This is a development journal for my unnamed, upcoming iphone/ipad game.
This will be my first game produced on the ios (iphone/ipad) platform. I have worked on quite a few mud rpgs as a content developer but never a programmer so I plan to use this as a learning experience.
About: The game will be a dungeon/rogue-like rpg with influence from many games from my past as well as some current ios games.
Scope: I will start building this game as a simple turn based arena rpg (your character vs enemies). This game will not include exploration but may include some sort of level system(monsters get harder in the arena as you progress). The game will however include a very in depth system of classes, races, items, skills and npcs.
What makes this game unique is the ability for the user to create their own content. The user will have access to the same builder I use to build the game. The user will be able to not only create every aspect of their own npcs/monster, items and skills but also edit what I have created.
I plan on building the first 10-20 levels of content (items, skills, npcs) and after that it is up to the user to create their own if they wish. An endless endgame only limited by the users imagination. My end goal is to create a sharing center that would allow users to share their unique user created content with others, that will be a little ways down the road.
I will be updating this blog/post with images and videos of game play as I complete them. Keep in mind I am a one person team who has other apps to maintain as well so if I dont want to be homeless I need to give them some attention too =).
Development itself is coming along nicely I have been working on this project for about a month or so but I wanted to make sure all these features were possible before posting and getting anyones hopes up including mine. Everything I have posted here besides the user sharing center is completed in the game now its just a matter of polishing/refining the code/art/music.
UPDATE 10 (10-24-13) Added special effects to items, battle indicators and sharpened images
Details: Added various special effects to items
1. blocking (shields have a chance to block whole attacks)
a. block chance
2. leech/vamp (items, and certain races[vampire race] give players a chance to drain an amount of hp or sp from monsters on attacks)
a. HP leech rate
b. SP leech rate
3. poison (items, and certain classes[thief] give players a chance to poison monsters)(every round until poison is over monsters will take damage)
a. poison chance
b. poison damage
c. poison duration
4. stunning (items, and certain classes[knight] give players a chance to stun monsters)(monsters cant attack while stunned)
a. stun chance
b. stun duration
5. crit (items and all races/classes have their set crit chance and crit damage rates)(example thief has a 5% chance to crit. crit damage is 1.6x normal damage)
a. crit chance
b. crit damage
Details: Added battle indicators
1. poison (when monster is poisoned name turns green and poison icon is shown)
2. stun (when monster is stunned name turns gray and stun icon is shown)
3. battle log box at the bottom of the screen (buggy in ios7 but should be fixed soon) if it not will be removed
Details: Sharpened Images
1. Upscaled images from 16×16 and 24×24 to 64×64 and 96×96 without sharpness loss (images look quite a bit better)(file size will still be small).
UPDATE 9 (10-17-13) HUGE update!!! rooms and movement added game plot and goals defined
Details: Room creation and movement within rooms has been completed (this helped shape the game plot/goals)
1. Touch to move along a 25 cell grid (for each floor)
a. The game will consist of multiple floors the goal for the player is to go deeper and deeper into the dungeon. (find loot, battle monsters, levelup)
b. The first floor will be a castle/town/safe setting. There will be shops, quest givers, library (for spells).
c. Dungeon floors will contain random encounters, bosses, treasure chests, puzzles, warp points, traps, dark/hidden rooms, etc.
Below is a video just giving a glimpse into movement and game settings. You will also see level ups, skill gains, monster drops, etc. Leveling is at an accelerated pace.
Keep in mind design and writing has not really even begun so looks will change for the better.
Movement and Gameplay Sample
UPDATE 8 (10-10-13) Skill Gains, Battle Results View, Interface design tinkering
Details: Players will auto gain skills instead of having to buy skills
1. all classes will gain skills every 3 levels
2. all classes will gain 1 stam every 5 levels
Details: Added a battle results view to show various information after the battle
1. View will display the following
a. gold gained
b. items dropped (if any)
c. level up details (if any) (hp, sp, stam, skills/spells learned)
-Battle Results View-
Details: I have been tinkering / adjusting the interface
1. Resizing images so they are sharper
2. Renaming all images so they are user friendly for creation
3. Added some icons for actions (Inventory, Shop, Rest, Skillbook)
I will post some videos once I get everything a little more polished.
