LittleBigPlanet 2 - 3 - Vita - Karting #1
"Bound" 1-2 Player Platformer Hack & Slash/Shooter RPG
Archive: 12 posts
Hello lbpcers. Bound has been a project I've been slowly working on for a good few months. I can say that it is my biggest and most fun project to work on. In fact, it will most likely be my last project aside from those already published locked on my earth. Not last as in "ZOMG! I can't take it anymore! Rage quit!" but last as in "Holy crap this is something I've always wanted to make so I want to make it huge, epic & primarily focus on it for awhile."  http://i4.lbp.me/img/ft/2043374ab95f5e1d1bbb45162cdf6fbc63940767.jpg http://ia.lbp.me/img/ft/0ea8d81e7df599e1408268068ba8a3a3d3c883e1.jpg Anyways so what it Bound and what's with the really short & not very descriptive title? Well, it's a single or 2 player side scrolling hack & slash/shooter. The main premise of the game is that you normally can't wield any sort of melee weapon or gun in lbp. It is sadly an unsupported feature that can only be done with sackbots, and even then you still don't technically hold the items. The idea behind Bound is that you are given special abilities that allow you to "Bind" weapons to your sackperson and control them with your mind and magic. You are able to have one weapon and one spell "Bound" to you (equipped) at all times while adventuring through a semi-randomly generated dungeon. There will be a TON of unique weapons and spells to find in every dungeon, and since you can only have one of each bound to you at a time, it is advised to try out the new ones & leave old ones behind. They get better as you go anyway. GEAR SCALE All items, dungeons and monsters scale by a system I made in tribute to many real RPGs. I always liked colored (flavored) text on items that gives you an idea of the quality or rarity of an item. This means that weapons get better (do more damage, bigger area or hitbox, special elemental effects, etc.) depending on where they lie in the scale I made. Which is.. from worst to best... -Noob- Noob items have brown text and will only be in the tutorial and don't actually do any damage. They are cheap wooden training weapons that show you the basics of how to use the items you will find throughout the dungeons. -Crappy- Crappy weapons & spells have red text and are the worst of all. They have low damage, are usually small &/or not very effective, but hey it's better than nothing.. -Meh- Meh items have yellowish-light green text and are a bit better than crappy ones. Still nothing extraordinary but not bad. If you have played my beta test you will notice that "Meh" items are the most common. (actually I've only made Meh & OK items so far) but in the final version of the 1st dungeon, you won't be able to find Meh items as easily. -OK- Ok items have white text and are regarded as decent items. This is where weapons with elemental effects will start showing up. -Great- Great have green text and are pretty good. Not a whole lot of change from OK ones, but more damage and unique effects. -Awesome- Awesome items have blue text and are obviously awesome. Much larger, more damage and unique effects sometimes. -Epic- Epic items have purple text (like they always do) and are the 2nd best items in the entire game. Only obtainable in the last 2 dungeons. -GODLY!- Godly weapons have golden text and are the absolute best. They are the "legendary" counterpart in my game. (A lot of RPGs have "legendary" items with yellow text that are usually very rare and powerful) Only obtainable in the final dungeon, these weapons do the most possible damage (usually 100% signal strength) and have very unique feature  The "Godly" weapons will all be named in tribute to a bunch of real gadders that love lbp and have very specific tribute looks and effects. There are a bunch of RPG's with rare "named" items that you get from bosses, NPCs and chests that are named after a specific person or monster in the game, so I thought this would be a fun little idea to do for lols. DUNGEONS http://i3.lbp.me/img/ft/d437d39941f577806b42cde5e5cd1248522afe6d.jpg I have 5 dungeons planed excluding the tutorial. The tutorial is kinda like dungeon 0, with exclusive "Noob" weapons that teach you the basics. Notice the dungeons have 3 colored letters next to them? This is the scale within the dungeons. Only 3 rarities of items appear in each one, increasing by 1 rarity each consecutive dungeon. This is also the scale of the dungeons themselves in that they get more difficult as you go. The dungeons will randomly generate by rooms. Only 3 rooms will be emitted at a time. The previous, current and next. (so I can emit-destroy effectively Note: this means you will not normally be able to backtrack, so once you go through a door and have been in the next room for a certain amount of time, it will shut lock and never open again. The one exception being "chest rooms" that don't have a closing door after you have gone out of them. Most rooms will have a standard "kill all enemies" goal to unlock the door to the next, but I plan to have a few unique goals too (ex. destroy all of a certain item, activate a switch(s) or maybe even some sort of puzzle..) The "random generation" is not even really close to being very random.. The way it works is (and same with the chest's items and elemental effects). The entire time that particular thing exists.. it is constantly rolling on the randomizer.. it is not until the action is completed (open chest, finish room goal or hitting an enemy with an elemental attack) that it picks (the items, next room or if the elemental effect happens) Rooms will usually have about 3 or 4 possibilities and they will be of a similar nature. There are designated enemy rooms, chest rooms and mini-boss or boss rooms, so the content of the room may vary but the overall progression is roughly the same. This means you can't possibly see everything from one or even a few plays... and should provide a pretty unique experience each time. Typically the dungeons go from left to right but in some cases may go up or down too. I can only have about 10- 13 rooms per dungeon judging by beta test level. So I may need to have some up/down sections so they are longer. Also notice the little icons in this poor res photo. They give a little hint to what the dungeon will be, but I'l just say what they all are now. 1. The Crypt -The Crypt is the 1st actual dungeon and has "Crappy"-"OK" items. (Crappy being the most common, "Meh" being uncommon and "OK" being rare) The Crypt will have a bunch of undead & ghostly enemies. gee I wonder why.  *When I have the Crypt completely finished I will publish the level, while continuing to work on the other dungeons. I'l have those who want to beta test (or are currently) test the new dungeons & content as I make it. 2. The Swamp -The 2nd dungeon is a forest/swamp area and has "Meh"-"Great" items. I have not even started on this or any further dungeon so some of this may be subject to change. I plan to have enemies like alligators, plant monsters, snakes, goblins & orcs. I also plan to focus more on ranged weapons in this dungeon given it will be an outdoor, more open one. 3. Mountain peak - The 3rd dungeon is an icy mountain peak/cave. It will have "Ok"-"Awesome" items. Enemies will be something like wolves, yetis and evil snow wizards. 4. Volcano -The 4th dungeon will be inside a live volcano. It will have "Great "-"Epic" items. Enemies will probably be lava monsters, rock golems and dragons. 5. Castle -The final dungeon will be a massive dark castle on top of this giant mountain that concludes your adventure. It will be the most difficult, but also contains the sacred gadder-tribute "Godly" items. Meaning this dungeon has "Awesome","Epic" & "Godly" items. I really hope I can get all the way to completing this dungeon eventually, this project is a huge time investment and I do have other projects that I will be working on along side this, so there is a chance that I may not be able to complete the entire thing. It's not likely, but real life calls sometimes  PLAYERS Bound is either single player or 2 player co-op. I originally had it 3 player but cut it down to 2 to prevent potential lag, overheating, make it easier to scale and keep things a bit less cluttered, Most player sackbot levels are single player only due to some of these issues, but I wanted this to be multiplayer in some aspect due to the universal items, the amount of items & item combinations and a sense of teamwork & exploration. You play as your normal sackperson with no real differences between a normal sackperson besides having 100 HP. The movement and control are the same as usual until you have an item equipped. I really wanted to minimize the HUD as best I could so that your character is not cluttered. That being said, when your health is at max (100 HP) it is not even visible. (lol, this is also because there is no thousands place in the HP, with the way I have my positional sequencer set up, 100 HP actually displays inaccurately as 90 HP , but using positional sequencers to get a numerical display is quite