How An Inventory Changed My Roguelike Game - Devlog #5
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- Опубліковано 1 чер 2024
- In this devlog, I made an inventory system, that changed how upgrades work in the game.
0:00 Intro
0:14 New Ability
0:57 New Enemy
1:55 Better Power Regeneration
3:06 HUD Changes
3:58 Inventory System
6:50 Only 2 Arrows
7:48 Fragment System
9:06 Outro
Discord Server: / discord - Наука та технологія
I believe the inventory needs some more information, like a hover tooltip with the effect of the fragment.
Perhaps the weapon fragments should have a different shape? Maybe a triangle, as the player is a diamond.
Some ideas for weapon fragments:
- Bigger arrow, or wider in fact;
- Slight homing effect;
- Increased golden arrow threshold;
- Bounce on walls;
- Multi-arrow;
- Stun, with some downsides;
- Smaller arrows coming from dead enemies;
- Pushback;
- I also like bouncing and piercing effects, but the piercing arrow would be wonky.
Honestly, it's going great.
It's exactly the kind of game I'd like to make some day.
Your art looks simple but is very sleek and recognizable, kudos on that as well.
I see no problem with bouncing and piercing be on the same thing, just have it be that when the arrow hits an enemy it removes one piercing charge and pierces it and if this can not be done instead it removes a bounce charge and bounces, if neither can be done the arrow is destroyed. In the case it hits a wall don't remove any pierce charges and then remove a bounce charge and it bounces, if this can not be done the arrow is destroyed. This does however rely on piercing having a limit and I think it should even if the limit is something like 6.
Maybe you could implement an enemy that leaves a path behind it that damages the player. This could create a interesting challenge of figuring out were to move to :)
I think that would get really annoying, really fast lol
@@Meshguy thats the point
@@Meshguy adds challenge
perhaps also dash can provide temporary immunity to such ground effects, so it would be a lil more fair
@@Meshguy exactly!!!
I've been enjoying this series so far, and here is my thoughts on this devlog.
I'm sure that you're aware of this, but now the game has a lot of fragments, it's hard to tell which fragments do what from the players' perspective.
So I thought, maybe if you add some easy recognizable icons to the fragments, it would be cool.
> For the arrow-fragments, arrow shaped icon will help players to tell it's for the arrows. (with the help of timer icon in the corner indicates, it'll reduce the arrow cooldown time)
> Similar to that, hearth shaped icon perfectly fits for the max health increaser, and maybe thunder(energy) icon for the max energy increaser fragments.
This is the first time I'm writing a feedback, so I apologize if I was rude.
Thank you for reading.
Great feedback :)
let me just spam some fragment ideas real quick:
Fragment that increases arrow knockback
Fragment that makes your arrows slow enemies down
Fragment that gives your arrows a small chance to spawn an ally creature on kill
Fragment that makes you arrows track enemies
Fragment that makes your arrows have a chain lightning effect, possibly with a small stun
Fragment that fires a second, less accurate, weaker arrow on every shot.
Fragment that makes your arrows create fires on impact which deal damage to enemies and the player
Fragment gives your arrows a chance to freeze enemies in ice, which breaks if they are hit
Fragment that makes your arrows push enemies away from the impact point
Fragment that makes your arrows have a small chance to create a bomb which explodes after delay
Fragment that makes your arrows move in a zig zag motion and deal increased damage
Fragment that makes your arrows deal more damage the longer they have flown in the air
Fragment that makes your arrows much larger
Fragment that makes your arrows give energy on impact
Fragment that makes your arrows steal HP from enemies and use it to heal you
Fragment that makes your arrows stick into enemies and damage them over time
Fragment that gives you a chance to fire twice quickly when firing.
these could all be balanced with negative effects if you want but im not writing that
Hmm I’m not sure about the idea of selling and upgrading fragments. This seems like it would only discourage experimentation. Players would likely just stick to three throughout the entire game.
If you want players to gain better fragments throughout the game whilst also encouraging experimentation. I suggest this:
Remove the upgrade system but players can find more powerful fragments throughout the game. Add a shop that sells a limited selection of fragments. And continue allowing players to sell fragments for money.
This creates a situation where players will have to constantly change their load out to make use of the most powerful fragments. Or instead ignore more powerful fragments to use ones that personally fit their play style more.
I think this would make the system more deep and dynamic
Since you can choose which fragments to equip now I'd give each a buff as well as a debuff (e.g. more health slows your movement speed, and such)
This way you might be encouraged to change them depending on the boss/enemies.
A fragment that slows or even stops an enemy for a short time.
