This is the final post for the week before the whole Monster Island development crew is taken offline temporary for a few weeks to serve duties.

When I am back I will drop occasional updates on the game / write a new post to keep the scene going.

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The Survival Concept has been secured with 10 Gameplay mechanism. The details are not populated yet but the structure and skeletal framework is almost fixed.

Survival Game

1. Moving Around

Concept

• Player always plays in an Area.
• The type of objects that they will encounter will be based on the type of area they are in.
• When a player moves towards the edge of an area, they will automatically be brought to the next area, depending on the direction of the travel.
• The world should be statically design so that there is a decent amount of level directions, fix dynamics, secrets, special objects, and special NPCs – forming a fix scenario.
• The areas, after inheriting static properties from the world, will then be further populated with random common objects for that area type.
• Player retrieve item from an environment by interacting directly with an area tile / by using an item for interaction.
• Unexplored tile in the world map are marked out in black (fog out) until they are explored.
• When player move to a new area, that area will be marked as explored and no longer be fogged out.

Details – Needs filling up

2. Item

Concept

• All items are worth a material value.
• All items can be salvage (destroyed) to obtain its materials value.
• Items can be use for area tile interaction.
• Available actions for items: Use, Drop, Setup, Interact.
     • Use: Consume the item for special effects
     • Drop: Drop the item on this area tile
     • Setup: Setup the item on this area tile. Eg: setup trap
     • Interact: Interact the item with this area tile. Eg: interact hatchet with tree

Details – Needs filling up

Item Name    Material Value    Actions
Torch        Use: Provide +1 sight radius for 5 turns.

Setup: Provide 1 sq sight radius around an area tile for 5 turns.

3. Item Research

Concept

• Any item can be sacrificed for research to unlock combination.
• Each item can only be researched once.
• When appropriate type of items are researched, new items can be produced.
• Items unlocked by research are automatically made available for players to produce.
• Producing items requires material, which is the universal currency to make any items that have been unlocked by research.

Details – Needs filling up

4. Day and Night

Concept

• Enemy monster patrol at night.
• During the day, enemy monster becomes asleep.
• Area sight radius is reduced to 1 sq radius when exploring at night. All enemy units are only visible within 1 sq radius.
• The whole area can be seen during the day.
• To win, a player has to survive for say 20 day.
• Each day and each night last for 10 turns.

Details – Needs filling up

5. Inventory

Concept

• Each item takes up 1 inventory slot.
• There are no stackable items.
• Each player starts off with 10 inventory slots.
• Bag item can be consumed to increase inventory slots permanently for a session.

Details – Needs filling up

6. Skills

Concept

• All skills contain a power amount. This determines the outcome of a battle.
• All skills require skill point to activate.
• Skill point recharge (+1) per turn.
• Skills can only be unlocked and equip before starting a game session. After that, they remain fixed for an entire session.
• Each player can equip up to a total of 4 skills.
• Skills, like items, can be use for area tile interaction.
• Available actions for items: Use, Drop, Setup, Interact.
     • Activate: Activate the skill for its special effects. Will also contain behavior that is similar to Setup for item.
     • Interact: Interact the item with this area tile. Eg: interact slash with tree

Details – Needs filling up

7. Battle

Concept
• The battle sequence is executed automatically upon a battle.
• The battle sequence consists of waves of attack.
• At the start of a wave, a dice roll will determine the monster to attack first.
• A winner will be determined from each wave. This is calculated by taking the sum of all power from equipped skills of one monster and compares it with the other monster. A random roll is also included in the calculation.

Formula:

Monster 1
[ROLL(Skill power of skill 1) +  ROLL(Skill power of skill 2) + ROLL(Skill power of skill 3) + ROLL(Skill power of skill 4)]

COMPARE

Monster 2
[ROLL(Skill power of skill 1) +  ROLL(Skill power of skill 2) + ROLL(Skill power of skill 3) + ROLL(Skill power of skill 4)]
• The loser from a wave takes -1 life point.
• After several waves, a winner is determined when any one monster does not have any life points left after at the end of a wave. In case of a draw, a dice roll is used to determine the winner.