cumbersome for what it does. I didn't want to do extra unnecessary work to get the 100 displayed. Plus I wanted to hide the HUD as best I could so I guess it was killing 2 birds with 1 stone.)http://i3.lbp.me/img/ft/0a398307ce3365e99320042ab6afb392f9132b68.jpg You can have 2 items equipped at the same time. 1 spell (left) and 1 weapon (right). Weapons use a special resource called "Focus" which is your mental concentration to use the weapon bound to you. Since for some unknown reason you can't actually hold them. Spells use a special resource called "Arcane Power" which is a magic ability that lets you use the power of the spell you have bound to yourself. Both resources regenerate while not using the item. Weapons are equipped/unequipped by pressing right on the D-pad and follow your character by "sheathing" on your back. When using a weapon, another number appears to the right of your character. An orange number with max values of 10. (this is actually 100 but rounded. I could have it display "100" just like the health but again, wanted to avoid clutter & unnecessary display logic. (THIS IS WHY I AM SO STOKED FOR THE AWESOME LBPV NOTES THAT CAN RECEIVE & DISPLAY ANALOG SIGNAL!! ) Anyways.. This orange # that appears when using a spell is "Focus" or maybe more commonly (Stamina). For as long as you use a weapon (and this varies by weapon type), focus depletes. As it depletes, it gets brighter & turns red the closer you get to 0. When you are at 0, you can't use the weapon until it regenerates to at least 1. At max value (10) the number is completely invisible.Spells are equipped/unequipped by pressing left on the D-pad and follow your character on the left side. When using a spell, another number appears to the bottom left of the character. A purple number with max values of 10. This purple # that appears when using a spell is "Arcane Power" or maybe more commonly (Mana). For as long as you use a spell, arcane power depletes. As it depletes, it gets brighter & turns red the closer you get to 0. When you are at 0, you can't use the spell until it regenerates to at least 1. -ITEMS- -Potions- Potions are scattered throughout the dungeons, sometimes in chests and sometimes may spawn after killing a monster. They will also follow the same scale system in that a "crappy"potion heals only a little, while better potions heal more. When you approach a potion, a prompt will show up telling you to press square. It will only heal the person who does. *Note the prompt will NOT appear and you can not use the potion if you have 100 HP (or actually 99 too). That's just a little pet peeve of mine in games because it wastes the item. http://i9.lbp.me/img/ft/e096470bfd0b230cf52d204742e4d28a5b3f4ce1.jpg These are all the functional items I have made so far with the exception of an "OK Ice Gun" This is roughly half of all the items that will be in the Crypt dungeon. Each item has a name, rarity and a special description magic mouth that tells you a bit about what it does. -Weapons- weapons are separated into 2 different types. Melee weapons and ranged. http://i5.lbp.me/img/ft/0951aa7316c48151e5d35324eec84da8e32250f1.jpg -Melee- Melee weapons are usually swords and axes but I have a few ideas/models of other types as well (most notably flails and hammers) all melee weapons control the same way. You hold R1 to unsheathe the weapon and have full control over it with the right stick (this is indicated by a player color aura that outlines the weapon, when this aura is visible, that is when your Focus depletes). This allows you to attack 2 separate ways. Either hold R1 and swing the sword around with the right stick or point the direction you want to attack and tap R1 to swing it that way. Note: Spamming is effective for rapid damage if an enemy is close enough but you sacrifice range and still consume focus. (Resource regeneration starts after NOT using the weapon for half a second) *NOTE Even though attacking with a weapon uses R1, you can actually still grab grabable things to swing on. Simply point the direction you want to swing with the right stick while holding onto the object (since R1 is already being pressed) and you will swing the weapon in that direction. I plan to add some obstacles &/or bosses that actually require you to do this. http://i3.lbp.me/img/ft/b5301b80b8631df75d003ee2ef61a3d1fe7d36ec.jpg -Ranged- Ranged weapons are guns and bows and perform the same way, but much differently than melee weapons. While a ranged weapon is equipped, using the right stick will aim it in the direction you want to fire. (most guns and bows disable movement while aiming, but not all will ) Aiming does not use any focus. When you want to fire the bow or gun you hold R1 to load an arrow or bullet. Load times & projectiles vary depending on weapon, but for as long as you are holding R1 you will deplete Focus. When it is loaded and ready to be fired, you will hear a sound and (for guns the tip of the barrel will flash) (for bows an arrow will appear). After this, simply release R1 to fire. (you may want to keep holding the right stick in the direction you aimed to keep you shots accurate) Getting used to the load times and minimizing the amount of time holding R1 will make using ranged weapons more effective in reducing the consumption of focus. http://i0.lbp.me/img/ft/9b00d181a12d761916c6af1502180d90cd9952af.jpg http://ia.lbp.me/img/ft/04ae4d46821be7f8444a07aa0ff9fc2eef4021bc.jpg *NOTE You can also perform a melee attack with a loaded gun or bow. This does not do very much damage but can be useful if an enemy is right on you. Just whack them with the barrel or arrow tip of the loaded weapon. The reason you must have it loaded is because this must still consume focus. *NOTE You can also still grab grabable objects with ranged weapons as well. Currently... since you have to release R1 to fire.. you must let go to fire while holding onto something.. BUT I have an idea of "auto fire" once the weapon is loaded to work around this. This "auto fire" technique will only be available while holding onto something and will fire as soon as it is loaded, so you can continue to hold onto the grabable object. -Spells- http://ib.lbp.me/img/ft/6bb1dbff2c8c779b55b844bcfc4fcba0e97677f4.jpg Spells are secondary magical abilities that use their own separate resource. Most spells are not really used for attacking and don't do damage. An example is electric spell which shoots out lightning that stuns the enemy or ice that has a chance to freeze the enemy for a short time. Spells are all very different, even if they have the same elemental effect. Some are a constant burst of that element, some shoot projectiles, some are used for healing and some even spawn friendly versions of monsters that help you!  All spells that consume Arcane power disable your movement while using them. To use a spell, hold L1 and point the direction you want to shoot (if applicable) with the left stick. I say "if applicable" because some don't require aiming (ex. healing spells). While doing this you will usually drain arcane power. This also means that you can use both a spell and a weapon at the exact same time but be wary of your resources while doing this! There is only one exception of a spell NOT using arcane power so far and that is the summoning spells. The way summoning spells work is you summon a monster with L1 and it will spawn. You can only have one out at a time and it will disappear if one of a few things happen. If the monster dies, if you get too far away from it, after 30 seconds of existing, if you unequip the spell that summons it, if you summon a new one or if you die. Does this mean you can summon a new one once one is at half health (even though you wouldn't know)? Yes. You can always have 1 monster summoned at all times as long as you keep the spell equipped. This spell does not use any arcane power, it straight up negates it. I plan to have a summonable version of each normal monster within a dungeon. Once the monster is summoned it will attack any nearby enemies (if it can get to them) and will follow the owner of the spell if there are no enemies within it's detection. http://i4.lbp.me/img/ft/604637daa58044514768efd38b39a243f16907cb.jpg http://ib.lbp.me/img/ft/f0b2ce6f69c7957828c7f977c2db34ec1928d3e0.jpg -Utilities?