Combined with the explosion it could maybe even splash on other enemies, that you can stop a bunch of enemies at the same time
Some fragment Ideas:
-Enemies near the player take damage
-arrows briefly stun enemies
-arrows cause chain lightning to move between enemies (seems quite strong, maybe a rare fragment or some ultimate one)
-arrows pierce through enemies
-arrows bounce off walls
-arrows home in slightly
-player's dash leaves a damaging trail behind that hurts enemies
-player's push ability pushes back further
-player's push ability does more damage
-arrows cause damage over time
-arrows have a 45% chance to send a homing shadow arrow on hitting an enemy
-player gains a small recharging shield
-player gains a shield orbiting around it that blocks enemies but has to recharge
-when an arrow kills an enemy it creates a weak clone of them on death that attacks other enemies (clone lasts 3 seconds)
I got an idea for a arrow upgrade :
- it give poison, so after hitting the enemy, it deal damages.
I also think of some new enemies :
- can create turets (or something like that)
- can heal enemies
- can slow player movement
Else I love the game !!
i have some arrow fragments ideas
1. bouncy arrows
when it touches a wall the arrow bounces and can hit again but does less dmg, at the start it bounces off the wall only once
upgrading it will make it bounce more times
2. Ricochet
when arrow hits enemy, the arrow goes towards a new enemy but deals less dmg, at the start it can ricochet only once
upgrading it will make it ricochet more times
3.multi arrow
Arrows will deal less dmg but you shoot three arrows at once like 2 going on the sides and 1 in the middle
when upgraded you shoot more arrows
4.creep arrow
your arrows leave creep that does dmg
when upgraded it makes larger creep and deals more dmg
and my favorite
5.moon (?) arrow
when you shoot an arrow, the arrow has a smaller arrow spinning around the arrow ofc dealing less dmg
upgrading it will add more arrows
WARNING!! If you have an exposure to ideas look away now!
Arrow Idea: How about an arrow that splits into several on impact (like an explosion) or you shoot three arrows at once OORR Richochet Arrows (Not much to explain in that) or what a sticky arrow that would slow down enemies
Another Idea: What if each boss would drop a new arrow (If you made another boss) tho it would make a bad idea bc you wud progressively have to keep making more arrows and bosses to make it work
Enemy Ideas:
1: Enemy that splits into more enemies, (like slimes from Minecraft) easier to kill as they get smaller but get faster, the smaller they are
2: An enemy that teleports but you see where they land, (Like a homing missile except they stop following a second before they teleport) similar to your boss in Catch Me? this could be a boss
3: An enemy that can ghost through walls but are very slow, and are somewhat high on health
4: A Necromancer type of enemy, that can spawn multiple smaller enemies (which are much weaker) this would better be suited as a boss really...
5: Enemies with a very wide ROA (Range of Attack) but dmg is a little weak
6: What if you added an AoE enemy that bursts flames in random areas of the map and have a burn effect?
7. A slow helicopter blade like enemy, that would get extremely fast and go towards you while it's blades spin really fast!
What if enemies drop randomized loot or certain bosses unlocked certain new abilities
What if the 1st boss you get are randomized
Enemy Fragments would be a good idea they would put negative effects on the enemy although this might make the game much too easy
A good idea to choose might to make a selection wheel (hold a button and a wheel will show up with all your arrows instead of left to right selection) which makes the background slo-mo and you can choose your arrow in rapid-succession without having to pause the game... a visual idea i know - but it might be a great one...(See Horizon Forbidden West or Horizon Zero Dawn, for better clarity...)
(Possible Boss Ideas coming)
I apologize for any rudeness or copying other ideas (it's just my thoughts)
A few ideas:
Maybe forgeing together fragments to make them stronger or something
Also stronger fragments that also give debuffs to you or buffs to enemies
Teleporting enemy/boss (idk ifit would fit in with the theme of the game but i don't know if it even has one)
Electrick arrows that chain to enemies near the target and shock them
A cool and interesting looking crosshair
I feel like the exploding enemies are a bit weak because you can dash out from the exposion very quickly... Making the explosion bigger would be more dangerous but you could explode more enemies at the same time.
I really like the simplistic visuals. Maybe you could add some more lighting around the map or make some enemies glow slightly? I think that would look interesting
The game looks sick so far, videos are entertaining too. Keep up the great work!!!
The idea of being able to alter your arrows is really cool! It opens up a lot of possibilities aswell.
I also have some ideas regarding the fragments:
-A fragment that allows you to burst fire arrows. (Ex: Quickly fires two or more arrows before you have to charge the bow again.)
-A fragment that cause arrows to shatter on impact upon hitting enemies or terrain, releasing multiple arrows from the point of impact.
-A fragment that causes the arrow to constantly curve to the left or right once fired.
-A fragment that causes your bow to fire another arrow if you hit an enemy with your previous arrow.
Good luck on your game development journey!
Maybe to increase the usability of the push ability, you could make it so it launches enemies hit back. Then, if you also made the explosion enemy have a small delay before exploding, the player could be incentivized to kill, dash in, and knock it into other enemies, bringing a few systems together. Also this could encourage players to be more aggressive, which is usually a more fun playstyle. Just suggestions, this game looks really fun good work!
