DysConnection

This week, I spent a lot of time painting shadows. It’s much like baking lighting if you baked with your hands in the oven. I had painted some things with shadow before, but I overlooked how much better everything would look if I painted EVERYTHING. Well, I painted as many of the objects that I could.

Prior to painting many objects and areas, things were flat and boring. Now they are more dynamic, and it can help with visual clarity as well.

Besides the painting, I’ve been steadily fixing bugs and improving mechanics thanks to the help of my cousin, who has been playing through the current build. They’ve been extremely helpful, and I owe them a lot of gratitude.

There was a problem with projectiles. The ones that were supposed to travel in an arc would shoot way too fast at close range. There was no way to react. That is no fun. I changed this by making the arc much higher at close range, but it will instead fall faster. That way, it doesn’t take too long to make contact with the ground or target.

The biggest change I recently made is a mechanic I’m calling DysConnection (thank you again to my cousin for the name). It can be triggered when an enemy has a status ailment and is hit by an attack with an element. The same element will simply do a decent amount of damage, while a different element will have a unique effect. For example, Heat mixed with Shock will trigger an AOE, which is useful when facing more than one enemy. In both cases, the status ailment will end/disappear.

I made this change to give more depth to the magic system and to give players more choices on how to engage with it. They can consume the enemy’s status ailment or allow it to play out. At least that’s how I see it. When it comes to how players will react, I can only have my best guess.

So far, I’m feeling good about many of the changes. There is steady progress, and squashing bugs is a very regular thing. If there are no bugs, is it really a game?