09-26-2016, 02:47 PM
(Wall of text incoming)
If you have not heard, Voslom is a game I've been working on in my free time for awhile now. I took a break from it for a bit to focus on FRG, and the small player base stopped playing frequently due to lack of updates, since then the servers have been shut down as I prepare for a pretty big update(and the port to Monogame).
I started out just wanting to make combat more interesting, but now not only do I hope to achieve that, I have a few more things in mind.
Combat
Now as you know, I wanted a different feel to the combat. I didn't want it to consist of jumping down, pressing the attack button a few times, and jumping back up to a platform to restore your Stamina. While that was very casual and made the game more 'chill' to play. It's not all I wanted.
To counter this, I started thinking up more complicated combat systems. While I left the ability to 'fight n chill' in for normal monsters, you're going to want to brush up on your combat skills before taking on 'Lairs" or "Dungeons". I also added "Knockback" when you hit an enemy/get hit depending on the power of your weapon(or theirs). This adds more of an impact response to hitting an enemy, and just feels better.
First off, I made a basic combo system and removed the ability to power attack anytime you want (unless the weapon does not support a combo). So now in order to perform your power attack, you must do the basic combo set of the weapon, then you can press the power attack button to perform the stronger attack.
The animations are still being worked on, as I'm no artist, but I think it may help get the job done, if the combos are quick enough. Not all weapons will support combos though, some will just require one attack to perform it's power attack.
Now these dungeons I mentioned before will be fairly complicated levels. I plan to have 'World dungeons' and 'Group dungeons'. The first one will be a dungeon anyone can go in in the world, and the second one will be instanced for your group only.
These will have some fairly difficult jump puzzles, so be prepared to get salty.
This brings me to the next addition.
Abilities
Abilities are 'mechanics' that change how your character can interact in the world, using them will have a downside(such as using stamina).
These Abilities have their own required stats to unlock, and all do some different things. Do note, these will dynamically lock/unlock if you put on armor that gives you just enough stat bonuses to have their requirements.
Abilities will consist of things like Wall Jump, Wall Slide, Dash, etc. Each of these having their own requirements to unlock, for example:
Wall Jump could require 15 Agility, 10 Strength and 2 Stamina to unlock.
Don't worry, there will be armor pieces designed to give large boosts to specific stats, so you can hunt these down if you wish to use an ability but don't have the right character stat build for it.
These abilities open up a whole new aspect to the game and make it more exciting. Perhaps a dungeon will have puzzles requiring certain abilities. So you can either grind out the levels to unlock it, or hunt down the gear you need to unlock it with your stat build.
Shrines
Shrines will be used to traverse the world faster. They will be specific spawn points where you can set your spawn, however you can use them to travel to other shrines in the world too. But in order to travel to a shrine, you MUST have set your spawn there at least one time before to unlock it.
The world will be pretty big as I add more to it (already have some new regions), so these are needed so players wont have to walk 10+ minutes to meet up with their friends.
Here are some more behind the scenes changes for those interested.
Particles
I spent a few days writing a particle system and editor for Voslom. This will make everything look better, having hit effects and other various cool looking stuff. The game was missing this, and I knew it, but I got around it.
Animations
Animations now have a lot of control over in-game mechanics. Directly in the animation editor I can now specific added velocity, or 'slash trails', or even where and when to burst out custom particles. It's very nice for designing complicated attacks/animations.
New Enemy Interpolation system
I revamped the entire networking system when it comes to enemies and players. You see them slightly more in the past as before, but in turn they use a lot less bandwidth, and are more accurate.
Each enemy has a packetbuffer, and it stores received updates in them, it will then interpolate the enemy between the 2 most recent packets it receives. It's setup in such a way that it's usually finished one interpolation by the time a new update packet is received.
The reason for this was to support a higher player/enemy count on the server. This left a problem with hitreg, so I in turn had to redesign some things with the original hit detection system. It works pretty well.
Map previewing system
Before when developing a map, there was no easy way to preview the map. I had to compile it with my asset compiler, and added it to the server, then use commands to teleport myself to it. It was a real hassle.
I have just recently edited my tile editor to allow an "In game preview" this allows you to see what it looks like in the Voslom Engine, as well as control a player and set specific stats/abilities as active on that player. This definitely speeds up the whole mapping process, which was a pain in the ass before. I also made an entirely new parallax background system that is faster than how I used to do it.
All in all I was bored when I started writing this, I just thought I'd give some insight on the many things changing with the game. I am continuing to work on it, and love working on it. It's starting to shape more into a game I would love to play. I don't plan on the game 'blowing up' in popularity or anything, but if I have even a small community of players that play it fairly often, I'd be happy.
