The Hero's Journey - A Sidescrolling Swordfighter!

Week 26 Blog Site
This week, I took it slow on The Hero's Journey, as I was working on the next boss: Lady Barbariccia!

Villainous Assets
Lady Barbariccia is the second boss of The Hero's Journey and is fundamentally different from Garlan.



First, Lady Barbariccia is an intellectual, unlike Garlan who Tim has to fight blow-for-blow. She dosen't wear heavy armor, because of this (though she still rocks some skull-emblazoned pauldrons and that odd crown), and instead relies on her potent arsenal of Blue Magic for her combat needs.

Also, as you can see I've built her 'intro' scene, the Manseles Mountain Paths. The Manselesean Mountains are clear in the background, but more to the point, it is at this point in the game that things will start to get more complex. For one thing, you'll be forced to find a key item outside of a dungeon, with clues that the player has to piece together by talking to NPCs! Also, certain sidequests will open up at this point.

A Quest! May I undertake it in a webplayer, prithee?
Not this week...but, I'm getting close to another webplayer, so fret not!

 

Week 27 Blog Site
This week, I've been working on the third and final town in The Hero's Journey - Karikako Fishing Village!

It takes a Dev to raise a Village


Karikako Fishing Village is a small town by lake Aylea, built around the Aylean Royal Family's summer villa. In addition to good fishing, scenic vistas, the protective shelter of the southeastern mountain ranges, and good real estate prices, an Evil Lord has recently moved in and started causing trouble.

The other reason why Karikako Fishing Village is being implemented now? There's a mini-dungeon hidden in the town, that has a key item that will be needed to progress with the plot. You cannot even hope to access the minidungeon unless you've gotten to the correct point in the plot, though...

Can I try this minidungeon in, y'know, a webplayer?
First things first: I need to finish Karikako first! That will be in the next webplayer...stay tuned!

 

man its starting to look good, i feel like playing this VERY badly now!

If i can lend a hand in any way let me know, working on a couple myself but this is very childhood memory recalling

 

Week 28 Blog Site
Karikako Fishing Village is done! But the dungeon underneath it is still being built!

Village People
Karikako was a challenging village to build, but not due to mechanics or geometry. Rather, as the final town in the game, this is where you're supposed to get useful information that will help you find secret locations to grow more powerful, and understand what's immediately going on. At the point you first go there, there's still debate as to whether Lady Barbara Manseles is an Evil Lord at all; all the villagers know is she came with two artifacts looking and acting just fine; she left wearing one and acting like a complete jerk.

Raiders of the Lost Dungeon


The more interesting part of all of this is the Karikako Catacombs. It's a place beneath the Royal Family's summer home (the Karikako Town Center, funny enough) that is crawling with creatures because of another Evil Lord. Fortunately an old friend is waiting down there, to help you get to the boots, and provide some guidance on how to deal with the dread Lady Barbariccia. Yes, you have met him before.

No, he's not the guard at the gate of Aylea Castle who's responsible for saying Welcome to Corneria...

Welcome to Webplayer?
You may enter!

 

Week 29 Blog Site
I've braved illness, and removing a scene, to bring you today's update!

The Cryptkeeper


This week I focused on completing the 'minidungeon', Karikako Catacombs. In this dungeon, you meet up with an old friend who hands you a useful item that you'll need to get to the second Evil Castle! But it won't be easy - it will combine Teleghasts and Steelguards in a deadly gauntlet deep beneath the earth!

The reason more didn't get done was because I was sick early on this week. That's three hours of dev time lost, which meant cuts to some 'would-be-nice' things.

So, what got cut?
I was going to add a bridge area, reminescent of this game's intellectual forbear, The Legend of Zelda: The Adventure of Link. However, it added little to the narrative, and would take a few days to build anyways. It's not entirely off the table...but the core content of the game is a higher priority than anything else.

What else is there?
Forumgoer Kelde has started helping with some small bits of polish on the project, and provided some helpful bits of feedback that will be implemented in upcoming updates to the dev webplayer. As this game nears completion - again, the goal is 30 November 2013 - the game will become more polished and be ready for its multi-platform deployment.

Can we try it?
As always it can be found here but it hasn't had an update this week...

 

Week 30 Blog Site
Another week, with progress to show!

