Monday, August 18, 2008

Sigmore Mines 2 - Magical effects video

Hi, I think it's time for some video of SM2 :). To show you various effects like fireball, frozenball, poison, and generic magic effect used when you cast spells on yourself, I have lowered the mana requirements of spells, so keep that in mind because not all of those spell are available from the begging in game.






Thursday, August 14, 2008

New spells

I'm still working on spells for my game. Right now I have eight of them :
  1. Fireball - makes fire damage on a single target
  2. Frozenball - makes cold damage on a single target, also stuns target for a few turns
  3. Poison spell - for a few turns target is receiving poison damage
  4. Kindling spell - for a few turns target is receiving fire damage ( I don't know if this name is okay.. I just don't feel that "sets on fire spell" sounds good)
  5. Probe spell - gives information about the target
  6. Attack rating boost spell - for a few turns caster is receiving attack rating bonus
  7. Defense rating boost spell - for a few turns caster is receiving defense rating bonus
  8. Healing spell - heals the caster. I'm a bit concerned about this spell, I remember someone said that SM1 was hard before introduction healing spell and too easy with it.. Maybe I should remove this spell or allow it only with easy difficulty setting.
From comments on my blog I try to implement also :
  1. Spell converting healing potions to mana potions
  2. Spell which reveal the map
  3. Townportal - it's already implemented as a scroll, I have a concerns that making it a spell which is available for the player at any time will make game to easy (the same as with healing spell)
Spells from my ideas but I don't know if I will add them soon - they need friendly AI.. :
  1. Charm monster
  2. Summon monster
  3. Identification spell
Also some ideas from the readers are already in the game (BenoƮt's mostly).

Saturday, August 9, 2008

SM2 progress..

You know what? I should hire someone to create titles for my posts...


Right now I have healing spell and fireball spell which means that I have a working code capable of handling spells casted on self and spells which require targets. In addition to that, now I can display a graphical effect of casted spell, like fireball explosion on target or magic "mist" while casting healing.

What concerns me is the complexity of the code. I mean, the game is not even near completion, but still at the current state it is a "big cow".. I think I need to start documenting my code :D.

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

First magic spell implemented!

I finally implemented first magic spell in my game.. It took me some time, because I didn't neither have time nor the idea how to implement it properly (and I still don't know if I did it right..). But anyway here I am with my healing spell. When user presses 3, spell menu shows up with spells divided into such categories as: attack spells, defense spells, other spells. From this menu the player can cast a spell, view it's description or bind a spell to the speed cast key (9).

There are some minor differences compared to Sigmore Mines 1:
  • Now spells have something like rest time needed after use -> if you will have to wait 4 turns after casting healing spell you will rather not be using it in battles do you?.
  • Spells have levels, but you will be not able to level up a spell just by using it. Instead you can buy(or find) spell books to learn a spell on the desired level. That way I have more control over magic balance.

One more thing. There is a slight chance that I have found a person who could help me on graphics:). I told her to try her skills at drawing effects for the casted spells. I'm curious what will come up from this. Time will show. See you till next post.