Author Archives: manutoo

27th Weekly Update : What’s Next ?

Posted on by
Character Sheet & Inventory

Character Sheet & Inventory

 

Last week was spent on my tennis game & Steam, so I almost didn’t work on Dungeon Guardians.

This week, I’ll be busy with some stuff and I also need to rest a bit, so I’ll work on DG but not too much.

So this post is a good occasion to ask : what’s next ?

The current goal now is to put Dungeon Guardians on Steam Greenlight, to get a chance to sell the game on Steam ( = a lot more exposure than on managames.com ;) ).

To do so, I need a good video trailer. This means I need a finished GUI. Sound FX still need work, but it’s less important as the music will cover almost everything.

Right now, I still need to design 1 GUI part : the party creation process ; ie: at the start of the game, we’ll have to pick the members to add to our party, or create new ones by selecting their portrait, genre, class, etc…

So I’ll start to work on that very soon. Once it’ll be all designed, I’ll do the complete list of what textures, backgrounds, buttons, icons, portraits in the whole game I need to be done or redone, and I’ll look for some 2D artist(s) to do that.

Then I’ll integrate the result in the game, and I’ll look for a trailer specialist to create the required video, and then I’ll be able to create the game page for Steam Greenlight. Finally, we’ll have to wait a couple of months to see if the game gets enough votes to deserve the attention of the Steam team.

I’m not sure how long it’ll take to publish this Greenlight page, but I hope it’ll be around 1 month and half at maximum, so it’ll give enough time to gather votes before finishing the game development.

That’s all for now, cya next week ! :)

FacebookTwitterGoogle+RedditEmailShare

26th Weekly Update : Beta 3 is Ready !

Posted on by
Big Boss Fight

Big Boss Fight

After a week of crazy work, the Beta 3 is ready !

I’m still always amazed by how long it takes to test, tune & fix the small bugs when playing a new level for the 1st time ; so the week has been very busy, because I really needed to finish the Beta 3 now, both in term of motivation, and for my planning, as I need to work a bit on my tennis game this new week.

So, what’s to say about the game at this point ? I’d say it’s pretty amazing ! I just hope other players will enjoy it as much as I enjoyed it, but the result is really close of what I had in mind 4 years ago when I first started to think seriously about this project : putting World of Warcraft combat experience within a Dungeon Crawler game. The game could be better, they always could, but at its current state, it’s already very convincing ; for me, it’s close of what I felt when I was playing WoW (although there are tons of small and big differences, we’re very far of a clone, for many obvious reasons).

So now, the Beta 3 will go to the Beta testers (I might look for a couple new ones soon, so stay tuned) and we’ll see if they can enjoy it or not.

And my planning is finally telling me there’s less than 3 months left of work… It might mean I’ll be able to release the game for end of September, and stop pushing the release date farther and farther away. :)

 

25th Weekly Update : Tough Beta Testing

Posted on by
Force Field

Force Field

I did start to test the whole dungeon..! :-P

But I did only 7 levels, and only barely as there’s still a little bit more to test in the Level 7.

Why only 7 ? Because I got a tons of little bugs & other stuff to fix and tune. I also improved a few things, like the Force Field effect shown in the screenshot above, or adding an indicator when an enemy interrupts one of our Toons ability, or adding another indicator to show when we’re attacked from sides or the back (which is quite helpful when there are several groups of enemies around our group).

I improved the average dps stat info so now it includes Hit Chance, Critical Chance, Expertise and Haste, which is very helpful to decide what enchantments to favor on your gears. In the same idea, the tooltip to compare 2H-handed weapons take into account the current gear equipped in the off-hand, which makes much easier to decide which set-up is the best.

I also fixed some complex bug about delaying mechanism actions, tuned the skills system so the Stamina skill gets a bit more interesting for spell caster classes, and so on.

The result is that now the game feels much more consistent and near release state ! Visually, it looks really nice, so I might finally be able to do a video (sound FX are still seriously lacking & GUI still needs serious visual improvement, but we’ll get there! ;) ).

Hopefully, it won’t have much bugs left now and I’ll be able to finish to Beta test the Dungeon by the end of the week. Although I’ll have to switch back to Steam & my tennis game soon so I may not have the time to finish the Beta 3 this week…

Let’s see next week how all that will have turned out ! :)

24th Weekly Update : Final Boss !

Posted on by
Fireball in hallway

Fireball in hallway

I still didn’t start to test the whole dungeon…

Ok, it becomes a running gag, but at start of last week, I got the energy & the mood to do the final boss fight ! I thought it’d take me only 1 big day, but actually, it took me almost the whole week ! I had planned to do a bunch of little things to make it special, and each one of them took some time to put in place. But at least now, this fight will really feel special, with a series of perks unique to it !

I also upgraded a few visual FX, including the fireball seen in the screenshot above, and I set up the music & ambient track system, on whose our talented musician Robert Engstrand is currently working on !