I leave you with this preview from the map previewer standalone:
(Don't mind the 2 stat buttons below, one is for abilities just haven't made an icon for it yet)
If you have not heard, Voslom is a game I've been working on in my free time for awhile now. I took a break from it for a bit to focus on FRG, and the small player base stopped playing frequently due to lack of updates, since then the servers have been shut down as I prepare for a pretty big update(and the port to Monogame).
I started out just wanting to make combat more interesting, but now not only do I hope to achieve that, I have a few more things in mind.
Combat
Now as you know, I wanted a different feel to the combat. I didn't want it to consist of jumping down, pressing the attack button a few times, and jumping back up to a platform to restore your Stamina. While that was very casual and made the game more 'chill' to play. It's not all I wanted.
To counter this, I started thinking up more complicated combat systems. While I left the ability to 'fight n chill' in for normal monsters, you're going to want to brush up on your combat skills before taking on 'Lairs" or "Dungeons". I also added "Knockback" when you hit an enemy/get hit depending on the power of your weapon(or theirs). This adds more of an impact response to hitting an enemy, and just feels better.
First off, I made a basic combo system and removed the ability to power attack anytime you want (unless the weapon does not support a combo). So now in order to perform your power attack, you must do the basic combo set of the weapon, then you can press the power attack button to perform the stronger attack.
The animations are still being worked on, as I'm no artist, but I think it may help get the job done, if the combos are quick enough. Not all weapons will support combos though, some will just require one attack to perform it's power attack.
Now these dungeons I mentioned before will be fairly complicated levels. I plan to have 'World dungeons' and 'Group dungeons'. The first one will be a dungeon anyone can go in in the world, and the second one will be instanced for your group only.
These will have some fairly difficult jump puzzles, so be prepared to get salty.
This brings me to the next addition.
Abilities
Abilities are 'mechanics' that change how your character can interact in the world, using them will have a downside(such as using stamina).
These Abilities have their own required stats to unlock, and all do some different things. Do note, these will dynamically lock/unlock if you put on armor that gives you just enough stat bonuses to have their requirements.
Abilities will consist of things like Wall Jump, Wall Slide, Dash, etc. Each of these having their own requirements to unlock, for example:
Wall Jump could require 15 Agility, 10 Strength and 2 Stamina to unlock.
Don't worry, there will be armor pieces designed to give large boosts to specific stats, so you can hunt these down if you wish to use an ability but don't have the right character stat build for it.
These abilities open up a whole new aspect to the game and make it more exciting. Perhaps a dungeon will have puzzles requiring certain abilities. So you can either grind out the levels to unlock it, or hunt down the gear you need to unlock it with your stat build.
Shrines
Shrines will be used to traverse the world faster. They will be specific spawn points where you can set your spawn, however you can use them to travel to other shrines in the world too. But in order to travel to a shrine, you MUST have set your spawn there at least one time before to unlock it.
The world will be pretty big as I add more to it (already have some new regions), so these are needed so players wont have to walk 10+ minutes to meet up with their friends.
Here are some more behind the scenes changes for those interested.
Particles
I spent a few days writing a particle system and editor for Voslom. This will make everything look better, having hit effects and other various cool looking stuff. The game was missing this, and I knew it, but I got around it.
Animations
Animations now have a lot of control over in-game mechanics. Directly in the animation editor I can now specific added velocity, or 'slash trails', or even where and when to burst out custom particles. It's very nice for designing complicated attacks/animations.
New Enemy Interpolation system
I revamped the entire networking system when it comes to enemies and players. You see them slightly more in the past as before, but in turn they use a lot less bandwidth, and are more accurate.
Each enemy has a packetbuffer, and it stores received updates in them, it will then interpolate the enemy between the 2 most recent packets it receives. It's setup in such a way that it's usually finished one interpolation by the time a new update packet is received.
The reason for this was to support a higher player/enemy count on the server. This left a problem with hitreg, so I in turn had to redesign some things with the original hit detection system. It works pretty well.
Map previewing system
Before when developing a map, there was no easy way to preview the map. I had to compile it with my asset compiler, and added it to the server, then use commands to teleport myself to it. It was a real hassle.
I have just recently edited my tile editor to allow an "In game preview" this allows you to see what it looks like in the Voslom Engine, as well as control a player and set specific stats/abilities as active on that player. This definitely speeds up the whole mapping process, which was a pain in the ass before. I also made an entirely new parallax background system that is faster than how I used to do it.
All in all I was bored when I started writing this, I just thought I'd give some insight on the many things changing with the game. I am continuing to work on it, and love working on it. It's starting to shape more into a game I would love to play. I don't plan on the game 'blowing up' in popularity or anything, but if I have even a small community of players that play it fairly often, I'd be happy.
I leave you with this preview from the map previewer standalone:
(Don't mind the 2 stat buttons below, one is for abilities just haven't made an icon for it yet)
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x2