Doo for Dad
Since Kelde has began helping out, one of the things we've agreed could be better is the profusion of doodads - that is, cosmetic objects - in the game world. I've been focusing on building content instead of decorating the world of The Hero's Journey such that it feels lived in. But, it needs to feel lived in.

As I've only just began building more doodads for the world, I'm not yet going to show a screenshot. I would like to show one off next week, though, so that's sort of a secondary goal for this coming week's development!

Mua for Haa
The real attraction this week has been in the form of starting construction on the second Evil Castle!



Barbariccia's Evil Castle is a giant puzzle. There are four wings, which have to be navigated in order to reach the Hero's Hilt, and then Lady Barbariccia herself. However, to get between wings, you have to use teleporters! There will be an implicit order to where teleporters take you - I'm working on that right now - which means you must use logic to figure out what's going on!

Side for Quests
Another thing that sort of naturally emerged this week was the Goldensage sidequest. In Dunamne, there is a woman with an injured husband, who could begin recovering if only she had some! There is also Dragoon Kayn who teaches you combat techniques.

As I filled in the event that causes Overthrust to be taught, I thought that this would make a worthy sidequest. The reward? Underthrust. So, I've started working on that.

Player for me?
Yes! I've updated the webplayer with this week's post. As always it can be found here.

 

Hello everyone! It's time for a pre-Halloween screenshot!



Cobwebs. That is all.

 

woooooo look at those cobwebs! a very nice touch indeed sir!

 

Thanks. I was going to try to angle in pumpkins somehow, but I just couldn't think of a way to do it well. Conversely, every Evil Castle, and the Catacombs are natural environments for creepy cobwebs. So, there ya go.

 

Somehow your project remind me of Ax Battler, which I loved.

 

Not familiar with it; it's based more off of Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link, but without Error, the Key Item spam, or all the things that horribly broke the mechanics (e.g. the Red Goriyas...)

 

It was a game that I playedin game gear, but I think was avaible on master system too. Here a vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9FnbPTwoZo

 

Week 31 Blog Site
Some exciting work was done this week on Evil Castle 2 and polishing up the game!

Building another Evil Castle
This week I have been slowly fleshing out Evil Castle 2 with teleporter choices, traps, fires, and all sorts of stuff.

The point of Evil Castle 2 is that it is less about brute force - though you still have to fight enemies - and more about logically deducing things about the Evil Castle. Only the smart hero has a right to challenge the Evil Lord! To that end, there are clues all over the place about the consequences of your actions in the Castle. You just have to look for them, and reason for yourself. After a short time, you'll find they make sense.

Spit Shine


In addition, working on the Evil Castle has prompted me to improve a few things. I've added some doodads to the world, including cobwebs (for that creepy unkempt look), Evil Banners for the Evil Castles, and I've drastically improved the fire effects on the torches and fire barriers.

The other takeaway that will lead into the final Evil Castle is the idea of breaking my Castle geometry out into wings. Too much geometry being grouped together causes the geometry to no longer render, which is not desirable. I had that problem in the Karikako Catacombs, but in Evil Castle 2, I can happily say I avoided it!

Can we try it on?
Yup.

 

Week 32 Blog Site
Evil Castle #2 is nearly done, and I've got some details on the final dungeon of this game!

How to Finish an Evil Castle
Evil Castle 2 is a confusing place, composed of the most massive teleportation puzzle I've ever constructed.

The trick with finishing out a teleport puzzle is to take it a few areas at a time, and use the very things that help the player figure it out, to design it in the first place. You may notice all the banners in previous screenshots; those banners mean something. The player who figures out what, is much more likely to survive the dungeon.

The Third Castle
The third Evil Castle, belonging to the corrupted Lord Artasandro, will be unlike any Evil Castle you've yet seen in the game.

Evil Castle 3 will have two odd things going on: a Light World/Dark World mechanic, and the fact that the entire Evil Castle is the boss arena. The Light World causes HP to steadily regenerate; the Dark World periodically spawns a new type of enemy, the Shadowling, which are guaranteed to provide Health Crystals. Of course, the Dark World also steadily depletes your health!

But, it gets better - the Light World/Dark World health mechanics are inverted for Lord Artasandro. In order to defeat him, destroy the third and final Dark Crystal, and save Aylea once and for all, you have to get him to stay in the Light World, or deal him more damage than the Dark World replenishes. It will be a fitting final challenge to this short, but hopefully action-packed game.

