Codex devblog:

Here you will be able to follow the development of my main project. I will frequently update the page showing new features I implement, the reasoning behind it, but also the problems I encounter and what I learn along the way.

Power picking setup

Implemented aclassic roguelike mechanic, picking power! It will be tied to using scrolls picked up from killed monster. I saw that as an opportunity to play around with scriptable objects, which I am trying to get more used to. I wanted to create a way to quickly add new powers, shuffled and then given to the player as choices. I partially managed to do that, as I found no way to actually link the logic scripts into the scriptable object. After some hours of research and to avoid getting stuck further, I decided to hardcode the link to logic into the power picking logic: when you chose your power, it is checking the power ID you picked and then add the effect to you from a long list, instead of my inital design which was attaching the logic to each power card directly.

Buffs, Debuffs and Exitpoints

Decided it was time to dive back into my whole talents, buffs and debuffs system as I am getting close to designing characters. I am trying to get a system allowing me to easily implements “complex” spells with interesting effects. The difficulty I ran into is that each debuff/buff can be very unique so it is hard to come up with an approach that can fit all. When it comes to deciding if I want to refresh the existing one in case I reapply it, or extending it and so on. I will probably have to get back into it later after defining exactly what I need and the limitation of it, to end up creating a bunch of different way to handle each type of buff/debuff.



I also realised that the exipoint of characters had to be directly in front of them, not too far, and not slightly to the side and such, as it cause some annoyance if they are near obstacles or if you aim between the exitpoints and the character position, resulting in the character facing one way and the projectile going the other. Now that I think about it, almost every characters from games kinda respect this rule, especially big models that look silly when looking one way throwing projectiles in a complet different direction. It is an inconveniance you can play around if you use suitable animation, which I dont really have access to, as I am using the Mixamo premade animation.

More characters!

As I decided to give the game more of a roguelike identity, I decided to create different playable characters with unique mecanics and style. To do so I will use Modular Fantasy Hero Characters asset from Synty to create my different characters, maybe throwing some other heroes in the mix from their other assets. This allowed me to dive back into the player animator again to set things up to add character more easily after. I will have to find different animations for all of them, I am having some trouble with animation transition, which you can kinda see in the small video, as I am lerping the et weight of the different layers, even though it works I am not yet satisfied with the result.

I took the time to fix couple other things, like being able to break casting spell to move around, which can lead to some frustration. I also want to set up different animations for each spells later, all of them will probably come from Mixamo. In the background I am still brainstorming about all the possibilities of game systemx I want to add to give the game something unique while still be achiveable.

Gameplay update

Recently I was asking myself a lot of questions that should have been probably defined beforehand, which is about the core gameplay loop, game system, goal and so on. I have always thought about the game as a farming game, very Diablo style grind oriented, where you would just play your character and grind some interesting loot and have some cool gameplay features, that is indeed not the most interesting thing for most people if it doesnt come out with some kind of goal to achieve.
The past months I have played lots of roguelike game, Hades, Darksburg, Risk of Rain 2, and I just realised that it would be an excellent style to turn my game into, to give a real gameplay loop and so, a real game.
Now I really need to think about how to turn it into exactly that. A roguelike where you can start a run with a selection of fun characters with different skillset, get through some levels, customise your loadouts and find gameplay changing gears and spells along the way, then finish with a bossfight, to possibly unlock more features through another game system.
This is gonna take a lot of planning to exactly define each aspects and system, I need to keep things in perspective and not aim for some crazy unachievable complex game sytem but still come up with some cool enjoyable classes and a key main feature with some depth, that could give a bit of freedom when it comes to building your character during the run, giving the game some replayability.

UI fix and other bugs

I took care of a lot of UI bug, and discovered some new ones. I am also getting back into the save system which is definitly not working as intended. I also managed to implement the possibility to put items on the floor, which was destroying them before.

Boss fight mechanics implementation

I managed to set up an easy way to give the boss a mix of attacks, melee or ranged with custom range and effects. The next part will be creating a good boss AI with an interesting arsenals of mechanics.

Boss fight !

Now that we have simple monsters working, we need a proper boss to fight! To start with I picked a fierce looking enemy from the fantasy rival pack from Synty studio. I chosed the red demon for the potential fighter/fire magic theme of it. I will now focus on giving it more abilities to challenge the player, which will requier to create a whole new animator controller to experiment with more complex behaviours compared to standard basic enemies.

Improving ranged enemy arsenal

I decided to add a bit more depth to the ranged enemies by adding a new ability. Additionally to the simple magic projectile, I created a meteor falling from the sky with a visual warning indicator for the player to dodge them. I also added an “accuracy” stat for ranged enemy, allowing me to fine tune how close to the player position they will shoot. Right now the ranged enemies randomly cast the first or the 2nd of their ability, I might want to go back to that later and add a cooldown to a deadly new ability they’ll cast whenever available.