Absolutely love the style of this game. Hope you can show a little bit of how you design your enemies and other art. Also not sure if you have this yet, but maybe an enemy that could split into multiple smaller enemies upon death that is faster but deals less damage. As for random level generation, maybe what you could do is design about 10-20 smaller rooms and then have the code randomly place the rooms next to each other based on how each room's exits are located. That way you still have the random level generation and you will be able to add as many details as you want.
I am so interested about this art style and animation! I would love to see content about this.
You could add a segmented worm like boss that curls around the player and tries to trap him inside to deal damage from all sides. Each segment has its own healthbar and needs to be destroyed before the head can be attacked.
possible attacks:
- beam like ranged attack
- short range fire burst
- Dash
- minion spawning
- minion healing field
When watching segment on Power Bar Regeneration I thought it might be interesting if dash on fully charged bar had one time extra effect (like double distance or something) so it would even more reward players who use it less frequently.
Also don't know if it already has been thought about or implemented, but the new Inventroy UI Shows 1 slot at the top, 2 in middle, and 3 bottom. It gave me a feeling/an idea that 3 bottom is for not yet active artifacts, 2 middle are for normal use artifacts and the top one could be for 1 artifact and the effects will be doubled, so you get a super buff from it. Would add more variety to the builds
And i really like that the character is made mostly of particles and I feel it would also look nice if enemies / npcs would also have some particles, less than the player to not decrease viasability
Some simple ideas:
- arrows bouncing off the wall
- multiple arrows at one shot
- arrow that pushes enemy back but does no damage or small damage
- poison arrow (ye like in minecraft)
- arrow that freezes/slowes enemy
- arrow that goes through enemies and does damage to all of them
- Harpoon arrow. You shoot the arrow along with the string. If the arrow hits the wall, the player quickly moves toward the wall, but if it misses and hits the enemy, the enemy quickly moves toward the player, and then it all depends on the type of enemy.
- Self-Directed Arrow. Shifts slightly toward the enemy after firing.
- Confusing Arrow. When hitting an enemy it causes (or has a chance to cause) him to shoot at his friends for a while.
- Smart Arrow. After the shot is fired, it flies a little bit and stops and stays in place. Next, imagine a straight line going through the arrow's direction. If this straight line is crossed by an enemy, the arrow sharply continues to fly and hits the enemy. If no enemy appears on the straight line, the arrow stays still and disappears after a while.
- controlled arrow (yes, like in Guardians of the Galaxy). After the shot it flies in the direction of the mouse. You can add friction, so that the arrow, if you suddenly change the direction of the mouse, did not immediately change its direction, but continued for some time to fly along the previous path, slowing down, then speeding up but in a new direction.
- guided arrow. You draw the trajectory of its flight with the mouse before shooting.
- Molotov Arrow. When hit, it sprays a poisonous liquid across the floor, that, if tpuched, causes damage.
- Magnetic Arrow. Attracts enemy bullets to itself, or maybe even the enemies themselves. The point of its existence is to help the player reflect some of the enemy bullets.
-Impulse Arrow. Also attracts enemy bullets or enemies, but unlike the magnetic arrow, which attracts all the time it is flying, the impulse arrow does it once, when the player presses the right button, and does instantly. After that it disappears.
-The accelerating arrow. The idea is that immediately after being shot its speed is zero (or very small). Then it starts to accelerate slowly, and the higher the speed, the more damage.
-Drunk arrow. During of the flight randomly changes the direction, speed and damage.
The inventory looks good but adding some text in the UI could help maybe add an container for each part so that the player know what is being upgraded.
I really like the fragments system and I have a quite simple idea:
Maybe fragments could be chained so the order will matter and it will influence buffs and possibly debuffs.
A simple example: a fragment for improve stats for the next fragments or a branch fragment which adds new fragments cases in the inventory
With that I think that the player has an unlimited power of build customization.
At the end it will be like a tree!
You could maybe add fragments for your push ability. So basically you could have different variations of it.
Imagine having a version that attracts enemy to a point in front of you. That way it would be a great pair with piercing arrows.
You could also have a version that gives you a splash damage ability or some other mobility like teleporting, etc.
Also regarding the fragments UI you should add some kind of background to help differentiate between the left, center and right groups. Right now they kind of all blend together and looks a bit messy.
You're game is shaping up and it's looking really awesome, keep up the great work!
I love the visuals and animations! Very stylized and flowy, looks fun just to even just move and shoot. Can't wait to see how it is when it's finished.
For upgrades that are a bit more interesting:
- reverse arrow: it shoots from your back but also does more damage/any upgrade. Flips the control scheme a bit, while adding a serious upgrade
- definitely a companion fragment as those are always fun (little bug drone that shoots nearby enemies, one that flies away and drops power shards so you have to chase it etc.)
