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Flats: Bumbleby
I decided to finish (for a certain definition of “finish”) this because it not being finished was bothering me. Now I wash my hands of this, as I’m unlikely to return to this show after the whole “Stalking and assorted crime is super cool if you’re an average-looking white guy” thing.
Starfall Dungeon – Units P.5
What’s there to say about this one? Here’s a beetle character that I probably shouldn’t use due to his being a modified Super Mario enemy that hasn’t been used for twenty-six years.
Regardless of potential copyright problems, Aldrin’s a speedster with decent attack but pretty low health. His skills focus on striking multiple enemies and interrupting casting.
Starfall Dungeon – Units P.4
Starfall Dungeon – Voyager
So, I continued revising Voyager’s design and I think this is about as good as I’m going to get with this. There was a slight alteration between the final sketch and the action pose because whatever the hell those booties are weren’t translating properly. I might put the paw pads back on her hands, though.
There are some areas in the action pose that need smoothing out; the neck brace and the bottom of the helmet come to mind. And that right leg is still all weird. I don’t know what to do about that. And her face could use some more work, too.
As for Starfall Dungeon, Voyager is the first unit you get. She’s faster than average with otherwise middling stats. Her greatest strength is that she can be extensively upgraded with higher stats and new abilities for a cheaper price than other units.
I’ll need to establish how upgrading works, as well as the units’ select screens and the like.
Starfall Dungeon – Units P.3
So, in Xenoblade Chronicles, the character Reyn says things and they are funny. Also in the Xenoblade Chronicles series, there are unique monsters with special names, such as Final Marcus; Confiscator Jimmy; and Joker, the Unknowable. Meanwhile, on the Internet, some bright spark on the Tumblr came up with a joke name for a Unique using one of the memes that Reyn says.
And it stuck with me to this day, so here’s Ringmaster Whatta & His Buncha Jokers. At the age of six, he was born without a face.
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Whatta doesn’t attack enemies directly; instead, he directs the Jokers to perform attacks in his stead. Each of the Jokers have an action command to allow the next Joker to perform another attack. Perhaps Whatta could have an attack where his Jokers attack a target indefinitely until the player misses an action command…
Besides attacking, Whatta could inflict debuffs and status ailments on enemies, perhaps? Such as: banana peels to prevent actions; blinding pies; seltzer spray to increase electricity-based damage… I dunno, clown nonsense.
Starfall Dungeon – Notes P.3
Some notes on how attacking will be performed. And a fish doctor named after a cat I saw once.
For attacking, I had considered using raycasting or collision detection for determining what gets hit for a little while. However, there is the issue of nonstandard positioning and character design that would complicate doing so.
A more reliable method of attacking would be having an array of characters, and I do love me some arrays. Each attack has different keywords that determine which array points will be affected. Attacks with the “Single” keyword allow the player to select a target, with additional keywords denoting acceptable targets: first, second, or third columns; ground or air. Attacks with the “Line” keyword automatically strike every target on a line, with most attacks automatically affecting their specified row; some “Line” attacks can target either the ground or air. And “All” designated attacks just hit everything.
Certain abilities or units can block attacks from affecting units behind them; positioning will be key to get the most out of these characters/abilities.
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So I volunteer at the Humane Society with cat enrichment, which probably isn’t smart because of my allergies, and I met with a cat named “Doctor Tuna”, which stuck with me. Of course, I already have a cat character and it felt a little early to start doubling up on character types. It’s not stopping me from having, like, three fish-based characters so far.
Doctor Tuna has a bunch of healing abilities and an attack with an animesque reaction image that has an infinitesimal chance of one-shotting a target.
Starfall Dungeon – Notes P.2
Some notes on the potential initiative system.
Like Child of Light, a game I still need to finish and hereafter referred to as “CoL”, the characters will travel along the initiative bar until they reach the “Casting” point. For “CoL”, that was a predetermined position near the right of the bar. For Starfall Dungeon, hereafter referred to as “SD”, that point is the center of the bar with the allied units traveling from the left and the enemy units traveling from the right, both on the top half of the initiative bar, hereafter referred to as TIB.
Upon reaching the center:
- Enemy units choose an action to “Cast”. Factors that will need to be determined are:
- Speed of the potential actions to be chosen
- Proximity of the allied units to their casting or action period
- Allied units perform an animation to indicate that they can act. The player can then select the unit to bring up the action wheel.
After an action is chosen, the unit will move down onto the lower half of the initiative bar, hereafter referred to as LIB, and start moving back to their starting position, allied units to the left and enemy units to the right. If the unit takes hit point damage while they are on LIB, they are moved back up to TIB to a point directly corresponding to how far along the unit was on LIB.
To extrapolate: if the unit had just chosen an action when they took damage, they would almost immediately be able to choose another action to perform; however, if the unit was moments away from performing their chosen action, they would have to travel almost the entire length of the initiative bar before being able to select another action.
Different actions take longer to perform than others. The speed of each action and the likelihood of being attacked while casting needs to be taken into consideration when selecting an action to perform. CoL had a mechanic that delayed the enemies while traveling along the initiative bar. It might be wise to add a mechanic that allows for manipulation of the initiative bar or to avoid casting at the wrong time. Perhaps adding an option to the action wheel, such as “Defend”, to do so?
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Also, there’s Pneuman. Him’s a springy piston man!
Starfall Dungeon – Units P.2
I have a tendency to reuse old characters in new projects because the attention deficiency means the old projects didn’t progress very far.
I’m bringing back Stark Bar and Morritriole as a couple of extremely high-end units.
Morritriole is an extremely powerful tank. While he can’t force enemies to target himself, he hits hard and can soak hits like a champ. In exchange, he uses a lot of Mana for his special moves and takes up two slots in the party. His natural ability to adapt to any situation almost instantaneously provides him with a wide variety of abilities to use and reduces sequential damage of the same type.
Stark Bar, being born on a moon encased in the electrical field of a gas giant, has a rubbery body that’s resistant to bludgeoning and fire and immune to electricity, though the trade-off is a weakness to cold/ice. He’s got slightly above average stats across the board but his second trait randomizes his initiative speed after each action (between .25x and 1.25x his base speed).
Starfall Dungeon – Units P.1
The big thing about this new game idea is the large number of units that I’ll need to come up with and animate and spec out. I have good ideas that are within reason and aren’t time-consuming.
I did some more renditions of Zegg to try to find a good balance of head-to-body. I’m still not getting the quite right vibe off of him but, like with Voyager, I have no idea what the “right vibe” looks like.
Joker is a gambling/card-based character. His attacks deal random damage or random effects; he’s also the first one I’ve developed with traits. It becomes less and less likely for a specific damage/effect to occur the more often it happens in a row and he either doubles or destroys all loot that’s found. He’s high-risk, high-reward.
Wulfred is the first tank. He’s slow, but draws aggro easily. Wulfred’s based on a St. Bernard, a Tibetan monk, and the fictional concept of these dogs carrying barrels of brandy about on their collars.
Christmas Cards 2017
Merr Cristo, er’ybody!
Here’s the cards I drew for Christmas. There’s Lucifer from the webcomic, Paranatural, which is absolutely amazing; there’s my character, Bravo, dressed like my trainer in Pokémon Ultra Moon; here’s an aggressive pine tree with a present; and a Raichu, the best Pokémon.
Sadayoshi Entertainment 