Son of a Witch: Devlog and general discussion

[bigosaur]

Will the locked rooms just be treasure piles? Or will there be other sorts of special room like in, say, pixel dungeon if you've played that?

There will be different ones. All locked rooms will have treasure chests, but some will also have traps and guards that are protecting it.

There will be other special rooms, but those probably won't be locked. For example, different kinds of shops and also quest rooms, where you can interact with some NPCs.

Presenting Goblin Berseker:



This goblin combines ranged and melee into a single unit. His rage increases even without hitting an enemy and when the rage is full, he throws the axe towards the player. When up-close, he uses the axe to fight in classic melee strikes.



Goblin Axe is a very desired weapon for warriors. It can be thrown from a distance. If your rage meter is full, the thrown axe is unstoppable and flies across the screen knocking everyone down.

[Jubal]

Nice stuff

Will there be many mage-type enemies too?

[bigosaur]

Will there be many mage-type enemies too?

Not many, but there will be approximately one per faction. Goblin Shaman will use a voodoo doll do hurt you from distance, skeletons have two mages: one is using dark magic to create various effects like slow, curse, etc. and necromancer can raise dead skeletons during the battle. Thieves won't have a mage. On ice levels there will be an Ice Mage that can freeze the heroes and shoots ice balls. Knights get help from a mage that lives in the castle (still haven't figured out what kind of magic he will use) and Crystal Wizard is one of the bosses. Also, Medusa will have petrifying power, so if you consider that magic, then there's one more planned.

Anyway, I finished the Goblin Berserker. Here's the axe-throwing animation:

[Jubal]

The mage looks amusingly chilled out about all the axes thrown at him

And sounds good

[bigosaur]

I got the multiple shots working. Reminder, it's an effect of one of the potions:



You get more shots, but each orb is weaker. When you start a game with mage you make 6 damage per orb. When split, each orb does 5 damage, but you fire two orbs at once, so that's 10 damage, a nice increase. Of course there are other ways to increase damage back up:



A good combo is when you add poison to it. You can easily poison multiple enemies at once:

[Jubal]

Can't remember if I already asked, but will you be able to have multiple potions active at once?

[bigosaur]

Can't remember if I already asked, but will you be able to have multiple potions active at once?

Yes. Some potions have long lasting effects, so only a couple of battles... you can have unlimited different buffs active at the same time.

Anyway, I'm testing my game engine to see how it behaves in big battles:



Two players, 15 enemies and it works as smooth as with an empty screen. The game will run on a 10-year-old Core2Duo CPU with integrated Intel graphics card at 60fps with smaller resolutions like 1366x768. For HD screens it pushes about 53 fps on that config, but if you have just a little bit stronger CPU or dedicated GPU like nVidia or AMD it will work just fine. It only requires OpenGL 1.1, so even some really old hardware will be able to run the game.

Axe throwin'



As promised, you can pick up enemy weapons and use them. Goblin axe has a simple overhead strike attack mapped to fast attack button. Pressing Strong attack button throws it:



When your rage meter is full, you can use the sweeping mega throw attack:

[Jubal]

Nice Should be no problem for my new laptop, certainly!

[bigosaur]

Here are the magic scrolls. Of course, first comes the less interesting part, like picking them up, storing in inventory, etc.:



And then comes the fun part, i.e. using them:

[Jubal]

Neat! (I feel like ideally the scrolls would be open when you "read" them, but I accept that may be too much of a faff and what you've got looks fine). Also, "peaceful" has only the one l at the end unless I'm mistaken.

[Clockwork]

You're right Jub.


I like how this game is looking though. Really interested in the co-op

[bigosaur]

Also, "peaceful" has only the one l at the end unless I'm mistaken.

Good catch. I fixed that right away. Thanks.

Here's the first boss: Ogre Mom:



She can be challenging, especially for beginners. She will have several different attacks, the main one hitting you with that huge club:



It shows zero damage, because the player is invulnerable during testing

Update: Here's the animation. I still need to work on some dust effects on the ground where the club hits:

[Jubal]

I'd be interested to see more gameplay with the camera shake - it feel like it might be vibrating at slightly too high a frequency at the moment, but I'm not sure whether the gif is a good indication.

Looking forward to seeing the other attacks!

[bigosaur]

I'd be interested to see more gameplay with the camera shake - it feel like it might be vibrating at slightly too high a frequency at the moment, but I'm not sure whether the gif is a good indication.

The gif doesn't do it justice, it looks much better in the game.

Here's the second attack. If you try to pass behind her, you might get smacked in the back:



I'm also planning an arena for the boss fight. There will be a small building for goblin warriors to come out and help the Ogre and there's a catapult that you can use when the battle is over



The boss room will have a distinct door which cannot be blasted with bombs:



The first level ends when you catapult yourself into the King's Castle:

[Jubal]

Very nice, I approve of the catapult