Howdy, everyone! Play the demo if you haven't already! Now that the demo is out, I'm excited to be back making videos and livestreaming! This is one of the most shining moments as a developer. Support the Kickstarter and Play the Demo! www.kickstarter.com/projects/gameendeavor/zoe-and-the-cursed-dreamer-cozy-open-world-rpg game-endeavor.itch.io/zatcd-demo
Hey, I've dm'd you some suggestions on twitter. It is a little outdated tho because I sent it before watching your other devlogs but it still has some ideas. And I have a lot more to talk about if you want to discuss.
Hey man, really love what you are doing. Sorry for the bad english, it's not my first language. I played the demo and don't now where to report a bug, so I'll do it here. When you buy furniture, you can use the furniture to boost your player through pushing him away with it. I only tested it with a pod though, but still was able to push through some colliders. This also enables movement while conversations are happening. But still, great work you did there, I really look forward to playing your game :D
@@GameEndeavor did you cancel the game because of the kickstarter full time or you will still update it as a youtube thing? I really dont want this game to die
lol, sorry about that. The demo took up all of my free time though. I was working 7 days a week, 6-12 hours a day on it. Glad to be able to relax a bit now. xD
@@CHKNSkratch Well it's going to be a mixture of both. UA-cam is helping to fund the project and builds my community. So I need both. But I just had so much to do if I wanted to get that demo out in time, so I put YT on hold until it was done. :)
@@GameEndeavor I love it, i think that is a very good decision. I actually had quite a similar moment a few weaks ago and i am very happy with the results.
@@Chevifier I wouldn't count this as feature creep. This is a feature that I've wanted since before the beginning. It just became much more viable during development. :)
@@Chevifier Looks more like organic development of the game than feature creeping. At least that's my take on it. It's important to be open to changing and making the final product evolve during development !
I love the royal familiar conceptually and I love the void kitty fantasy-ly if that makes sense. Like with the royal familiar the concept of a familiar that views you as their servant has a lot of space for humor and rp, while having a big cuddly cat to hug is a childhood fantasy I've had.
Indeed, that's what I was talking about during the livestreams, how they royalty familar could make for some interesting scenes. I'm thinking about giving familiars their own scenes where you bind them to obtain them, which could be entertaining.
UA-cam algorithm... I saw this video a month too late to support the kickstarter. Hope this project continues in some form or another, absolutely loved the demo.
I've said it before, but you have such a great mindset and knack for fun ideas. You really are making a fun game that YOU think is cool/cute so it will be! I don't think everyone else trying to make devlogs does that
Thank you! I can't speak for what everyone else does, but that's pretty much what I'm doing. I'm just having fun and making a game out of ideas that form during the process, and these devlogs are a good way to share what's happening. :D
The progress is amazing :D Your fight system emerged organically and such systems are the best ones. Started as a fun idea, then becoming a core feature.
I think that the enemy attacking itself looks hilarious and awesome. I think it would be really cool if you made that bug a feature by allowing the player to use a spell or something to throw the enemy into a frenzy, causing it to attack itself and others. The game is looking good, man!
lol, I kind of did with the frenzy spell which I will probably add. One thing I didn't do though was let the frenzied target attack themselves, but that's a fantastic idea!
You should make the bug where enemies hit themselves into a feature. Like a wand that would make enemies attack themselves for a short period of time. I can see that being a really fun in-game mechanic.
I really love how the game looks and it is fantastic to be able to see the process of game development. I wish i could support you with money but my parents won't let me. Love it, keep up the good work.
consider this: - flyweight model: flyweight list of base hatred between factions or maybe from specific monster to faction. you want to allow monsters to have any number of flags so you can have undead beasts or nature pets. you dont have to store this per monster, you dont even hate to store it per monster class if you dont want to. - enmity system: keep a list of hate toward specific monsters inside each monster instance, but only after it changes from the baseline. when a monster attacks another monster, add some hate based on how threatening the attack was and how much that monster hates that faction. when say a healer heals someone injured, monsters who hate the injured actor hate the healer relative to the hate and the healing amounts. - alternatively, maybe just have neutral sprouts and angry sprouts that attack stuff? be a lot simpler. yes sometimes a skel would anger a sprout and it would attack the player, but i kinda like that. - bite the bullet and make the game entirely about pets. don't be married to an idea while ignoring your game designing itself. let it do its thing.
I really enjoyed playing through the demo yesterday! It was a pretty fun time and I hope this project can meet its goal, as I'm already immensely enjoying the world you're building up! Definitely gonna support the Kickstarter, and even join your discord!
Thank you! The game will be finished regardless of the KS, so no worries. :) And if you enjoy world building then that's exactly what I'm wanting to focus on the most! :D
I absolutely LOVED the demo and now you tell me there's MORE to discover in just the demo!? Keep up the amazing work, Zoe and the cursed dreamer is gonna take the game industry by storm
Thank you! Some of the stuff mentioned in the devlog is still in development, so won't be in the demo just yet, but if you haven't played it in a little bit then absolutely. I made some major updates that greatly improved its quality, and plan to keep adding more. :D
a simple touch that would do a lot to make the player feel more in control is to make the camera move with their aim! it's a mechanic that is really simple, and can add a lot of dynamic gameplay if you consider it can be changed depending on your weapon or class. Keep up the good devlogs!
Thank you! Yeah, thinking about doing just that lately. Hesitant because camera work can sometimes involve a lot of tweaking which I can't afford to do right now, but will look into that soon. :)
In the Tales of Symponia you give allies (the ones you are not being used by other players) tactics such as attack magic users, or attack ranged, or when low Mp don't use spells etc which make you feel like you are commanding your party and they don't take your thunder, if they do something well it's because you planned it well as a tactician
lol, yeah. It's a long O. Glad you liked the demo! I personally wasn't happy with it, so I'm redoing it. It should be a lot better imo, so keep an eye out for that. :)
@@GameEndeavor I definitely will. Zoe and the Cursed Dreamer feels like a game I was making but better in literally every aspect. I can't wait to play the full game!
