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gamedev 

Replaced the BS Zelda "hit" sound effect with a stock asset. It kind of reminds me of Terraria.

gamedev 

Boss now drops the key which leads to the room with the MacGuffin item. I think it's slightly more climatic that way instead of it just ending abruptly.

gamedev 

Music now stops after defeating the final boss.

gamedev 

Decided to bite the bullet and add bombs because I feel like I need at least one more boss fight in the game. If I can't make bombable walls, then I can just have enemies that can only be killed by bombs instead. The game is too boring with just a sword.

gamedev 

Key now only appears after killing all of the enemies in the room.

gamedev 

Finally added something that I should've added at the start: a debug menu. I don't know why I keep on putting off doing this. Debug menus are so useful, but up until now, I was debugging levels by modifying save files instead.

gamedev 

The blue Dark Nut-like enemy can now only be attacked via bombs, finally giving the bombs a practical use.

gamedev 

Created a second boss. This one is like the Dark Nut-like enemy, but you have to bomb it once, then it turns yellow, then you can strike it.

The screen goes black in the video because the game crashed due to a segment fault.

gamedev 

Added a trap door to prevent the player from escaping the boss fight. It's currently using the regular door sprite as a placeholder. The final sprite won't have a keyhole.

gamedev 

Trap door now has it's own sprite and sound effect for when it closes. The McGuffin sprite is now a mirror. (shout out to @Mr_NutterButter for the idea)

gamedev 

Working on the end text for the game. It's obviously in a rough state right now. I need to implement proper word-wrapping (the current text is wrapped manually), and have it better timed before the credits.

gamedev 

End text is now word-wrapped and appears letter-by-letter.

gamedev 

There is now a freeze frame when a boss is killed.

gamedev 

There is now a spark where your sword strikes during the boss kill freeze-frame.

gamedev 

Added a third boss, which can be hit anywhere except head-on.

You may notice a glitch around 00:35. I have no idea how that happened. The sword is still in it's place after the last thrust but it sets the "active" flag to false when not in use, so it shouldn't be detecting collision.

gamedev 

Started creating a prologue for when you start the game. The White rectangles appear presumably because the font I'm using apparently doesn't support apostrophes.

gamedev 

Added the fourth (and second to final) boss. I plan on having it teleport after shooting.

gamedev 

Boss now faces the player (within the constraints of 4 cardinal directions).

gamedev 

Boss now has sound effects when shooting energy balls.

gamedev 

Decided to call my game Refactored Depths. The name is a mirror reference and a reference to the randomly generated levels.

gamedev 

The levels are now bigger the deeper you go. It was something that I realized that I haven't implemented yet. This is the second to last level and the video demonstrates how it's bigger than usual.

gamedev 

Title screen finally has a logo.

Shoutout to @Mr_NutterButter for designing it.

gamedev 

Created the last boss. (Last boss created, not the last boss that appears in the game.)

gamedev 

Created a new room layout. Zelda 1 had water-maze rooms, and I realized that mine didn't so I created one. Though I am kind of limited because the key will always be placed in a random room and the room coordinates for the key (in tiles) is always (10, 5), so I have to accommodate that when designing rooms like this.

gamedev 

Added a blue sword, which is even stronger than the white sword. There is no shop item for it yet, and as you can see in the video, there is no HUD icon for the blue sword either.

gamedev 

You can now purchase bombs which will increase your maximum bomb count.

gamedev 

Octorok-like enemies now shoot after walking a certain distance instead of being timer-based. SFML's built-in timers run with no way to pause which is why you often see them shooting when the player enters a room. This is honestly a better approach to this.

gamedev 

Main menu now has a background. It honestly looks like the most professional thing I have ever made.

gamedev 

Boss now only appears after the player is out of the doorway and the trap-door closes. This prevents the player from leaving before the shutting of the trap-door.

gamedev 

Ending and credits now have a background too. I was inspired by early fantasy RPGs like Final Fantasy 1-7 and the first two Ys games which featured a space background, despite none of those games (except FF4) taking place in space.

