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.