Looks really promising! One thing I think would be cool and could give rise to more emergent behaviour is synergy effects between different attacks. For example if one of your companions' attack has a stun effect, it could lower the defence for a split second, or if elemental spells like water and electricity could work together. Not to mention taking the environment into account and spells/attacks that can affect that, like burning the grass. Just throwing some ideas out there, I'm sure whatever you decide to do will be great! :)
Some interesting ideas, I could for sure see those being added to the game so long as I don't get to complex with them. xD Thank you for the suggestions!
An interesting way to do the necromancer thing would be to put some sort of "soul-binding" spell on an enemy, then if they die, they come back on your side after a small animation. So while you still get the fun of watching them bonk into each other, you still get to do combatting yourself. You could balance it by not allowing multiple soulbinds, or having upgraded versions that allow multiple, or chaining binds. Stream of consciousness, it would be a lot of fun to soul-bind one, kill it, then soul-bind the one it's attacking so when it dies, the first one disintegrates and the new one is your new best friend. So you can still be part of the combat flow, but your focus is on helping your skelefriend.
Interesting idea. :) That would make something I have planned for later a little tricky though, which I should've mentioned in the video. Currently summoned entities don't have a despawn timer. They stay around forever, however in the future they're going to lock off a portion of your max mana, increasing the amount the stronger the entitiy. So a typical skelly will lock off 1 of your maximum mana bars while it's summoned, and a Skelly Brute might lock off 2 or 3.
I could imagine Mad Catter being a random chaos kind of thing. Whenever it activates, it does something from a random pool of decisions, and each decision will have a positive and a negative. So a positive could be healing one heart, and the negative could be making your move speed cut in half for a few seconds
For the Mad Catter I think it would be cool if he was a post game/Newgame + follower that when he follows you randomizes every enemy you encounter into a different one. I think it would make for a very bizarre second playthrough
At last, a YT update on the project :) Making unique behaviors like you describe in this devlog, is what really makes your game different. Keep up the good work
absolutely amazing. Not just all the work itself, but the video that you took so much time to make and edit. Thank you. I appreciate it, and i love your STORY of all this that you are creating.
I love the concept of the mad catter, reminds me of the Wabbajack in skyrim, It could insta-kill whatever you were fighting, turn them into a shower of sweet-rolls, or transform them into a deadric warlord of sorts
I've always liked summoner/Necromancer Class. I really wanted a pokemon-ish game but you fight along with few of your tamed monsters and they can fusion with each other to make better monsters.
If the Mad Catter ever does get to join the party, it would be funny to have him refuse if you ask him to join the party but actively join the party if you try to turn him down.
If you were to introduce Catter as a 'companion', you should have it be that they are an optional add-in for new game plus that *specifically* exists to make the game harder, adding in extra problems for you to deal with (like your mentioned enemy upgrades, but also things like summoning extra enemies from a mix of factions so they all fight each other, putting buffs on some enemies, etc. - it'd be a case of 'you asked for this!' and him delivering the chaos you wanted)
That's exactly what I meant. :) The idea being to give you an optional challenging way the play the game. People would do "Mad Catter" runs where you have to beat the game with him as your companion the whole time.
The game looks really fun and promising. Hope you can keep putting effort into the game and dev logs. You probably already know about/fixed this but there is a bug where when you drag furniture next to your character it pushes them. This can be used to clip into rivers and make the character move a lot faster than intended. Hope I could help!
I really love how the game is coming along so far, and it keeps looking cooler and cooler! I played the demo and the only thing that I've had an issue with so far is the roll/dodge mechanic, or more so the roll and the stamina bar. The fact that a roll uses a 3rd of your stamina really discourages the player from using it in the first place, since you can only do it 3 times with a full bar, it doesn't seem worth it to get into the action and use it to dodge when you can keep your distance and use a fireball + bow instead. This might just be a demo issue, maybe specializing your class in the full release will balance it out, but it doesn't feel smart to get up close and personal with enemies at the moment. That's just one gripe though, I still think this game has some of the most fun combat I've seen, and I really look forward to seeing it grow from here. Cheers, man!
Yeah, dodge is one of the most difficult things to balance in my opinion. I want it to be usable, but not spammed, and either slower than normal travel or limited in use. Right now it leads to confusion though. I'm thinking of how I can do it better. :)
I think you should add wandering Merchants. But the difference of this Merchant compared to others in games is that, He has his personal guards protecting him. Like 2 Swordsman and 1 Archer.
I think it could be nice if all creature types have individual marks. Skellies for example could have 1 out of 6 cracks on the head. Sprouts could have 1 out of 4 colors or freckles. This would make them more recognizable when summoned or befriended. Also it would make more boundaries if summoned skullies with a mark you allready had summoned before would say something like "Oh. You again?" or "Well brother. Here we are. Once more...".
Thank you! Kickstarter doesn't collect the money until the end of the campaign I think. Personally I'm not comfortable using money I don't have though, so I still probably wouldn't xD, but you might be able to go ahead and pledge. I believe the campaign ends on the 3rd.
Then near the end of the game, you find a graveyard where 2 rat wizard enemies have been continually fighting each other to the death, leveling up, and resurrecting each other after the battle. Maybe some area guardian miniboss that doesnt truly die when defeated but will only come back to life at the start of a new week etc. I just think it would be funny to run into massively overleveled enemies of generic type who have been secretly exploiting the game the entire playthrough without the player (or dev) realizing it until it's too late. The final sprouts are invincible.....
