#projectMAGI

[kofisgrotto]

August 31, 2023 (Log 10)

I am aware it's already September, but I wasn't able to post this yesterday!

Just wanted to update y'all that the prototype is almost finished!

By that, I meant the bare minimum of the gameplay loop has been implemented. Though, still lacking many features that a full game would have, I'd say I can use this prototype for an actual game in the near future.

Other than that, just wanted to show this title screen I was able to put up for the game, as I prepare a blog soon that would show some gameplay of the prototype.

I might put this up on itch.io just to get my profile there going and for other people to be able to try this prototype out.

✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦

Stay tuned for more future updates! Thank you ~

[kofisgrotto]

August 29, 2023 (Log 9)

✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦

Basic gameplay loop of the game has been implemented!

Overworld to battle switch has been successfully done! Now I just need to make the player stats consistent from switching screens.

I was finally able to wrap my head around instancing which I've had plenty of trouble with in the past (and even today to some degree), but I made sure to document my learnings in a personal notepad that I can visit anytime.

✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦

While I'm here it's time to talk about

THE GAME ITSELF (or the prototype...)

✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦

Welcome to Project MAGI!

An RPG where you play as a wizard! Walk around in the overworld for long enough and you'll be greeted with plenty of random encounters (like old-school RPGs).

You will then be greeted into a 2D first-person shoot-em-up where battles happen in real-time and enemies can also attack in real-time with various projectiles and attack patterns. For now, the primary attack is through shooting projectiles at you.

Dodge by actively moving your mouse cursor to avoid enemy attacks.

I have provided general descriptions in the images to give a basic overview of what they are talking about. Continue reading if you'd like the more detailed explanations of the concept.

General Information about Project MAGI

Battle encounters will happen randomly. With an encounter calculation that I've borrowed from Final Fantasy VI.

Battles are not turn-based. They play out in real-time to encourage active participation from the player while rewarding skilful play through active bonuses. Like tech points in the first Kingdom Hearts game.

The battle area was intentionally made to be small to give enemies a chance to attack without getting damaged by the player, especially with special enemies and bosses.

Stuff I'm still unsure about...

Whether to add elemental mechanics in the game or not.

Ultimately I decided to go with sun (Solar) and moon (Lunar) type of attacks to keep elemental management to a minimum, but this may be subject to change.

For a bit of story premise, I'd like to think that the wizard lost his melee license as it was stolen by someone leaving him with only his magic license (hence, the shooting magic mechanic).

Related to the point above, I am not sure if I should go with a license-centered combat or sun-and-moon-centered combat.

Still debating whether battles would happen at random or not, but I'm leaning towards random battles for lots of surprises in the overworld!

Combos! Namely the combo pattern STUN -> STAGGER -> TUMBLE -> OVERWHELM whic is very akin to the various combos presented in the Xenoblade Chronicles franchise.

✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦

With all that said! I think this is it for this log, and I am quite pleased with the development of this prototype as it is going smoother than anticipated. I still have to keep my ambitions and expectation in check since I do not want to overwhelm myself with the goals of making a full game when I'm just creating a prototype.

Thank you for giving this long post a read! I'll definitely post more progress logs in the future about the prototype!

[kofisgrotto]

August 27, 2023 (Log 8)

✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦

Apologies for a few days of silence, but I got quite hooked in this new idea I've come up with for a game, and needless to say, it's going quite smoothly (with few bugs here and there).

Here's a screenshot of the current prototype I'm working on, and gave more effort to the graphics to make it look more appealing to look at.

A screenshot from a few days ago

The plan for this prototype (which will be named Project MAGI, for the sake of it) is to just provide players one room, one (or two) enemies, and one skill at most! Concept of the game will be further elaborated in a future post.

✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦

For this log, I'd like to highlight the stuff I've learned throughout the development of this game!

Scene switching (using autoloads which can save player's position and stats)

Progress bars (UI stuff, especially HP)

Parallax Scrolling

Plenty of UI elements (apart from progress bars

Simpler state machines (at least for this project) and...

Shader implementation! ... mostly copy-pasted though lol

✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦

I also have a dedicated Twitter account (@Kofikrumble_YT) for microblogs and stuff!

Mini Posts will be more frequent there at the cost of organization while this blog will stay as pristine as ever!

Thank you so much for taking the time to read, and I'll upload more about this project soon