Details – Needs filling up

8. Monster

Concept

• Enemy monster move about randomly, 1 sq per turn.
• Enemy monster only will attack if player is 1 sq away from it AND it is able to move for that turn.
• To provide a solution to lack of movement intelligence, enemy monsters will spawn en masses.
• After every night, enemy monster become stronger, both in power of skills and life point.

Details – Needs filling up

9. Energy Essence

Concept

• Energy essence is an uncommon power-up that can be used to enhance a monster permanently within a session.
• The power of all skills can be permanently enhanced for a session with energy essence.
• The life point of a monster can be permanently enhanced for a session with energy essence.
• Defeated monster drop energy essence. Special area tile (altar) can also be worshipped on a daily basis to get energy essence without having to engage in battle.

Details – Needs filling up

10. Survival Points

Concept

• Survival points are used to enhance a survival session.
• New skills must be unlocked with survival points.
• Special unique items can also be purchased as supply at the start of a survival session.

Details – Needs filling up

I took what I have “solidify” from last week, thought about it, and improvise on some parts. I will continue doing this until I have a design that feels good in every corner.

====New Ideas====

To find and discover – World Map and Area Map Style

I got this inspiration when I think about some RPG games that I have played. Instead of a clickable, explorable picture, we deal with World Map, and an Area Map instead.

Player always play in an Area.
The type of objects that they will encounter will be based on the type of area they are in.
When a player move towards the edge of an area, they will automatically be brought to the next area, depending on the direction of the travel.
The world should be statically design so that there is a decent amount of level directions, fix dynamics, secrets, special objects, and special npcs – forming a fix scenario.
The areas, after inheriting static properties from the world, will then be further populated with random objects for that area type, but the generator should be given rules to generate curious scenario too.

Tools – Materials and Material Research

To find a standard to populate the type of objects available, including its ability to combine with other object from tool, I happen to come across this idea.

Materials is a resource. (The idea is from last few post)
Each item has a material value.
Each item can be sacrifice for research OR
Each item can be sacrifice for materials.
Each item can only be researched once.
How research work is simple, the computer will find combination between items that can be combined, once two compatible items have been researched, a new tool will be available for purchase, with Materials as cost.
Materials available, are completely dependent on the type of scenario a player is playing in. For example, maybe in volcanic scenario they won’t have access to wood etc etc.

Skills

Skills are use for attack.
Skills are also, more importantly, used as secondary tools to compliment for the lack of certain materials in a scenario.
Skills points recharges each turn.
Using a skill consume skill points (or mana).
Skills can only be equipped and unlock outside a scenario, before it begins.
Skills are unlock for skill unlock point.
Skill unlock point is dependant on the amount of Material Value that a player has contributed to the base, by sacrificing an item. It is also factor by the outcome of a scenario (win or lose).
Offensive skill have power point, to indicate the strength of the skill when used in battle.

===Overall===

Summary of the idea

This is a turn-based session game. The game time of the game will be solely based on the number of turns that has passed as the game progress, not real time like many other browser game. This should allow any player to pick up where they have last saved and continue as and when they wish to. Multiplayer allow anybody to join any existing player’s session, even those that are halfway in progress.

The scenario

Player start off on an island.
They have a base.
There are monster nests, designed to be away from the base.
There are limited resources distributed all around the island.
There may be special character of interest around the island. Eg: A trader.

At night they come…

It is safe to explore the land and gather resources during the day.
Many enemy monsters spawn during the night up to a maximum number of enemy.
They spawn all at once and last for the whole night.
Enemy monsters move around randomly, from their spawn spot.
Player that move within hostile range will be attacked immediately, unless the monster has already moved for that turn.

Moving around

Movement is done in grid square.
Player start out with only the ability to move 1 sq per turn.

The fog

During the day players can see 2 square radius of what is going on around their monster.
During the night the square radius is reduced to 1 square.
The square radius during the night can be increased by carrying a torch.