So this week, I’m really going to test the whole Dungeon ! I just have 1 little thing to do before : upgrading the visual FX for the wand projectile ; it should take me 30 minutes and then here I come, shiver monsters, as my sword will shine ! :-P

23rd Weekly Update : Talents & Potions

Posted on by
Druid Specialization

Druid Specialization

I still didn’t start to test the whole dungeon ! :-?

Instead, I got taken in the Druid & Elementalist Talents ; it took some time but now they’re all set up and well working. The result is pretty nice and I’m eager to test all this through the Dungeon. With 4 specializations done, it’s a big step toward finishing the game that has been accomplished !

Also, I added a couple of new potions : they provide respectively Haste & Critical bonus for a short time. I hid a couple in each level, a bit like Easter eggs… :P

In bonus, I also set up a new decal shader so spider webs and other transparent textures can catch shadows, which avoid an annoying visual bug I had since a while..!

So now I’m ready to jump in testing the Dungeon from start to end ; or almost ready : I’ll tune a bit 1 Boss & check the save system still work 1st, and then I’ll be good to go. If there’s not too much issues, it should take me the whole week.

22nd Weekly Update : Intense Talent & Ability Design

Posted on by
Warrior Talent Trees (1 Tree is still missing)

Warrior Talent Tree (1 Specialization is still missing)

Last week I worked well, but a bit less than hoped, as the Talent System is actually still in need of tuning, enhancing & a bit of debugging ; so it went slower than expected, but we’re getting there ! :)

So I finished 2 Specializations of the Warrior class (the last one for the Paladin will come later), and almost finished the one for the Healer’s Druid specialization. Unfortunately the last one for the Elementalist Mage is still unchanged, and it’ll require some extra work to create the visual FX for its couple of new abilities.

The Warrior Tree will also need a couple of tuning so balancing Specializations will be more interesting (ie: the player should have the possibility to go for 50% on Protection and 50% on Man At Arms, without be too much impaired). But the result is already very nice, and now the whole Talent System is very close of final state, so it feels like the game is getting closer and closer to be done.

This week, I’ll finish the Druid & Elementalist Trees and then I’ll start to Beta test the whole Dungeon, which should take about 1 week if there’s not too much glitches & issues to fix.

21st Weekly Update : Nearly Empty Week

Posted on by
Tomb in Level 19

Tomb in Level 19

Pfff… Last week went even faster than expected, which means I barely had time to work on Dungeon Guardians… :cry:

I did only a few little varied improvements (including buffered input mode allowing to press the key several times, a crash indicator, better Mobs movement on stairs), and then gave some thoughts on the final Boss fight. I still can’t wrap my mind on how exactly it’ll happen, but I’m getting there.

This week, I’ll try to finish the 4 Talent Trees that were already 50% done in the Beta 2, which will let me test the whole Dungeon on the following week. At least, that’s the plan ! ;-)

We’ll see how it goes soon enough…

20th Weekly Update : Upgrade to Unity 5

Posted on by
20 Levels in 1 Screenshot !

20 Levels in 1 Screenshot !

Updating the project to Unity 5 has been pretty quick, but there was a severe hiccup.

I hoped to switch to the new Physically Based Rendering (PBR) ; this kind of rendering produces very realistic lighting and it can be really nice. But unfortunately, there’s no automated process to convert from the classic rendering to this new one, and moreover usually it needs assets created especially for it, else it’s not really physically correct anyway. So PBR may come only for DG2.

So I kept the old lighting system. It’s not bad and it can be prettier than real life, as it kinda amplifies the reflections… :-P

But at least, upgrading to Unity 5 let me load the whole dungeon at once and do the screenshots you can see all around this post ! That gives a pretty impressive mess, no ? ;-)

And although I couldn’t remove the Loading screen, now the loading time for the 20 levels is shorter than the time it needed before to load only the 8 levels of the Beta 2, as it’s under 15 seconds, which is really acceptable.

I spent the end of the week upgrading my selling system, as I had to do some changes after the release of my tennis game on Steam and the brutal change in Euro exchange rates since the beginning of the year.

Next week, I’ll have also plenty of little things to do that are totally unrelated to Dungeon Guardians, but hopefully I’ll get back to it before the end of the week. I might either start the final boss fight, or do some small improvements & changes from Beta tester feedback.

19th Weekly Update : Dungeon is (almost) finished !

Posted on by
Demon In the Final Level

Demon in the Final Level

Yeepee, the Dungeon is (almost) finished !

Creation of the Levels 19 & 20 has been very fast : their design is more classic than the previous levels, and now I’m pretty efficient to create this kind of level.

Level 19 has a big room a bit in the style of the one found in the Level 8 of Dungeon Master (including its never ending corridor, for the ones who have a good memory ;) ). Its puzzle is a relatively simple error/try & observation one, although there’s a bunch of things to watch, so it shouldn’t be too fast to solve it. It’s the kind of puzzle I very wonder if it’s too easy or not, but hopefully, I’ll get some feedback from Beta testers.

