Future note: Well, this blog post is now called an “attempt” because (spoiler alert) below is me failing to properly make the feature I wanted. Oh well. I still feel I will document this as a “full day spent working
MicroRogue DevDiary #52 – Wall tops
So I have been thinking on how I am going to do my walls. No matter how I twist it, I have got to have additional sprites to visually show the verticalness of the level and walls. I am treating
MicroRogue DevDiary #51 – Boss abilities
So bosses need abilities — special activated powers they can use periodically. I mean, they don’t have to have them, but it would feel silly if bosses are just big enemies that don’t do anything special. Players have certain unsaid
MicroRogue DevDiary #50 – Boss interactions
I need to do some boss stuff. The work si slow and tedious and requires lots of effort, but I also need that culmination of fighting for the game. Without bosses, I will be missing something critical in game loop
MicroRogue DevDiary #49 – Options menu
There so much left to do and at the same time so few discrete “features” for blog posts. I am still trying to do it “one feature per post” to justify every feature, but it’s getting harder and harder. Most
MicroRogue DevDiary #48 – Player characters
I want the player to be able to play with multiple different characters or avatars, which have different properties and gameplay. This is a lot of gameplay variety for relatively not that much work. Basically, I have all the framework
MicroRogue DevDiary #47 – Upgrade improvements
Time to expand my upgrade system and add more upgrades. This is a replayable roguelike — you grind the dungeon, die, get some points, buy some upgrades, grind the dungeon a bit faster and a bit further. Rinse and repeat
MicroRogue DevDiary #46 – Camera and sprite size update
It’s time for me to make a couple (hard) art decisions. First of all, I am going (back) to orthographic view: It is just less work to have a flat 2D ortho camera and all sprites simply flat with no
MicroRogue DevDiary #45 – More weapon improvements
So my minigun is now hosing down bullets everywhere: May be that’s too extreme. This one is a “shoot a lot, miss a lot” kind of gun where you spray a bunch of enemies with not too much finesse. It’s
MicroRogue DevDiary #44 – Weapon improvements
Time to add some more new weapons… or work towards it. My rocket launcher was supposed to be one of many and it took way too long to implement all the details. So how about a simple minigun: I will
MicroRogue DevDiary #43 – Dungeon content improvements
I have been rethinking my loot and enemy distribution approach. I really like the idea of distributing content proportionally throughout a level, but it’s too complicated (read: time-consuming) to do properly. Sure, the utility of increasing the dungeon by a
MicroRogue DevDiary #42 – Player teleports
I have decided that the player will teleport in and out of the level via teleport pads. Firstly, it’s fairly easy to do animation-wise and creates fewer sprite issues. And it also kind of fits the sci-fi-ish story I think
MicroRogue DevDiary #41 – Saving and level progression
I need to implement a save/load system, which I don’t have yet. In short, there are three times a game is saved or loaded: save during gameplay, save during menus, load during menus (load during gameplay is not valid). It’s
MicroRogue DevDiary #40 – Rockets and effects
I keep talking about explosions, but I don’t have any. So that sounds like a good excuse to add a rocket launcher. First, I need the weapon item and projectile definitions: And with some new sprites, that works And
MicroRogue DevDiary #39 – UI framework
I need to make the game’s primary pipeline, which includes proper timing for when the world is generated and dismantled — when the player is playing or in the menu. From plyer’s perspective, this comes down to having menus, world
MicroRogue DevDiary #38 – Boss improvements
Time to make bosses awesome (more realistically, I’ll add some more framework for all mobs and special consideration for boss AI). Currently, my boss mobs are just enemies with larger sprites. And their AI wiring is exactly the same as
MicroRogue DevDiary #37 – Dungeon room improvements
My dungeon generation is sure taking up a lot of time with all the additions I want to do. For example, I want to add some small “closet” rooms where I can have the player get a quick loot boost
MicroRogue DevDiary #36 – Dungeon tile styles
I need to have some variety in my levels in terms of visuals and the most obvious candidates are the tiles — having different rooms with different themed tilesets. For example, to have halls be different from arenas and such.
MicroRogue DevDiary #35 – Scrap and upgrades
Enemies now break up into pieces and that’s very cool. But I’d also really want the player to collect something from this. May be not from every enemy and may be dependent on the enemy type, but something. There should
MicroRogue DevDiary #34 – Dungeon content improvements
So my level content (enemies, loot) distribution across the available rooms isn’t working quite the way I want it to. I often encounter stuff like this: Basically, the distribution ratio across the rooms alone is insufficient. What I need to