Progress! Towers of Vallas is starting to feel less like an engine prototype and more like a game. I've been busy working on maps and adding content.
The overall game map layout has stayed mostly the same as in August. There are four towers, three levels each, connected to a central hub. One thing that has changed is the intended progression. Originally, the player was supposed to pick a tower and complete it from bottom to top... sort of a
Mega Man approach to level completion.
This idea hasn't panned out too well. For one thing, the higher levels are much too difficult. I could drop the difficulty of the top levels, but then the sense of player character strength gain is lost.
Game progression works out better if the player clears all the floor 1, then floor 2, and so on, maps. To keep the player from having to backtrack through the hub zone, I've started adding corridors between towers.
The player now has some more choices. Maybe they feel up to the challenge of completing a floor 2 early and reaping an early, strong reward.
Each tower has a rough theme: Shooters, Platforms, Dark, Melee
The platforming tower is the only one that can't be completed first, since the player will need to find the Jump skill book and enough exp to learn from it. Every other tower has an item or skill book that makes another tower's challenge easier.
Here are some other things I've been working on...
Little UI and graphical changes that make life easier. Chests now show with an open cover when all the items have been extracted. An icon shows what weapon is equipped. I thought about merging this icon with the move points meter, but later in the game you can find projectile weapons, and the ammunition count will have to go there.
I implemented reading. All skills are obtained by finding books, but the player must obtain a certain amount of EXP to learn from the book. Some books will grant experience when read.
A wide array of items can be found now: weapons, utilities (lamp and fuel), armor items, elixirs, books. I still haven't updated the inventory UI. There are already more than 15 items.
Here is a scene from Level3A (Dark Map, Level A). Dynamic lighting works on staircases. Longer readers of this thread may remember that staircases always caused all kinds of problems... so I'm glad to see that's working.
The lamp activates automatically when walking in and out of dark areas. The lamp burns fuel which must be found in various maps. It
is possible to stumble around in the dark, but dark areas sometimes hide pits and traps.
This is another room in Dark Map A. It has the easiest gimmick to overcome--the dark, but in turn it has tougher combat situations.
Deep inside Dark Map A is the parry book. Shield Block and Parry are very useful, since they allow you to block enemy attacks when standing idle (and a shield is equipped) and swinging a weapon respectively. I was a bit surprised how much easier the lower level enemies became once those items and skills were obtained.
All armor items have an encumbrance value which subtracts from the player's max move points. The max move points cannot drop to below half the actual max (max-max?
) but the player can gain strength by... what else, reading books! Rather than automatically gaining HP and move points, these are gained by reading just like all the other skills. So support your local library, reading is power
So far I'm happy with the feeling of progression. There's a definite reward for exploration: tough situations become much easier after finding the right items and gaining enough exp. Since I have books that reward exp, I can now reward players for finding secret areas.