- Maybe a shift upgrade that leaves a clone, making you invisible for a little while so you can heal/backstab
Really interesting stuff, interested to see where this goes. I do agree with another comment that having this upgrade system will limit experimentation and cool combo's as you'd have some sunk cost in your current setup.
The fragment and the inventory remind me a lot of the upgrades in Control. The game is starting to shape up and it's amazing. Keep it up man!
I think that you should make different textures for different fragements, for example, a circle and two different triangles, each one facing left or right representing your arrow types.
Also a cool aesthetic would be that the fragments have a hole in them and that the hole fits exactly with it's fragment slot.
Wow I found your channel today and Im already in love with your game! I also had some ideas for arrow fragments:
- Multi hit: When an arrow hits an enemy, there is a chance (~30%) that it will bounce to another enemy, and the second shot deals more damage. The arrow could also go to bosses and even bypass their shields, which could further create interesting strategies.
- Chain: When you hit an enemy, if theres another enemy near it, it would create a chain between the two which would slowly get shorter and shorter until they are touching. Also if you hit an enemy which is chained to another enemy, the chain effect will be cancelled.
- Friction: Once you shoot an arrow, it's starting speed is the same as the normal arrow, but it will slowly slow down eventually coming to a stop. The catch is that the later an enemy gets hit, the more damage it will do. With this, players have to calculate to get the most powerful shot. (max multiplier could be ~x1.75)
- Extra charge: With this you could charge your arrow for even longer dealing big damage, although your normally charged shots will get weaker.
I also had some ideas for player abilities:
- Local weakening: Would use a lot of energy/power, but it would weaken all of the enemies on the screen for a short amount of time.
- Ultra dash: Just like a normal dash, but faster and if the player hits an enemy, they will deal a bunch of damage and get pushed back so that they have some distance from other potential enemies.
Ghost: You will simply become invisible for a short period, with your next shot as a ghost releasing a strong hit on enemies. Also while in ghost form, the player will have the ability to do abilities revoked from them until they release a shot/run out of time, in which case the ghost form would be gone.
Lastly, it would be very helpful for a new player to know what each fragment does, so you could add a hover tooltip; whenever you hover over a fragment, it shows you it's name, and a brief explanation of how it affects the player/arrow.
I think a good idea for a fragment is, when your arrow makes impact it either creates a small zone that destroys projectiles or arks to nearby projectiles. Two other ideas are, a fragment which makes the arrow seek out the nearest enemy (to a certain degree), and also another which gives you life steal
Great devlog! Fragments really changed the game! I already have an idea for arrow fragment, that when equipped, the player will throw two arrows. or a hook arrow fragment where you can pull yourself from walls or pull enemies to make a combo with push ability!
Your art style is so simple but uniquely beautiful, Nice Job👍
this is turning out to be really cool, I think you’re making a lot of good design decisions and i’m actually getting pretty excited to see what you do with it!! :D
yooo the fragments are really awesome, love the UI as well great improvements.
Suggestion for getting the player into an immersive "flow" state:
Make the core background track (at least the battle track, if you plan to have separate tracks) have a rhythm with the same BPM as the time it takes to charge up a critical arrow! This way, if the player gets into the "rhythm" of critical arrows, the music will be in sync with their shots, and I can imagine that state of flow must feel amazing. Highly recommended to attempt implementing this!
- Add a worm enemy, perhaps that goes through walls.
- Add more of an animation or some kind of effect when the player gets hit.
- Make levels for the game perhaps like bomberman where you levels are based on the boss you will fight or based on megaman but I guess that would make it stray away from roguelike.
- Make the screen shake and everything be a bit more dramatic when a boss spawns to make the player be nervous at least the first time they fight the boss like it's really hard.
- Make an enemy that spits something that explodes in the player.
- Make an enemy that spits something that makes the player poisoned.
- Make a boss that has an aura around it that blocks the player from shooting and kind of attracts the player towards it.
- Make an enemy that teleports and throws some kind of fireball, perhaps some kind of wizard enemy.
- Make an enemy that throws some kind of bomb that explodes and destroys walls.
- Perhaps add a way for the player to destroy walls with some kind of arrow as well?
- Make a kind of machine gun enemy that shoots many projectiles at the player.
- Add skills to the player for them to be able to defend from enemies like the one I mentioned above.
- Add a boss that breaks the background, in a certain sense, leaving a black hole that attracts the player, and if the player falls into it, they die.
- Maybe if it wouldn't stray too far away from the purpose you want the game to serve, you could add some other types of weapons that are not bows. I'd really like some type of melee combat, like a whip or a sword or something like that, perhaps inspired by Terraria.
Here’s an idea: fragments can be upgraded via sacrifice, for example, to upgrade a health fragment, you combine them in a forge that appears after the boss fight or as an actual place on the map. Mother idea built upon this is combining 2 fragment types to make a new types, this also occurs in the forge. The forge has an orange kind of glow, which would look nice in the dark background
this has got to be the most visually appealing game I've seen in a long time, super promising, keep up the good work!