To find and discover

Resource point, and other places of interest provide an explorative, “find and discover” gameplay by providing a clickable picture.
Clicking on any spot on the picture will issue a find command to the game.
Using an item on any spot on the picture will issue an interact with command to the game.
Spots of interest are
After say 4 clicks / interaction a turn end.
Players can choose to explore again for the next turn.
Non renewable resources does not respawn.
Renewable resources respawn after so turns.

Survival

Player need food to survive…

Day

A day consist of a single daytime and a single nighttime.
Each daytime and night time last for say 10 turns.
Each day consume food from the base, if there isn’t enough food to past through a day, the game is lost.

Boss [Still considering]

Boss monster spawn after several days.
They remain active during the days and are extremely dangerous.
Some boss monster will hold ingredients necessary for winning the game.
They will move around like common enemies.
Boss are the only enemies that are able to raid the players’ base, looting supplies of food within.

Base

Base defenses can be upgraded to repel certain boss. (They can’t attack)
Rare ingredients are needed to perform the upgrade.

Basic Stats

Life – If this reaches 0, you will return to base and lose a few turn.
Inventory Slot – Number of items players can carry with them.
Food – Requirement for winning and losing, player lose the game when this reaches 0. They win when this reaches a good amount.
Materials – Basic necessity to make any tools.
Power – To determine the outcome of a battle.
Sight radius – How far player can see around them, aids exploration.

Losing a fight

Losing a fight empty your inventory (Stolen!)
Losing a fight drop your items on the floor, with 50% content looted by the enemy.
Returning to base also forfeit a few turns.

Retreating

As long as you move away from enemy hostile circle, they will stop attacking (1 square).

Battle

Fighting complete the current turn.
Winning and losing a fight is determined by the Power of both monsters through the skill they use.
Loser take –1 Life.
Enemy monster destroyed upon life = 0
Player return to base and forfeit turns upon life = 0

Charges [Still considering]

Charges are like bullet, skills are like gun.
Using a battle skill each time exhaust 1 charge.
Each battle skill contains a few ingredient requirements that must be met to gain a charge.

Skills [Still considering]

All skills need to be charged before they can be used.
Skill without power can only be used for object interaction.
Skills unlock interaction for some objects on the island.
Battle skills equipped player’s monster with the ability to fight. Battle skills may also be used to interact with certain objects on the island for special discovery.
More battle skills can eventually be learnt (unlocked) in the shop of skills.

Tools [Still considering]

Tools can be made by combining 2 materials together. Unlike Skills, tools does not need to be learnt. Instead it is up to the player to discover the different combination of items that will produce tools.
Tools is solely used for object interaction.

Knowledge

Replaced with skills.

Inventory

Using an item complete the current turn.
A player can carry so number of items during exploration.

===What’s next===

I will continue hammering down on details. I am also thinking of a leveling mechanism that will fit into the design, but a higher level means a higher chance for success when doing some things. It shouldn’t be used for unlocking content, at least that’s what I believe for now. This leveling system will also be carried forward from scenario to scenario, just like unlock skills. I will think about it and see how it goes.

I got new ideas. In the last few weeks I have all these ideas about resources, teamwork, and knowledge but something just doesn’t feel right about the design. I am also confused over the type of game I should produce. This week I have decided on the type of game I will design, especially how the game time should progress. I also managed to get some new ideas which “feels better”, I am starting to get excited again about this idea. I am starting to get a better picture but I will have to recheck on this feeling again when I start to design the details. It will still have to change if it doesn’t feel right.

Summary of the idea 

This is a turn-based session game. The game time of the game will be solely based on the number of turns that has passed as the game progress, not real time like many other browser game. This should allow any player to pick up where they have last saved and continue as and when they wish to. Multiplayer allow anybody to join any existing player’s session, even those that are halfway in progress.

The scenario

Player start off on an island.
They have a base.
There are monster nests, designed to be away from the base.
There are limited resources distributed all around the island.
There may be special character of interest around the island. Eg: A trader.

