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.

Dev Blog - Roaming Death V0.95

In this dev blog I will document my upcoming goals for the game and my progress on the current goals. I am slowing down on development and getting a bit distracted but I am improving some of the sprites and researching some interesting things.


Sprite Upgrades

The trees are first on the list. Basically I added texture to them and changed the colour, then touched up some of the detail. Also the shadow was on the wrong side before, so that's been fixed.

Next to be updated are the mage sprites. They weren't too bad but the hood looked different from some angles and I wanted to give the robes some extra trim. I have given the light mage some cream trim, the fire mage orange trim, the shadow mage purple trim, and the ice mage a light blue
trim.

New Environments

On my to-do list are the realms of the elements so I will need more environment textures and interactive objects.

New Classes

The first new class will be the Scientist. This class will have exclusive access to advanced human technology, including computers and robots.
The second class will be the Engineer. Using this class you can build structures and weapons from different materials.
The third class will be the Hunter. The Hunter can make traps, uses long range weapons and has a unique tracking skill.
The fourth class will be the Brute. The Brute is a big character that can take a lot of punishment. This class is very strong and can move heavy objects.

AI

My AI is quite bad right now, but there is hope. There is a way to set up a grid that the AI can use for dynamic pathfinding. I'm going to attempt to utilise this function.

Roaming Death Alpha V0.9a

Update notes

Download here

-Monsters
Skeleton boss now moves again
Bigger tentacle beast added

-New GUINow shows light state
Now has a darker border
Wind speed now shown

- XP and Level GUI
Now has a darker border
Position modified

-Clouds & Wind
Wind now has a bigger range of speeds
Cloud positioning and direction changed, randomised
Clouds now improved to blend in better
Clouds no longer create a smoky effect

-Day/night cycle 
transitions modified for improved consistency

-Fire mage
Aura particle effect half as frequent
Aura sprite size halved
Aura damage lowered to 25 (from 40)
Fire spell particles now centre on sprites
Ability bar sprite now reacts to cooldown (in progress)

-Shadow mage
Aura particle effect created (aura in development)

-Light mage
7th ability added, skillshot aimer and cooldown timer
Mana regen bug fixed

-Pets-Player no longer starts with tentacle beast pet
Can now be damaged (needs work)
When they die they respawn (respawn point is strange, but it works)

-Experimental - ground texturing v1.0
New isometric ground textures for grass, lava, dark ground and snow

-Environment
Lava river reworked
New level texturing started (new realm)
objects have been added to the new realm

-Title text intensity dialed back

-Font updated on more of the GUI

-Particles for spawners
They look quite bad, but the depth fix improved them somewhat (in development)

-Misc/Engine
Optimised for speed with the help of the new Game Maker 1.3 debugger
Depth improved/fixed for many objects.
Collision boxes improved for many objects.

Known bugs

- 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 have a targeting issue against some skeletons, do not attack spawners, and currently cannot be targeted or damaged
-Tentacle beast pets all use fireballs

Roaming Death Alpha V0.89

Patch notes

-New particle effects (version 1.0)
fire mage abilities
shadow mage abilities
light mage abilities (not final)
enemy abilities
torches
-New GUI for weather
-New monster sprites
-New quest interface
-Added 5th fire mage ability
aura that casts fireballs at your enemies
-Bugfixes
light mage is still the buggiest
fire mage is the best right now (OP)

Get version 0.89 here.

Dev Blog - Roaming Death Alpha V0.9 (#3)

In this dev blog I will attempt to explain the things I'll be working on soon. I want to improve the game before I release the next version and I think I have found how to do it.

Particles
I have been using the built-in effects for abilities and weather so far, but they aren't very good for the abilities. A new tutorial on programming particle effects in GML means I should be able to make some of the effects look significantly better and run a lot faster than the built-in ones. I have started playing around with the particles so it shouldn't take too long.

Power-up and Weather Icons
I wrote about power-up bars in the first dev blog for this version, but I haven't done them yet. I am working on the weather icons first because they are more important.

Dev Blog - Roaming Death Alpha V0.9 (#2)

Upgraded monster sprite.

In this dev blog I will be going over some of the things I'll be working on this month in Roaming Death. I have  bunch of improvements that will make 0.9 a better experience overall.

Quest interface

I have made the quest starting interface in photoshop, and it looks nice. I am adding it to the game to go along with the quest rewards to make quests easy to understand.

Monster upgrades

I have updated the sprites of the "eyes". I now call them "tentacle beasts", and you will be rewarded one as a pet from the first quest, which involves killing a bunch of them.

New ability icons and auras

There is a 5th fire mage ability in the game (though not fully working yet). The ability, "aura of thrombosis", shoots auto-targeting fireballs at your enemies that also lock-on. Don't expect this ability to be available at level-1 though, it is for now because I need to test it. Also I made some other ability icons like a light mage 7th ability concept- a beam of light thats splits into two smaller beams on impact, and the (shadow mage?) concept aura "aura of stagnation"- occasionally blocks an enemy hit and returns a small amount of health and power.

Major bugfixes

I fixed an important bug that was halting progress and was responsible for the view, mana regen and skillshot aimer loss bugs. I also fixed the bug that was causing the pets to stand in one spot instead of following you.

Roaming Death Alpha V0.86

Patch notes

-Added the fourth ability for the fire mage
-Added weather system (rain/snow/wind/clouds)
-Added day/night cycle
-Added torches (lit with fire mage)
-Added a slow to the ice mage abilities
-Added difficulty icons
-Improved difficulty scaling
-Improved hp/mana GUI
-Improved title screen
-Fixed some bugs from last patch (some remain...)


Get the updated game here.