The art style is always so clean, really love how it turned out since the beginning !
This game is turning out great! I just randomly stumbled upon your channel through UA-cam's recommendations and it's always nice to see what other game devs are working on - keeps me motivated when working on my own devlogs :)
Looking forward to seeing more! Subscribed!
I just discovered you on my Start page and i really like the art style of the game. Its really good. Also the game seems fun and simple.
I discovered your yt channel through this video! I must say the game looks nice and clean. Gonna watch the past devlogs before I watch this one!
Nice art direction, loving the color palette ❤️️
Your roguelike looks amazing! i cannot wait for the demo to come out.
Arrow fragments: every 5th arrow is automatically a crit arrow no matter how much you charge it. Infection arrow that poisons the enemy and if the are close to another enemy it will spread. Recruit arrow that will add an enemy to your team until it dies or you reach the next level. This arrow will cost energy to use and it will have a long cool down time.
Player fragments: every 10 seconds special abilities will not cost energy for 5 seconds. A shield fragment that makes the player invulnerable for 3, however the player wont be able to move and arrows will do less damage. A fragment that upgrades your push by making the shockwave stay next to you until an enemy touches it. Finally a dash fragment that makes it so that you teleport instead of dash, it will have the same range and energy cost but you'll be able to move through enemies, enemy projectiles, and even small enough walls.
Also pls add more bosses 🙏
I really like the look of the game! Good work and keep going.
Well, I may as well give up with my rougelite after seeing this 😂
Your art style is sublime and I think your systems integrate very well together. Best of luck as it progresses, I will look forward to seeing your updates.
The progress of the game looks super impressive! The upgrade system is an awesome feature and looks really polished. Really like the crowd control skill that pushes the enemies away that will really help the player when overwhelmed. Also you could create an arrow that leaves behind a trail of fire which will hurt both the player and the enemy if stepped on. Anyway, awesome video as always. Keep it up! :)
Really liked what you did with the arrow types!
Also, I think it would be really important to add an UI indicator for the inventory, so the player knows which key to press to access it.
Another thing, when accessing the inventory, it would nice to have indicator showing what each space to put a fragment is for. For example, the spaces on the left and right match the arrow colors, or maybe have a little icon of the arrows and the player to indicate with space is for.
Other than that, I think the game is looking pretty solid! Definetly something I would play, and I absolutely LOVED your art style. Cheers!
This game is SO COOL!
I really like the art style and the gameplay so far, great job!
A couple ideas I have that you could maybe add:
- Additionally to choosing fragments in the inventory, you could also change what arrows you're using. So there will be like bomb arrows, big arrows, laser arrows and such, and you could choose which ones will be in yoh LMB and RMB.
- Add a bit of a delay between killing the exploding enemy and the explosion (keep the insta explosion when it gets too close).
- Add some labels to the fragments so that it will be more clear?
- Make the player fragments be the same as the arrows fragments, so that you will have to choose between better stats or better arrows.
- Increase the knockback on the SHIFT ability?
- Make it so that arrows hitting the back of the boss will do more damage than the front (like a weakspot sort of thing)
Anyways, keep up the amazing work!
It's really cool to see how much your voice has aged over the years, you probably heard this a lot before but it's cool to see :)
I think that there should be an icon that looks like the player in the middle for the performance-enhancing fragments and have 2 bow icons for each arrow fragment side with a mouse icon that has the button lit up to easily recognize which fragment slots are for what fragments with a chest-like icon for the storage part.
Early in the video you mentioned wanting the player to be encouraged to play up close and personal -- you could try out making the enemies drop more loot if they're killed by the push attack, a la DOOM (2016)'s Glory Kill mechanic (wherein if you get up close and personal to finish them off, the enemy showers out ammo and health, but if you kill them any other way, they drop barely anything)
i have no real knowledge of how to help, but man am i excited for this to launch if you do! love bow combat and rogue likes too! very interested in this and happy i stumbled onto you! can’t wait to see this progress
Interesting new ability and enemy variety! makes the game experience a lot more dynamic :)
Its been a minute since I've seen this game, looks like you're making great progress keep it up!
here's are some ideas maybe?
Bouncing arrows for shooting around corners and the like, to make it more interesting you could make them bounce off enemies as well so you can try to hit multiple in a single shot.
Tether arrow, an arrow that passes trough an enemy and tethers them to whatever is hit next like a wall or another enemy for example.