At night they come…

It is safe to explore the land and gather resources during the day.
Many enemy monsters spawn during the night up to a maximum number of enemy.
They spawn all at once and last for the whole night.
Enemy monsters move around randomly, from their spawn spot.
Player that move within hostile range will be warn for one turn.
Failing to retreat out of hostile range the next turn will cause the hostile enemy monster to attack the player.
Player that move within hostile range will be attacked immediately, unless the monster has already moved for that turn.

Moving around

Movement is done in grid square.
Player start out with only the ability to move 1 sq per turn.

The fog

During the day players can see 2 square radius of what is going on around their monster.
During the night the square radius is reduced to 1 square.
The square radius during the night can be increased by carrying a torch.

To find and discover

Resource point, and other places of interest provide an explorative, “find and discover” gameplay by providing a clickable picture.
Clicking on any spot on the picture will issue a find command to the game.
Using an item on any spot on the picture will issue an interact with command to the game.
Spots of interest are
After say 4 clicks / interaction a turn end.
Players can choose to explore again for the next turn.
Non renewable resources does not respawn.
Renewable resources respawn after so turns.

Survival

Player need food to survive…

Day

A day consist of a single daytime and a single nighttime.
Each daytime and night time last for say 10 turns.
Each day consume food from the base, if there isn’t enough food to past through a day, the game is lost.

Boss [Still considering]

Boss monster spawn after several days.
They remain active during the days and are extremely dangerous.
Some boss monster will hold ingredients necessary for winning the game.
They will move around like common enemies.
Boss are the only enemies that are able to raid the players’ base, looting supplies of food within.

Base

Base defenses can be upgraded to repel certain boss. (They can’t attack)
Rare ingredients are needed to perform the upgrade.

Basic Stats

Life – If this reaches 0, you will return to base and lose a few turn.
Inventory Slot – Number of items players can carry with them.
Food – Requirement for winning and losing, player lose the game when this reaches 0. They win when this reaches a good amount.
Power – To determine the outcome of a battle.
Sight radius – How far player can see around them, aids exploration.

Losing a fight

Losing a fight empty your inventory (Stolen!)
Returning to base also forfeit a few turns.

Retreating

As long as you move away from enemy hostile circle, they will stop attacking (1 square).

Battle

Fighting complete the current turn.
Winning and losing a fight is determined by the Power of both monsters through the skill they use.
Loser take –1 Life.
Enemy monster destroyed upon life = 0
Player return to base and forfeit turns upon life = 0

Charges [Still considering]

Charges are like bullet, skills are like gun.
Using a battle skill each time exhaust 1 charge.
Each battle skill contains a few ingredient requirements that must be met to gain a charge.

Skills [Still considering]

All skills need to be charged before they can be used.
Skill without power can only be used for object interaction.
Skills unlock interaction for some objects on the island.
Battle skills equipped player’s monster with the ability to fight. Battle skills may also be used to interact with certain objects on the island for special discovery.
More battle skills can eventually be learnt (unlocked) in the shop of skills.

Tools [Still considering]

Tools can be made by combining 2 materials together. Unlike Skills, tools does not need to be learnt. Instead it is up to the player to discover the different combination of items that will produce tools.
Tools is solely used for object interaction.

Knowledge

Replaced with skills.

Inventory

Using an item complete the current turn.
A player can carry so number of items during exploration.

What’s next

I will try to think logically and hammer down on as much details as possible and see how it goes. A standard will give an easier time to design the game. At the same time, it comes with the cost of sacrificed dynamics. I actually wonder if I will have enough time to eventually build upon this idea but I suppose I will at least try to have a good complete design which can then be developed in the future.

It’s not easy to piece an idea together and then make sure it works practically. Most of the time when I have a spark of inspiration, the difficult part comes when it’s time to stamp down the gray areas with vivid details. It’s like it’s easy to draw a circle, but it will be a chore if you decided to derive the face of a person from that circle.

The Challenge

I was always thinking of a cooperative survival game for this new entity. But I can never think of a good challenge for the players. The closest idea I have is the concept of tower defense, in which the outcome of the game is determined by the player’s decision to spent resources on different type of towers, choosing to upgrade or not, and mazing techniques. That is how I came up with the idea of intervals attack.

