InkRain DevLog #0
Yeah, I have started a new project. Again.
This time it’s a roguelite/action-rpg 3D game. Its inspiration is Risk of Rain, Torchlight, and ADOM. You are not surprised, huh?
If you have read my previous articles, you might know that I am a huge fan of procedural generation. But this time I’m testing a new approach, making a playable game first hand. Of course, it already has a square ton of randomness, but I’m still thinking about a procedural part of the game.
So, what I want to say about my handcrafted tiny masterpiece? It’s my first 3D game. Loaded with paid (and pricey) assets. My perfectionism is against every part of this work, but it moves at a satisfactory forward pace. Test builds will be in the next DevLog if anybody is interested.
The main point of the game is items’ build. To be frank, it’s pretty simple. You have only six slots for equipment. Most items grant some skill for you. And it’s the only way to acquire it. There is no leveling system, so items are essential and really powerful. As well as skills, enemies are also mighty and unique. Sometimes you should have a very specialized item set to deal with the particular enemy. Or you can craft something ultimate and burn down the whole location. If you are lucky enough.
So, I’m done with advertising. It’s a dev log after all. And today I'm going to speak about cheats. Why did I choose such an unusual topic for the first post? Because it’s quite illustrative. You really need some cheat-like tools for testing if you have a lot of content. Or randomness. Or high difficulty. Or all in one. And I have some.
Firstly, how can you activate it? Of course, you can have dev builds with permanent god mode. Or old-fashioned console. But my experience shows that a) sometimes you want to test something in production build b) you cannot remember every item or skill name, and you want a nice slick UI to click through it.
In this video, I showed the activation sequence for my cheat mode. It’s the “conami code”. Right keys I display in the menu screen with awesome (due to its free) Prompt Font. It’s not ideal, but other fonts with “control” symbols are commercial and quite expensive.
Ok, now you have access to the unlimited power of cheats. I’m going to make a “cheat manager” window with every tool, but now I use hotkeys. God mode, toggle light/effect/barriers, additional coins, or access to craft window everywhere. There are a lot of essential actions. And every new feature and mechanic adds a few new necessary commands. And I hope to have some external testers who won’t have the project sources.
As you can see, I have 40+ skills (mostly with unique mechanics), 60 items (different quality, craft only, consumable supplies, quest… etc), and many effects (from an item, buffs/debuffs, permanent or timed). And it’s the only beginning. I hope it will help me achieve high replayability. You know, I don’t plan to make GTA 5 as my first game =)
But my game isn’t THAT small. Today I have done another cheat, progress points. For example, I want to test my new amazing enemy, Ork Warboss. All my hands are left, and I still never have achieved it from the start of the game. And this trip can consume a long time. Yeah, I can just move player right after Warboss. It will be a pitiful death. As I said, you need quite good equipment to face serious enemies.
That's why I made a bunch of “progress points”, markers to teleport the player and lists of enemies to kill, and containers to open inside. When I perform “point applying”, I calculate which enemies are active in this run, gather loot and coins from them and give it to the player. I need to apply every previous point and, voilà, the player is in front of the mighty boss with proper equipment in a second. I never saw anything like it, but IMHO it’s a natural approach for this type of game.
So, it should be a short post… I have a lot to tell, but it’s enough for today. If you want to read further stories, please let me know =)