Thank you! Since you're so interested in necromancers, I could use your help. I don't play them all that much, prefering instead to play a mage that controls the flow of combat with crown control and aoe damage. So what do you like about playing a necromancer?
@@GameEndeavor I took so much time answering this question you don't have ant idea :D It's a simple question but a really good one, i've never though of it but i guess is the freeling of having someone help you with the fight and kinda be like a commander of a small army, breaking the fight in more microfight so you can manage where to go and what to do. It's awesome when you have many kinds of summons like the one or two big boy odyguard to keep close to you and the super small and disposable underlings. I like having some kind of "general" to bond with and being able to damage or debuff myself to help my minions, it's really funny when you are not the one that deals the big damage so you can focus on the minions positioning and helping them while you dodge and stay alive because the main focus are the summoned creatures not you, if i wanted focus on myself i would be playing a mage (a fine second choice if i say so myself). The most fun comes with being in control of the situation, the feeling of being safe but worrying that your underlings might die (perma death summons are such a bad meccaninc but i dont remember from what game it was..), buff summons, less damage for you, for example you shoot an arrow to an enemy and the summons are more likely ti target him and deal more crits or you cast a circle and the minions inside get healed. So you are involed in the fight and helping win it without being the "star" because you are a team ^^ Ultimatly i'm sorry if this is not the answer that you are looking for and sorry for the bad english ,i'm italian. (Omg this is so long soooorryy) Edit: The biggest and most boring mistake is the "do and forget", i'll make an example calling someone that just does damage and kills things on his own is not very engagic engaging, but summoning a small baby skeleton that dies easily but can be healed or resummoned using some kind of souls that need to be collected on a dead enemy body makes a more intresting situation where you need to decide if you wanna stay away or jump in the fight ti grab some souls
@@XxSupervalexX Such a thoughtful answer. Thank you for taking the time for this. :) There's a lot of here that I will consider, not just for necromancers but the whole party system. You'll only have one summonable entity in your party, so I can't use all of this, however this has given me an idea of having an undead party member and pet for those that might want a whole undead crew. :)
@@GameEndeavor yeah i've kinda gone off track, if you wanna make only a summon and a pet try to make linked skills with him like he start to rotate like a tornato walking towards you so you can direct him but whatever i'm so sure that even without any kind of suggestion this will be great ^^ I'll be watching you!
Indeed. Getting that demo up and running was exhausting. Hoped to do more videos but it consumed every bit of free time I had. ._. Glad you liked it. :)
Suggestion:make it so that 5% of enemies start with a magical item or a special ability and a change to the sprite to show it like a 3 mouthed sprout who can shoot 3 projectiles at a time or a giant skeleton with a sword who can jump and slash at you a little bit
This game is tight. I put an extra 10 bucks into the demo and I'll be a backer. After seeing a few of your dev logs I see how passionate you are about making this and the game has so much damn charm that I absolutely can't wait to play and explore your world! :D Edit: Or... at least I would be a backer but it says the funding has been cancelled. Hmmm...
You should make it so when enemies from other races or tribes see you fighting with other enemies they have a set value where they will try to get further away or join in the fight
0:08 that skellie just couldn't handle it anymore, and I already love it. makes me think of a moral system, but I'm already a year late for suggestions and stuff XD! 2:47 he's hitting himself because he remembered a super embarrassing memory that he wants out of his skull huehuehue.
Something that seems to be missing is 'battle music'. When enemies engage you I think it would add a bit more intensity to add an alert sound and then fade into some battle music.
you should make clans of monsters that would be larger groups with a chief that has a flag with a plain color on it. different colors will fight if in war, but in alliance will team up with them.
Edit: You need to consider Colorblind mode and how it will effect the game :D 1) Make a "Home" that spawns killed enemies which player can destroy to prevent the respawn of enemies. Explains where they come from. Like Field and Graveyard. 2) Set 2 factions and designated a "Home" for each. They now will consider other Factions hostile and attack if in range or aggroed by them. 3) Set their pathing are on same spot. Now both "Homes" send the respawned enemies to same spot and they will naturally start to fight. 4) Make the spot where they walk be some kind of ruins and it looks like both "Factions" want to control the "Ruins" ;) and you now have dynamic war made between two factions by using your game's tech
Just earlier today I was thinking that there hasn't been a new devlog from you in a while. Nice to see more progress on the game. I like the idea of enemy infighting. It was a cool feature in the original Doom, so it's strange that more games don't have something like it implemented. Speaking of Doom - in an early version it was possible for a monster to start attacking itself, so you're not the only one who had to deal with such a bug.
Hahaha. Fantastic that they had this bug too. I'm going to look it up. I've never played Doom, so prior to a similar tweet earlier, this was news to me. Going to look into that as well. :D
@@GameEndeavor There's a channel called Decino, and he makes videos where he explains certain Doom mechanics, complete with source code analysis. Look for his videos with yellow thumbnails - those are the ones.
Possibly, but I'm not trying to make a pokemon game, which I know for sure I'd start being compared with. My thinking is it's more like if the dog in Stardew Valley followed you around everywhere and fought with you down in the mines. Growing up I would explore the woods a lot and I had a dog that followed me everywhere, and her company really made it 10x more enjoyable. This is me trying to capture that essense into a game.
Here is my idea: make it that when you tamr an enemy it change it look other than just a purple outline, for example when you tame a skeleon, hid eyes become wider and circle to make it mote friendly
you should keep some suicidal skeleton as an homage, and also because it is freaking funny, they could do it once in a while when they are the last one standing.
lmao! That would be hilarious. I think it might confuse the player though. Perhaps if we can give the skelly a purpose to doing so. Like killing itself releases its spirit form, making it a more formidable foe.