- Utilities are an idea I have.. they are another item that can be equipped in the "spell slot" and drain arcane power just like spells. They are primarily identical to spells in function but instead of doing something magical, they are more like an infinite supply of something. Some examples would be throwing knives, traps, bombs and other thrown items. Let me know what you think about utilities if you read this. -Elemental effects- Elemental effects are things like fire, ice and lightning. Most spells are bursts or shots of a certain element and some weapons even have elemental effects. A melee weapon with an elemental effect will roll for the effect for as long as you are touching the enemy, but only does damage on the initial hit. So holding the sword on the enemy increases the chances of triggering the effect but isn't the best idea for doing much damage. Also any elemental enemy is resistant to the effect they do but will still take the "true damage" of any elemental weapon. these effects include.. Fire- Fire has a chance to catch the enemy on fire. When they are on fire, they will run away and take damage until the fire burns out (1.5 seconds for most enemies) Lightning- Lightning will stun an enemy and prevent them from moving for as long as they are being hit with it. Ice- Ice has a chance to freeze and when frozen, enemies will not be able to move for a second. Fire melts the ice and cancels out this effect. Leech- Leech is life steal. When an enemy is hit by a weapon that has the leach effect, you will steal a small amount of health. (The whole "holding the enchanted weapon on an enemy to increase the effect" is very important with leech. You will slowly heal for as long as you are touching an enemy with it.) Additional unmade elements.. I have plans for more elemental effects but think I will wait until the Swamp dungeon for these. They are poison, acid and explosions. I felt that those would fit well with the theme of that dungeon and as soon as an elemental is added, it will apply (and have items that use it) to all consecutive dungeons. Meaning that fire, ice, lightning & leach will be in the swamp in addition to these new ones ENEMIES The enemies within the dungeon also scale by the same system as the items & dungeons. So a "Crappy" enemy has less health and does less damage than "Meh"+ enemies. The way I have it now is that enemies have .1 more health each grade up starting from .1. So "crappy" enemies have .1 health, "Meh" have .2 etc. This means that every grade has twice as much health as the previous. Killing an enemy results in a prize bubble for scoring, be sure to grab it after it has been killed. Here are the enemies I currently have for the Crypt dungeon. Only 5 (and only 3 in the beta..) as of now.. but more will come soon. *Note They may be different in looks & function from the beta version. http://i0.lbp.me/img/ft/dd05ad71f468a39792289de624412a8c96b5d7a3.jpg (From top left to bottom right) Normal zombie- This regular zombie only attacks by biting you, it will slowly walk to you and chew on you if you are close enough. Easy, weak enemy but dangerous in numbers. Is classified as a "crappy" enemy. Burning zombie- This zombie is on fire, touching him has a chance to set you on fire. He also burps a big ball of fire if you get too close. Sice he attacks with fire, he is resistant to it. Is classified as a "Meh" enemy. Zombie Knight- This zombie serves as a mini-boss. He wields a unique sword and uses it in the same fashion as a player. This is the first enemy that can equip an item just like players can. (Most mini bosses will be like this) Once you kill him, his sword will drop and can be equipped normally. Is classified as an "OK" enemy. Black Phantom- The black phantom flies in the air and hovers over you. When right over you, he slowly sprays a mist of dark magic (rotating black skulls) that do damage. When frozen he will fall to the ground. Is classified as a "Meh" enemy. Fire Phantom- The fire phantom is the same as the black phantom, but instead of the black mist, he shoots fire balls underneath him when hovering over a player. He is also on fire himself, so touching him can catch you on fire as well. This also means he is resistant to fire. The fire phantom is slightly faster than a black phantom but has less health. So he is classified as a "Crappy" enemy. BUGS & TRIVIAL INFO I have not actually programmed everything described here yet. There are still a few things I need to fix, change or add. This mostly pertains to the room logic. There are also a few important bugs & exploits that have not yet been fixed or aren't fixed in the current beta test. There's also just some random info I thought I'd share and feedback that I need to respond to. -Bugs- -Double weapon/spell (fixed) It was possible 2 separate ways, to have 2 items equipped to the same slot. They would overlap and function as normal making you hilariously overpowered. This was performed either by spacing them just right and you are in between them when you equip, or by acceleration towards another very quickly while having one already equipped (rare). Anyone who was able to perform this probably knows that when you press unequip for that "slot" it will unequip both items. Then they are separated.. and won't double equip until you perform the bug again. This was fixed by simply having the slot auto-unequip if it detects that you have more than 1 item in that slot, so the method still "works" and the items will attach for a split second but almost immediately unequip afterwards. -Escaping/stuck items (not fixed but soon) Since the items are made entirely of holo, sticker panel and decorations, they will pass through all surfaces.. The current system is simple and just pushes them up if the are impacting a surface and down if they are not.. This is why they "jump". (which I do like because it also shows that they are interactive) but allows them to escape if they are touching certain walls with surface tags on them.. This breaks certain parts of the current build, specifically the tutorial. All that is needed to fix this is specific right/left wall tags that push them the opposite direction. The way to perform this bug is to unequip an item against certain walls, (doors don't usually have these tags so they should not work) if the wall has a tag.. the weapon thinks it is stuck in the ground and will rise until it sits on top of the room, making it unreachable. -Stretchy Bow string (not fixable to my knowledge.. but only a visual bug) Connectors behave strangely when connected to sticker panel or holo sometimes, or if they are moved radically with a strong mover. Well, if you move the right stick around "aim" left and right very quickly while using a bow, the string will start to deform and stretch. this causes no problems with the function of the bow, just defies continuity and looks bad. After sitting for a few seconds or not being used, the elastic will set itself back in place. -A sip of potion (keeping for lols) Even though I said potions only heal who use it this is not always true if you know how they work. I decided to keep this in as a little easter egg that is kinda hard to do anyway. When a potion is first used it takes .5 to heal you and will despawn in .6 but there is no actual single trigger. If someone has just used a potion, if you are close enough you can also press square in this .6 second window to heal for however much of the timer is left. This will always be a smaller amount due to it not being a full .5 second heal. (This also does not bypass the strength of the potion. The .5 timer still heals by a certain percentage signal.) -Easter eggs & secrets- -Chest boost If you didn't already figure out.. the way to get the "OK Ice Sword" on the top ledge in the first chest room is to stand on top of a chest when you open it. (you must stand towards the middle or it will topple over.) The exploding off top provides a boost that allows you on top of the ledge. I plan to implement this in several areas with chests and they won't always be as obvious. -Spinning blade attack If you have a weapon that is "heavier" like a few swords and most axes. (weaker joystick rotators) You can do this secret move where the weapon spins around the character quickly. While swinging the weapon one way, immediately push the right stick the opposite direction. If you did this properly, the weapon will spin around you, disobeying your control until you release R1 or run out of focus. -Killing Luktr It's possible to kill my sackbot in the tutorial by using the weapons I give you in the tutorial. This doesn't break anything because I have already explained the goal if you have equipped the weapon, nor does it actually kill my sackbot because it spawns another in later parts of the tutorial. Of course it is not possible to kill Dortr.. but she will exclaim and be angry for the rest of the "elemental spell" section of the tutorail if you are to hit her with a spell effect instead of the chained zombie. -Feedback & ideas- -Dual wielding & universal slots- I like dual wielding, in all honesty, when I play RPGs I am usually a rouge. I really like daggers and stealth.. I also really like the universal left/right hand spell/weapon universal aspect of games like Skyrim & Dark Souls. The dual resource idea is also a very traditional RPG thing. As much as I like these things.. I feel that allowing any item to be equipped to either slot has potential to be super over powered, or in some cases unable to do damage! The way I like to explain this is that your weapon is your primary attack and the spells are either secondary attacks or passives. Weapons always do "damage".. always. (If an enemy is resistant to an element and is hit by an elemental weapon, it still takes the set damage of the weapon). This means there would be potential for a player to not be able to kill a monster to progress. Despite all this.. I think I may make a few special items that CAN go in either slot. Maybe I will make dagger sets you can mix and match since I really like daggers. there is also something that I fail to mention but have planned that kinda addresses this as well and that is..