So far this is my favorite bounce arrow idea
These are really great ideas
You could change the behaviour of your current player fragments to have different effects based upon where the fragment has been placed (Either arrow or Player). This could look smt like this:
Health Fragment
-> Player slots: more Health (but decreased Movement)
-> Arrow Slots: Increased Knockback (Also decreased projectile Speed)
Speed (or leightweight) Fragment
-> Player Slots: Increased Dash Distance (More Energy consumed)
-> Arrow Slots: Increased projectile Speed (Less Damage)
And then you could still have some "Special fragments", that don't give a flat stat Boni but instead change the behaviour of Player/Arrow, however only one Fragment per Arrow/Player can be active at any time
Barrage-Fragment -> You can hold the fire button charge your Arrow and unleash a deadly torrent of Arrows (clicking would still fire a single Arrow)
Rubber-Fragment -> Your Arrows can now bounce off of Walls up to (2/3/4) times
Sticky-Fragment:
-> Player slots: Leave behind a creep for 3 seconds that slows enemys standing on it by x%
-> Arrow Slots: Enemys hit by your Arrows are slowed by x% for 1.5 seconds
Piercing-Fragment:
-> Player Slots: Your RMB-Attack will not instead be a Cone-Shaped short ranged AoE scythe attack, that deals double your dmg to all Enemys hit
-> Arrow Slots: Attacks that kill an Enemy will continue flying and hit the Enemy behind it for (Arrow Damage - HP of the last killed Enemy)
In regards for the Hub, when you're opening the inventory I'd make a line between the slots belonging together (A straight line through the three slots for the left Arrow, one for the right arrow and maybe a triangle for the Player). Also Adding a picture of the Arrows and the Player with 25% oppacity behind the slots would be great, so anyonve can intuitively see which slots belongs to what!
love the notch inventory stuff! I am colour blind and noticed all your fragments are the same shape which is cool! I'd reccomend text or hover pop up text to help the player navigate the UI!
6:27
Blue Guy wuz goin places
Maybe a fragment to make arrows pass through and damage multiple enemies, but reduce the damage of the arrow?
I remember Magicka has a cool system where you combine spells to get a more powerful one. Maybe there could be a fragment that makes the arrow deal less damage, slows enemies down BUT coats them with something flammable. Then have a fragment that adds a fire effect (or use the explosion effect) to combust it?
I really like the idea of having different player tools complement each other in an awesome way.
Great devlog I really love the insane progression u made on this one. The new Inventory System is looking really promising already here's some suggestions that I think would be helpful.
* I really love how fast paced the game is so pausing every time to change a fragment by dragging and dropping can be a little frustrating (specially when you're surrounded by a lot of enemies) so to make it easier and faster for the player to change the fragments maybe you can change the inventory ui instead of pausing the flow of the game make the time goes slower so the player doesn't lose the fast flowy game feel and get the feel of taking risks when changing fragments, also maybe you can implement a system to equip the fragments faster like hover over the fragment and use a number from 1-3 to switch between them instead of dragging and dropping.
*The push ability is really awesome and I don't think that you need anything to encourage the player to use it. you've already added a new enemy type that explode so maybe you can extend the explosion time to give the player some time to push it into other enemies I think that would fun thing to do XD.
Its looking promising keep up the good work and good luck I really cant wait to try it myself
A poison fragment: When an enemy gets hits by an arrow, it takes a low amount of damage every second for 5 seconds(numbers only for example purposes)
Arrow fragment suggestions:
Double arrow(shoot second arrow after each shot, balance by adjusting percentage of damage for each arrow)
bouncing arrow(bounces off enemies or walls)
Homing arrows(follows targets, moves a bit slower)
Trail arrows(leaves a trail after the arrow that deals a small amount of damage per second while the trail lingers)
Slowing arrows(target gets slowed with each hit, short range for balance)
Lightning arrows(makes a bolt hit each enemy, procs are chance based)
Cluster arrows(a chance for arrows on impact to explode into arrows that shoot out radially from the target to hit other enemies)
Sticky bomb arrows(explosive arrow but sticks to the enemy and explodes seconds later, cannot be used with other bomb arrows)
Detonator arrows(normal arrows, however left clicking again makes the arrow explode at the position it is at, has short firing range, because of second click ability can only shoot one arrow at a time, alternatively this can be used with right click, doesn't stack with bomb arrows)
hope you like these ideas
The push ability could completely stun or just slow enemies for a second. Oh and if you really want to put value on it, maybe enemies drop more energy or health when killed during that stun! So the choice becomes: simple evasion or a high risk, high reward "melee" attack
Btw I just found your channel and pretty cool game so far! I love supporting fellow game devs!
I came up with an idea! Maybe diffrent slots in the inventory make the fragment stronger so you have to decide witch fragment you want to make the strongest.
The exploding enemy is asymmetrical, which doesnt look right next to the other enemies. I think animating that purple thing on its back to swirl around like the explosion particles could make a really nice effect and warn the players of its explosion.
the aiming arrow should go into a "mouse pointer pose" when you open the inventory imo. Would look nicer.
This looks really good!
when the explody enemy explodes, the screen should shake a little bit to make it feel more impactful
Love the art style!