As a party member, yeah. Pretty much. He's just going to make the game harder and chaotic. Like the chaotic story teller in RimWorld. Anything and everything can happen. He's essentially a "fun" mode, and might only be unlocked once you've beaten the game once.
@@GameEndeavor found this on UA-cam and love how you explain it all. Love the enemy tweaks you've done to make it all feel more dynamic and authentic. Will watch more. Liked and subbed
@@GameEndeavor If you make an udemy course i'd buy, i have many interest on the theme because i have a wish to create something like a Zelda breath of the wild 2d
Sorry, I don't expect there to be any evolution mechanics. :) I'm not taking inspiration from Pokemon, but more like Legend of Mana or Azure Dreams (without their evolution mechanic because I never used it)
Absolutely! That's what I meant, which I didn't get across as well as I would have liked. I want him to be like a challenge mode. Like the random story teller in RimWorld or something like that. Where his whole deal is to make your game just relentlessly difficult due to his randomness. xD
When you discussed (if) he mad catter joins your party; he would add some chaos. It reminds me of mechanic's from rougelike/rougelite games such as the crowns from nuclear throne or the artifacts from risk of rain (and the sequel). They basically buff something and then change something else which makes the game more difficult (ie risk of rain's artifact of glass: double damage but only 10% of normal heath). I'm not sure how well this conpect would work in an RPG but it would add an interesting layer of strategy/risk to the game, and, would certainly be a unique way of difficulty increase.
I don't see any issues with this in an RPG, people like challenges. iirc Halo had something called skull challenges that make the game more difficult and my friends loved them. I think this idea can work in nearly any genre. But yes, the sole purpose of the Mad Catter would be to make the game more difficult. I suspect people will do full Mad Catter runs as a difficult challenge. :)
@@Stormhold3r Not the speedrunners. Mad Catter will be too unreliable for speedrunning I think. I suspect Let's Players will get the most enjoyment from this challenge. :)
Have you thought about maybe giving followers hats or something to make them more distinguishable from the base enemies? Watching the video, sometimes it wasn't clear who was friendly and who wasn't until you attacked something
For pets yes. We've been talking about letting you add cosmetics to them. Bit time consuming though making cosmetics for every single pet, but at some point. :)
Howdy, everyone! Play the demo if you haven't already!
Now that the demo is out, I'm excited to be back making videos and livestreaming! This is one of the most shining moments as a developer.
Support the Kickstarter and Play the Demo!
www.kickstarter.com/projects/gameendeavor/zoe-and-the-cursed-dreamer-cozy-open-world-rpg
game-endeavor.itch.io/zatcd-demo
Hey, I've dm'd you some suggestions on twitter. It is a little outdated tho because I sent it before watching your other devlogs but it still has some ideas. And I have a lot more to talk about if you want to discuss.
PS. I really love the game already and I'll definitely buy it when it's out and recommend to my friends.
Hey man, really love what you are doing. Sorry for the bad english, it's not my first language. I played the demo and don't now where to report a bug, so I'll do it here. When you buy furniture, you can use the furniture to boost your player through pushing him away with it. I only tested it with a pod though, but still was able to push through some colliders. This also enables movement while conversations are happening. But still, great work you did there, I really look forward to playing your game :D
@@Hi-tb2oq Howdy. :) Yeah, that bug is already fixed and will be in the next update.
@@GameEndeavor nice work :)
Ten years later:
"So how many enemy types are in your game?"
"Zero. I keep accidentaly making them too cute and having to turn them into pets."
lmao, if it weren't for my message I'd pin this.
@@GameEndeavor did you cancel the game because of the kickstarter full time or you will still update it as a youtube thing? I really dont want this game to die
@@GameEndeavor nice
“Recently” you uploaded How I made combat fun-
It feels like 7 years ago
lol, sorry about that. The demo took up all of my free time though. I was working 7 days a week, 6-12 hours a day on it. Glad to be able to relax a bit now. xD
@@GameEndeavor it's no problem, its actually good that you're focusing more on a quality game than UA-cam videos
@@CHKNSkratch Well it's going to be a mixture of both. UA-cam is helping to fund the project and builds my community. So I need both. But I just had so much to do if I wanted to get that demo out in time, so I put YT on hold until it was done. :)
4 months isn’t a long time for indie developers often, it can take an unexpectedly long time to program what can look like fairly basic things.
Me, after making my first ever fighting system "I too created the most fun combat system I've ever made!"
I hope when this gets a full release that it blows up like Valheim because you put so much work into this and it shows. Great work
Thank you. Once Kickstarter is done I look forward to playing that. Everyone seems to be talking about it.
The enemies fighting each other was the single best thing about the demo when I played it. I absolutely love it!
It really adds a whole other feel to the game! ♥
This could be the base of a game on its own!
My game is starting to pivot a lot towards this, it's going to be a major feature!
@@GameEndeavor remember to avoid feature creeping. That could prevent you from ever finishing
@@GameEndeavor I love it, i think that is a very good decision. I actually had quite a similar moment a few weaks ago and i am very happy with the results.
@@Chevifier I wouldn't count this as feature creep. This is a feature that I've wanted since before the beginning. It just became much more viable during development. :)
@@Chevifier Looks more like organic development of the game than feature creeping. At least that's my take on it. It's important to be open to changing and making the final product evolve during development !
I love the royal familiar conceptually and I love the void kitty fantasy-ly if that makes sense. Like with the royal familiar the concept of a familiar that views you as their servant has a lot of space for humor and rp, while having a big cuddly cat to hug is a childhood fantasy I've had.