-Staffs- I have been thinking of interesting ways to implement staffs. I'm thinking of doing this for them. Staffs technically control the same way as melee weapons, but are equipped in the "Arcane power" slot. They will be a melee weapon with an elemental tip (or the entire staff for some). -Inspirations- I've always wanted to make my own games. This is why I am so obsessed with lbp2. I don't necessarily create to appeal to most players. I create concepts that show I am capable of making my own unique games. I have countless ideas but don't actually believe I'l go anywhere with video game development... So I like to think creating in lbp2 "gets my ideas out there" instead of just keeping them in my head or writing up concepts and stories. Pretty much all of my levels are inspired by some sort of real game that I like. Any time I play a game that can essentially be made in lbp2 I start thinking of ideas on how it would work out. I actually can say that there aren't a whole lot of completely new mechanics that I came up with, usually just borrow ideas from other games and mix some of the ideas together.Bound is actually very inspired by two specific games. Castle Crashers should be a given. It's a side scrolling hack & slash RPG. The equipping mechanic is almost identical in that you can only have 1 melee weapon equipped at a time. when you unequip the weapon, it drops on the ground ( it actually has a "switch-out" function though...) Anyways, the weapons can be picked up by any co-op partner after it has been dropped like it does in Bound. Lol.. watching this makes me realize how much is similar.. This video is actually a kid showing you how to find a few specific weapons but shows the equipping mechanic and even the similar lightning spell the Red Knight uses. (that stun locks just like it does in Bound) http://youtu.be/SxyDsPzQ82w Man I miss that game! The other game that inspired me is an ios game generically called "Pocket RPG".. Despite having such a boring name, it is actually among one of my favorite ios games and dungeon raid RPGs. The mechanics of it are simple but fun and there are no towns or quests. You just pick a dungeon and go. I actually like that because usually towns just have lame fetch quests or boring "talk to this NPC" type of objectives.. the only thing I really like about towns in most RPGs are merchants & shops. If you pay attention to the video, you will notice some of the borrowed mechanics. Which are.. -Randomly generated dungeons, but still within a certain theme with appropriate monsters. -"Room objectives" When you enter a room in Pocket RPG, a gate closes behind you and won't open again until you complete the "room objective" which is usually "kill all monsters", "defeat the boss" or "destroy or protect a relic statue". *Unlike Pocket RPG, the entrance door does not re-open after completing the objective, so you can't backtrack in Bound like you can in Pocket RPG (which is rather pointless anyway) -"Humorous loot names" Pocket RPG has a lot of loot. What will drop depends on a few things but the items usually have rather funny names. An example is "The standard sword of the ordinary" could that be any more "average?" -"Following scrolls and books" If you watch the Battle Mage, there is always a book or scroll that follows behind her. This is the equipped scroll or book that determines what kind of magic she attacks with. http://youtu.be/TXNsrRvS3bE ...Alright.. I think that covers everything.. Wow this took hours to type up  If you have any questions, comments or suggestions just post, | 2012-08-04 03:06:00 Author: Dortr  Posts: 548 |
| Stuff like this is why I play LittleBigPlanet 2. Can't wait to see this action! | 2012-08-04 04:02:00 Author: BIGGamerer  Posts: 182 |
| An interesting read. below are my thoughts I typed up yesterday - some of these things you've already mentioned in the thread, but I'd just like to offer my suggestions, regardless. 1) Selling this as a dungeon-specific level might be selling it short. I realise you have plans for different dungeons, but I think adding some town/city environments could also work really well. Perhaps as a small intermission environment between dungeons? What with this being a treasure-hunting game, you could have players either take side-missions in the town environment, which come with monetary and/or pick-up rewards, or you could allow players to steal things from various buildings. Or maybe both? Like a moral choice system. I can’t help but imagine the town environments feeling a little bit Assassins Creed-ish. Also – shops. Players could spend their points on secret goodies only available in the town area(s). I'm not sure whether you'd want to have players return to the same town between each dungeon, like a HUB/Overworld, or have a different town each time so it appears more like a long adventure as the players travel from one location to another one, passing through multiple towns and dungeons along the way. This might even be a nice setting for Luktr and Dortr, with their tutorials to appear in. One other thing – Perhaps the town/city environment could have a place for the player(s) to drop off their favourite items and objects without losing them? Say I find a rare sword that there is only 1 of in the entire game, but it might not be the best choice for the next dungeon or mission, I want to drop it, but I want to pick it up again later on. Perhaps a hideout with a chest that can store 3 or 4 items for me would be a nice choice. This idea totally depends on the thermo available, as well as whether or not the game mechanics will require it. 2) Deeper Combat controls I realise this may be a bit complicated and if you’ve already made loads of weapons, it may be a chore, but I think the level could really benefit from this. I have 3 suggestions – A Shield or Counter move. This would allow players to deflect enemy weapon attacks (Perhaps stunning them, or lowering their Weapon Focus?) It would still need to be aimed, but if the player using a Counter move hits the hitbox of the enemy weapon, the other character should receive a penalty of sorts. This idea comes from the feeling that as is, fighting is easy. A little too easy. Against zombies it’s just a case of standing still and hitting them every time they get close. That’s OK – zombies should behave like that. But I feel the characters using weapons should require more thought, and this might be just perfect. My other idea, I already mentioned on LBP, I suggested giving some weapons unique moves. Such as being able to throw a sword and have it return to the player, or a ‘Thunder Drop’ attack like from inFamous, or maybe even allow some swords to have projectile attacks. There’s a lot that could be done here, and it could open up a lot more variety in the weapons rather than minor range, damage and speed attributes. These moves could either be unique to a particular weapon, or they could be collected like Spells. However, I think having the special moves tied with specific weapons would be the easier to implement option, and would also add more strategy to the players weapon choice. For the sake of balance, these special attacks should cost 5 or 6 points worth of Weapon Focus. My 3rd suggestion,is something you already spoke about in this thread – Spears, hammers and other long weapons. As is, I think the current weapons can all hit enemies who are either touching the player, or are a short distance away. There’s no deadzone in ranges. Spears would have a long handle that does no damage to close enemies, with the blade leaving a considerable gap between the damage hitbox and the player. A simple idea, that would open up more combat variety. Swords and Axes would be fighting to get close, with Hammers and Spears trying to keep the enemy within a specific sweet-spot. Personally, I've always liked Spears in these sorts of games. 3) Prize Bubbles? In my dungeon? Is it just me, or do those Prize Bubbles look out of place? I realise this is just an aesthetic thing, but I think creating your own collectables out of materials or Sticker Panel would really compliment the levels appearance. Small collectable treasure chests, crowns, goblets, magic lamps, coin piles, money bags, jewels, whatever other visual things you could turn into collectable objects with Score Givers attached. 4) Incredibly pedantic complaint – I don’t like the ‘OK’ weapon grade. ‘Meh’ sounds amusing and I think it fits. But ‘OK’ seems like an out of place term for the level. What about ‘Average’ or ‘Intermediate’? By all means feel free to disregard this, though. It's not that 'OK' doesn't describe the weapons, I just think it's not a uniform word with the rest. | 2012-08-04 10:40:00 Author: Ostler5000  Posts: 1017 |