Ideas for next enemies and bosses:
1) a flying enemy what is imune when is flying
2) a enemy what summons other smaller enemies
3) a giant enemy that does not move and will shoot or hit you when you are so close.
4) a enemy what revives other dead enemies.
5) a bigger enemy what picks other enemies and throw it on the player
6) a enemy whats buffs other enemies.
(If have some english mistakes is because I am Brazilian and do not speak english so well)
Push fragment: a fragment that increases the pushes range and damage but it makes you go slower
for the UI of the fragments you should do something like a connection between all the upgrades that give an effect si the player knows where they can place it to get effects, and maybe connect it to a core/eye so there is no way you can get confused
Lightning Fragment: deals damage to the nearest enemy. If you equip several on one arrow, the number of lightning strikes and the number of times it skips to a new enemie (within range of each other) increases.
It would also be nice if you could upgrade fragments like in some roguelike games
You could make the fragments to boost with a specific composition of fragments, giving extra stats. Ex: having the explosion fragment and the health fragment makes you to make bigger explosions at the cost of more energy, or having the arrow speed fragment and the arrow damage fragment makes the arrow to be bigger.
I think the inventory ui could definitely use a lot of work. It just looks confusing because there is no indication of what any of it is. Also, would the fragments be able to stack? Like if you had 2 explosive arrow fragments on an arrow would it deal more dmg and have a bigger radius? Anyways, super excited and I love seeing the progress that youve made on this game! Keep up the great work :)
I think a very slight UI adjustment would be nice, simply having a light translucent border of some kind around the four different sections of the inventory I think would better communicate to the player that they are separated.
I know that being able to spam both arrows is broken but it looks so fun! Perhaps you could make it a temporary power-up for areas where you get swarmed? That would add some great energy and fun variety I would think.
Can't wait for this to be released!
Suggestion: Enemy color and Fragments color (for Player/arrow) should be logically aligned since most in-game text are obviously not present.
Example: If a BLUE enemy moves faster than the others therefore BLUE fragment means Player character will increase speed.
if ORANGE fragment adds explosive arrows, ORANGE enemy should also be explosive.
I am subscribing. Great work on the UI as well.
I think it would be interesting if the obelisks were enemies too, as if they were asleep, and when activated they start shooting at you, I imagine a slower but powerful shot.
Another idea that I find interesting is to add more types of arrows, each one with different mechanics, so the player can choose between the two arrow slots they have.
Btw, the look of your game reminded me of a game I like a lot, called "N Plus Plus", I think it's worth a look, it might give you some inspiration.
I am obsessed with the artstyle
I usually have a mixed opinion about limited upgrade slots in which you can choose what to equip, I like not just collecting upgrades but having an additional layer of thought, but it usually feels like at some point you have upgrades that are weaker but generally useful, like a simple health upgrade, and upgrades that are more original, fun, riskier, or just change more the gameplay, like a whole new ability or inverting how health works etc.
Most games use either this kind of upgrade system, or an accumulation based one where you just pickup more and more stuff without much of a limit, which makes small upgrades still valuable even when you have powerful ones next to it, but doesn't have the customizations part.
To address that I think you could have both kind, the fragments as you have it now would be generally more game changing in terms of effects, so while playing normally you wouldn't just want to equip every single one you come across, whether it be because of secondary effects, synergies, or because the actual effect doesn't interest you in the current run specifically doesn't matter, the point is to make them interesting so that picking which one you want to keep feels like an actual choice with consequences.
But in combination of that have simpler and smaller upgrades that are more permanent, don't require slots and don't have special effects. I see them as consumables, because then you could choose not to increase your HP if you have a fragment that boosts damage based on how few max HP you have, or you could even have those smaller upgrades have negative effects like reducing your HP even more. Imagine having an arrow fragment that makes them homing, the seeking power reduces as your speed goes up, so you would actually willingly reduce your own speed to synergizes with that by consuming the small upgrades.
On a similar topic, I think what makes these kind of game with lots of upgrades and customization in your build interesting are conflicting objectives (i.e. lower HP = higher damage, you want to maximize both ideally but can't) and synergies
I really like the design/style of the new game. Good work! Edit: Fragments could have names and work similar to Diablo 2 runes. The runes had effects, but combined in the right order could potentially create a mighty enchantment.
damm , ur game really is looking good
Hey its getting better and better. Im really excited for this one... triggers my binding of isaac instincts :D. And btw do you already have someone in mind for music and/or sfx?
Maybe you could add a mechanic where there's an upgrade to get more fragment slots, or maybe you just get more slots overtime, to really get that feel of getting stronger and stronger overtime that's super satisfying in a lot of games
For the explosion enemy, I think It should blink white for a bit before it explodes so it’s really noticeable. Also the player hit doesn’t have much feedback, maybe you can flash a color on the screens borders to let you know better?