Sounds freaky...can we try it?
Not yet. I should have a webplayer up later this week with the completed Evil Castle 2, though!

 

Week 33 Blog Site
At last Evil Castle 2's geometry is done, and the boss in progress!

Taking a Pause
One of the more technical things I did this week was implementing the pause menu. It lets you pause the game physically, save the game and exit to the title to prevent save-scumming, and alter settings such that the game is more comfortable!

Stumbling Building Blocks
One hazard of working on things is that you can break stuff. This week, I did that a bit.

I had a couple of minor hiccups with switches - yesterday, I broke the relationships of switches to flames twice, trying to address some other issues. The lesson to learn is to be very careful when working with your Prefabs! They're helpful and convenient, but you can spring unexpected changes on yourself. Fortunately, the first thing I do prior to developing is play-testing everything to the current point.

Bossin' Around


All of this is was a run-up to building the final part of Evil Castle 2: Lady Barbariccia. She's based on the Teleghast AI script, but she has a few key points of difference.

First, if she teleports somewhere, and you don't get on-level with her fast enough, she causes a bunch of Large Blue Magic projectiles to fall from the ceiling. These are difficult to avoid! Of course, if you play close attention to things before coming into the Evil Castle, you will pick up an ability that, in concert with the dungeon item, will allow you to survive such an onslaught...

Also, her projectiles are always Large Blue Magic bolts. These are not just bigger, rendering high/low posture immaterial (they can be parried from either position due to their size), they deal significant damamge if they connect! She has fewer animations because of this.

Finally, I updated the ActivateObjectOnDeath script to allow it to turn objects off as well. That comes in handy for that flame wall on the far side of the boss chamber.

Can we try it?
Ya. See build notes for details.

 

Week 34 Blog Site
Evil Castle 2 has been completed! The game is in the final phases of development, now.

The Great Bug Hunt
This week I finished off Evil Castle 2 and the boss fight against Lady Barbariccia...a few days ahead of this update! This meant, I had time to go and playtest the entirety of my game, and look for nagging issues that needed polish.

While I doubt that bugfixes require screenshots to talk about, know that I fixed a few things. You'll probably see at least one fix in this week's dev webplayer.

That Sinking Feeling
With Evil Castle 2 complete, there are only three real bits of new content left to create: Operation: Desert Fox, which is the large-scale confrontation against Lord Artasandro; Evil Castle 3/Lord Artasandro himself, which are combined, because the final Evil Castle is also the boss arena.

It's not uncommon for me to spend two weeks building the Evil Castle, and then another few days working on Boss AI/mechanics/etc., which means I'm likely looking at a Christmas release of The Hero's Journey; forget my November 30 'deadline.' That's now two self-imposed deadlines missed, which irks me a bit. On the other hand, I would rather release a reasonably well-polished game.

Waiting for Christmas sucks, I wanna try now!
Well, you can try now!

 

Week 35 Blog Site
This Thanksgiving weekend, what did I do? Find out now!

How to spend a holiday as an indie game developer
I mostly played Rift and Halo 4. BUT I worked on the Operation: Desert Fox intro map for the final boss and final Evil Castle.

You really didn't do a lot, did you?
Nope. It was a holiday. Don't judge me, man (or, woman.)

Next week's work will involve finishing Operation: Desert Fox, and the lead-in to the final Evil Castle.

No work, no webplayer right?
Yeah, no webplayer this week, and probably not until I have a release candidate for you to climb over and test the heck out of!

 

Week 36 Blog Site
It's a few days late, because I had a blast with the Starbound demo, but this past week, I finished off Operation: Desert Fox!

Diacritical Dialogue
My repurposing of the Desert map is complete. I have created a gauntlet of all the monsters in the game, a wham line from Lord Artasandro about the Crystal Armor that Sir Tim has been parading about the Aylean countryside in, and added some new dialogue around the countryside!

"Main 13", the dialogue phase before the final battle against Artasandro, is critical. It opens up a slew of information around Aylea about various things, including more information on the whereabouts of Heart Runes.

This is important for two reasons. First, I totally intended this part of the game to be a difficulty spike above and beyond the second half of Evil Castle 2. Second, because of the difficulty spike, if you've (somehow) managed to traipse through the game with your original four hearts, I intend for the final Evil Castle to challenge your ability to survive by making you use multiple skills I've been trying to convey through the course of the game. Long story short - stuff got real.