Computer Players

The other method is probably to implement a computer player to interact with participating players. But I can never truly test A.I on a prototype board game version of this new entity, alas I can always ask someone to participate to simulate a computer player, then digitalize his set of decisions to make a computer player. It’s like playing chess with the computer.

A Strategy Game?

The more I think about my design, the more I feel that my “survival” game is running off-track. The whole idea of resource management, making decisions feels really strategic. If I throw in an opponent that does the same thing at the other end to provide a challenge, then this “survival” entity has indeed transform into a strategy game. I actually don’t want my game entity to evolve into something like that. Just when I think about existing survival genre games, I got a new inspiration.

Stupid and brainless = Fun?

I reflected on some of the zombie survival games that I have played. We don’t got some clever zombie managing their resources and trying to “outsmart” us don’t we. In fact, they are usually in masses, mindless (stupid), and while we the players try to get around out of the mess, these stupid stuff gets into our way, and we blow them away (mindlessly) and for the sake of blowing them apart to test out a new weapon sometimes. I think my new entity need something like that to be considered a survival entity, but I need something that is not zombie…something that is more original.

Combine Items

I played a few survival games that give player the ability to combine items and compared it with those that doesn’t allow players to combine items. Those with this feature is definitely more interesting to play. Therefore I concluded that all survival games must have this piece of gold implemented.

Rare Stuff = Good Stuff

The kind of feeling a player feels when they found something that is supposed to be rare and plays an important role in the continuation of a game is true pleasure. Another piece of gold that I must consider for my design.

What’s Next?

So far I have many inspirations but I am struggling to piece them together. I really need a flash of genius to occur.

=======

In other news…

-Improve resource loading time.
-A nicer font has been installed for Monster Island
-Fix a variable bug which prevented the Monster Shrine from working properly, followed by unstableness in the game after accessing the shrine. It should work properly now.
-Increased the game frame rate from 24fps to 30fps.
-Chill to spine skill deal basic damage now.
-Shutdown battle arena because the current system is unstable (and unplayable). Plans will be made to create a new / improve the system. Until then the battle arena will be closed.

This week I will discuss some of the design flaws that I have discovered in my previous design (last week) as well as some new ideas that I have in mind for the game mechanism.

In the previous design, I mentioned that players can get resources from their environment to survive, then get some power ups, and then fight some monster.

But there is a problem, if player can have an easy reliable method to get resources for survival, and they will survive without a problem, and it wouldn’t be challenging anymore. It will also be too luck-based if the discovery of resources is totally random.

Therefore, I need a new enemy for the game that will get into the players’ way – Unwanted Attacks. In the previous design the players are given the privilege to attack monster at any time. This time round, my idea is such that enemy monsters will attack the players’ base at fixed intervals. Each time a player successfully defeat them, they will gain resources. On the other hand, each time a player gets defeated by them, resources are lost to the enemies. Between intervals of attack, the monster grow stronger. I am still leaving the ability for players to attack native monsters at any time they like behind in the design.

There will be different type of resource spot containing resources. (Food, Materials) Some spots may require the research of a knowledge (talk about knowledge later). For instance, maybe at the start of the game players can only access Food resource spot like trees and bushes. Once they research fishing they can access Food resource spot from the lake.

Knowledge is a new idea I have in mind for the game. I was thinking about what makes survival game that I have played so far fun and I incidentally convinced myself with this fact  “A survival game is fun because you don’t know the exact items combination to make necessary survival essential.” So I thought for a moment and decided that uncertainty is a must for a survival game.