UPDATE 7 (10-07-13) Backside database and bug fixes work. Work on skill effects and movement
Details: I did some heavy work redoing some of the database.
1. As I have said before this is a learning project and because of that there seems to be quite a bit of trail and error on the database side (the good thing is things are getting better and better everyday!).
2. I also added a way to update skills/items/npcs from excel sheets instead of adding through the client builder.
Details: Worked on battled effects a bit more
1. Dodge and physical strike movement for npc and player
2. added a few more skill effects.
Below is a demo of a few higher level skills as well as their effects and movements.
UPDATE 6 (9-24-13) Buffing Spells/Skill and Skill Effects Work
Details: Added Buffing Spells/Skills
1. Increases or decreases player stats
2. Combat accounts for updated stats
3. Stats reset when leaving battle. (still need to add a counter for rounds so stats go back to normal)
Details: Working on more combat effects
1. Effects for physical attacks (player/npc moves forward)
2. Effects for buffing player (up arrows)
3. Effects for dodge (player/npc moves backward)
UPDATE 5 (9-22-13) Skill Effect and Battle Page
Details: Polished up the skill effect system and battle interface
1. Added another skill/potion slot to battle interface
— Updated character database for changes
— Updated battle and inventory interface to account for changes
— Battle interface now includes 12 total quick bar slots(6 for potions, 6 for skills/spells)
2. Converted attack from hardcoded action to a skill
— You can now move around attack in your quick bar as a skill
— When equipping attack as a skill it shows your currently equipped item as the skill icon
3. Fine tuning of battle battle interface
— Adjusted timers for skill/spell effects as well as damage text and progress bar movement
— Changed some effect animations
— Disable/enable skills during casting and animations
— Added in text summary of character to battle page (level gold ac stats etc.)
-Updated Battle Interface and Inventory/Shop Page-
UPDATE 4 (9-21-13) Skills Work and Game Story/Plot
Details: Polished up the skill system quite a bit as well as the database entities for skills and characters
1. Skills/Spells now fall under 6 categories. Physical, Spell, Healing Hp, Healing Sp, Buff and Debuff
2. Added effects for the following categories when cast. (might set different effects for each skill but right now they are broken down by type of skill)
3. Added Stamina to both character entity and skill entity. Adds lots of depth to the combat system rather than just 1 by 1 turn based now there is some good strategy involved.
4. Started on polishing up casting effects (still some work to be done but the base is complete.
Decided this game will work as an endless tower/dungeon type instead of just a arena game. While there wont be a whole world to explore this will give the user a bit of adventure.
each floor will be something like 3×3 or 4×4. Floors will have random encounters, traps, treasure chests, bosses, merchants. Might also have safe cities every 5-10 floors or a portal system to the top level type deal.
Sorry no updated screenshots or videos but everything lately has been back end. I will try to post some screens/videos Sunday night of the completed skill effects and stamina system.
UPDATE 3 (9-15-13) Character Creation Tweaks & Arena Battle Screen
Details: Small tweaks on character creation page & Initial coding work attack and skills effects(Design still very much a work in progress!!!!)
1. Polished up the character creation page a bit (still a rough draft)
2. Using a timer to create attack effects for both physical and skills.
3. Fixed some memory issues which were causing crashes.
(Initial video of attack screen)
-Character Creation Video-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfTIRePtRhk
-Battle Screen Video-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4iSJKfkE1Q
UPDATE 2 (9-12-13) Skills/Spells
Details: Initial coding work on skills (Design still very much a work in progress!!!!)
1. Creating storing/uploading on creation page and storing in database.
2. Pulling stored skill and then reloading on battle page for use.
-Skill/Spell Creation Screen-
-Arena Battle Screen-
UPDATE 1 (9-11-13) first screenshot upload:
-Character Creation Screen-
