Have you considered allowing game objects to be marked as static to allow for more optimised game objects when you know they won’t move during the course of the application?
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Yes, we have. We have a similar ticket where we want to optimise the process of updating the transforms (DEF-2874).
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That sounds quite neat! I assume because of the reference to the ticket that this isn’t something that’s available right now.
I’m not sure there’s an answer to that, I’d say it depends on your structure. I just have a game object called “map_spawner” that is dedicated to… Well, spawning maps.
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Hello everyone!
Progress is rapid, and it’s hard to keep track of the changes! Here’s a quick summary of what we accomplished this week.
New enemies
- Wisp - a magical anomaly that targets the hero in an attempt to self-destruct and cause damage.
- Blue flower - beautiful but deadly, issues toxic gas when approached.
New areas
- Astral plane - an alternate dimension
- The Rusts - a dead forest and ancient battlefield
We created a gas sack, which releases poisonous gas if damaged. This can be pushed around by the player, creating the possibility to set traps.
We progressed on the gnome quest, adding dialogue and behaviour for the snow biome.
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It’s been another busy week! Check out the video we made, showcasing our progress these past few days.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTC-333EJ9E
We finished implementing a quest relating to a labyrinth with invisible walls. The puzzle is a nod to “In the Walls of Eryx” by H.P. Lovecraft.
We finalised adding the map files relating to an ancient dwarven fortress in the Rusts.
We improved the mechanics of the boss fight in the Black Tower. By introducing the puzzle in an earlier area, we give the players a chance to familiarise themselves before attempting a more challenging version.
We implemented two new enemies. The first is a flying automaton, which fires a series of lasers when detecting an enemy presence. The second is a Consumption demon spawned from the abyss, which can launch magical projectiles in various patterns.
Finally, we implemented an environmental hazard object in the form of barrels that explode when damaged. These are of course dangerous to the player, but can be pushed around so that they are placed in locations where they might damage enemies instead.
That’s all we have for this week!
We’d love to hear your comments and thoughts, so don’t hesitate to share your opinion!
Wishlist Fates of Ort on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/895480/Fates_of_Ort/
Follow development live at: https://www.twitch.tv/topbraj
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I can’t seem to figure out how to embed a video… Any tips would be appreciated!
About tiles culling. Only spawn as many sprite instances as it gets to cover the entire screen plus one row and column. When camera moves, instead move the map, but when it is moved by the amount of tile size - jump map position one tile size back and update all sprite instances with shifted coordinates towards virtual camera position. This way you don’t create lots of objects and just update the ones you already have.
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Hey everybody! Another devlog video this week 
Here’s what’s new:
We implemented another environmental hazard in the form of an oil puddle. This can be spread around by walking through it, and is limited to covering approximately 30 tiles. Much like the other hazards (exploding barrels and sacks of poison gas), this is both a threat to the player and an opportunity to set traps. The player can easily create an oil puddle in a shape designed to damage incoming enemies. We made it so that a specific set of spells trigger the oil to burst into flames. This includes the Burn and Meteor Shower spells, but notable excludes the basic Life element bolt spell (which looks like a fireball). This is because the Burn spell is also available in the Life element set, and we want to encourage the selection of this spell. Not sure about this design choice though, as it may be confusing if something that looks like fire doesn’t trigger the oil to burn. It is worth noting that exploding barrels also trigger oil fires, creating additional opportunities for interaction.
We finished implementing the Rock Desert biome. This is a region on the westernmost part of the world map, beyond the Rusts. It used to be a lush coastal area, but has been barren since the Consumption-fueled civil war hundreds of years ago. It contains an NPC key to a main questline, and also holds a small sidequest.
The Rupture spell “infects” enemies, and triggers an explosion of projectiles when they die. Previously, this spell did not its own set of stats (e.g. amount of damage) but instead leveraged the stats of turret projectiles. We changed this, to enable better balancing of this spell. It is likely that the Rupture projectiles will end up doing more damage than a standard bolt, to encourage use of the spell.
We designed the structure of the Temple biome. This is a secluded area, high up on a mountain. It will contain a key NPC, a sidequest, and a connection to an area that is crucial for a main questline. This area will also host a couple of puzzles, which differ from how the bulk of the game is played. They combine a specific spell type and some basic spatial awareness.
That’s it for this week!
