Dev Blog - Roaming Death Alpha 1.0

Goals for Alpha v1.0

I am going to get more interaction into the game by introducing friendly NPCs. They will have creative names and you'll be able to talk to them to get advice or quests. I want to update the neglected quests with the quest screen I made to complete the first room.

Work in progress
-03/08
I got a lot of work done today. I upgraded the enemy pathing, fixed a few bugs and implemented a proto-save-feature (only saves character name for now). Although I say "upgraded" pathing, it works best in open spaces right now and with only a few enemies at a time, but it's getting there.
-04/08
Not too much done today, some sound effects have been added experimentally, and I'll add more soon.
-11/08
Decent progress, 0.98 ready for release.

Stealth

Stealth is being worked on. I made the ability for the shadow mage (number 7), and I got the basics for that working. Now I need to make the enemies react to stealth (confused, or not able to target properly), and make casting spells break your stealth.

New auras

Two new auras have been added.
The soul-stealing aura of the shadow mage does a small amount of damage and returns some health and possibly mana.
The ice defence aura of the ice mage intercepts enemy missiles with ice chunks and can have 3 chunks active at once.

Effects

Visual effects have been updated for the ice mage. I also plan to update more of the effects before v1.0.

Bug fixes

No one likes bugs. I fixed a couple of bugs that I hadn't seen earlier, or that weren't game breaking enough to get done. The ice mage's abilities no longer speed up enemy pathing, and using an ability right after an aura now does the correct amount of damage.

Roaming Death Alpha v0.96

Update notes

Download here.

-fixed typo causing an error (shadow mage)
-added new enemy, shadow cultist (recycled sprites)
-added music (non-looping for now)
-cleaned up the level text

Roaming Death Alpha V0.95

Update notes

Download here

-Monstershealth bars added
depth improved

-New GUI
stat screen added (not functional)equipment screen added (semi-functional)power-up bar added

- XP and Level GUI
Position modified for the other classes

-All classes
added weapon sprite (staff)

-Ice mage
bugfixes

-Fire mage
no changes, still OP

-Shadow mage
bugfixes

-Light mage
bugfixes

-Scientist 
still in development, not in this version

-Ground texturing v1.1
additional textures for lava

-Environment
Level expanded
grass added
paths added

-Title screens
overhauled again

-Misc/Engine
Optimised for speed
Depth improved/fixed for more objects.
Collision boxes improved for more objects
improved skillshot aiming graphics

Not a bug
power-up bar has no effect yet (coming soon)

Known bugs

- level text placement is still bad

- Spawners don't spawn or have any effect other than granting xp

- Fire aura can create a targeting bug when it's target is destroyed before the aura attack gets to it, making it change direction and seek the next nearest target.
-Fire aura has a targeting bug making it prefer skeleton rangers, then skeleton magi, over tentacle beasts, and it will change direction if a preferred type is in range.
-Pets do not attack spawners, and currently cannot be targeted directly by enemies
-Tentacle beast pets all use fireballs

Roaming Death Progress Update

As you can tell from the screenshot, I have added the grass decoration (with proper depth), and expanded the tutorial map somewhat. Also the grass colour has been changed to be darker.

I'm experimenting with footprints... and I have mixed results so far. They are looking good for a start but I need some way of clearing them, as they look bad after a few minutes of running around. I'll probably do that with snow, it seems to make sense.