Devlog

This week:

Huge addition - procedural maps! Also: more tilesets, collectables, animations, and juicey juice!

Art

• Final draft of the Poster!

• Forest ruins tileset

• Forest tower POIs

• Glowflower and treasure chest art + animations

• Animated hero movement

• App Icon/Logo

• 2D and 3D sprite outline shaders (looks great!)

• Tightened up the Evil Eyes for easier recognition at a glance

Code

• Fixed usings (and turned on a code clean-up profile!)

• Implemented CLC procedural noise system with minor variations (no Jobs, Y not Z axis)

Gameplay

• New random map system to generate a region dynamically from seed

• New mechanic for cascading fog reveal if adj tiles are 'empty'

• Dialog UI polished up some more, Profiles more visible, Choices section more consistant

Juice

• Status effects and Glyph usage now run full screen overlay to emphasis the effect

• Enemies appearing from the darkness burst in with a shower of leaves

Next week

• Fix

  • Revealing entities triggers further tile cascades

• Gameplay

  • Add Glyph Management UI (and determine rules on when it's accessible)

  • Nature event each turn for tile you/convoy are on

  • Enemy encounter

    • It's basically a 'battle' but via dialog…

    • Not just a CYO branch to best outcome - limit RNG too

    • Player should be able to access a toolkit of options (spend resources/fortitude, consume items or glyphs etc, take debuffs)

      • Must feel like Macgyvering a solution each time (RNG here to present unique situations)

      • Can be influenced by map factors (weather, region status)

  • 'Special' glyph dedicated to events (ie for those nature events, but also enemy/convoy)

    • Kind of a Defensive glyph, lets you try influence what you want from the event

    • e.g. Sins???? Greed Pride etc have benefit and drawbacks. Can be upgraded like other glyphs

      • Greed - Grants extra items in a collectable event (forage food etc)

      • Greed - Removes any dialog choice that involves giving supplies (buy your freedom from a spider)

  • Juices

    • Animate all 2d doobers (hero/enemy/convoy)

    • Juice tiles so panoramic view of the map is 'busy' - lots of things to draw your eye, invite you to explore etc

    • Start investigating Juicing dialogs!

• Coreography

  • Camera movement system (follow a spline?)

  • Map control system (slowly darken tiles in a circle into a point)

  • Synchronize systems with each other (animation keys?)

• Arts

  • Re-orientate tiles so Enemies appear on RHS (allows entire back of tile to be a 'scene' of whatever the tile is… trees, bushes, tower etc

  • More scenery

    • A creek/river

    • Thin out the empty space a bit more

  • Nature entities

    • Destructible bushes

  • Increase size of per tile dimensions

    • Research this… good to decide soon before too much art made

  • Consistantize(?) pixel dimms of similar assets

    • Profiles

    • strategy icons

    • map icons

    • Glyph icons

    • Phase icons

    • Status icons

    • Text atlas icons

  • Consistantize materials for entities

    • Convoy should be unlit basically

  • Fix the horses nose! (or wait… might change the name to something more easily relatable)

• Camera

  • Cycle zoom modes if clicking Hero while Hero in focus

  • Free look over map (mouse? Arrows? Controller?)

This week in review:

All code baby! (I hate shaders)
  Toon Shadows

• • Custom shadow colours

•  Enemy AI

  • Alerts immediately if lit up

  • A*(priority queue) pathing to locate nearby targets

  • Moves on same turn alerted

  • Re-hides in darkness

    • Doesn't immediately forget it's target, will hunt a bit longer

    • Will calm down eventually

  • Alert icon now part of enemy prefabs

  • Foundations for complex behaviours in place

• Light system

  • Refactored to be tile based instead of physic engine

  • Dedicated lighting system implemented

  • Tiles now have shade themselves as needed

  • Entities now respond to light/dark as needed

  • Convoy now has a functional torch system

• Hero

  • GP now used to WASD move too

  • More detailed error reports during movement

• Maps

  • Refactored data structures to support A*

• Camera

  • Tracking per movement (hero, convoy, enemy) impl

  • Swap focus via the Phase Bar (jump to hero, convoy, enemies etc)

• UI

  • Notifications

    • convoy (nearly here, arrived etc)

    • Torch (running out, off)

Next week

• Code tweaks

  • Remove UnityEngine.SocialsPlatform from HeroController! (why is it there??)

  • Remove UnityEngine.Pool from BaseDataAsset !?!??!

  • Remove UnityEditor.Progress from EntityDataAsset

  • Restore immediate adj targeting for Enemy (even in darkness)

• Gameplay

  • Add start tile selection (with previews!)

    • Cascade revealed tiles each turn (like og minesweeper)

  • Juices

    • Evil stare overlay!

    • Activated enemies!

      • Noise!

      • Sparkles?!

    • Activated glyph

      • Gotta feel 'solid' -> omph

      • Overlay similar to evil stare?

