The Daily Click

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Project Started:	19th December, 2010	Last Update:	5th March, 2017
Project Owner:	HitmanN	Project Members:
Project Type:	Dungeon Crawler Platformer	Project Progress:

Nth Update

Posted 15th Jan 12, by HitmanN

I'm happy to report that there's been steady, although slow progress. I'm focusing on tiny things on weekdays and bigger things on weekends.

Anyways, some highlights from recent times:

* Two new enemies for Gearworks, one variation of an old one in Halls/Catcombs.

* Regeneration skill revamp. Regeneration has been replaced with additional HP and MP orbs, obtainable from enemies. Sorry fellas, sitting in a corner waiting for HP or MP to build up ain't a valid strategy anymore. You wanna heal up, better get a move on and beat some enemies and loot containers!

* New skills to enhance HP and MP orb drop rates and potency.

* Character stats viewable in Skills & Talents window. Almost all the numerical RPG goodness in one place!

* Game Over screen, with an option to respawn in the village, for a small fee. One of the most common complaints from testers was dying and losing a lot of the stuff and experience gained, since the save points can seem scarce if there are many complex floors between them. And it is true. It's possible to have gameplay for up to half an hour between save points if you play carefully and thoroughly. Losing all the stuff from that time can feel punishing. Well, no more. Just keep some money stowed away for respawns.

Although I set no fixed plans, I have hopes for getting Twisted Tower chapter 1 done by the summer 2012. I just need to make sure I spend my free time wisely.

Posted by Eternal Man [EE]

15th January, 2012

This is looking crazy good!

That last screen tickles my statistics gland O_o

Posted by Del Duio

16th January, 2012

Another way to deal with regeneration (instead of axing it completely) might be to have a specific enemy who will appear and chase you down if a player's been standing still for too long to regen himself.

Posted by HitmanN

16th January, 2012

So you'd just regenerate by pressing left and right repeatedly. Same end result. You exchange your own time to get HP/MP.

It's not fun, nor challenging, and pretty much calls for players to exploit it, rather than actually do something to earn the HP/MP.

Posted by Del Duio

16th January, 2012

What if you only regenerated while standing still, and it didn't kick in until you were stopped for a second or 2?

Posted by HitmanN

16th January, 2012

Still the same result. You can get HP/MP by doing nothing challenging.

Regeneration works well in games that have a constant flow of enemies coming your way, or generally low health pool, so that the health fluctuates constantly, in which case regeneration is a brief benefit at best. Twisted Tower has a large HP pool in general, and is more about surviving as long as possible with what you have, until the challenge is too tough, and you need to back away, resupply and level up. Similar to Diablo/etc, except without the constant potion drinking. Diablo also has enemies that have attacks you can't really avoid if you go against a lot of enemies at once, particularly in melee. In Twisted Tower, you can always avoid damage if you play very well, so you don't need to constantly resupply HP. Only if you play badly and/or challenge too high level enemies too early and can't handle it.

Posted by Eternal Man [EE]

16th January, 2012

I've always been annoyed with hp regeneration methods.

The do-nothing-regain-hp method has only really worked for me in Vagrant Story. But that's because your hp-pool was very limited (starting at about 100~, 250~ at endgame) and every room was a potential death-trap most of the times, so you did everything you could to minimize hp-loss since it took forever to regain your hp. Instant hp-up's were scarce and gave you very little hp back. The heal spell became the mainly used hp-up(mp regenerated like hp, twice as fast but with a smaller pool).

Potions coupled with large, increasing, hp-pools have always been TH-E most absurd thing imo. Take the FF games for instance, where does the small team of adventurers hide 300+ (probably glass)bottles when trudging through the dark caverns? Who was the unlucky person that had to carry the sack? How on earth do you down 60 potions when your badly injured?

"Come on Cecil! Only 37 potions to go and you're fit for fight!"

"~Unngh..."

And also, why is it that our hero only needs to drink 1 or 2 potions to regain full hp from near fatal early on, but at end-game needs 50-60 to reach the same state of being?

The way to go, imo, is the multiple fillings potion, each filling restoring a fixed percentage of your maxHP. It's plausible that each character would carry one potion, making for 20-30 fillings or something in a standard rpg. The potion's "mechanic" so to speak wouldn't be as mystifying as FF's "slow-descent-to-uselessness-potions", each little filling would be invaluable for the player. And imagine the joy of finding a healing spring in the midst of a dark cavern!