Sounds awesome!
I know, I know. You hear this and want to play now, but it's not ready yet. I want to slightly down-tune the difficulty with a default heart count (such that it is remotely possible to do with default health.) But, the fun part that you will want to play starts getting built this week. Look forward to it.

 

Week 37 Blog Site
This week, I've been building the geometry of the Light World part of Evil Castle 3, and planning how best to make the final boss fight work!

Bossing around the final boss
The challenge with this dungeon comes from two directions. First, physically attacking the boss is suicide - he will one-shot kill Tim, leading to a restart of the entire Evil Castle. Secondly, the Light World/Dark World mechanic forces the player to always be looking for singularities to the other world. Of course, once the boss gets damaged enough, he can phase-shift himself at will (like all good bosses.)

While my work this week has involved building the Light World geometry, and creating an initial form of my singularity effect, the other part has been planning the Dark World, and what to do when the boss phase shifts. In the light world, he becomes an uninjurable shadow that follows you around. In the dark world, he becomes this radiant aura that follows you around. That being said, when the boss is solid, he loses health slowly in the Light World (the Light World mechanic involves avoiding him and monsters and traps in your path). In the Dark World the boss gains health, meaning you have to leverage the powers that Garlan and Lady Manseles are conferring to you to damage him so that he A) stops passively regaining health in the Dark World, and B) he phase shifts, so that C) you can get out of the Dark World, since your health steadily decays there.

The Light World's architecture is emphasized by loops and places that cause the boss to phase into existence unless he's been damaged enough. The Dark World's architecture is more linear, though still with some choice to where you pop out in the Light World, but emphasized with nasty traps and monsters that are guaranteed to drop red health crystals (restores 1 heart. You lose half a heart every n seconds in the Dark World.)

Talk about hard!
The other thing I'm planning is how to change the text throughout the game. As I've gone along, my concept has evolved from a somewhat whimsical take on a JRPG story, to a lighthearted tale of Tim saving his father, to a slightly darker tale of Tim saving his father while wearing a mysterious suit of crystal armor that causes him to be a bad-luck magnet, while making fun of JRPG tropes where able.

So, before final release - once I've build Evil Castle 3 completely, and have completed the ending sequence - I'll be going back and mucking with NPC text!

Sounds good, can we see what you've got?
Not yet; it's not ready.

 

Hey guys! I've been resting up over the Christmas holiday, so no blog posts for last week, or this one.

However, in this YouTube video, I talk in part about my plans for my channel, as well as hints about something I'm going to do with The Hero's Journey...

 

Week 39 Blog Site
I've had a good, long Christmas vacation, which has allowed me some time to rest, reflect, and plot a better course for finishing off The Hero's Journey!

Writing is important
The first thing I am going to work on, is the NPCs in the game. As I've progressed this game from a mere prototype to something for release to the masses, much of the prototype writing (read: dev excuse plot) has remained in the game. This isn't entirely bad, either - much of those elements are good ones. But, there's some plot holes, inconsistencies, and some details that have been left out, partially by design, partially because when I wrote them I hadn't fully considered the plot.

This coming week, I am going to be working on the dialogue of The Hero's Journey, specifically making sure the information and background of Aylea is ready to ship. I refuse to do a KOTOR 2 with this game.

Flattening an Evil Castle
One of the things that slowed me down back in Week 37 was, while the whole Dark and Light World mechanic is cool, the fact remains that I've done just about everything I care to do with the Evil Castles. Garlan's Evil Castle teaches the player about switches, breakable blocks, and fire barriers. Barbariccia's Evil Castle teaches the player about teleporters, logic puzzles, tricky jumps over fire barriers, and dealing with projectile-based enemies en masse.

I've decided it would be the best thing for the game to remove Evil Castle 3, and instead make Operation: Desert Fox the final showdown of the game. It will require some slight additional work, but that's OK. I've already got everything in the game to make it doable without extra code or art.

Finishing the Game - For Real This Time
This is the critical moment for the game. I've come so far, from a mere prototype of the core Zelda 2 mechanics, to nearing the release of this game's Release Candidate. I'm giving myself one final deadline - the end of January - to make this happen. I should not need any more than that, and don't plan to take it. It's high time this game was completed, but in the best possible way.

