A bit of a Break

Got a bit burned out with the Ai and decided it was time to have a bit of a break from making the game. 

Haven't given up on it. Been reading books and playing games of the same genre to give me more ideas for the game.

A* is finished

I have successfully added A* to the game. It seems to be working quite well I just have to update the wolf code to have the animations follow the path and add in line of sight code to have it be a bit better.

With this I have even got the A* to update the obstacle list to remove the node the tree is one once said tree has been removed. 

A* PathFinding

In the process of adding A* pathfinding into the game. This is the first time I have attempted to do pathfinding so it is taking me a little more time than I originally thought.

This is a test gif of the code working from random locations.

This is an image of the wolf enemies having the code and trees acting as obstacles.

Save game info

I have made it so the save games will now display as date and time. They will also give player information so you can tell what save is what. Also added a confirm window when overwriting a save file.

New Trees and Dropping Items

Been working on adding new trees to the forest and the ability to cut them down and collect wood from them. Each tree is saved when leaving the area and will be added to the save file next time I go over them.

I normally go over the saves just before a major release. Saves me time and I don't really want to rewrite the save code every time I add something new to the game.

The trees are drawn in a way that puts the player either in front or behind the tree. Unfortunately I am unable to figure out how to do that with any other moving object, so the wolfs will look like the trees grow out of them. I am sure there is a way to figure it out in the future.

Gif of new tree and material dropped.

All wood is usable in the fireplaces at the Tavern and can also be sold to the tavern owner.

Using the trees as a reference I managed to be able to get items that are discarded to drop at the players feet. This is only doable as of now in the town. Once the code if finalized and working properly I will add it to the rest of the game world.

Gif of dropping potions on the ground.

The gif only shows potions being dropped but it is working on 80% of items that are already in the game. I will also make it easier to discard items. May bring back the right mouse button to do it.

Extra.

All herbs and mushrooms now save their locations when the map is changed. They will also respawn after a set amount of time has passed if all have been picked up.

Version 0.14

Version 0.14 is now finished.

I have updated the change log to show most of the changes. This is a big update because it changes old and adds new systems to the game.

New death screen and respawn penalties.

New damage system.

New armor system.

New shop and money system.

Read change log for most of the changes. I may of missed a couple.

Also updated the readme file in game folder

Updated download on the right to link to version 0.14 and also added a link to the games builds archive.

Bug fixing and Saving

Been working on squashing all the bugs that have appeared over the last few builds. Found out build 0.13 is full of game breaking bugs. My bad.

Finished fixing the last of the texture bugs yesterday.

Apothecary shop texture bug.

The above error was happening in all shops. All textures were being replaced with the last texture that was loaded.

That is all fixed now.

I have moved on to fixing saving the game. With all the new items and features I have added lately the save files have all been broken. Cant say how long it is going to take to fix them.

Once the game saves properly again all I need to do is run some test and I will have a new build ready for people to try out.

Bug Fixing and New Death Screen

Been busy squishing bugs and getting everything to work nice.

Fixed bug with quests.

Fixed a memory leak.

Fixed bug that stopped you respawning.

Fixed bug that crashed the game if you died in a shop.

Made a new death screen and respawn penalty.

New Death and Respawn Screen

The penalty atm is not that much. When you respawn what every mana you had will become your health. No mana means no respawn.

Will have more penalties in the future but this is it for now. May have it use up potions or money if you don't have any mana to respawn. Also going to have you backpack drop where you died and give you the ability to set your respawn location.

Almost done for next release

Been working hard on getting the game to a stable build for the next release.

Finished up the shop today, got the armor displaying properly, got the new weapon names and descriptions in, added a log for when you pick up herbs and have the damage system working well with the new armor.

Just need to iron out some bugs that I have come across. There was a memory leak when the quests respawned, which I fixed today.

The Quests need a huge overhaul but I will leave that for later on. They work well enough for now.

All that I need to do is play the game and fix any bugs that appear or change anything that isn't user friendly.

After I am finished with this version I will start making the crafting system and add the Adventurers Guild. 

Will move the quest board to inside the Guild. Will also be adding rooms to rent from the Guild so you can store things in there - feature requested.

You will need recipes to be able to craft things. Potions you will be able to figure out by eating the ingredients or just trying to use them to craft something.

Maybe not next update but in the near future I will be making skills purchasable books you will need to learn. You will be able to learn them over time by repeating the task but that would take a long time. Harvesting skill my take picking herbs a 1000 times before you acquire the skill. If you pick a starter perk that has a relevant skill you will automatically obtain said skill. Farmer perk will get the farmer skill and harvesting skill.

Magic will be the same as the skill books and will need to be purchased unless your pick the Magicians Child starter perk, then you will start with a couple spells. There may be NPC's in game who will teach you magic as well.

Armor

I have almost finished with the armor. I have got them to randomly build in the shop and set a name and description based on the materials used in crafting them.