      • Lighting changes

      • It's a Big Deal ™

    • Animate all 2d doobers (hero/enemy/convoy)

    • Replace move next tile with just a single icon that indicates more tiles are here (a question mark?)

• Arts

  • More scenery

    • Ruins

    • Trees

    • A creek/river

  • Nature entities

    • Glow flower

    • Destructible bushes

  • Increase size of per tile dimensions

    • Research this… good to decide soon before too much art made

  • Consistantize(?) pixel dimms of similar assets

    • Profiles

    • strategy icons

    • map icons

    • Glyph icons

    • Phase icons

    • Status icons

    • Text atlas icons

  • Consistantize materials for entities

    • Convoy should be unlit basically

• Camera

  • Cycle zoom modes if clicking Hero while Hero in focus

  • Free look over map (mouse? Arrows? Controller?)

After an extended break we're back and things are moving fast!

A lot of designs have been thrown away (sad!) to help keep the focus on fun and delightful gameplay.

Art has refocused on 3D, with 2D centerpieces (i.e. the Hero), and a decidedly last century vibe

[] []

This week in review:

Bit of Art bit of Music bit of Code

• Spooky eyes in the dark!

• Darker map, better depth of field

• Multiple Spider types (visual only atm)

• Enemy prefabs are now 3d Card based

• Convoy prefab is now 3d Card based!

• Convoy AI rebuilt enough to navigate empty map

• Scout glyphs for revealing the map

• General glyph/charm enhancements

  • Glyph upgrade mechanics (non-UI)

  • Glyph System to centralise all glyph interactions (take logic out of state/game manager/hero etc)

  • GP limitations implemented and visualized (on Phase bar)

• Turn based gameplay refactored and functional

  • Phase bar!

  • Tie all open ended holds to UI

• More impactful status effects

• Item/Stat changed effects

• Notification View and some helpful messages

• Sound track starting to come together

  • main theme has been decided!

  • Region main instruments (piano, guitar, harp etc)

• Spiders! region for testing tight game loops

Next week:

• Enemy AI!

  • Alerts in light

  • Alerts to nearby hero/convoy

  • Moves immediately

  • Re-hide if in darkness?!

• Juice game screen

  • Evil stare overlay!

  • Activated enemies!

• Light alerts enemies immediately

  • Per tile light/shadow system

    • Needed if outline still used, not otherwise

    • DECIDE if outline to continue

• Cinematic camera mode

  • Follow convoy movement

  • Follow enemy movements

  • Zoom to convoy if clicking the Phase bar

  • Cycle visible enemies if clicking the Phase bar

  • Zoom to Hero if clicking the Phase bar

    • Cycle zoom modes if clicking Hero while Hero in focus

• More scenery

  • Ruins

  • Trees

  • A creek/river

• Animate all 2d doobers (hero/enemy/convoy)

• Increase size of per tile dimensions

• Replace move next tile with just a single icon that indicates more tiles are here (a question mark?)

• Notify the turn before the convoy arrives

A lot of work has gone into this second core alpha, based on amazing feedback from the initial core alpha release.

Thank-you to all players taking time to try out these very rough versions of Raccoonnoitre and share your opinions!

Core Alpha 2 will see Raccoonnoitre near full technical functionality; with only audio and settings remaining. Major changes include

• A World Map mode for easy movement between regions

• Random quests at Taverns

• River fording challenges

• Hero UI for managing all the things (convoy/charms/glyphs/items etc)

• Collectable items

• NPC stats that benefit/impact the convoy

• Hero status effects

• Charm belt and action queue redesign

• Basic Enemy AI

Find the game on itch.io at notgooddigital.itch.io/raccoonnoitre 

Full changelog:

• improved dialog ui

• restart map and loading scene

• tutorial maps

• POI Maps, lake, deadtree, nest

• enemies alert and follow player, entity actables now occur in sequence (during phase too!)

• initial river rush map mode

• PC mode in region maps functional

• completed fetch quest functionality - collect wood finished

• a lit tile auto reveals adjacent tiles when revealed

• initial side quest system

• random encounters

• POI maps, farmhouse, ruined farmhouse, ruins

• inn and markets on world map, fog, fixed random entity spawn functionality

• carry limits (basic) implemented

• world movement costs functional

• world map into region and back functional

• initial world map functionality

• equip charm dialog for entering new area

• glyph limits, single/double glyphs and simple movement

• ui status effect system implemented, free movement in light enabled

• 32bit pixel UI, charm belt implementation

• NPC effects implemented, started resource system

• improved collectible rewards

• edit glyph screen finished

• almost finished edit glyph UI

• light source tweaks and collectables added to minimaps, torch item created

• collectable actables and entities setup

• journal tab in backpack, start of journal system, moved inventory icons

• hero and collectables menu UIs

• convoy UI menu improvements

• Select Charm Facet use case implemented, end to end buying item glyph functional, gain glyph popup

• main hero menu page based UI, charm and glyph pages

• settings window mocked up