| 1) Selling this as a dungeon-specific level might be selling it short. I realise you have plans for different dungeons, but I think adding some town/city environments could also work really well. Perhaps as a small intermission environment between dungeons? What with this being a treasure-hunting game, you could have players either take side-missions in the town environment, which come with monetary and/or pick-up rewards, or you could allow players to steal things from various buildings. Or maybe both? Like a moral choice system. I can’t help but imagine the town environments feeling a little bit Assassins Creed-ish. Also – shops. Players could spend their points on secret goodies only available in the town area(s). I'm not sure whether you'd want to have players return to the same town between each dungeon, like a HUB/Overworld, or have a different town each time so it appears more like a long adventure as the players travel from one location to another one, passing through multiple towns and dungeons along the way. The way I have it planned is very linear... You select a dungeon and the end has the scoreboard. If you want to play a different one you will probably have to replay the level.. I may have some sort of HUB world.. but the player health actually scales within the dungeons.. so technically it will be a different sackbot. When it comes to a dungeon raid hack & slash, I like to focus on combat and exploration. I like the idea of being isolated or trapped in a dungeon that you must fight through to escape. Towns seem somewhat out of place and usually have lame fetch quests or "go talk to this NPC.. now this one.." types of objectives and quests.. I would like to make an interactive town with NPCs in some way, but probably not for Bound.. The only thing that I really like about towns is that there are usually merchants and shops to get new items. I plan to have a merchant halfway through, or somewhere in each dungeon that will sell a few items for points. Most likely a few rare ones that can only be obtained by purchasing it from them. (I also had a funny idea of a scroll that can summon a merchant just like the friendly monster ones )One other thing – Perhaps the town/city environment could have a place for the player(s) to drop off their favourite items and objects without losing them? Say I find a rare sword that there is only 1 of in the entire game, but it might not be the best choice for the next dungeon or mission, I want to drop it, but I want to pick it up again later on. Perhaps a hideout with a chest that can store 3 or 4 items for me would be a nice choice. This idea totally depends on the thermo available, as well as whether or not the game mechanics will require it. A lot of people have said they want this.. A way to save or store items.. There are a couple of ways this could be done but given the amount of items.. it would be cumbersome. Especially if it was done with stickers.. No item has a unique tag.. all weapons are called "weapon" and all spells are called "spells". This would make it difficult for any sensor to identify each specific item. Also I don't want players to have the ability to take certain items out of one dungeon and into another. A prime example is the zombie summon scroll. Certain items are only supposed to be within that dungeon, so taking it somewhere else may cause problems with some. taking much rarer items to an older easier dungeon would also make is so much easier than it already is. In Pocket RPG (A game that inspired me to make Bound and I borrowed some of the mechanics of) when you select a dungeon you always start with the same "starter gear" regardless of which dungeon. After the dungeon is complete, all items that you have are sold for gold and you can't use them again unless you find them again. I like this setup even if you lose an item you really like.. You'l always find more though, so don't get attached haha. Despite that, you may like this idea I have for the future of the beta test. After I publish the Crypt, I'l still keep the beta open and continue to update it and test new stuff. Since the game is based on random generation and finding all kinds of gear, I had an interesting beta debug kind of idea. In this beta debug thing, testers will be able to spawn any item I have made, any dungeon room piece, and any monster or mini boss. This beta will have a central HUB that has the menus for spawning any item. I also made this "damage test" enemy with an inverted health bar that shows how much damage each weapon actually does. I'd like to include that in the central test HUB as well, with an option to select the "grade" of enemy health. 2) Deeper Combat controls I realise this may be a bit complicated and if you’ve already made loads of weapons, it may be a chore, but I think the level could really benefit from this. A Shield or Counter move. This would allow players to deflect enemy weapon attacks (Perhaps stunning them, or lowering their Weapon Focus?) It would still need to be aimed, but if the player using a Counter move hits the hitbox of the enemy weapon, the other character should receive a penalty of sorts. This idea comes from the feeling that as is, fighting is easy. A little too easy. Against zombies it’s just a case of standing still and hitting them every time they get close. That’s OK – zombies should behave like that. But I feel the characters using weapons should require more thought, and this might be just perfect. My other idea, I already mentioned on LBP, I suggested giving some weapons unique moves. Such as being able to throw a sword and have it return to the player, or a ‘Thunder Drop’ attack like from inFamous, or maybe even allow some swords to have projectile attacks. There’s a lot that could be done here, and it could open up a lot more variety in the weapons rather than minor range, damage and speed attributes. These moves could either be unique to a particular weapon, or they could be collected like Spells. However, I think having the special moves tied with specific weapons would be the easier to implement option, and would also add more strategy to the players weapon choice. For the sake of balance, these special attacks should cost 5 or 6 points worth of Weapon Focus. I do like these ideas and making new items is very easy because I can use copies. that's the beauty of something like this, once you have something made and functions properly, it's only a matter of copying and changing the looks, sounds and stats. This applies to most of the enemies as well because most enemies will be sackbots. Not all of them though (I plan to have some little monsters and some huge bosses made of materials and objects). Anyways adding a special attack to certain weapons is something I have planned for higher tier gear. Whatever the effect will be, it will tell you how to do it in the item's description. However, I think having the special moves tied with specific weapons would be the easier to implement option, and would also add more strategy to the players weapon choice. Not only easier but this would make the most sense. In the thunder drop attack example it would make the most sense for a specific electric weapon to have this ability. This will be done, but perhaps not until later dungeon and on better quality gear. As far as the "Godly" weapons are concerned, you can design how yours looks and performs however you please if you want to have one. They are more there as a little feature for fun, so I'm not worried about them being a bit op. Not "cover the screen in a firey explosion for all elemental effects and 100% damage" op, but reasonably very powerful. *Note Focus and Arcane Power are not speed scale times and do not receive any kind of analog signal, unlike health.. they are a normal forwards/backwards timer, so all items consume the same amount of the resources. A crappy sword and an awesome sword may use the same amount of focus when used, but you will be getting much more damage from that amount of focus. One way this could be implemented though, and I have this idea for some spells, is that certain attacks consume all of your focus or arcane power and can only be used when it is full. This would be more like a powerful ability with a cooldown rather than slowly draining the resource. I do need to make some of the enemies smarter and more threatening.. I nerfed a few things (specifically the zombie knight) because instead of being incredibly easy, the zombie knight would ALWAYS kill me. lol. It was because he did not have any knock-back and being hit did not prevent him from attacking. His sword also did more damage than it used to and I think it could kill you in 4 or 5 hits.. I need to find a good balance for those types of enemies because I really like how they are essentially AI players. The zombie knight even has the same amount of health as the players (.3 "OK" health bar). I also want to display the health of mini bosses and bosses. Follower issues are why I have not included health bars with current enemies. There will only be one of the mini-bosses within a room and they DO have special tags for a health bar to follow. (this has to deal with their