For a new enemy you could do a teleportation creature that teleports to a position that has line of sight to the player, then it charges up a shot and fires. This enemy could be really weak but the bullets it fires could be strong so it incentivizes the player to prioritize them. I think an enemy like this would constantly force the player to be reposition and move when the battles seem stagnant. Maybe this could be a more difficult enemy in the game stage
I think a new arrow type can be a “fracture” arrow. When you shoot an arrow and it hits something it breaks and creates shrapnels that damage everything (this damage can be small) but when you kill something it does a small AOE explosion plus more shrapnel being created.
I think an arrow type like this could help players with groups of small weak enemies while still being less effective against big tanky targets, making the arrows balanced in my opinion.
A couple suggestions:
1. Fragments that have extreme / minimal upsides with extreme / minimal downsides.
2. Make fragment selections permanent & infinite stacking? *
(*) A great comparison would be permanent infinite item stacking similar to risk of rain 2.
Just some suggestions, I do like the idea of swapping them as you please as you did in your devlog, but I thought this would add the element of the player has to make a crucial choice as it could be good or bad for the later gameplay, and they cant just save themselves by swapping out a fragment that no longer helps them / doesn't scale well with their current build. This could add a lot of replayability, as I play risk of rain 2 for similar reasons.
I really liked the bug where you could shoot a ton of arrows, I think it would make for a great upgrade if you just scaled down the damage each arrow does!
super clean style!
i remember seeing this game like a year ago, holy sh- i love the progress so far
That said bug looks interesting i think it could be interesting to have a fragment that makes your other arrow recharge faster after landing a shot, so you want to switch between the arrows as much as possible, potentially even getting up close to make the arrows hit the target faster. I know other people have mentioned this but i believe that it would be easier to to tell them apart by changing the shape or icon, because just using colors might be an issue with color blindness
The inventory system looks somewhat confusing to someone who is not familiar with it, maybe adding some indications, so we know what slots do what would help; also, I feel like it would be more clear to have different sprites for the arrow fragments and the player fragments so when we see one, we can easily know what kind of fragment it is instead of relying only on colours. I also feel like it would add a lot to the different dashes in the game is the dashes had something like an after effect. Keep up the great work and the game looks amazing so far :)
this game looks great!
for some ideas:
maybe instead of upgrading fragments, let people stack the fragments?
could you possibly have more than just the 2 arrows, but have only space for 2 in your inventory?
Great progress! I feel like the fragments could be expended a bit more by making them stackable, for example having multiple orange fragments would make the explosion bigger or having multiple explosions with delays between each
I'd love to see fragments which interacts with the crit mechanic, something like higher damage + arrow speed + range + arrow size for crits/higher movement speed after crits/crits reacharging your energy bar
The arrow and player fragments look pretty similar now, but it might work out to lean into that and make them compatible. for example, a defense boost on the player might translate to an attack boost to an arrow. this could become a single power boost that is applied to the bow or armor. explosion on impact might translate to an explosion when the player is hit. this could lead to some very unique builds using minimal building block variations. however, this may lead to restricting a good idea you have for a bow fragment just to make it work on on the player. it makes for fewer objects but much more layers for each object that could become messy
This channel is underrated
Very cool i like the look of this game!!!
Maybe you could add like another type of power up that’s a one time use. Maybe spawning an ally or limited time shield. Also you probably were already gonna do this but having symbols for the upgrades would make it less confusing for beginners. Rlly great game ( I love the art style ) and I can’t wait to play it :)
you could also have fragments be upgradable by fusing other fragments into them - though without a crafting station to do it on, it may not fit with the roguelike theme.
Nice video - some (hopefully) constructive feedback:
1. (in my opinion) for someone who didnt see this video, the slots for the unused fragments might be difficult or at least confusing to discern from the slots that actually activate their effects, because all slots look the same (dark grey blocks). Its clear to see you tried to solve that by positioning them in the way you did, but one might think that's just part of a "pretty pattern" and all of these dark grey slots do the same. Maybe you could add text like "unused" or "player" "left arrow" "right" arrow to the different areas or something like that. Or you can add a subtle glow the slots that activate the fragments and leave them unused fragment slots dim without glow.
2. If the player picks up a player fragment (stat boost), which are always positive in your video - no downside on using them - it should be equipped on pick up if there is an empty slot left for them. If someone is playing a lot of runs in your game, it might get annoying for him/her to always have to manually equip each fragment he/she finds - especially if they're the first 3 fragments, that you ALWAYS want to use anyway, because all slots are still empty. You know what I mean? Storing them in the unused fragment slots only makes sense after having collected 3+ of them, so you actually have a choice on which one to use. Fragment 1 - 3 is no choice, because you always want to use them if there is no downside.
Thanks! I will definitely do something about your first point. Also your right on the second point! I didn't think of that. I will just have to try out and see if auto assigning the fragments is a good idea :D