Welcome back to another Project Gamechanger devlog! Tons of progress was made this week by the game development team as we continue developing Depths of Erendorn. Several character models were textured, skinned and posed, NPCs now have better use of their abilities and the Game Client underwent several changes and fixes. We’re excited to share this week with you so let’s get started!
3D Character Modelling
A lot of progress was made with our character models this week. Not only did our 3D Artist begin working on creating our female Forest Druid, he also completed the female Storm Elf base texture. If you've been keeping up-to-date with every devlog over the last few weeks, then you'll know how excited we are to finally see these models come to life.
After comparing the Storm Elf models with the Twilight Elf models, we decided to make the Storm Elves’ ears longer so that there was another piece of distinctive anatomy between the two races. Our 3D Character Artist is now focussing his time on creating the clothing for our female Forest Druid - so keep an eye on our future devlogs if you want to see the final result!
Animation
This week, our Animator worked on creating a series of Watertarg classes. There are many different types of Watertarg in Depths of Erendorn. While the Watertarg Excursionist is a playable character in the game, Watertarg Wardens, Protectors and Silencers all appear as enemies in Depths of Erendorn and these were the models that our Animator created this week:
- Skinning of a standard Watertarg body was completed and used as the base for all Watertarg models.
- Different styles of clothing for each Watertarg class were skinned. This gives each model a unique identity.
- A few different poses were created for each model in order to show their different personalities through their body language.
The final thing our Animator did this week was to skin the clothes of the Watertarg Deserter series, which includes a Watertarg Deserter, Searcher, Traveller and Walker. If you want to know more about the Watertarg race, then keep an eye on our race profiles because next week, we'll be telling you all about them.
Server
A bug was introduced to the server this week that stopped certain Entity States, like Rooted and Disarmed, by making them expire on the first turn that they were applied on. This issue was resolved so that the Entity States (Rooted, Stunned, Disarmed) now count down correctly and work correctly.
In addition to the states working again, states can now be configured to count down at either the start or the end of an entity’s turn. The state Invisible, for example, now counts down at the start of an entity’s turn.
Changes and Fixes to Abilities
There were several abilities in the game that had to be balanced in order for them to function correctly:
- Sub Zero: This now has a 3 turn CD as the text says.
- Stone Blood: This now has a 1 tile range.
- Rupture Kick: This now reduces the strength of the attacked entity by 1.
- Dirt Kicking: This now has a 1 tile range. The text now also shows the correct CD of 2 turns instead of 3.
There were also a few enemy abilities that needed some changes making to them. Enemies in Depths of Erendorn now have configurable targeting which gives us much more freedom to allow the NPCs to make better decisions with their abilities:
- Human Bandits now have Dirt Kicking.
- The Grey Boar now has Charge. When the target is over 3 tiles away, the Boar gains +50 current and maximum Energy.
- Earthen Dwarves now use Magnetic Blood off CD when they have lost more than 3 Health.
- The Unproven Lionman now has Frightening Roar, which reduces the strength on all adjacent enemies by 1 when used.
- The Jade Python, which is to be renamed, now uses Lunging Bite to poison the targeted enemy. It will only use this ability if there is an unaffected enemy within range.
- The Hunting Spider now uses Hunting Spiders Web to slow its target by -1 Movement when in a 3 tile range.
Other Changes
A new trigger was created this week, which only fires when an attack is successful. Before this was implemented, the status effects that are spread to the player when the player is attacked, like during Zombie Plague, would be carried out even if the attack was unsuccessful. Now, status effects are only spread if the attack hits the player correctly without being missed, dodged or blocked.
Game Client
Only a few fixes had to be made to the Game Client this week. Our game developer first noticed that, when an enemy was positioned right under the ability bar, the swing cost tooltip would sometimes be shown when hovering over this ability bar. The reason for this was that some Raycasting Events did not take the UI elements into account. This was changed so that the UI is considered as well. Other fixes were also made to the:
- Swing cost of another entity, which was being displayed as the player’s swing cost after selecting the other entity. This had to do with persisting player data.
- Cursor, which will now disappear while hovering over an item so that the whole tooltip can actually be read. Before, the cursor would partly cover the tooltip. The cursor will appear again when the player stops hovering over an item.
One of the changes made to the Game Client this week was making it so that the save file keybinds were reset if the list in the client is different (in count) from the list in the save file. This prevents errors from occurring if keybinds are added or removed during the development process. It also eradicates the need to delete the complete save file.
As well as this, HP indications are no longer summed. Instead, there is a new system where the subtracted/ added Health points are shown as a small timeline. The most recent entry is the biggest in size while the other entries are smaller and are shown above the most recent entry. This goes up to a maximum of three entries. With more entries, the oldest entry will be removed from the timeline.
There were also some changes made to the Enemy AI behaviour, which is now made visible through coloured circles on the left of the enemy’s health bar: red = aggressive, white = standard. The exact AI behaviour can be viewed by hovering over these circles. The last and smallest change that was made to the Game Client was that ‘ping’ now has a hotkey (default P).
Next week will be the last devlog of January, but it will also be the first time that we post our monthly summary of all the progress made this month - so keep an eye on our company website and social media channels so that you don’t miss it!