ability to equip as well). They will most likely have a numerical HUD for their health just like you. My 3rd suggestion,is something you already spoke about in this thread – Spears, hammers and other long weapons. As is, I think the current weapons can all hit enemies who are either touching the player, or are a short distance away. There’s no deadzone in ranges. Spears would have a long handle that does no damage to close enemies, with the blade leaving a considerable gap between the damage hitbox and the player. A simple idea, that would open up more combat variety. Swords and Axes would be fighting to get close, with Hammers and Spears trying to keep the enemy within a specific sweet-spot. Personally, I've always liked Spears in these sorts of games. Totally going to have spears. I like them too and now that you mention it, I have a good way to do this. When you use a weapon it switches from the follower on the back to the follower on the front. I could easily adjust the follower on the spear towards the back of it when you press R1 so it will appear to thrust forward when you attack. Flails are kinda cool too but I'm still working on them. I like the idea of chained weapons with a hitbox attached by a winch. The hitbox is still activated only when the flail is swung but still gives a very loose control to it. Gah.. I realized today that I didn't capture or save the flail I made.. bummer.. Oh well, at least i know it works. I may have a few other chained weapons like this too. Maybe some weapon lanterns like Malice from V3 has. I always thought getting hit by a metal lantern with a flame inside it would hurt quite badly and I also like using non-traditional items as weapons like that. (hence the giant scissors prototype ) 3) Prize Bubbles? In my dungeon? Is it just me, or do those Prize Bubbles look out of place? I realise this is just an aesthetic thing, but I think creating your own collectables out of materials or Sticker Panel would really compliment the levels appearance. Small collectable treasure chests, crowns, goblets, magic lamps, coin piles, money bags, jewels, whatever other visual things you could turn into collectable objects with Score Givers attached. Great idea and will do. I kinda have the score bubbles right now as place holders. Having specific treasure is a nice idea that is etter suited for dungeon exploration. You will also receive score when you complete a room objective as well. 4) Incredibly pedantic complaint – I don’t like the ‘OK’ weapon grade. ‘Meh’ sounds amusing and I think it fits. But ‘OK’ seems like an out of place term for the level. What about ‘Average’ or ‘Intermediate’? By all means feel free to disregard this, though. It's not that 'OK' doesn't describe the weapons, I just think it's not a uniform word with the rest. Yeah.. Ok is a bad choice. Even though "Meh" isn't a real word, it is usually thought of as synonymous with OK. Plus the jump from OK to great is quite drastic, so I may change it to something else. I try to keep the grade words somewhat short so the items don't have long text. I suppose "Average" or "Ordinary" would fit especially ordinary due to it starting with "O" too. I'm thinking of giving this grade a different color text too. The light greenish text of "Meh" items kinda seems "better" than the boring white text of OK items. | 2012-08-04 19:51:00 Author: Dortr Posts: 548 |
| Wow just wow so much to take in This is one of those projects that puts a smile on my face. I love to see people pushing the 'bound'aries in LBP Firstly i want to say that when i last tested the beta i did think that a good feature might be to make the enemies either be pushed back or stumble from some attacks as it wa easy to be overwhelm by them. Havent tested it since yet so this may not count anymore. I really like the idea to emit three rooms a time it really adds to that trapped feel you wanted in dungeons. I think you should make coins or other jewelry that acts as points dropped by enemies. I don't like score bubbles I like the idea of utilities but they will have to be worthwhile to replace your magic. Maybe if they replaced potions it would be better that way you would have to decide to keep the health potion or replace it with a very powerful bomb or a trap that can be placed then picked up again maybe. Because you will be giving up the potions the utilities will need to seem worth while. If they replace magic then i would say you will need to be able to have five bombs a time or something instead of 1 use only as it is replacing a spell that can be used again and again. "-Spinning blade attack If you have a weapon that is "heavier" like a few swords and most axes. (weaker joystick rotators) You can do this secret move where the weapon spins around the character quickly. While swinging the weapon one way, immediately push the right stick the opposite direction. If you did this properly, the weapon will spin around you, disobeying your control until you release R1 or run out of focus." Haha i was doing this with one of the swords and found it fun. Didn't see it really as a bug. "-Killing Luktr It's possible to kill my sackbot in the tutorial by using the weapons I give you in the tutorial. This doesn't break anything because I have already explained the goal if you have equipped the weapon, nor does it actually kill my sackbot because it spawns another in later parts of the tutorial. Of course it is not possible to kill Dortr.. but she will exclaim and be angry for the rest of the "elemental spell" section of the tutorail if you are to hit her with a spell effect instead of the chained zombie." Its this kind of thing that makes your levels feel special and i hope to see similar things implemented in the rest of the game somehow. Actually maybe have small merchants within some dungeons. They could be little hooded creature people similar to jawas that sell potions an certain items. Even the occasional strong weapon. For dual weilding i would suggest daggers like you said or small hand axes. Because they are replacing magic maybe they could even be magical. So you could have a fire dagger instead of fire spell. Have it do the same damage but because its small it have less area weffect and isn't ranged but up close in combat may be easier then the spell to use. Also Ice weapons could just stun oponents similar to lightning magic with a small chance to temporarily freeze them. Again because it isn't ranged it will have a slight disadvantage but again great in close combat. I think it would work well and you wouldn't need to have many different ones. Staffs sound good as well but i would say either have staffs or the dual weield weapons as they will be similar. After reading what Ostler said i was thinking maybe you could build a town that acts as the level hub. Just have a small town area with gates that have the level link to the dungeons in them. You could even have a well that acts as one of the dungeons. This will make dungeon choosing fun and will also add the te feel of your an adventurer setting off from your town to conquer all Also one thing you could do is have unique wweapons like the ones named after creators buyable at the start of the dungeons. One idea i had for something i was working on but gave up on ages ago was to build a hub level similar to the idea i gave you earlier that allows you to travel to reach level. But once you finish a level your given the option to go straight to the scoreboard or head back to the hub and continue playing. What this means is that players can keep their score from the first level and take it to another. Also when they are in the hub area they can just go straight to a scoreboard as well at the end of the area to finish playing. By doing this players could accumulate a heap of poins which they can use to buy Special weapons at the start of a dungeon. Sure the weapns will be strong but the player must be willing to keep playing continuously to aford the weapons. Well thats all i can think of now but when i next test it i'm sure i'll think of other stuff. I really hope you see this one through as it is a master piece already. Well hope some of this helps. | 2012-08-07 04:16:00 Author: Lordwarblade  Posts: 761 |
| I love to see people pushing the 'bound'aries in LBP Urg!! I'm left wondering why you need to have your Scoreboard at the end of every Dungeon? You're already using the Emitt/Destroy technique, so I don't understand why you can't switch between Dungeons as you please. I understand it's a lot of work to do it the hard way, but I think setting up each Dungeon as a separate score challenge and just letting players pick any dungeon might hurt the appeal a little. I always thought the point in these sorts of slashy adventurey RPG-ish games was that as you made your way through the game you acquired better and better stuff. Taking items away from players at the start of each dungeon seems like a bad decision, if I can be brutally honest. Also, I was wondering, if I created a level similar at some point in the future, with the same sort of weapon pick-ups and controls, would you consider that an attempt at stealing your idea? Not that I plan to right now, but having seen how well this works, I wouldn't mind trying my hand at something like this in the future. Albeit not a dungeon raidy treasure hunty thingy. | 2012-08-07 10:39:00 Author: Ostler5000 Posts: 1017 |