Indeed, that's what I was talking about during the livestreams, how they royalty familar could make for some interesting scenes. I'm thinking about giving familiars their own scenes where you bind them to obtain them, which could be entertaining.
UA-cam algorithm... I saw this video a month too late to support the kickstarter. Hope this project continues in some form or another, absolutely loved the demo.
Hell yes! Those knockback effects looks so impactful and satisfying 👍
Thank you! Spent a lot of time tweaking them. More can be done still I think, but there's plenty of time. :D
I've said it before, but you have such a great mindset and knack for fun ideas. You really are making a fun game that YOU think is cool/cute so it will be! I don't think everyone else trying to make devlogs does that
Thank you! I can't speak for what everyone else does, but that's pretty much what I'm doing. I'm just having fun and making a game out of ideas that form during the process, and these devlogs are a good way to share what's happening. :D
Enemies: fight each other
Me: Ah a advantage to speedrun this game
your not wrong
The progress is amazing :D Your fight system emerged organically and such systems are the best ones. Started as a fun idea, then becoming a core feature.
Exactly. I didn't expect this to become a defining moment of my game, but here it is, and I'm loving it! Thank you. :D
Still so early in development but this goes such a long way to make the world feel alive!
Indeed, which is exactly what I'm trying to achieve!
I think that the enemy attacking itself looks hilarious and awesome. I think it would be really cool if you made that bug a feature by allowing the player to use a spell or something to throw the enemy into a frenzy, causing it to attack itself and others. The game is looking good, man!
lol, I kind of did with the frenzy spell which I will probably add. One thing I didn't do though was let the frenzied target attack themselves, but that's a fantastic idea!
if this game ever gets achievements and this gets added there has to be an achievement called "stop hitting yourself"
You should make the bug where enemies hit themselves into a feature. Like a wand that would make enemies attack themselves for a short period of time. I can see that being a really fun in-game mechanic.
I love monster infight.
Who doesnt like waking up every demon in Doom, hide in a corner and watch all hell break loose... literally.
I really love how the game looks and it is fantastic to be able to see the process of game development. I wish i could support you with money but my parents won't let me. Love it, keep up the good work.
No worries, bud. :) I'm just glad you enjoy the content. Thank you for watching!
Tame all of the things!
We're going to create so many cute lil monsters!
Man i’m loving the way all these mechanics are coming together!
Me too. This was such a fun video to make mechanically. Never been this proud of a project of mine before.
Heyo! Return of devlogs :D
I think since the Skeletons are an invading army, their "home" point should move around so they sort of patrol around the map.
I’m so happy how this game is coming out!!! I’m also glad you liked my idea for the Mushroom enemy. So excited to see how the game develops further.
consider this:
- flyweight model: flyweight list of base hatred between factions or maybe from specific monster to faction. you want to allow monsters to have any number of flags so you can have undead beasts or nature pets. you dont have to store this per monster, you dont even hate to store it per monster class if you dont want to.
- enmity system: keep a list of hate toward specific monsters inside each monster instance, but only after it changes from the baseline. when a monster attacks another monster, add some hate based on how threatening the attack was and how much that monster hates that faction. when say a healer heals someone injured, monsters who hate the injured actor hate the healer relative to the hate and the healing amounts.
- alternatively, maybe just have neutral sprouts and angry sprouts that attack stuff? be a lot simpler. yes sometimes a skel would anger a sprout and it would attack the player, but i kinda like that.
- bite the bullet and make the game entirely about pets. don't be married to an idea while ignoring your game designing itself. let it do its thing.
I really enjoyed playing through the demo yesterday! It was a pretty fun time and I hope this project can meet its goal, as I'm already immensely enjoying the world you're building up! Definitely gonna support the Kickstarter, and even join your discord!
Thank you! The game will be finished regardless of the KS, so no worries. :) And if you enjoy world building then that's exactly what I'm wanting to focus on the most! :D
I absolutely LOVED the demo and now you tell me there's MORE to discover in just the demo!?
Keep up the amazing work, Zoe and the cursed dreamer is gonna take the game industry by storm
Thank you! Some of the stuff mentioned in the devlog is still in development, so won't be in the demo just yet, but if you haven't played it in a little bit then absolutely. I made some major updates that greatly improved its quality, and plan to keep adding more. :D
Just watched your entire series in one sit, so entertaining and informative.
a simple touch that would do a lot to make the player feel more in control is to make the camera move with their aim! it's a mechanic that is really simple, and can add a lot of dynamic gameplay if you consider it can be changed depending on your weapon or class. Keep up the good devlogs!
Thank you! Yeah, thinking about doing just that lately. Hesitant because camera work can sometimes involve a lot of tweaking which I can't afford to do right now, but will look into that soon. :)
In the Tales of Symponia you give allies (the ones you are not being used by other players) tactics such as attack magic users, or attack ranged, or when low Mp don't use spells etc which make you feel like you are commanding your party and they don't take your thunder, if they do something well it's because you planned it well as a tactician
I am glad to see you are still working on this and I can't wait to purchase this when it comes out. Keep up the good work.
this looks really fun
Wait
I THOUGHT IT WAS ZOÉ NOT ZOE
Oh whatever
The demo was really, really fun, and I can't wait for the full release!
lol, yeah. It's a long O. Glad you liked the demo! I personally wasn't happy with it, so I'm redoing it. It should be a lot better imo, so keep an eye out for that. :)
@@GameEndeavor I definitely will. Zoe and the Cursed Dreamer feels like a game I was making but better in literally every aspect. I can't wait to play the full game!
Looks really promising!