Space backgrounds are often associated with deep philosophical thought or the meaning of existence. Or maybe the protagonist is transferred to another world after starring into the mirror. I don't know. I just felt like the ending and credits screen needs a background too.

gamedev 

There is finally boss music. It was hard to find a good track because I don't want anything too epic as I might use that for a better game.

gamedev 

Title screen now has music.

Title music is "RPG Lost In Time" by Hitctrl. (Released under CC-BY 3.0)

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gamedev 

Rewrote (or had AI rewrite) the ending text to better fit the situation and the background.

gamedev 

One of the bosses (the one that you are supposed to bomb) now has an original sprite. Previously, it was just a large version of the blue, darknut-like sprite which changed to yellow when bombed. Instead I made it a skeleton with armor and the armor disappears after being bombed, but reappears after being stabbed.

gamedev 

Replaced some of the copyrighted placeholder sound effects for items with stock sound effects. It's really hard to find any good ones, and these are the best I could find. The heart sound is a bubble sound effect because that's the closest thing I could find. The hearts in the Zelda games always made what sounds like bubbles or liquid, so I guess it fits.

gamedev 

Replaced the sprite for the teleporting wizard boss with a sprite of my own. Just one more to go!

gamedev (help needed) 

Okay, I need a "level complete" fanfare along with a more extended version for obtaining the mirror. I'll promise to give credit.

gamedev 

Replaced the sprite of the bug boss with a sprite of my own. Now every boss is using original sprites.

gamedev 

Added a "death animation" for bosses (actually for all enemies but I don't think it works well with them when I tested it) instead of just a single frame. There is supposed to be an additional frame but it doesn't appear in game.

gamedev 

Decided to get rid of the penalty of taking half of your coins when you die. I realized that this game is brutally difficult and losing money on top of your equipment just seemed way too harsh, so I decided to just have it reset your equipment to level 1 and leave it at that.

gamedev 

Added red coins after realizing that a lot of the shop items are too expensive. They are worth 10 coins each. I hope it helps.

gamedev 

Finally found a "death whirl" sound effect for when the player gets killed. It took me forever to find one because I didn't know what it was called. Obviously it's not in sync because it's a stock sound effect that I just downloaded, but I plan to sync it in due time.

gamedev 

Tried to make the "death whirl" animation in sync with the sound effect. Now, I realized that I need two delays. One before the player starts spinning (just to allow the mind to process that they got hit) and one for after the player disappears.

gamedev 

Added a delay after the player sprite disappears and before the level restarts. I kind of cheated by just copying the same transparent frame like 6 times just to give the illusion that there is a delay between the death animation finishing and the level restart, but the animation is still going up until the restart of the level.

gamedev 

Trying to replace the BS Zelda male avatar sprite with something that I own (well a modified version of a public domain sprite).

I'm not a good pixel artist when it comes to humanoid characters. I tried to get help on OGA's forums, but activity is too low on that place and I don't know anywhere else that I can get help. This probably won't be the final sprite, but I'm running out of options, and I want to get this game done so I can move on.

gamedev 

Tried my best to add hair to the sprite. I still don't like it that much. I think I should redo the shield because is side walk-cycle has him swinging the shield but that's because the base sprite has both his arms swinging while walking.

And of course, I also have to reposition the sword during attacks. I might have to redo the sword sprite because it looks way to big for him.

gamedev 

Bosses now drop life capsules upon death (assuming your max HP isn't maxed out). During my test playthroughs, I noticed that I reach the end of the game with my max HP still in the single digits for whatever reason. I also want to make it possible to reach a max HP of 20.

re: gamedev 

@xianc78 I like the pre-boss music

gamedev (help needed) 

@xianc78 ye I saw it I'll see if I can spin up something, got a bit of work on my hands with the game and the demo releasing soon

gamedev (help needed) 

@beardalaxy It's fine. Take your time, and thanks for the offer.

gamedev 

@xianc78 cheat whenever you can lol

gamedev 

@xianc78 it's looking really good!

gamedev 

@beardalaxy Thanks. I just need to fix the main character sprite. Nobody swings their shield while walking.

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