my cousin... the place is a disaster and I'm sleepy as all heck. :P I'll post more for you guys later so keep checking in!

8-21-13 - Multi-Directional Control and Different Types of Firebreath

I've just finished applying the mechanics for multi-directional aiming, no longer will you be limited to the default left/right fire scheme of old.

I've borrowed this new system from the Metroid series (Super Metroid and the two GBA Metroid games) where you press and hold the left shoulder button to aim diagonal (up and down and in the direction that your looking) or aim directly up while standing still. This should make killing certain enemies or destroying certain objects from a certain angle much easier.

The aiming system does kind of vary depending on what the situation is:

When crouching:

- if left shoulder is being pressed and according to the direction the player sprite is facing you automatically aim at  diagonal up direction (when facing left you face upLeft ; when facing right you face upRight)

- when the left shoulder button is not being pressed you default to left and right directions.

When climbing a grate or a ladder:

 - if left shoulder is being pressed, climbing is halted and the player engages in aiming mode enabling you to aim before firing. In this mode you are able to aim in six different directions: (left, right, Diagnal:(up-Left, down-Left, up-Right, down-Right))

 - if the left shoulder button is not being pressed, directions are defaulted to left and right only. And also you cant shoot while in the process of climbing

When climbing/sliding on walls or hanging on ledges:

- depending on which way the wall is facing (left or right) the player would be limited to 3 different aiming angles. Example: if the wall is facing right then you'd be limited to aiming left or when the left shoulder button is being pressed, you may select left or diagonal(upLeft, downLeft). If the wall was facing right, it would be the same, only with it being in the 'right' direction

When moving across monkey bars:

- while not pressing the left shoulder button, the directions default to standard left and right

- while pressing the left shoulder button and depending on the direction the sprite is facing you automatically aim at a diagonal down direction (if facing left, you face downLeft ; If facing right you face downRight)

When swimming in water or in lava:

 - When the left shoulder button is pressed you will be able to aim diagonal (upLeft, downLeft, upRight, downRight)

- when the left shoulder button is not being pressed then you default to left and right directions

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I'm still in the process of applying fire breath to this new aiming system. And since I'm in the process of doing that, I've taken the opportunity to work on different types of fire breath (Spike will learn new fire breathing techniques throughout the game. You will have five different types of fire powers to collect which would come in the form of a magic scroll (or Fire Scolls as I call them) or in the final weapons's case, an actual sword) Here's what I have in mind so far... (keep in mind, I'm still brainstorming on these and nothing is yet final. Feel free to give me your input on these.)

Fire Breath [default]

This is the fire power that you start the game out with. And its Spike's average green fire breath which acts as a standard weapon in the game. Also it would be used to light torches in dark rooms and destroy item blocks.

Ice Breath

With this fire power you would be able to turn certain enemies or objects into ice cubes which you then could use them as platforms or carry them around the current map area and place them wherever convenience. Ice breath would also be used as a weapon that would instantly kill certain fire based enemies (they wont become ice-cubes, but rather just explode upon impact). Ice breath does require the use of your magic meter though, so use sparingly.

Magic Breath

Magic breath does twice the damage on enemies as your standard fire breath. It also travels farther (as far as the edge of the screen) and it can destroy certain 'magic' blocks. Also, like fire breath it can be used to light lanterns in dark areas but with an added bonus: in some rooms, hidden 'ghost' platforms are revealed when lanterns are lit with the magic flame. And when this fire collides with a wall or other types of obstacles, it splits into four smaller projectiles and fly out in four seperate ways. But like the ice breath, magic flame also requires the use of your magic meter. Again, use this sparingly!

Spark Breath

This is a more electrified version of fire breath. That being said, this fire power can be used to stun certain enemies, or turn on power to certain electric powered devices in the game. This fire power also uses the magic meter... And I'm still thinking of other uses for this power, if you have any suggestions, let me know :)

The Dragon Blade

I've mentioned this final weapon in other blog posts before (specifically the mini-game posts from several months back) and I've been brain storming on how such a weapon could be used. I rather liked the sword weapon in Cave story, and I also liked how in most Zelda games, you throw a magical mimic of the master sword while at full health. So I've decided to use the dragon blade accordingly... This is the most powerful fire power in the game, in that it literally makes the other fire powers a bit useless. It does not require the use of the magic meter, and it does four times the damage as the standard fire breath. When equipped, it still takes the form of a sort of fire breath, but with a mimic image of a dagger within the flames (the way I visualize this, it looks kinda cool, so trust me on this...) This weapon will not be showing up in demo 5 however. It is strictly reserved for the final game. It still deserves a mention here though. :P

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That's all I have for now. I'll keep updating as things progress! Also, I'm still looking for more volunteer testers. It wont be long for the first engine test release, so sign up while you still have a chance!