One thing I think would be cool and could give rise to more emergent behaviour is synergy effects between different attacks. For example if one of your companions' attack has a stun effect, it could lower the defence for a split second, or if elemental spells like water and electricity could work together. Not to mention taking the environment into account and spells/attacks that can affect that, like burning the grass. Just throwing some ideas out there, I'm sure whatever you decide to do will be great! :)
Some interesting ideas, I could for sure see those being added to the game so long as I don't get to complex with them. xD Thank you for the suggestions!
An interesting way to do the necromancer thing would be to put some sort of "soul-binding" spell on an enemy, then if they die, they come back on your side after a small animation. So while you still get the fun of watching them bonk into each other, you still get to do combatting yourself.
You could balance it by not allowing multiple soulbinds, or having upgraded versions that allow multiple, or chaining binds.
Stream of consciousness, it would be a lot of fun to soul-bind one, kill it, then soul-bind the one it's attacking so when it dies, the first one disintegrates and the new one is your new best friend. So you can still be part of the combat flow, but your focus is on helping your skelefriend.
Interesting idea. :) That would make something I have planned for later a little tricky though, which I should've mentioned in the video. Currently summoned entities don't have a despawn timer. They stay around forever, however in the future they're going to lock off a portion of your max mana, increasing the amount the stronger the entitiy. So a typical skelly will lock off 1 of your maximum mana bars while it's summoned, and a Skelly Brute might lock off 2 or 3.
Looking fantastic GE, I am sharing this asap. We need to finish this campaign!
Thank you, bud!
I just watched all of these dev logs. I love it
I could imagine Mad Catter being a random chaos kind of thing. Whenever it activates, it does something from a random pool of decisions, and each decision will have a positive and a negative. So a positive could be healing one heart, and the negative could be making your move speed cut in half for a few seconds
For the Mad Catter I think it would be cool if he was a post game/Newgame + follower that when he follows you randomizes every enemy you encounter into a different one. I think it would make for a very bizarre second playthrough
At last, a YT update on the project :)
Making unique behaviors like you describe in this devlog, is what really makes your game different. Keep up the good work
Indeed, had to dedicate all of my time into the demo, but it feels good to put out another video. :)
absolutely amazing. Not just all the work itself, but the video that you took so much time to make and edit. Thank you. I appreciate it, and i love your STORY of all this that you are creating.
Thank you very much! This video took a lot of effort to make, so that means so much to me!
Man, every one of these videos I watch I’m newly struck by how great this game looks and feels! You have a real gift for making games!!
I love the concept of the mad catter, reminds me of the Wabbajack in skyrim, It could insta-kill whatever you were fighting, turn them into a shower of sweet-rolls, or transform them into a deadric warlord of sorts
I've always liked summoner/Necromancer Class. I really wanted a pokemon-ish game but you fight along with few of your tamed monsters and they can fusion with each other to make better monsters.
If the Mad Catter ever does get to join the party, it would be funny to have him refuse if you ask him to join the party but actively join the party if you try to turn him down.
Saying that Cheese is very valuable in your game was music for my ears! Subscribed & followed on Twitter.
Your videos are everything I've been looking for
Glad you enjoy them. I'm working on a new one now, so expect that soon. :)
Demo is solid. I'm broke af, but am going to back you anyway. This project needs to be completed!
If you were to introduce Catter as a 'companion', you should have it be that they are an optional add-in for new game plus that *specifically* exists to make the game harder, adding in extra problems for you to deal with (like your mentioned enemy upgrades, but also things like summoning extra enemies from a mix of factions so they all fight each other, putting buffs on some enemies, etc. - it'd be a case of 'you asked for this!' and him delivering the chaos you wanted)
That's exactly what I meant. :) The idea being to give you an optional challenging way the play the game. People would do "Mad Catter" runs where you have to beat the game with him as your companion the whole time.
finally, a demo! excited to play it
The game looks really fun and promising. Hope you can keep putting effort into the game and dev logs. You probably already know about/fixed this but there is a bug where when you drag furniture next to your character it pushes them. This can be used to clip into rivers and make the character move a lot faster than intended. Hope I could help!
Well time to binge watch these devlogs too. Good too see that you will fill the spot of RPG devlogs that will be a little missing.
I really love how the game is coming along so far, and it keeps looking cooler and cooler!
I played the demo and the only thing that I've had an issue with so far is the roll/dodge mechanic, or more so the roll and the stamina bar. The fact that a roll uses a 3rd of your stamina really discourages the player from using it in the first place, since you can only do it 3 times with a full bar, it doesn't seem worth it to get into the action and use it to dodge when you can keep your distance and use a fireball + bow instead. This might just be a demo issue, maybe specializing your class in the full release will balance it out, but it doesn't feel smart to get up close and personal with enemies at the moment.
That's just one gripe though, I still think this game has some of the most fun combat I've seen, and I really look forward to seeing it grow from here.
Cheers, man!
Yeah, dodge is one of the most difficult things to balance in my opinion. I want it to be usable, but not spammed, and either slower than normal travel or limited in use. Right now it leads to confusion though. I'm thinking of how I can do it better. :)
I think you should add wandering Merchants. But the difference of this Merchant compared to others in games is that, He has his personal guards protecting him. Like 2 Swordsman and 1 Archer.
I think it could be nice if all creature types have individual marks. Skellies for example could have 1 out of 6 cracks on the head. Sprouts could have 1 out of 4 colors or freckles. This would make them more recognizable when summoned or befriended.
Also it would make more boundaries if summoned skullies with a mark you allready had summoned before would say something like "Oh. You again?" or "Well brother. Here we are. Once more...".
Wow, another amazing video! I’m so happy to be part of this!
Thank you!
Dude!!! A video to watch! Yay. Only to continue to support this game and you in general. You'll get my money for this game come the 30th!