 

Week 40 Blog Site
This week, I worked on NPC dialogue, making it a lot better, but also had some unexpected breakthroughs in music, and the future of my games projects.

Uncheesing NPC Dialogue
The main focus of my work this week was going back and looking at existing dialogue, and improving it. Since this project started as a prototype, there were a lot of lines of dialogue in 'just because', some were completely obsolete due to the way the story of the game has evolved over time, and others were just plain bad. Fortunately, my linear dialogue system is generally pretty easy to modify.

Castle! Hammertime!
An unexpected epiphany I had was with the music in Aylea Castle. Originally I just used the overworld theme in the castle, which was OK. The modified theme is actually an arrangement of the town theme, but with brass, percussion, and a more militaristic feel. I think it went well.

The Future! [Insert Echoes Here]
Finally, I fulfilled one of my New Years' resolutions, and launched my Patreon Campaign. See, game dev isn't my day job, which means making this stuff comes out of my pocket. Now, I could charge for it, but that's really inconvenient. So, I'm going to keep my stuff free for everyone to play.

Of course, that brings us back to paying for assets, etc. I want the games I make to be really good, even though it's just me making them. So, enter Patreon. You can pledge a certain amount to me when I complete a game or every tenth Let's Play video, thus allowing me to keep the momentum going and making things that people - like you - enjoy! And, I want to earn your subscription.

What's Next?
This coming week, I am actually going to create the 'outro' sequence which shows the happy ending you get for defeating the Evil Lords. I'll see it, because I can start my game wherever. You won't be able to see it until my release candidate is uploaded. When I get that done, I'll start changing Operation: Desert Fox for the final battle against the Evil Lords.

You could earn it by showing us a webplayer?
It's not complete yet...but, well, I've went ahead and uploaded it. Just remember, if you do somehow manage to clear Operation: Desert Fox, it's not staying that way for long.

Unity Forums readers! Mind giving me some feedback at this point? How are the NPC dialogues? What work could I do to improve them further? Writing is an area I'm pretty underdeveloped in, so some constructive critique would really help. Thanks!

 

Think micro transaction

 

you progress looks amazing I like the way you handling it. beside the 2d art in 3d mode WOOOOW. I will be trying it today after work will come back definitely again with my thoughts

 

...Not a bad idea...

Cool, looking forward to it!

 

your doing a great job Asvarduil! Your newest webplayer has come a log way since your first. I noticed you made a lot of changes and improvements and additions. I esp really like how you did the character dialog.

Your project is going nicely. Its unique and definitely stands out as a side scroller made with unity compared to other 2d/sidescrollers.

 

Thanks! It's almost done - since I'm not expert at writing, I figure if the major complaint about my game is, 'it's too short', I've done something right.

Besides, there's no way I could deliver a 60-hour JRPG tale with the mechanics, characters, time, willpower, money, or technology that I have at my disposal. I hope this short tale gets everything I went out to do right.

 

Week 41 Blog Site
This week, I focused on planning, and implementing parts of the ending sequence of the game.

The Evil Plan
My main goal this week was to get the 'Main 14' finale sequence taken care of. This is where, if you've managed to defeat the Evil Lord Artasandro, you can get your just reward, pats on the back, and the you win screen!

I simplified the ending a la Dragon Warrior I. You defeat the Evil Lord (g'luck with that), return to Aylea Castle, where the King shoos you back to Skyra posthaste, and for good reason. Once there...well, it's a happy ending. Something to look forward to.

Planning Ahead
With most of the game done, I also planned what I'm going to do to make the final, Arena-style boss fight happen.

First, I abandoned the final Evil Castle a couple of weeks ago. However, given that Artasandro was supposed to be an expy for Arthas from Warcraft lore, I felt that a coliseum fight (Crusader's Coliseum?) would be an appropriate place for a showdown. It's actually going to be an Evil Castle that is being built, until the whole Aylean Military shows up on their doorstep, asking for sweets.

Once I've got the final boss fight taken care of, I will immediately upload a Release Candidate for the game and solicit input from everyone and anyone I can. I know I have to fix some NPC text still, I could stand to add more doodads to the game world to make it feel more lived-in, and there's some hints to where Heart Runes are that need to be included so they're not quite 'Guide Dang-Its.'