| Also one thing you could do is have unique wweapons like the ones named after creators buyable at the start of the dungeons. One idea i had for something i was working on but gave up on ages ago was to build a hub level similar to the idea i gave you earlier that allows you to travel to reach level. But once you finish a level your given the option to go straight to the scoreboard or head back to the hub and continue playing. What this means is that players can keep their score from the first level and take it to another. Also when they are in the hub area they can just go straight to a scoreboard as well at the end of the area to finish playing. I'm left wondering why you need to have your Scoreboard at the end of every Dungeon? You're already using the Emitt/Destroy technique, so I don't understand why you can't switch between Dungeons as you please. I understand it's a lot of work to do it the hard way, but I think setting up each Dungeon as a separate score challenge and just letting players pick any dungeon might hurt the appeal a little. I always thought the point in these sorts of slashy adventurey RPG-ish games was that as you made your way through the game you acquired better and better stuff. Taking items away from players at the start of each dungeon seems like a bad decision, if I can be brutally honest. Man you guys are persistent on this HUB world thing I'm thinking of a few ways to do this but I'm worried about something.. Using emit/destroy for the dungeons will ensure that the level won't overheat during gameplay.. but I have heard about that whole "level size" thing that emit/destroying does not help. I am actually unfamiliar with this "level size" situation.. but it does seem like the other limit besides just thermo. I've heard of people experiencing more bugs than usual as well as crashing if the level size is too large. I actually remember the first time I played Micro wars it crashed Osty.. not sure if it was because of this but I'd imagine it's a fairly heft level. Another huge example is Felkroth's Sealed Fate level, which crashed on me several times in an early build. I remember her mentioning that she had to cut out a bit to prevent this even though the thermo was fine.. Now, I highly doubt this would happen with the tutorial and Crypt dungeons being emitted. Even though there would be a bunch of emitters for all the rooms, I don't think those 2 (and maybe even the swamp) would be too big of a level file. I could have them within the same level patch and emitted when selected. Unfortunately.. I am almost positive having all 6 dungeons on the same patch would be too much.. And they would have to be in the same patch to have a central HUB world thing &to transfer your weapons to the next dungeon.. If I used level links within that central HUB world I could not transfer items. Since the other dungeons are further down the line.. I don't really need to worry about this until the swamp dungeon is done. (so you could take the last crypt Items you had to the swamp) If you look at the way the dungeons scale though.. I tried to set it up so you wouldn't really need to. Each dungeon scales up by 1 grade. So the "top" grade of each dungeon becomes the "middle" for the next. So if you save an "OK" item (best in crypt) and take it to the swamp, it would only be the middle tier. At the beginning of the dungeons there will ALWAYS be a chest room first. You won't encounter any enemies until you have equipment and since the chest room is first, you will have a few options about what you want even at the beginning. I just feel like allowing people to transfer items would kills the incentive to equip new ones.. walking by each chest content with what you have.. It just makes it feel pointless to have such a vast quantity of them.. I do understand this as far as uber rare items like the "Godly" ones but that's further down the line. If I can squeeze them into one level patch, I'l make it to where whatever items you had when you beat the previous dungeon are transferred with you to the HUB world and thus, the next dungeon. Grr, but if it's in one level patch I'l miss out on the "new level, cool pages/spotlight" stuffs Also, I was wondering, if I created a level similar at some point in the future, with the same sort of weapon pick-ups and controls, would you consider that an attempt at stealing your idea? Not that I plan to right now, but having seen how well this works, I wouldn't mind trying my hand at something like this in the future. Albeit not a dungeon raidy treasure hunty thingy. How dare ye steal my incredibly original and totally not inspired by anything else idea! Nah, go ahead. I encourage it. I was actually very happy with how the items equip/control and would like to see similar controls/mechanics in other levels. I have a friend that is making something kinda similar but focuses on guns. It's a side scrolling steampunk shooter in which the guns can be modified to shoot different elemental rounds to solve puzzles and attack. It's pretty cool but super early. | 2012-08-10 03:23:00 Author: Dortr Posts: 548 |
| Hmm you could publish the dungeons as chapters. Have maybe three chapters in a hub world (If you want one that is) each will have a small area with maybe different caves representing each dungeon. Have two or three dungeons in each chapter meaning you can then take weapons from one dungeon to another. And also find the keys to the next dungeon in the last one. Maybe make cave doors with chains and a huge lock around them. Also maybe for special items or items of interest give the player the option to collect a sticker so that they can use it to unlock the items or weapons at the start of the next chapter. Also in the starting area of the chapters have a merchant that will sell potions maybe. When i started my latest level you've been testing i wanted the weapons to be pickupable like yours but thermo and logic issues prevented it from happening. Unlike my SoD level i wanted more of a hack and slash feel to it. Thats why your level helped inspire it. As far as emiting goes my bioshock level uses it and themo is almost to the top when you start. From the resturant onwwards everything else is emitted and i have had no issues with it. I even had a whole extra area beyond the ched boss that i had removed after publishing the final version. | 2012-08-10 04:25:00 Author: Lordwarblade Posts: 761 |
| Could you add me. Id like to help. | 2012-08-10 10:58:00 Author: venat  Posts: 715 |
| Some big updates and new stuff. I want to try to get some of this stuff into a new beta soon. -Random Room Test- First of all, I got the random generation/emit-destroy of rooms working perfectly. Granted the test rooms are significantly smaller than the actual rooms. From right to left I could have 19 of these test rooms. I must give a big thanks to Osty & Clay McKamey for the tips on this system. The way I have it work is, every time you enter a new room, a tag is activated on the end of the one you are entering. Once it gets to the tag it cycles a selector that determines what kind of room will spawn. The selector ensures there is a pattern, most likely something like a (Chest room, Enemy Room, Enemy Room, Mini Boss Room) pattern. The selector outputs are then wired into AND gates with randomizers always rolling for different possibilities. I will probably still scale it in some way so that you don't end up with an "OK" room towards the beginning of the dungeon. http://ie.lbp.me/img/ft/84e04a37e590b54e8f30d0fe67b059e66569453e.jpg The first test I had only had 2 different kinds of rooms and 3 different versions of each. Yellow (chest) and Red (enemy). I tested the random generation 3 times with a pattern of 11 rooms (YYRRYRRYRRY) just to see how different each test would play out. Despite such a low number of posibilities, this actually worked pretty well. Test 1: Y2,Y3,R1,R3,Y1,R2,R3,Y3,R1,R2,Y3 Test 2: Y1,Y3,R1,R2,Y1,R1,R1,Y1,R1,R3,Y2 Test 3: Y2,Y1,R3,R2,Y3,R2,R1,Y2,R3,R1,Y2 The actual dungeons will have many more possibilities for rooms and will most likely scale on that cycling selector, so the first few enemy rooms will have 6-8 possibilities ("Crappy" enemy rooms) and probably only 2 possible ("crappy" chest rooms). Then just as many for "Meh" & "OK" areas. Oooo and a few possibilities for mini-bosses as well. There will be a few different mini bosses to roll on. -Spells & guns- Spells now can be aimed down (can't in current beta..) so if you are swinging from a lantern or grabable object you can aim downward. They are also a bit "looser" wich allows them to be aimed much more fluidly. Guns have had a few adjustments. They will automatically fire once loaded if you are swinging from a grabable object. The rate of fire is slightly slower, but if you are swinging you just aim to fire (applies to bows too). Most guns allow you to walk while aiming now too. I think I'l make it to where guns that require loading halt or slow your movement while loading instead of while aiming. Also made a fully automatic gun that does not require loading. It just fires in the direction you aim while holding R1. http://ie.lbp.me/img/ft/3be7d6a8a5c67ca203b6665a133f19468e81804c.jpg -Buffed Enemies- A big change to enemies has been their knockback and hit-stun. Zombies literally have no knockback anymore, they just have a slight hit-stun. I figured a zombie is stupid and probably doesn't feel pain so why would they really flinch much? Fire damage still makes them flee but decreasing their knockback requires you to be a bit more mobile in fights. This is also why I chose to allow movement while aiming and firing (in most cases) with guns. Bounce pads have now been set to manual activation and enemies will only use them if you are above them when they walk past the bounce pad. This made them slightly more "intelligent" in that they don't often bounce on a bounce pad if you are on the same level as them. -Treasure!