Thank you! Kickstarter doesn't collect the money until the end of the campaign I think. Personally I'm not comfortable using money I don't have though, so I still probably wouldn't xD, but you might be able to go ahead and pledge. I believe the campaign ends on the 3rd.
Then near the end of the game, you find a graveyard where 2 rat wizard enemies have been continually fighting each other to the death, leveling up, and resurrecting each other after the battle. Maybe some area guardian miniboss that doesnt truly die when defeated but will only come back to life at the start of a new week etc. I just think it would be funny to run into massively overleveled enemies of generic type who have been secretly exploiting the game the entire playthrough without the player (or dev) realizing it until it's too late. The final sprouts are invincible.....
I have a feeling that this game's gonna be a banger!
I love the direction you are taking, necromancers are DOPE and too many games fail to capture their greatness.
Thank you! Since you're so interested in necromancers, I could use your help. I don't play them all that much, prefering instead to play a mage that controls the flow of combat with crown control and aoe damage. So what do you like about playing a necromancer?
@@GameEndeavor I took so much time answering this question you don't have ant idea :D
It's a simple question but a really good one, i've never though of it but i guess is the freeling of having someone help you with the fight and kinda be like a commander of a small army, breaking the fight in more microfight so you can manage where to go and what to do. It's awesome when you have many kinds of summons like the one or two big boy odyguard to keep close to you and the super small and disposable underlings. I like having some kind of "general" to bond with and being able to damage or debuff myself to help my minions, it's really funny when you are not the one that deals the big damage so you can focus on the minions positioning and helping them while you dodge and stay alive because the main focus are the summoned creatures not you, if i wanted focus on myself i would be playing a mage (a fine second choice if i say so myself).
The most fun comes with being in control of the situation, the feeling of being safe but worrying that your underlings might die (perma death summons are such a bad meccaninc but i dont remember from what game it was..), buff summons, less damage for you, for example you shoot an arrow to an enemy and the summons are more likely ti target him and deal more crits or you cast a circle and the minions inside get healed. So you are involed in the fight and helping win it without being the "star" because you are a team ^^
Ultimatly i'm sorry if this is not the answer that you are looking for and sorry for the bad english ,i'm italian.
(Omg this is so long soooorryy)
Edit: The biggest and most boring mistake is the "do and forget", i'll make an example calling someone that just does damage and kills things on his own is not very engagic engaging, but summoning a small baby skeleton that dies easily but can be healed or resummoned using some kind of souls that need to be collected on a dead enemy body makes a more intresting situation where you need to decide if you wanna stay away or jump in the fight ti grab some souls
@@XxSupervalexX Such a thoughtful answer. Thank you for taking the time for this. :) There's a lot of here that I will consider, not just for necromancers but the whole party system. You'll only have one summonable entity in your party, so I can't use all of this, however this has given me an idea of having an undead party member and pet for those that might want a whole undead crew. :)
@@GameEndeavor yeah i've kinda gone off track, if you wanna make only a summon and a pet try to make linked skills with him like he start to rotate like a tornato walking towards you so you can direct him but whatever i'm so sure that even without any kind of suggestion this will be great ^^
I'll be watching you!
It's been a while so it's great to see the game world looking more fleshed out!
Indeed. Getting that demo up and running was exhausting. Hoped to do more videos but it consumed every bit of free time I had. ._. Glad you liked it. :)
I missed those videos
I'm glad to be back to making them! Thank you for watching! :)
Suggestion:make it so that 5% of enemies start with a magical item or a special ability and a change to the sprite to show it like a 3 mouthed sprout who can shoot 3 projectiles at a time or a giant skeleton with a sword who can jump and slash at you a little bit
This game is tight. I put an extra 10 bucks into the demo and I'll be a backer. After seeing a few of your dev logs I see how passionate you are about making this and the game has so much damn charm that I absolutely can't wait to play and explore your world! :D
Edit: Or... at least I would be a backer but it says the funding has been cancelled. Hmmm...
I think it would be cool if pets could get your coins if they are far away. Nice video as allways!
Yoooooo amazing! :D I had no idea this was happening! I love it!
Glad to see your back to making vids again!
Glad to be back! That Kickstarter work was about to start whooping me, haha.
You should make it so when enemies from other races or tribes see you fighting with other enemies they have a set value where they will try to get further away or join in the fight
just tried the demo. This is turning out amazing
0:08 that skellie just couldn't handle it anymore, and I already love it.
makes me think of a moral system, but I'm already a year late for suggestions and stuff XD!
2:47
he's hitting himself because he remembered a super embarrassing memory that he wants out of his skull huehuehue.
I'm all about sitting back and watch others fight my battles for me.
lmao, well that's an option too. xD
Something that seems to be missing is 'battle music'. When enemies engage you I think it would add a bit more intensity to add an alert sound and then fade into some battle music.
you should make clans of monsters that would be larger groups with a chief that has a flag with a plain color on it. different colors will fight if in war, but in alliance will team up with them.
Edit: You need to consider Colorblind mode and how it will effect the game :D
1) Make a "Home" that spawns killed enemies which player can destroy to prevent the respawn of enemies. Explains where they come from. Like Field and Graveyard.
2) Set 2 factions and designated a "Home" for each. They now will consider other Factions hostile and attack if in range or aggroed by them.
3) Set their pathing are on same spot. Now both "Homes" send the respawned enemies to same spot and they will naturally start to fight.
4) Make the spot where they walk be some kind of ruins and it looks like both "Factions" want to control the "Ruins" ;) and you now have dynamic war made between two factions by using your game's tech
"I used Bitwise instead of Boolean checking"
Game Endeavor you are a genius!
lol, you're too kind. :)
Just earlier today I was thinking that there hasn't been a new devlog from you in a while. Nice to see more progress on the game.