The idea is to finish Artasandro's boss fight, and make it (barely) winnable this week, then fall immediately into fixing bugs, and improving what I have until it earns your donations to my Patreon campaign!

No Webplayer this week?
Given that I'm working on the boss fight, and thus a release candidate, you may, but definently not today.

Unity forum readers: you don't have to wait to give me critiques on what I have now! my current build is here, please give me any and all feedback you can. Did I do something well? Could you defeat the second Evil Lord? Please, let me know.

 

I haven't shown any screenshots for a while, so I decided to show one. This is the boss arena, with an un-AI'd boss. What, you were expecting him to be taller?

 

That is very understandable for any solo indie game developer. All of my games end up short to. The one im working on now is also going to be a short tale that you could complete in about 30 mins to an hour (if you know what to do and don't keep dying haha). been working on it for some time now. Look at other indie titles made by solo devs. Cave story was also a really short game. A lot of people said it was short yet it was very enjoyable and turned to a great game.

Honestly short is better imo. I recently started to prefer shorter games over lengthy 40-60 hour games. I like a story that progresses quickly and maintains its enjoyability till the end. I think short games are more enjoyable and memorable in the long run because your more likely to finish playing it and not take a "break" from it and then return to where you left off after a couple days or weeks or months haha. (I think most gamers have done that before. They play a really long game, go through like half of it, eventually get bored or start playing a different game or whatever then stop playing that game. Then after some time they return to the game they were previously playing and beat it but it kind of lost its enjoyability because the player lost track of the story, forgot what the last thing they did in the game, etc.)

Even some triple AAA games are short sometimes. The uncharted games are each like 7-8 hours long. I beat "Silent Hill : Shattered Memories" within about 5 hours yet I loved every second of it and surprisingly I can remember it better than other games I recently played. So it was more memorable.

Dont get me wrong, I love those long games to. The zelda series I always spend about 70 hours on (story, exploring, side quest,etc) I know I spent over 200 hours on monster hunter haha.

I know, looks like im starting to ramble. But anyway, what im trying to say is I think your doing your game right. Like you said, if the only complaint is that its to short than it was done right. And people will understand. There will be those people that will say "yeah but it was made by one guy" And its a lot of work to just make a single fully working level. Making games in general is a lot of work and a really time consuming process.

Also (my own personal advice that I follow haha), I believe its better for solo devs to work on shorter projects instead of bigger ones. That way you can move onto the next game project faster and actually get more of your creations and visions out instead of spending all that time trying to get one single large game complete. I believe you stay more motivated when working on a shorter project and it has a much better chance of getting finished. Where as big game projects, you do a ton of work, spend a bunch of time and by the end loose motivation and that project never sees the light of day.

Anyway, I really like your daily updates for this game and your planning. Looking forward to see the final game soon. Keep up the good work. and sorry for my long rambling. (but when the "short games" topic is brought up I feel type happy)

 

It's not as rambly as one of my weekly updates. And, thanks.

 

Week 42
This week I worked on building Lord Artasandro, the final boss of the game, and putting some polish on the game.

A Final Boss
Lord Artasandro is an interesting case, that has led to my rethinking my early boss AI, which built off of existing enemy AI scripts. I've created a pretty formidable boss sequence for Lord Artasandro, though it can be broken. I now need to down-tune Artasandro so he's not quite so nasty.

Artasandro himself is a pretty nefarious boss. He uses teleportation, strong physical attacks, and magic spam to bring his enemies down. By this point, you should have the tools to handle him, but I promise with his massive health pool, it won't be easy. And, may God have mercy on you if you try it with default health.

Spit-Shine!
I also was able to do some polishing on existing game elements this week. For one thing, I made the breakable blocks, and bedrock, way prettier. Here's the breakable blocks before...


...but, here it is with a bit of polish applied...


I was also able to add a floor version of the bedrock for the Evil Castle lead-up maps!


The good news is, with Artasandro's AI in a shippable state, I have about 13 days to take what I have in the game, and polish it so that it's ready for you, the gamer! Stay tuned going forward.

What's next?
Well, polish. I'm looking at going back to some old bosses and improving their AI scripts with some of the things I've done on Lord Artasandro to make the boss fights more interesting - Garlan could really use Artasandro's teleport mechanic, while Barbariccia would do well to acquaint the player with the Magic Spam.

