Mecromage

Hi everyone!  We’ve been diligently working on the hero character and have another update on the hero concept art, mechanics, and gameplay.

HERO CHARACTER

Hero Concept Art

Josh has drawn some exciting sketches for the different player modes that inspire us and help communicate how we want each player mode to feel.  The character sheet in particular has been great for this.  What we have previously called “warrior mode,” “mana overcharged,” and “wolf mode” are now called “Combat Cleric,” “Metal Maiden,” and “Alloy Avatar,” respectively.

Hero Character Sheet

Hero: Front, Back, and Side

Alloy Avatar

Combat Cleric and Metal Maiden Combat Mechanics and FX

The hero can now use her mace to attack in all 8 directions and the chop and uppercut are executed out of the mace twirl (holding down attack).  The 8-directional attack seems natural and is a useful tool against pesky flyers and enemies who are otherwise above the player’s head.  The new “lariat” move clears out the immediate area and is most effective when you’re being sandwiched by baddies.  We also added the flash step, which we thought was an interesting take on the standard double jump.  Finally, the hero now has a “wolf sense” which allows her to concentrate and see items that were previously hidden from her view and the health status of nearby enemies.  (I’m really impressed by those outlines – see below.)

Chris decided to put some time in one weekend and surprised us with this visual for the sticky bomb explosion.  With some ideas from Josh, Chris also added some color-tinting and fading to the enemy portrait when hit by a player attack.

8-directional attack against one of our most hated enemies – the Rokknor Flyer Bot

Kochay swings the mace around her when performing the lariat.

Flash stepping through a warrior (featuring portrait-tinting of the Rokknor Warrior).

Wolf sense showing a severely damaged Rokknor Salvager and some hidden blocks holding up a key.

Sticky-bombing a Rokknor Warrior.

Alloy Avatar Combat Mechanics

Since the Alloy Avatar mode started off as a mech, she was a little clunkier than what we’re envisioning for the wolf.  A couple ideas we had to speed things up were a quick slash – slash claw attack instead of just one punch and the ability to sprint (at greater mana cost) and jump further when sprinting.  Also, to mirror the control scheme for the Combat Cleric and Metal Maiden modes, the following moves are available out of a charge: Uppercut, Ground Slam, Lariat, Dashing Punch.

Wolf slash-slash was overkill for a Rokknor Scout.

Wolf uppercutting a Rokknor Spider Bot.

Wolf dash punch.

Accessories

A few months ago, we tried out the idea of having a familiar follow the hero and provide special bonuses.  We recently extended and prototyped this idea that we’re calling “accessories” for now.  Accessories include familiars, controllable special weapons, and special items, and they are controlled via the right thumbstick, if you’re using a 360 controller, or the keyboard.  We’ll tell you a little about the familiars now and save the special weapons and items for another update.

The hero can find different familiars, each with their own abilities, and can use one at a time.  Each provides a passive bonus to the player and may be manually controlled at the expense of the passive bonus.  We have prototyped the fire drake and ice drake familiars, both of which give passive damage bonuses.  The fire drake can be manually controlled to spit fireballs or charged fire balls, and the ice drake can spit ice balls or perform a dive attack.

The fire drake has a triple-shot fire ball.

The ice drake claw-diving another Rokknor Warrior.

DEV SUMMARY

Below is a summary of all logged updates since the last post.  Next month, we should have some updates to our level design and even more for the hero character.  See you then.

HERO CONCEPT ART

Art:

• Player Control Overview
• Speed Drawing

HERO GLOBAL MECHANICS

Player Overview:

• Determined which abilities are inherent and which are upgradable – Player Inventory.
• Wolf mode is entered via lunar gems and exited when mana is depleted.
• Wolf sense can be activated in Combat Cleric mode and is always on in Alloy Avatar Mode Mode.

Accessories:

• Accessories have passive ability and a manual mode, controllable with the right thumbstick or keyboard.
• Added drake familiars.
• Added a manually controllable axe.
• Added a regeneration necklace.

HERO COMBAT MECHANICS AND FX

CC / MM Upgrades:

• Uppercut and overhead chop use beam parabolas.
• 8-directional chain mace.
• Suppress block/focus while shield is thrown.
• Chain mace lariat.
• Jump-dash-blink chaining / mana use in mana.txt.
• Chain-mace lariat recover.
• Sticky bomb explodes into returning chunks that do chunk damage.
• Sticky bomb active reload w/color flashing.
• Mana charge requires alloy, must break through to overcharge car wash.

Wolf Upgrades:

• Simplified the inputs after testing proved too complicated.  May simplify them further as we want the CC to have more options and the wolf to be more focused on dealing damage.
• Added slash / slash attacks.
• Created charge moves for wolf that mirror the charge moves for the player (Uppercut, Ground Slam, Lariat, Dashing Punch).
• Modified the grab to always come out vs. only when close to object.
• Added a sprint and big jump to when the wolf is in ultra power mode.

FX:

• Sticky Bomb Explosion
• Color-tinted hit silhouette fade on enemies.

PROCESS

Process:

• Path to Completion for Hero Character – Created and Statused

GLOBAL GAMEPLAY

Brainstormed:

• Where power up and quest items are placed.
• How areas are discovered – linear vs. some kind of non-linear.
• How character moves around the world.
• Save points within context of the gameworld.