I like the idea of enemy infighting. It was a cool feature in the original Doom, so it's strange that more games don't have something like it implemented. Speaking of Doom - in an early version it was possible for a monster to start attacking itself, so you're not the only one who had to deal with such a bug.
Hahaha. Fantastic that they had this bug too. I'm going to look it up.
I've never played Doom, so prior to a similar tweet earlier, this was news to me. Going to look into that as well. :D
@@GameEndeavor There's a channel called Decino, and he makes videos where he explains certain Doom mechanics, complete with source code analysis. Look for his videos with yellow thumbnails - those are the ones.
@@Sheevlord Oh wow, that sounds amazing. Thank you so much, I'll go looking immediately.
i find it hilarious that this game is being linked to doom of all things
@@thatguykekai2601 No kidding. Never would've thought I'd be doing research on Doom either. xD
"They were trying to run away from themselves" LMAO 💀
The best part of waking up is Game Endeavor in your cup!
It would be cool if your pet or summon would be able to go through an evolution of some sorts. That would be amazing.
Possibly, but I'm not trying to make a pokemon game, which I know for sure I'd start being compared with. My thinking is it's more like if the dog in Stardew Valley followed you around everywhere and fought with you down in the mines. Growing up I would explore the woods a lot and I had a dog that followed me everywhere, and her company really made it 10x more enjoyable. This is me trying to capture that essense into a game.
dude you are truely an inspiration
You are talented , your game looks great !
Here is my idea: make it that when you tamr an enemy it change it look other than just a purple outline, for example when you tame a skeleon, hid eyes become wider and circle to make it mote friendly
you should keep some suicidal skeleton as an homage, and also because it is freaking funny, they could do it once in a while when they are the last one standing.
lmao! That would be hilarious. I think it might confuse the player though. Perhaps if we can give the skelly a purpose to doing so. Like killing itself releases its spirit form, making it a more formidable foe.
When you described the mad cat my brain heard "He is useless and we appreciate that"
As a party member, yeah. Pretty much. He's just going to make the game harder and chaotic. Like the chaotic story teller in RimWorld. Anything and everything can happen. He's essentially a "fun" mode, and might only be unlocked once you've beaten the game once.
Can’t wait to play this when it comes out
The art is so good
Thank you! If you haven't already then there's a demo you can play. Link in the description.
SOme monster infighting isn't bad. Nice work!
yay Voidkitty xP
glad to see another Devlog ;3
Looking forward to your game release
Loving these Devs and videos!
Glad to hear it! I'll be starting this series back up soon actually. Just polishing up the game before I start recording video for the next devlog. :D
@@GameEndeavor found this on UA-cam and love how you explain it all. Love the enemy tweaks you've done to make it all feel more dynamic and authentic. Will watch more. Liked and subbed
after finishing this game, you should launch a course teaching how to make a "sandbox" combat like this
It would be an extremely specific tutorial, so idk if it would do well enough to justify making. :)
@@GameEndeavor If you make an udemy course i'd buy, i have many interest on the theme because i have a wish to create something like a Zelda breath of the wild 2d
Lol that skeleton offed himself at the riverfront. How poetic
you know you're a genius ! keep it up!
You're very kind to say so, thank you. :) I'ma keep going as hard as I can, I'm loving this project!
@@GameEndeavor well know I'll be there watching it grow, and should not be the only one eheh ;)
If sprouts and other pets can evolve like pokemons I'd be so hyped
Sorry, I don't expect there to be any evolution mechanics. :) I'm not taking inspiration from Pokemon, but more like Legend of Mana or Azure Dreams (without their evolution mechanic because I never used it)
Now im imagining a speed runner doing the MatCatter% for extra randomness and difficulty, lol
Absolutely! That's what I meant, which I didn't get across as well as I would have liked. I want him to be like a challenge mode. Like the random story teller in RimWorld or something like that. Where his whole deal is to make your game just relentlessly difficult due to his randomness. xD
this combat is SICK!!!
When you discussed (if) he mad catter joins your party; he would add some chaos. It reminds me of mechanic's from rougelike/rougelite games such as the crowns from nuclear throne or the artifacts from risk of rain (and the sequel). They basically buff something and then change something else which makes the game more difficult (ie risk of rain's artifact of glass: double damage but only 10% of normal heath). I'm not sure how well this conpect would work in an RPG but it would add an interesting layer of strategy/risk to the game, and, would certainly be a unique way of difficulty increase.
I don't see any issues with this in an RPG, people like challenges. iirc Halo had something called skull challenges that make the game more difficult and my friends loved them. I think this idea can work in nearly any genre. But yes, the sole purpose of the Mad Catter would be to make the game more difficult. I suspect people will do full Mad Catter runs as a difficult challenge. :)
@@GameEndeavor sounds like you have the speedrunners sorted out! :)
@@Stormhold3r Not the speedrunners. Mad Catter will be too unreliable for speedrunning I think. I suspect Let's Players will get the most enjoyment from this challenge. :)
Have you thought about maybe giving followers hats or something to make them more distinguishable from the base enemies? Watching the video, sometimes it wasn't clear who was friendly and who wasn't until you attacked something
For pets yes. We've been talking about letting you add cosmetics to them. Bit time consuming though making cosmetics for every single pet, but at some point. :)
playing an rpg as a manipulative puppet master: the game
man the game looks fantastic
I really like the way the character moves and the monster's attacks will be great if you make a video tutorial :3
Thank you. :) I wasn't thinking of making a video on monster attacks. What would you be interested in seeing in such a video?
3:35 When you realize you can't hate all sprouts unless you also hate yourself. :[