I tried improving the crap forest trees, but it didn't go so well. If I can find a better alternative I will, but it's looking increasingly like I'll have to patch the ugly out of those trees. It's not ideal...but I'm not blowing anymore deadlines on this game.

I'm also working on NPC text again. It seems my first attempts at cleaning up NPC dialogue to be more helpful to the player weren't quite enough, and really NPC text is the guiding light for both player objectives and story, and indications about game mechanics. Needless to say, it's pretty darn important.

Finally, I'm planning to create a webplayer with a new mechanic - Ambush Events. As it stands right now, I have static enemies on a map. Every time you enter a map, the enemies are there, and you beat them. And, that's it. What an ambush event provides is for a dynamic event that locks screen movement and spawns a number of waves of enemies. As I abandoned the capability for pacifist runs a while back - because I'm leaning on the swordfighting mechanics to make this game worthwhile - I could only see this change helping the game be the best possible experience.

When's the next webplayer?
Release Candidate builds will be available when I've completed a particular bit of polish. There is no strict schedule, they could come out any time. When I release a Candidate, please, play it critically and give me as much feedback as you can, so I can make the best possible game!

Another Note
It's probably long overdue, but I've been forgetting to say something very important on these weekly updates - thank you for sticking with this project! 42 weeks is a long time; if you remember when I didn't even have a GitHub IO site up for this, you're already a veteran of this project alongside me. This hasn't been the easiest project to build or follow, and the fact that you've all followed with me is really humbling. Thank you very much. I don't know any names, but this project is dedicated to each and every one of you. Your interest makes this possible.

 

Wooowwwwww... I remember when this game was nothing more than a demo inside the first cave (from the WIP thread). I just found this again today, and you have made some amazing progress. Congrats, it looks great! This puts a smile on my face.

I thoroughly enjoyed the latest demo, too.

 

Yeah, it's kind of crazy, isn't it? I didn't expect the mechanics to really go anywhere. Yet, here we are...

Glad you're enjoying, I'm teasing out the kinks for the first Release Candidate now.

 

Breaking News!

I've just released a Release Candidate, which can be found here. It still has some warts, but should be able to be played through all the way.

I've implemented a Quest Log to help players who complained of getting lost and not knowing what to do. I've also improved NPC text appreciably.



Please, respond either in this thread, or in a Private Message, with any thoughts you have after playing this build! Cheers, and I hope you enjoy, even in this partially-polished state.

 

Breaking News!

I've got another Release Candidate uploaded uploaded to my dev blog webplayer! I've managed to fix some issues with controls for users who prefer to navigate with the arrow keys, as X is now an action button. I've got the save and load functionality completely working, and textboxes have a short lockout so that you actually have time to see the text.

This game is close to launch (31 January 2014), so any and all critique is appreciated!

 

Week 43 Blog Site
This week I've been going through the game, and soliciting feedback for the release of the webplayer version of The Hero's Journey!

Release Candidates
Those following the Unity Forums topic may have noticed two 'Breaking News' posts referring to new Release Candidates. That's because I've got the game generally up and running, and I've been soliciting feedback from the Game Development Stack Exchange, GameJolt Community, and many others. The result has been fixes to the game!

Fixes!? What Fixes?
Check the Dev Webplayer to see...just be advised, aftter January 31st, I'll be changing the Webplayer link to point to my Wooglie distribution, since they are the Unity Web Game Portal!

Cool, how can I help?
Simple, really - play the dev player, and give any thoughts you have on it. Do the controls suck? Is NPC dialogue alright? How about the enemies, are they too tough? Too random? Too weak? Since I'm investing one more week into the game, I'm trying to polish it as best I can.

Dude, one more week? You've already done 42 of them!
That's something else I wanted to talk about, too. See, I couldn't have done it without you all, and your support. I'm glad The Hero's Journey has received the interest it has, and I'm looking forward to its reception on release. This is by and far the best game I have ever made, and my next game has the daunting task of topping this. Of course, with fans, and a developer community, like you all around me, I'm absolutely sure it can be done.

So, there's another webplayer?
There will be multiple this week as I release more Release Candidates to solve reported problems. As always, you can click the Dev Player link at the top of the IO site's page (or, if you're not up to that, just click here.) My next blog entry will have links to all places the game has been released to and accepted. After that, the final blog post will be my post mortem.