Pricing still needs to be fixed to work with the new armor, but other than that is seems to be working well with no bugs. Will still be tweaked as time goes by.

Even made the armor lose layers if their health goes below 0. Will make it so you can only repair the armor if the base is over 0. Also make it so damage layers will need to be removed before fixing or upgrading. 

Gif of new names and descriptions.

Also made so in the shop if you hover over the buy or sell list the item info will appear. Still need to look into being able to remove items off either list one at a time, so you don't need to reset the whole list if you make a mistake. 

Game Systems

While I was working on the shop I had to take another look at the armor. Well, one thing led to another and I had to redo the armor/damage system.

So I have started an upgrade on the armor/damage system for the game. Armor will come with 3 different parts. A base, reinforcement and plated. The armor names will be set by what they are made out of. Except for special ones.

Base: This will be what the under-armor is made of. Like a shirt you can add bits of metal to.

Reinforcement: This addon will be used to make the Base stronger.

Plated: This is to add plating over the top of your Base or Reinforced armor.

Concept Art of new armor.

Material Strength and Naming

May make it that the reinforcement only adds halve or 3 quarters of the material strength. I am open for ideas. 

I'll be working on adding new reinforcement and plate armor for steel and other materials. This is getting ready for the ability to craft or repair you own armor. As seen in the bottom armor where the plate isn't as good as the other iron plate. This will be due to skill level.

If this new armor works well I will add in different types of leather to increase the base armor. Each material comes with a hardness or armor rating and adds to the total armor amount.

The new damage system, still needs tweaking, will damage the armor layers first before inflicting damage onto the play. I tried to use percentage base damage but that didn't quite workout. So now the armor acts like a second health bar. Much like it did back when I first put armor into the game.

There is also armor skills that will negate a percentage of incoming damage per level if wearing the armor of said skill, this is totally op at high levels but it will be very time consuming to get to that level. At level 20 in light armor skill you negate 84% of damage.

Other than the armor/damage system I am working on atm I have finished the basics of the new money system. Money is now an in game object. You even have a wallet/pouch to hold it in. Atm you need a wallet or you can't carry any money but I made it so you start the game with one, for now. Going to add "that if no wallet money go in pocket" code later, mainly so it's possible to lose your wallet or have it stolen or to steal someone else's.

Once I am happy with the armor and the damage system is working well I am planning on posting the new build. The next system I want to work on is a searching system where you will be able to search any container or area marked as searchable to find locally based items or rubbish.

I also want to look into using a different character model that has more movements and weapons to use. I am no artist so I need to find or get someone else to make them for me. 

New Armor and Weapons

Added new armor and weapons into the game to work with the new shop system. 

New armor comes with new textures, names and descriptions.

New weapons comes with new names and descriptions.

All new items will stack based on name and durability. Prices are set by durability and quality of said item.

Image of the new armor pieces.

Original pieces of leather armor were created by "Johannes Sjölund AKA Wulax". I modified them to add the metal parts.

Also fixed up the pause menu and some other things that need some attention. New build will be out once I have the shop ready for testing.

Money System Update

I have finished the new money/shop system for now. It seems to be working quite well. Still need to tweak the UI but that can wait for a bit. Once I have finished all the testing I will get around to posting a new build. 

At the moment the trade has to be equal. 

Still have to move the "Add Money" text to better spots and also need to redo the flavor text for items to display the same way the money does.

Money Redone

Today I focused on changing the way money works in the game and how the shop UI looks. 

Above you can see I have removed the text displaying money amounts and added in pictures with values next to them. I also updated the info display to tell you what each coin is and what it is worth.

Next I decided to change how you spend money.

Before money was just a number with no physical nature to it. So I turned it into an item.

No more auto cash payments in shops, now you have to select a coin and add it. 

No more auto update to high tier coin. Before when you say got 10 small copper that would automatically convert to 1 large copper. Well no more. You will need to find a bank or a trader who is willing to convert your coins for you. 

Still considering adding a limit to how many coins you can carry. Or adding carry weight into the game. Because it does sound strange if you could carry 1000 coins in your wallet.

Here you can see how you will be able to add money to your buy order. If the shop owner allows it they will let you exchange coins. There will probably be a loop hole I will be unable to fix that will let you exchange coins if there is an item in the list, but that will be a future me problem.

Still needs a fair bit of work to clean up and there are a couple problems, like the total only showing the value of one item and not the entire stack.

Engine Update

So I took a break over Christmas and New Years.

I have spent this afternoon and a chunk of the night updating Raylib 3.0 to Raylib 4.2. 

It doesn't sound like a hard job but I was using a standalone version of Raylib 3.0 and to update it I had to manually move the required files over to my game directory. So it took a lot longer than I first thought it would take.

I did run into an error that will need to be fixed or a work around made so it may take me a bit longer before I upload another build.