Archive for September, 2008
Quick RiftMaker fixes
Thursday, September 18th, 2008
In an effort to make the game more streamlined and intuitive, I’ve implemented some quick changes to the latest RiftMaker demo:
1) Bash (the stun move) has been replaced with Finish - an instant critical strike for Rile that works only when the enemy is below 25% health. IMO, it’s much less awkward than Bash, although it’s really only useful on bosses, who have enough health to warrant beating them down quickly at the end of combat.
2) The top dragon’s vicious countermove has been replaced with an “Enrage Attack” that beats the mess out of a character after the dragon’s health gets low enough. The attack is survivable, but it should motivate players to use Finish as much as possible to shorten the dragon’s “enrage” time. The bottom dragon still heals. The numbers have been jiggered around some more.
3) Enemy HP is now visible as a percentage by the enemy’s name.
4) Enemy moves are now “announced” via a monster’s floating text (like damage). I’m not sure yet if this is a good idea or simply goofy looking. I’ll let y’all be the judges.
Click here to play the demo (clear your browser cache if you’ve played a previous demo).
Replicating Mario’s Play Control
Sunday, September 14th, 2008
So I’ve been playing around a little with trying to replicate Mario’s jumping style in Flash, on the theory of, if I’m going to make a derivative platformer, I might as well derive from the best! There are a couple of odd things I’ve noticed in studying Mario’s jumping style in Super Mario Bros. 3, however.
1) The height of Mario’s jump is dependent on how long you hold the A button. It’s so intuitive I’d never actually noticed it before.
2) You get a certain amount of control of your left and right movement while in the air, but most of your horizontal movement while in the air is a function of your movement speed while on the ground - hence why doing a “run jump” goes so much farther, and why jumping straight up doesn’t permit a lot of left and right movement.
I can’t quite get it to feel right, yet, but I’ll let you know when I do.
Some Fixes to the RiftMaker Demo
Saturday, September 13th, 2008
I’ve been taking some suggestions for the latest RiftMaker demo, and will be continuing to fix and update as time goes by. The following is new since the last posting:
1) The icons for the hotkey moves are now much larger and brighter, hopefully making it easier to link button to effect in your mind.
2) Bash has been nerfed somewhat to an 8-second stun with an 8-second cooldown, meaning you can only keep one enemy stunned with it at a time.
3) Previously, if you tried to push a hotkey while a character was executing a move you would get an “Ally Busy” error message and a beep. Now the move is “queued” and executed when the character finishes the current move, making for a (hopefully) smoother combat experience with a lot less button mashing. A character can only have one move queued at a time, however.
4) The sand dragons have been rejiggered. Honestly, if you play the demo, there’s no telling what their stats are, as I’m changing them so frequently.
5) An enemy, when performing a “counter” move, will turn red. A counter move can not be interrupted, but it lets you know that the enemy is about to unleash something particularly nasty in response to an attack from one of your characters.
Click here to play the demo. (Make sure to clear your browser cache if you have played it before in the same browser, as Flash won’t know to redownload the new XML files)
Can You Beat the Sand Dragons?
Sunday, September 7th, 2008
A new Riftmaker demo is up, showing off the following exciting, new features:
1) A new desert tileset, put together using a handy new level editor
2) The ability to move from one dungeon map to another
3) The ability to set hotkeys using the menu interface (press the hotkey to assign while selecting the desired move)
4) New sand dragon graphics
5) Two new abilities for Rile - Kick and Bash
6) Enemies now turn blue and sparkle when casting a spell
7) A new monster behavior trigger - retaliation!
The sand dragons will attack you if you go under the arch in the top screen. I suggest having Tyche and Tobias in your party and making sure all your hotkeys are set before engaging in combat. Can you beat them?