Augury Devlog #3

Howdy! This is my third devlog for Augury, and it marks the completion of the tasks for the MVP (minimum viable product).

As you might recall from last time I wanted to define a set of objectives (in my design doc) that would, when finished, result in a game-thing that you could play from beginning to end. This was to combat the usual thing I do in 1GAM’s, which is to noodle around on stuff till the deadline approaches, and then find that I don’t have an actual game so much as a loose jumble of mechanics.

So without further adieu, how did I do?

In the version of Augury that I uploaded today you can see every one of those points in action, with the exception of the last one, the audio. I decided after implementing some stuff that audio, for me, was not an MVP thing. It would be cool to do but it wasn’t my focus and having it be a necessity wasn’t working for me. Oh also I didn’t do a stamina bar for blocking or anything yet, but I’m fine with that as I DID mention it in the above points, but that was more a note to myself for the future.

As I discussed in my last development log, I changed to WASD from mouse movement, as it just felt about a million times better.

The struggle to stay on track

The toughest thing for me, since the last devlog, was not straying out of implementing stuff I’d defined as the MVP. Attacking has so many problems, including the collider always being active. So you could damage enemies by just running into them and rotating so your sword clipped through them without attacking at all. There were many others.

I kept myself to it though, no fixing or improving stuff until after the MVP stuff is done. It worked out great because now I have SOMETIME that can be played, even if it’s not the best thing ever. Now I can polish and improve to my hearts content, and it’s like a reward for having the discipline to stick to the important feature list.

Asset Forge

Was a huge help! I’ve already shown the swords and stuff that I made in it, which have been so great to have. BUT ALSO I made the level using it! I found a nice Dungeon tileset that someone on the forums for it had created and ran with it to craft my little arena,

Have some decent looking weapons, and also a level has been a good motivator for me if nothing else, makes the game feel less like a piece of shit.

Plans for the future

I’ve got a week and a bit left to work on Augury. With that time I’ve already been working on smoothing out some of the more egregious problems with attacking, some of which I mentioned above. Apart from that my main goal is to try to make what I have actually fun.

It’s definitely a little game right now, but I know I sure as shit wouldn’t play it more than once or twice. I want to get it a place where people might at least be tempted to give it another go when they’re finished.

Oh I suppose I also need to do the audio! That'll be fun.

Random ideas on what to improve

As to how to do that? I’m not really sure. I think having a stamina bar for blocking would be a good addition, so it’s not like you can block forever like you can now.

I think I also need to slow things way down. Right now the attacks, both yours and the enemies, are just so damn quick that it’s hard to do anything apart from just hammering the attack button and trying to kill them before they kill you.

Having more of a windup would both make your attacks feel more weighty, and more of a commitment - but also it’d telegraph the enemy attacks more so you could try to block or dodge strategically.

Maybe some kind of dodge move would be good too?

Adding some kind of power up, so you can charge up your attack and do more damage might be good too. Having the enemies also able to do it could add some nice strategy.

Better enemy AI would be great. They shouldn’t track to you from across the level, there should be some kind of distance check there before it kicks in. Also they all attack at the same time right now, they should probably have some kind of shared countdown so they don’t do that as it makes fighting them both not very fun.

On that same note more movement during combat is something I want to encourage, and I think to do that I probably need to add some small push backs when you hit and get hit.

On that note, more interaction effects with the world would really enhance how nice the simple act of playing the game would feel. I learned in my last 1GAM, Shatter, how important interaction effect are, and how much they improve the players sense of being physically in a reactive game world, not just floating above it. Stuff like the weapon bouncing back when it’s blocked, or the enemies weapons falling to the floor when they die, not them just disappearing.

Next 1GAM

I’ve been playing a lot of Fire Emblem: Three Houses lately and give it and my love of XCOM my next 1GAM for October is gonna be some kind of turn based strategy game. I just love that genre a lot, and I think it’s a good fit for a 1GAM.