Knowledge will include the random element (or uncertainty) for the game. To make sure players have a certain amount of control over the uncertainty portion of the game, before the game is started players will determine a starting set of knowledge that their monster will acquire during the game. It is like a deck of trading cards, and players can choose how they want to form their “deck”. I also have the elite knowledge idea in mind. That is to say, one “deck” can only contain a single elite knowledge. It should probably be potent too. Once a player has compose a deck it will be “shuffled” and on every so turns in the game, each player will discover a new knowledge from their “deck”. Think of this as drawing a new card. Players may have adequate resources collected from the environment, but without getting the appropriate knowledge, they will probably be mediocre in their defenses against the intervals of attack. On the other hand, they may get a powerful knowledge that can be used to get monster power, but can’t utilize it properly because of the lack of resources  that can possibly be moderated if they have a few knowledge in their “deck” to make gathering resources a  more efficient task.

Currently, the following list the category of knowledge I have in mind for the current design:

1. Area Access – Unlock access to new spots, gather resources from previously unavailable places.
2. Monster Power – Attack and Defenses essential, each player can equip one of this to get a foothold of the situation when monsters attack the base on an interval basis. Think of it as a weapon. (Notice in the previous design monster power is a kind of resource, I will see how the design progresses)
3. Base Defenses – Similar to monster power, but only for defensive purposes. Great because it can defend against any number of monsters.
4. Facilities – Most are prerequisite which are consumed to research and acquire Monster Power, Base Defenses, and Area Access.
5. Escape – For winning the game.

The design feels alot better already but I am still thinking of ways to implement exploration part of the game and the battle system (overall game rule) so that the knowledge part of the game have big rooms for expansion.

Further Reading:

1. Concept and Design #1
2. Concept and Design #2

Last week I discussed about the basics of the new content that I am currently designing. This week I will discuss more about my current progress.

I went around in circles and finally decided to settle down on this theme for the new entity – “Teaming up with friends and working towards  the same purpose can be fun and rewarding”.

So I will have a game, drop a few players together in a single session, and they must figure their way out to survive and fulfill certain purposes on the island.

There are 3 main resources to manage in the game. Food, Materials, and Monster Power. Food is a counter for surviving, if food reaches 0, it’s game over. Materials provides enhancements and upgrades, which improve the circumstances of survival. Players will play in the form of monsters trying to survive on the island rather than human, so they will have access to Monster Power so their monsters can attack or perform special tricks.

Food and materials are shared among all players participating in a session, so they must work together to survive. Upgrades are also available to all players when it become available. Example, if fishing becomes upgraded, then all players will be given access to fishing.

The current design sees the game with a starting point, with access to resources around that point, in a small radius covering that point. Players start off by group gathering resources, with limited access to some area. They will eventually be able to secure some upgrades to start gathering resources in places they can’t access before, and in greater amount. Eventually, they will start to get Monster Power, then they will explore places and seek out native monsters to fight, and eventually be able to “secure some goals (not thought out yet)” and win the game.

Still, this design lacks so much things that must be there in place for the new entity to be fun. I will like to view the design in a board game / card game perspective first, so that I can easily implement a prototype to test it.

As you know, designing is an iterative process, if part of this idea is not great when tested out eventually, or I have a better idea in mind, I may just scrape it for something better.

I have started to design the new long term content to make sure Monster Island can survive the period of “downtime of development” that we will be experiencing very soon.

Because I wanted to test the design as much as possible before it is being finalized, I have decided to design the new entity such that it can be played just like a board game, without technological hindrance in place.

The original idea is a multiplayer session-based survival game. Basically players will be able to find some friends and they must try to “survive” on an island. It is more like a cooperative game than a competitive game. The whole focus for this new entity is to make a simple game, but should also have elements that will provide a deep gameplay experience.

I have already successfully designed the first revision and with the help of a messenger script, quickly digitalize it to a messenger text-based single player playable version that can be tested among my friends. Currently, the responses are not really good. (I supposed!) It will need quite a bit of changes and play testing to get the entity to the right track. Personally, I feel that the game will be better if I include some fantasy content in it, such as abilities from Monster and special items? It will also be good if players can customized their survival experience, such as the ability to choose starting items. Also, more obstacles and appropriate solutions and rewards must be found.

The designing phase is crucial and must not be rushed. Development will only begin when the sweet spot is reached. Meanwhile, I will continue to update my progress on a weekly basis.