It also opens up for the best power-up ever, THE LARGER CAN

ISTER! OoO

I've been thinking about that idea for ever so long. Hopefully, I'll be making a game where I can implent it.

So, there's my two I guess..

//EE

Posted by Windybeard Games

17th January, 2012

As always this game looks amazing, i totally agree with EE over the potions dilemma. Fixed percentage potions is the way forward, too many games seem to bulk out items by doing the potion, med potion, large potion, XTRALAAAARRGE Potion thing.

In diablo one of the most relaxing sights during the chaos was a tiny little fountain of red goodness that would fully heal, the frantic rush to grab it was a common piece of awesomeness!

Keep up the amazing work!

Posted by HitmanN

17th January, 2012

Well, both of you should be pleased with what I have done in TT so far. There are no carriable healing items, except healing spells. Shrines of Life, occasionally found in dungeons (and in town) also provide that hp filling goodness. I do plan to add some kind of carriable healing items though, but they'd be rare and weak, so you'll likely want to save them for bosses and high level grind sessions. Something like berries, maybe.

Posted by Del Duio

17th January, 2012

Potions with "charges" have been around since the D&D days. I can remember getting some mysterious bottle with enough liquid for 3 sips. Hopefully the DM wasn't a bitch that week and it'd be a healing potion and not an awful poison!

Posted by HitmanN

17th January, 2012

lol. The items for TT would definitely be one-use only for easier management, but to prevent excessive use of them, they could work like a brief regeneration, and you can't stack them. A lot of RPG's have used this method and I've found it quite suitable. Prevents those nasty FF type healings from near death to full health as well. ;P

Posted by Eternal Man [EE]

17th January, 2012

Another aspect to ensure a healing spring couldn't be exploited for careless grinding would be to add some sort of "tummy-counter"(?).

A strong potion or vial being a tad hard on the belly, so excessive drinking during brief periods would induce some sort of poison status. Would be kinda' neat!

Posted by HitmanN

17th January, 2012

That shouldn't be an issue, since the Shrines are one-use only, and levels are always random, and you won't be finding them often. The one in village is always usable though. That shouldn't be an issue either, since there are portals to the tower only after every 10 (or later 5) floors, so if you return to village before reaching the next milestone portal, you'll need to start again from the highest milestone portal you've reached. Thus there's very little point in running to the village to heal constantly. Only when you've reached a new milestone portal or when it's a good idea to retreat.

At least I haven't felt the Shrines to be an issue so far.

But I suppose a cooldown of some sort might be a good solution if it becomes an issue.
Comment edited by HitmanN on 1/17/2012

Posted by Eternal Man [EE]

17th January, 2012

Oh no, I was just thinking aloud about infinite-use springs in general, not especially in TT. I think the system you've explained for TT sounds balanced enough to not warrant any changes!

Posted by HitmanN

18th January, 2012

You did make a valid point though.

Posted by Del Duio

18th January, 2012

I kind of like the regeneration from potions only idea, HitmanN. You know Diablo, you drink a health or mana pot and it takes a couple seconds to fill up but if you drink a rejuvie it's an automatic fill.

Maybe something like that would work? Or maybe you could have an item mod that would increase the rate that a health potion fills your hp or mana when you drink it?

Posted by HitmanN

18th January, 2012

Potions won't be carriable though. There's a little background story to Arina's resource bag, which dictates that it's magically enchanted to hold near infinite number of natural materials for no weight at all. Anything articial or processed will take space and weigh its normal amount. Thus she can't carry an infinite number of weapons or spells, only those that she has the capacity to carry herself. So, if there was to be any carriable healing items, they'd have to be of natural origin, such as berries, vegetables, fruits, roots, gels, etc.

As for a skill that enhances the effects of such items, there's currently a skill to enhance the effect of lootable instant potions, which could also be expanded to improve the carriable items' effects.

Posted by Eternal Man [EE]

18th January, 2012

Haha, cool!

Posted by Eternal Man [EE]

22nd January, 2012

Hey it's sunday evening!
MAKE A NEW DEVLOG ENTRY WILL YA?

Posted by HitmanN

22nd January, 2012

Not enough new stuff yet.

Been working on smaller things, like new sounds, spell variations, status effects, stuff like that.

Posted by Eternal Man [EE]

22nd January, 2012