- I have no idea why I originally overlooked gold and treasure drops.. This one simple thing can add quite a bit to the experience and I made sure it did. there are 4 gold coins & 3 types of gems of different amounts that drop from killing enemies and chests. I made it to where they bounce off the ground and ding each time to make them look spiffy when they drop. The gems also rotate a little when they are airborne to just add a bit of realism. Their appearance isn't too pretty (using generic treasure decos) but still It looks great and definitely adds to the dungeon raiding-loot finding feel of Bound. I will most likely make it to where treasure dropped from chests will scale opposite of items dropped. Meaning that if you have a good item drop you get less treasure (thus points) and if you get crappy items from chests, you will get better treasure. This is due to keeping things a little more balanced as well as the ability to get better items from merchants if you are constantly screwed out of good item drops.(which probably won't happen very often) http://i3.lbp.me/img/ft/26394429afab7005a643bb817eb7827459e75a11.jpg -Attracto Effect- Now my favorite item enchantment and spell effect. Attempting to stay pretty traditional lbp, I had the idea of putting the attract-o effect on a swords hitbox to see how it would work out. Turns out, it works extremely well. It essentially allows you to fly in whatever direction you point the sword. It also of course, sucks enemies toward it while the effect is on. Making it both great for mobility and fighting. Given that awesome power, attracto items may not appear until later dungeons. However, I could limit the activation time of the attract-o tweaker to make it less powerful. This sword and spell have a pulsing activation for the attract-o tweaker that kinda limits it's effect. Heh, but using both at the same time pretty much negates this limitation.. http://i5.lbp.me/img/ft/aa585e954bd727a1ce30f265fe7244394a4d0961.jpg | 2012-08-15 19:43:00 Author: Dortr Posts: 548 |
| Some big updates and new stuff. I want to try to get some of this stuff into a new beta soon. -Random Room Test- First of all, I got the random generation/emit-destroy of rooms working perfectly. Granted the test rooms are significantly smaller than the actual rooms. From right to left I could have 19 of these test rooms. I must give a big thanks to Osty & Clay McKamey for the tips on this system. The way I have it work is, every time you enter a new room, a tag is activated on the end of the one you are entering. Once it gets to the tag it cycles a selector that determines what kind of room will spawn. The selector ensures there is a pattern, most likely something like a (Chest room, Enemy Room, Enemy Room, Mini Boss Room) pattern. The selector outputs are then wired into AND gates with randomizers always rolling for different possibilities. I will probably still scale it in some way so that you don't end up with an "OK" room towards the beginning of the dungeon. http://ie.lbp.me/img/ft/84e04a37e590b54e8f30d0fe67b059e66569453e.jpg The first test I had only had 2 different kinds of rooms and 3 different versions of each. Yellow (chest) and Red (enemy). I tested the random generation 3 times with a pattern of 11 rooms (YYRRYRRYRRY) just to see how different each test would play out. Despite such a low number of posibilities, this actually worked pretty well. Test 1: Y2,Y3,R1,R3,Y1,R2,R3,Y3,R1,R2,Y3 Test 2: Y1,Y3,R1,R2,Y1,R1,R1,Y1,R1,R3,Y2 Test 3: Y2,Y1,R3,R2,Y3,R2,R1,Y2,R3,R1,Y2 The actual dungeons will have many more possibilities for rooms and will most likely scale on that cycling selector, so the first few enemy rooms will have 6-8 possibilities ("Crappy" enemy rooms) and probably only 2 possible ("crappy" chest rooms). Then just as many for "Meh" & "OK" areas. Oooo and a few possibilities for mini-bosses as well. There will be a few different mini bosses to roll on. -Spells & guns- Spells now can be aimed down (can't in current beta..) so if you are swinging from a lantern or grabable object you can aim downward. They are also a bit "looser" wich allows them to be aimed much more fluidly. Guns have had a few adjustments. They will automatically fire once loaded if you are swinging from a grabable object. The rate of fire is slightly slower, but if you are swinging you just aim to fire (applies to bows too). Most guns allow you to walk while aiming now too. I think I'l make it to where guns that require loading halt or slow your movement while loading instead of while aiming. Also made a fully automatic gun that does not require loading. It just fires in the direction you aim while holding R1. http://ie.lbp.me/img/ft/3be7d6a8a5c67ca203b6665a133f19468e81804c.jpg -Buffed Enemies- A big change to enemies has been their knockback and hit-stun. Zombies literally have no knockback anymore, they just have a slight hit-stun. I figured a zombie is stupid and probably doesn't feel pain so why would they really flinch much? Fire damage still makes them flee but decreasing their knockback requires you to be a bit more mobile in fights. This is also why I chose to allow movement while aiming and firing (in most cases) with guns. Bounce pads have now been set to manual activation and enemies will only use them if you are above them when they walk past the bounce pad. This made them slightly more "intelligent" in that they don't often bounce on a bounce pad if you are on the same level as them. -Treasure!- I have no idea why I originally overlooked gold and treasure drops.. This one simple thing can add quite a bit to the experience and I made sure it did. there are 4 gold coins & 3 types of gems of different amounts that drop from killing enemies and chests. I made it to where they bounce off the ground and ding each time to make them look spiffy when they drop. The gems also rotate a little when they are airborne to just add a bit of realism. Their appearance isn't too pretty (using generic treasure decos) but still It looks great and definitely adds to the dungeon raiding-loot finding feel of Bound. I will most likely make it to where treasure dropped from chests will scale opposite of items dropped. Meaning that if you have a good item drop you get less treasure (thus points) and if you get crappy items from chests, you will get better treasure. This is due to keeping things a little more balanced as well as the ability to get better items from merchants if you are constantly screwed out of good item drops.(which probably won't happen very often) http://i3.lbp.me/img/ft/26394429afab7005a643bb817eb7827459e75a11.jpg -Attracto Effect- Now my favorite item enchantment and spell effect. Attempting to stay pretty traditional lbp, I had the idea of putting the attract-o effect on a swords hitbox to see how it would work out. Turns out, it works extremely well. It essentially allows you to fly in whatever direction you point the sword. It also of course, sucks enemies toward it while the effect is on. Making it both great for mobility and fighting. Given that awesome power, attracto items may not appear until later dungeons. However, I could limit the activation time of the attract-o tweaker to make it less powerful. This sword and spell have a pulsing activation for the attract-o tweaker that kinda limits it's effect. Heh, but using both at the same time pretty much negates this limitation.. http://i5.lbp.me/img/ft/aa585e954bd727a1ce30f265fe7244394a4d0961.jpg Amazing idea makes me wanna work hard on my rpg | 2012-08-15 22:57:00 Author: Razortehkill  Posts: 173 |
| These updates sound really good i can't wait to test this out again with all its new features. The attracto sword sounds fun. I would suggest making the guns aim-able while moving and big tough guns should make you stand still while reloading and not so strong smaller guns should just slow you down. | 2012-08-28 09:00:00 Author: Lordwarblade Posts: 761 |
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