Support for sprite animation has been completed. Now the new content has basic sprite animation, so instead of a solid static square moving around, we have dynamic directional triangles moving around.

[Click here to Play the prototype]
[Arrow key move, press and hold space to charge up a skill,
release a charged skill for activation]

Planning for the future

As you all know, the development team for Monster Island is made up of a total of 3 person. 2 artist, and 1 programmer (me). In our country it is compulsory for boys to participate in national service (army). Both of our artist is enlisting really soon, while my enlisting date is just about 2 months away. Once enlisted, we won’t be able to develop for at least 3 months while we are locked away in the camp. For the next 2 years and less, we will only have limited time for development. In other words, it will only be me involved in the game development for the next 2 months. On top of that, our free web hosting service provider trial (Joyent) will be over in 2 months too.

Most unfortunate, this new action dungeon entity could not be delivered in time, so we are going to postpone development of this entity until further notice.

Fortunately, as a founder for the game, I still have some plans. I plan to develop some content that will be able to last for some time during the “dead period”. Without the artists available, I will have to reuse as much existing art assets as possible. I also intend to introduce our first premium feature in those new content that I will be developing in the future. Please understand that it is essential that our web hosting service can be preserved (And hence the survivability of the game itself). Self-sustainability is the goal, but I will try to make sure premium feature doesn’t spoil the game. Also, from what I used to have in mind, old premium feature will eventually become free after a period of time to always ensure the goodwill of a free game.

In the next few weeks, I will start designing a new content that can be played for a long period of time. The current vision is a simple, straightforward, hassle-free type of gameplay for the new content, with fast loading time, useful collectable, and with game time relative to the real world. The new content will most probably be a “browser-based” type of game, and should have the ability to attract casual gamers. Of course, it should also be able to link to the original game.

Last week we mentioned that we will start working on the basic skill activation mechanism. This week we managed to prototype the basic skill activation mechanism for the new entity.

The changed in Gameplay offered by this new mechanism is such that players no longer have the ability to “fire blindly” at an opponent. They will have to wait for an appropriate opportunity in order to attack and survive. They must also time the release of their skill properly, such that the time between each release is as short as possible, granting the player the ability to attack as much as possible. Releasing a skill before it gets charge up will result in a failed attack, releasing a skill too slowly will reduce the frequency of an attack.

[Click here to Play the prototype]
[Arrow key move, press and hold space to charge up a skill,
release a charged skill for activation]

It is still early to decide if this is fun, so it will be good to do more tweaks and testing. When we look at how other action games are designed, we feel that usually players will still prefer an immediate response “fire upon action” system in contrast with a “charge and wait” system. As for the enemies, the “charge and wait” system fit quite nicely because players always want the anticipation factor inside an action game so that they have time to react fairly. 

Next week, we will start developing the entity to support basic sprite animation. If time allows we may start working on dungeon dynamics.

Moving on from the leftover of last week, we managed to secure a reasonable collision detection “framework”. The trick is to utilize  2 different types of collision detection. One of them will have a fast hash table algorithm to loop through the list of static objects while the other will have a more expensive algorithm to loop through the list of dynamic, movable objects. The combination of these 2 algorithm is a solution which enable the game scene to have a reasonable amount of objects placed in it before the game starts to slow down. Dynamic object collision is still a little bit problematic with an occasional hit not registering but we can move on to higher priority task first.

We managed to plug in more feature for the computer opponents. We mentioned in our first post that the primary challenge of this new content is tough computer opponents. This week we managed to give them the ability to retaliate when they are struck by the players’ fireball. The demo is available below. Please feel free to give the prototype a try. We also gave each computer opponent a total of 4 life to sustain damage for a small period of time. The player has a total of 2 life.

[Click here to play prototype]
[Use the arrow key to move around, use the spacebar to shoot]
[If the arrow key doesn’t work click the flash app once]

Next week we will try to establish the basic skill activation mechanism. After that, we hope to work our way through the dungeon dynamics, special places of interest instead of just brick walls. You get the idea.