 

Awesome work!
Really good job you managed to get this far, not many that do : )
Keep it up!

 

Thanks! Your input early on helped, I couldn't have come this far without everyone who chimed in, or is chiming in.

 

Breaking News!

I've updated my Dev Webplayer with some bugfixes for some game-breaking issues that crept in. Next on the list is the game credits, basic control explanation (besides Guard Francis), and the boss AI updates.

As always - I need feedback! Please, let me know anything that stands out to you about this build.

 

Breaking News!

Another Release Candidate is ready to go! You can check it out here. There are some minor bugfixes, and the Boss AI rewrite still has yet to fully occur.

You may notice your username in the Credits screen. If you're there, that means you've contributed something to the game, either by creating something, or just playtesting. If you are, I'd like to take a moment to extend my most sincere thanks for helping this project come to be. One way or another, this will be done in a little more than two days.

 

Breaking News!

After much sweat, tears, and playtesting, I have got the game working from start to end. The game is now fully playable.

I have some minor bugfixes to make before formally committing this project up. However, I am pleased to say that, on Week 43 of The Hero's Journey, the game is preparing for release, most likely tomorrow or Sunday depending on playtester feedback. As noted in the Week 42 Blog Entry above, the next blog entry will consist of a series of links to the places you can play The Hero's Journey (it will also be used to start the Showcase thread for the game.)

After that, and giving the playerbase some time to play through the game, me to patch issues, and other necessary game maintenance, I will be writing the post mortem/retrospective on The Hero's Journey. It will be linked in both the Showcase Thread as well as this Dev Blog.

A Final Note
This is the last in-production note I am going to be writing for The Hero's Journey. You have no idea how it feels to write that. But...I couldn't have gotten this far without each and every one of you. I brought this project to life, but you all guided it to be as good as it currently is. It's got a wart or two still, but I'm handling that.

I'm bad at this sort of thing, so I'll just say it - thank you all for being involved in this project. Even if you're some super-secret lurker who has just been like, 'hey lookie at the cool game!', I appreciate your interest and (silent) support. I wish my Credits interface had more space, because if I could fit it, I'd try to get everyone who's looked at the project on it - it's the only way this could go 43 weeks.

This one's dedicated to you all. It's my best creation yet. Thanks for helping to make it happen.

 

Congratulations Asvarduil! It really is a great feeling when you finish a long project and you can put it in front of other people playable state - well done for getting this far

I guess I'll have to set some time aside to have a full play through now

 

Thanks, and when it's done, I think it'll be worth it.

 

Enjoy the victory lap sir. Glad you stuck with it.

 

Thanks! I am too. This project taught me a lot, and I think I got to figure out how to avoid some of the mistakes I made with previous games.

 

Awesome job Mr.Asvarduil! 43 weeks? wow that is impressive and shows how dedicated you are to your work. Congrats on finishing it. The feeling you get is very rewarding once you finish a project.

Do you feel it?
I know you can feel it.
You are powered up!

*bwink*
>Asvarduil finished "The Hero's Journey" game project.
*booooooooooooooooopp* (Magic meter filling up sound effect here...)
>Asvarduil has leveled up.
>Asvarduil is evolving into his Final Form!

Thats another project you can add to your list of finished game projects.
Im looking forward to playing through it and its release. Keep up the good work man and congrats once again!

 

Yes! I gained the ability to shoot lasers from my eyes! >=D

Thanks snowconesolid! The hard part now is letting the submissions to various portals just happen, patching things so users can have a better experience, and documenting the post mortem.

Of course, then figuring out what my next project is going to be...

 

Hey Everyone!

The Hero's Journey has now been accepted on various game portals, which means this game is no longer a WIP. You can read more on the Showcase thread for the game.

There is one remaining post left for this thread: the post mortem. That will come at the end of the month.

 

Hi everyone!

Tonight, at 7:30 PM, I'm going to be doing a livestream of some improvements I'm going to be adding to The Hero's Journey. Mostly this is to test out developer livestreams, but also to see if I can get some better feedback while working. If so, I'll try to do livestreams more often when working on a game.

You can catch the stream on my Twitch channel. If you miss it, it's cool - I'll be uploading it to my YouTube account.

If you like what you see, like and follow! And, certainly feel free to give feedback on either channel. See you all there!