Hey Dungeoneers, sorry for being a little quiet here lately!
I've just released Shattered Pixel Dungeon v2.4.2, which is mostly focused on followup balance tweaks, but also fixes a few bugs. Here's a screenshot from the announcement on Steam:
Today in Unreal Engine I experimented with materials. I'm trying to figure out how to make an animated grid for scanning space, something like Terminator. My task - animate one cell that moves on the grid.
I want to create material for a widget. It is easier to do it in the widget itself, use only a simple material that draws the grid, and make the movement of the cell itself through a sequence in the widget
Whenever I kick off a new game project, the first thing I do is play every other game like it until I lose all enthusiasm (because I know I'll never be able to compete with them as a no budget indie dev!) .. I then go make something else instead. 🤪
.. I'm kidding. Don't do this! Keep the faith. Make the thing. You got this! 🤣
I feel more confident and ready to make a Sci-Fi adventure game. My result of studying the Unreal Engine for May 2024, the 3rd month of the transition from Unity to Unreal
Stunt Xpress is a game where you drive a delivery van off a ramp, and while airborne, shoot a parcel into a plane flying nearby... And no. That's not a scripted event 😉 #godotengine#indiedev#indiegame
Still trying to make this UI pop a little. But, maybe this is too much? I'm quite undecided. Let me know what you think. #gamedev#madewithgodot#indiedev
More fun with math, the texture mapping isn't perfect, I have some corrections to do to it still, but my little renderer now supports off-grid objects of arbitrary sizes and positions (only real restriction is they have to be convex). While the game itself is intended to be grid based I thought it'd be nice to be able to do some more complex scenery outside of billboards, sprites, and texture tricks.
I've had a new game sent through today - Let Bions be Bygones. Film-noir detective point and click puzzle. It seems very dark at the moment but I'll be doing a giveaway for you Soon™
If you follow my (now-)friends-only account, you may remember me wondering how I can make vertical transitions between rooms in a dungeon flow well. I didn't want to use elevators, because Zelda II's lifts are so iconic, and I'm already copying so much from that game.
But, I said "heck it." Elevators just plain make sense. But I decided to put a visual spin on it -- these have a much more elaborate design (especially that ironwork at the top), and will be pulley-operated. I'm going to include an animation of Zalia working the pulleys. Probably with an exaggerated pose and sweat flying off her head 😅
As far as the player is concerned, they work exactly like Zelda II's lifts do (press up or down on the d-pad to move; let go to stop), but visually, they're going to have a distinct flavor that works for Enigma Heart.
I finished laying out all the rooms for the first dungeon in Enigma Heart last night. My Zelda II influences are really showing -- but I think I'm also starting to expand on it a little bit and come up with my own ideas. In particular, I'm placing hidden areas and items that the player can't get to until they acquire certain items, spells, or skills later in the game.
(In Zelda II, when you beat a dungeon's boss and get its item, the dungeon becomes inaccessible thereafter)
This map is drawn in Aseprite as an RGB-color PNG image, at a scale of 1 pixel per tile. The blue tiles are solid, the white ones are non-solid, pink are breakable, orange are platforms, etc. I do it this way because I find high-level sketching to be easier as an image than in the map editor. My map editor can read this image, look for the appropriate colors, and generate a map "skeleton" that I can then texture and add objects to.
Bug fixing today for Stardust Survivors. Turns out our Shooting Stars ability was super broken! The level 5 version now properly has a large star with double damage, size, and pierce, as well as a nice spread firing pattern! #indiedev#gamedev