Today’s Music Choice: “Shelter from Wind and Rain” (Extended Version)
Just a classic tune from The Tenth Line. New music is still in the works, so for now, here’s an extended version of a perfectly pleasant piece from the original game.
I dunno; those dragons look awfully sketchy to me.
Puns.
Progress Update
Unsurprisingly, this update will be nothing but progress on The Tenth Line Special Edition, which I’ve been feverishly working on over the past week and change. Fortunately, most of my progress has been graphical (or mechanical) in nature, which means lots of pretty pretty screenshots! Let’s get started.
First, the hard-to-convey stuff: I’ve finished implemented all of the core mechanical changes and improvements I had in mind. These will help make the game more pick-up-and-play, and also skew things to a slightly (very slightly) less hardcore crowd. This essentially means skimming off a couple of redundant mechanics and either folding them into lower-level mechanics, or eliminating them entirely. For instance, I eliminated the “bonus” to training in the last major update. The original intent was to reward upkeep on your characters, but in practice, it could easily be seen as busywork. I’ve made a few changes along those lines for the Nintendo Switch version, which I will no doubt awkwardly repeat over and over in each subsequent progress report.
In more direct mechanical news, I made a few simple changes to the juggling system as well. For one, I reduced enemy “gravity” while also increasing their mass, meaning it’s harder to pop them up, but they stay suspended longer. It’s a more “floaty” feeling now, but it also makes the juggle timing a little bet less surgically precise. I also added a golden glow to critical hits, so you know exactly when you’ve struck a nerve, so to speak. It’s a little bright right now, so I’ll probably tweak it soon. (Maybe a double outline thing so the numbers are more legible.)
Next, I’ve also done some refinement to the character status screens. This is mostly cosmetic, except where mechanics have changed. For instance, Tox’s affinities are only in the positive now, so I revamped his elemental bars to reflect that. Also, with weapon levels removed, I have some extra space to play with, so I added cute little sprites beside each major interface element. Lastly, skill cards are getting a major revamp soon, so I’ve been playing around with their presentation and added the “dragon” motif for a little texture. This is due to change in the coming weeks, too.
A few more mechanical changes: I changed the way “power stars” in the world work. Now, picking up a star will grant power to all three heroes instead of just the one who picked it up, so that’s a bit more simplified now. I also loosened the “assist range” for allies who are too far away to join a battle immediately, and finished adding Tox’s “change element” button-press command in the regular mode. This manifests as a new skill called “Dragon Phase” which replaces his old “Dragon Snack” skill.
Tangentially related, but I also finished adding in all the correct button prompts across the entire game. This was not as easy as I’d hoped – for some reason, Unity decided to delete every prompt in the game (they all turned up as “Missing” sprites) when I replaced the button graphics, so I had to go through every screen, every stage, and every NPC, and add them all in by hand. That’s done now, and I don’t want to talk about it anymore.
And related to that, I also removed the “betting” aspect from card players. Now, playing with them is free, and the dialogs have been updated to reflect this.
Lastly, I’ve made a dent into the biggest piece of the project so far: revamping all the particle effects in the game. I teased this last week, but I finally have a few things to show. I’ve finished about half of the battle effects for the player characters, and some of them are looking pretty snazzy.
Okay, maybe fire isn’t the most interesting example of what’s changed, but I had it handy, so here you go.
Related to this, but I also completely changed how status effects are portrayed in battle. Instead of a blinking color highlight, now each effect has a unique particle effect that attaches to an ally (or enemy) when they’re affected. They’re still color-coded, and they’re a lot more useful than whatever I was thinking with the original system. It’s nice to come back to a project after 3-4 years and really look at it from the ground up with fresh eyes. Nice, and stressful.
And speaking of which, I’ve also been pruning the battle UI a bit. I added in those motif textures here and there, fixed Tox’s affinity meters, made some general improvements to text, and sleeked up the Momentum bar (as well as added a flashing effect to the fill portion that increases as momentum is built up). It’ll probably change a bit more as I get closer to the end of development. We’ll see.
This week, I plan to finish up the remaining particle effects across the entire game (hero attacks, enemy attacks, ambient effects, and special effects within the world). That will likely take up my entire week. I also want to improve some of the audio to go with these effects, and do a little more tightening up of attacks to make things feel a bit more snappy.
After that, I need to finally get around to implementing the save data handler, so I’m not forced to test play the first level over and over again and I can finally try the new mechanics game-wide. I don’t think that will take too long. I don’t want to call this whole project a self-imposed “crunch” time, but I have been working about 50% longer each day. At the same time, I’m enjoying it, and I’ll have lots more to share as we draw closer to release.
