The Fool's Path | devlog 5

A devlog per week seems more like it. Especially when things are being added at such a fast pace. 

I've just about finished world 6. I put a lot more time into this level compared with earlier levels. Probably because I had to make a whole  new set of tiles, and I had to find a palm tree model in 3 different shapes. I went through three sets of tree models until I found the palm trees I liked. I can't tell if it's going to look good until it's in the game. So now I have a bunch of unused tree models in the game I need to clean up. I also added a pirate ship to world6. I found a cool low poly pirate ship for free on the internet and it's free to use. I have a credits.txt file that contains all the urls to the models I downloaded. I posted it on itch, so I'm properly giving credit. 

 I've been adding bits of story to the game where I can. On the first level I added a NPC that walks over and unlocks the door to your cell. She gives you a couple potions and says the undead have invaded. One thing about this change is it no longer teaches you about buttons that open doors. The player isn't going to notice the NPC stepped on a floor switch to open the door. So the first time you see the switch is later in the game, but I guess that's ok. I added another Elsie character to level 6. She gives you a key to the lighthouse, and says "beware the lighthouse keeper". referring to the boss you fight at the end of the level. The boss is just the evil wizard character with extra hit points.

I added an evil wizard character. It's just the wizard character colored red. He will smack you with his cane if you get too close, then shoot you with a fireball. This counters the knights shield ability because he can attack twice in a row. So the strategy now to beat the evil wizard is to stand 1 tile away and use shield.  I wasn't trying to add more strategy to the game but it just naturally comes when things get complex. Once I add the goblin sapper to the mix things will get interesting. 

I also added a spooky ghost character. It's just your stereotypical cartoon ghost.  I added float animation and it can attack from a distance with a psychic attack. I thought about having the ghost syphon health from you and even tried to set it up with particles but it was to complicated. So for now the ghost just shoots a projectile. The ghost has lots of hit points, but a fireball will one shot it. So you can choose to spend your mana on killing ghosts and not on other things. For now the ghost only shows up in the cemetery level, but I will add it to more places in the future. 

I guess the next big thing that needs to be done is a menu system. I need a splash screen with something cool in the background, maybe just the first level in the background. Then a new game button and a difficulty button. I want to make a easy mode and a hard mode. hard mode you only get 2 characters for the whole game, and you can pick which ones. I'm half way through writing the code for it I just still need the menu itself. Another thing would be starting on world7. think it will be another tropical island level, but at night. that level will lead to winter levels, and that's where you will fight the main boss. I think. 

I added music to the game. I download an asset pack from itch. It sounds really good and doesn't get in the way. It  also had good battle music that I can easily transition too when it switches to turn based mode. The cemetery level has it's own track and the island level has a different track as well. Some I like more than others and I may still reach out to someone to make me something custom. 

I've been fixing bugs little by little all this time and the game is starting to feel solid. By the time the game is done I will have played it for hundreds of hours probably. There are so many things that can go wrong in a game like this. Everything needs to be timed to the second for the combat to work. I need to account for every possible situation.

It's not even been six months yet, but I think I can see an ending in sight. A place where I can stop adding things. Work on what I have and try to polish things and release it as a finished project, and if people think that's cool I can double down and start over from the beginning with a design doc.

Play the alpha here https://jhyde.itch.io/thefoolspath

https://twitter.com/J_Hyde_