I struggled a bit more for the Level 20. I wanted to do something a bit special for the ending, but I didn’t get any big empowered vision ; however, I managed to make it a bit special anyway : it’s a bit smaller than the other levels, with less mobs, but 8 Elite fights (an Elite is a very strong mob) where all other levels usually have only 1-3 of them. I didn’t create a puzzle for  this level. I totally run out of ideas for them. But I still got something pretty nice : I put a painful labyrinth, or more exactly a small but suffocating maze, where it’s very challenging to keep one bearing. So all in all, it’s a level that is very in line with the whole Dungeon, while still offering some nice variations and unique stuff.

So as it was fast to create these 2 Levels, I got also time to integrate 3 bosses & design their fights for the last Tier (ie: Levels 17-20). Once again, these fights fit the tone of the game, while having a few specificities : 1st one is a sorceress with special spells, 2nd one is also a spell fights but with a completely different flow where you’ll have to dodge some big AoE shadow balls, and 3rd one is classic “ads” fight, where additional mobs come into play with a demonist boss.

I hoped to start the final boss fight, but I had to spend a lot of time to work on the visual FX for all the special spells of these 3 bosses. I might delay its creation anyway ; I want to be sure I won’t change my mind about its design : it’s going to be very special, with several phases.

 

So now that the Dungeon is more or less done, the game as a whole is also not far anymore to be done. Let’s review the main things that still need to be done to reach the release state :

  • Intro, Party Creation, End Scene & Credits : all these things won’t be too complex, but they’ll still need some time as they won’t be too simple either
  • Test the whole dungeon & fix all its little issues, tune the boss fights so they are hard enough but not impossible, etc…
  • Create the Talent trees and abilities for the 4 classes of the  game (each class should have 3 Talent trees) : that’s a big part, with tons of stuff to design & test
  • Final Boss fight design
  • Finish the GUI : there, the hard part is to find a talented but not too expensive 2D artist and give him clear instructions to follow ; functionally, the GUI is nearly finished
  • Sound FX : another good bunch of stuff to do ; I’m still not sure how I’ll do that, but hopefully I’ll find some library with ton of sounds for RPG games
  • Create a few additional abilities for the mobs : now a lot of mobs share some abilities ; it needs to have a bit more variety
  • Visual FX : create all the visual FX needed for the toons & the mobs’ abilities (although a good bunch are already done)
  • Loot : buy (or get custom work) & integrate the models for the items that still don’t have any model ; this one should be fast enough, as right now I miss only the armors and a few weapons
  • Marketing : mostly create a trailer video & a Greenlight page for the game
  • Bonus : if I have the time & mood for it, I’ll add some extra stuff & loot in the Dungeon

And it’ll be done..!

Ok, but before all that, I have something else to do : upgrade the project to Unity 5 ; right now, I’m still using Unity 4. So I hope it’ll need less than 1 week, but I’m really not sure where I’m putting my feet with all this, it could get really messy really fast. :-?

I’ll let you know the result in 1 week !

18th Weekly Update : Sailing Level Design !

Posted on by
Basilisk roaming in the 18th Level

Basilisk roaming in the 18th Level

This week went well : I created 2 new levels, and they’re great ! :-D

1stly, the Level 17 looks like a kind of fortress lost in the middle of abysses, which leads to unseen sceneries & exploration so far in the dungeon. The idea came to me from LoG2 : early in the game, you can see a castle with stairs on its side, in the middle, relying doors to the inside floors ; I thought it’d be impressive to walk on these stairs, going in & out like that in the middle of the castle ! But actually, they were just for the show, we never walk on these stairs, nor see them from close… :cry:  So in Dungeon Guardians, we will ! It’ll look a bit less good, because the gameplay actually handles them, they’re not just for show, but it should still be pretty impressive..!

The Level 17’s puzzle is mix of timed based & observation & trial/error puzzles. I really wonder if it’s too easy or not, hopefully I’ll get some feedback on it before the game release. But anyway, it should at least take a few minutes to solve, to take the time to observe everything, so it’s not too bad.

Due to the verticality of the level, I also hid plenty of “jumping” secrets, where you have to fall of the edge of the fortress to find an hidden entrance.

2ndly, the Level 18 is also a very particular level ! It’s a kind a labyrinth on 2 levels, which gives some great exploration, full of dark corners and surprises, with a bunch of teleporters to spice up the progression. Its puzzle is a teleporter maze, pretty similar to the one from Dungeon Master. I was not a big fan of it, but it brings some nice variation in the puzzle list ; I put plenty of visual indications to avoid feeling too lost & disoriented while in it, and it matches perfectly the theme of the level (labyrinth & teleporters! ;-) ).

I gave some thoughts for the Level 19 and I think I’ll go with a more classic approach : a kind of crypt with big rooms & corridors. After a bunch of really special levels, it should feel nice to get something more straightforward. For the Level 20, I still don’t have any clear idea : it’ll be the final level, so it should be special. I have a very special final boss fight in mind, so I should try to build up a level that matches it, but I’m not sure what it means right now.

So all next week will be spent on creating the last 2 levels of the Dungeon, and if things go fast, I’ll start to take care of the bosses of that final Tier.

Cu in 1 week for the next update ! :-)