We’d love to hear your comments and thoughts, so don’t hesitate to share your opinion!
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It looks so cool! Is it possible to play anywhere?
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Thank you!
There isn’t anywhere to play it currently unfortunately. We plan on releasing it on Steam early 2020, and before that we are hoping to do a closed beta.
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But maybe some HTML5 demos on itch would help you farm in the wishlist on steam?
Just a thought…probably some 10-20 minute levels should not take lots of time to export as html5. And could be a good exercise in game testing.
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Yeah, people that do not seen the game in action are actually the best testers 
And I’d love to try it 
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But maybe some HTML5 demos on itch would help you farm in the wishlist on steam?
Just a thought…probably some 10-20 minute levels should not take lots of time to export as html5. And could be a good exercise in game testing.
Interesting thought! A major challenge would be how to design the demo. The game is very narrative and progression based. Displaying the first 20 minutes would be (relatively) boring, and 20 minutes of mid-game play might be confusing. I’ll think about it though! 
Yeah, people that do not seen the game in action are actually the best testers
Thank you! For sure, people playing “blind” are most valuable from a testing point of view. It would be great to have people recording themselves playing the game, but that might be a bit much to ask.
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I’m a fan of demos that contains stuff not found in the full version. The Warcraft 3 demo had a couple of extra missions showing what the Orcs encountered on their way to Kalimdor. Strife’s demo also played out a little differently. It would, of course, mean more work for you.
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Now I am suddenly pouring lots work onto you, but if you want recorded playtests, you may try https://github.com/defold/extension-screenrecorder plugin and gamify or just explain whas/whys.
And/or if you put some triggers in (i.e. google analytics), you could check out the user onboarding within the first 20 minutes of the game. I.e. how long does it take for users to pass checkpoint 1, or how hard it is to find a key, etc.
Finally, my very humble, and not necessary right opinion is that most users may judge your game quality exactly within the first 20 minutes. So if you think, that part is poring, I dunno… maybe people will think so too, and maybe will reflect that via the reviews.
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I’m a fan of demos that contains stuff not found in the full version. The Warcraft 3 demo had a couple of extra missions showing what the Orcs encountered on their way to Kalmdor. Stife’s demo also played out a little differently. It would, of course, mean more work for you.
I hadn’t thought of that. That’s a good idea. That way I could show off some pure combat without much need for story. I could hand pick a few of the most interesting spells and make those available to the player, meaning it would be interesting but not overwhelming. I’ll have to think about this.
Now I am suddenly pouring lots work onto you, but if you want recorded playtests, you may try https://github.com/defold/extension-videoplayer-native plugin and gamify or just explain whas/whys.
Thanks for that, will have a look.
Finally, my very humble, and not necessary right opinion is that most users may judge your game quality exactly within the first 20 minutes. So if you think, that part is poring, I dunno… maybe people will think so too, and maybe will reflect that via the reviews.
You are absolutely correct in that. I will try to incorporate as much of an in medias res start as possible, but it is a long RPG so I also have to do some exposition and of course teaching of mechanics.
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Yes. Thanks! I’ll fix the link in the original post for readability reasons.
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It always feels awkward asking people to record, but I just really want to stress how great of a source for learning user testing is—either by actually watching people play, or ask people to do a screen capture with voice recording when playing. I’m sure people in the forum/Twitch will be more than eager to help—I would, for sure.
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Last week we finished designing the layout of the Temple biome. This week, we actually implemented the maps and joined them all together. The environment is significant for multiple threads of the main quest line.
We implemented a major improvement to the dialogue workflow. We use Twine to structure and link dialogue nodes. Previously, the process of moving dialogue from Twine to Defold was very manual. Each component (title, text body, option text, option target, avatar, etc) had to be copied and pasted from Twine to a staging spreadsheet, and from there into Defold. Using a Twine extension, we export dialogue to a JSON file which can be loaded and decoded directly by Defold. This will save a significant amount of time, and encourage more dialogue writing!
We’ve begun adding NPCs to the game. Notably this week was the Witch, who lives in a secluded hut at the edge of the world.
We have designed the layout of the fungal biome, and will work on generating and implementing the maps next week.
Lastly - it’s not a big deal, but we added a sprite for a boat on the coastline of the grasslands. While it doesn’t seem like much, it represents the possibilites of exploration beyond the near shores of Ort, which is quite exciting…
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