Witchcrafter: Empire Legends

[Pawel]

Hello!

I would like to present to you a short narration set in the world of Witchcrafter !

It tells a story of a village in the outskirts of Emporia, invaded by the Emperor of Navia - Mordon with his army, just before the events from the game. It’s rather not for the faint-hearted, as my brother has a specific sincere and crude style and cruelty of Navians is unimaginable. It was my first translation on such scale, so if there are mistakes that you’ll spot, please report them to me, I would be more than thankful!

Also, many reported bugs was fixed and many suggested solutions was implemented to the last demo, so I’ll also encourage you to check it out once again! Me and my brother are working on adding more content to the prologue, but you might know it’s a hard task. I’m also trying to add more RPG features - soon there will be a menu with inventory, a journal with logs, quests, bestiary, conversations and some more lore!

So, enjoy your reading and enjoy playing the demo!

Keep your fingers crossed!

Best wishes,
Paweł & Łukasz

Dusk of the humanity - a short story - Pixel Art Witchcrafter: Empire Legends...

P. S. Really, if someone with native English would just check if it’s correct I would be really, really grateful!

[Pawel]

During last two weeks I was working on GUI - Inventory and Skills and here you can see some initial outcome (great icons from DGHZ, some of them are modified, some of them are new)):

It provokes me to revise my skill tree and now I’m working on creating a system, where skills will be unlocked - it’s a part of a bigger RPG system I’m creating - that will take into account experience and some other aspects - it’s not a big deal for players - something ‘must have’ in an RPG, but for me it’s something giant - to write it from scratch, make mistakes, correct them and learn a lot

One useful result is also a new capability to control input focus in Monarch to perform switching tabs in pause menu - thanks again @britzl!

It also has another outcome - I was encouraged to work on elements interaction - it all was only in my head (and only a glimpse at burning bushes in the first demo) until now :

A wet bush is treated with a swift air push , so it’s getting really cold there and droplets are freezing
“Games”
Still work in progress, but I hope you can see where I’m going

When it comes to demo, I’m not updating it on my itch page as there is a pretty stable version - when it will be ready to release with a new elements interaction system and GUI - I will test it, fix it, repeat it several times and then release a demo And I’m thinking about posting about it somewhere else too - there is a nice forum, but maybe you know some more?

[TheKing0x9]

but maybe you know some more?

Twitter? It’s a good place to make the world know about your game.

[ross.grams]

Tigsource is not very useful for building a fanbase, but you can get some good feedback from other devs there. Twitter is probably the best easy thing to do. I don’t think there’s a lot of normal gamers there, but a bunch of press people pick things up there, and lots of other developer folks.

[NeZvers]

Certainly you need to do Twitter! That’s where I find awesome pixel art games.
Post your account link, so we can follow there too.

[Pawel]

So, here it is: https://twitter.com/WitchcrafterRPG
I’ll try to prepare some posts soon

Interesting thing, that I achieved recently is the color modification for a sprite - it is, again, a simple shader that changes colors selected by me to those of my choice. I will use it to modify a look of my protagonist depending on his equipment
Now, at this point, I must admit again, that I

• hot reload to quickly make some change and see it in action
• and also working render magic in Editor:

[Pawel]

I’m sliding down with new features! That is, indeed, sliding:

After dealing with tilemaps issues I could finally prepare a small video, where I tried to show you how wall sliding works in Platypus I’m now clearing things up and soon will add a Pull Request with this feature on board. I hope it will be useful for you too!

I was making visual effects for fire and decided to advance its simulation by adding a fire propagation algorithm I was describing in that thread. So now, I need to reconsider world construct and decide on what type of destruction I want and will be able to allow.

There is a progress with GUI and inventory also and now I’m adding items to the game

Now I’m in the phase of refactoring, I need to tidy up my project, select and prepare features that are to show and create a new demo, which I wish to be good enough to present to a broader community.

I had an irresistible desire to apply directing projectiles - I tested that solution, but weren’t convinced with controls, though what if I would allow to target during slow-motion or even pause? Also, in that case I would probably need to make animations for at least 8 directions (4 when ignoring flipped sprites) or create some not-so-beautiful rotation, like in games where hero carries a gun that you can rotate around him or her.

[NeZvers]

me: @paweljarosz6
Twitter: This account doesn’t exist

[Pawel]

Thanks! I changed the name to paweljaroszdev recently, but nonetheless there is a separated account for that particular game: https://twitter.com/WitchcrafterRPG

[NeZvers]

paweljaroszdev

Following now.

[Pawel]

Except the Twitter account I created also >> a Discord server << for the Witchcrafter!
It is going too far, I hope I will have enough time for all this stuff without sacrificing my time for the development Meanwhile - still refactoring, but also added aiming:

I’m excited of the new resource properties and tinkering how can I use it in my game!

[ross.grams]

Regarding the time spent on “community”/marketing stuff, everything I’ve read says you should figure roughly 50% for marketing and 50% for everything else.

Here are some actual stats from Cogmind:

[Pawel]

Social media

@ross.grams now I can relate, you are absolutely right, this seems to be the best proportion, but it’s also extremely exhausting

Twitter

It was an intensive month (and one day to be precise) since I posted for the first time on Twitter and in the moment of writing this I have exactly 500 followers and following exactly 1000 persons or companies. I learned a lot and I have a constant feedback which is awesome, I think people like what I’m doing and this is the biggest motivation

Newbie’s statistics but actually I’m impressed:

I have almost 3% engagement rate which is (as I read in the internet) quite good.

Discord

I made also a Discord server for the game, but it’s not so succesful and for now I don’t know much about Discord. Although, people I met there are extremely helpful and are sharing their personal experience which is priceless!

Itch io

All of that implicated a pretty constant number of daily visits on my itch.io page (with pretty outdated alpha demo - I need to change that!) and - it’s time to celebrate - my first and only 1$!
(I think someone’s misclicked for sure but anyway I’m feeling like it’s my number one dime! )

Ludum Dare 45

I needed to take a break and I made my second LD submission which is a very simple, minimalist game about a ghost floating in the void meeting his/her memories. It actually has not so good mechanics, but I like the impression so much that I wanted to create it Again I had a problem with actually designing something fitting to the theme - I know it could be anything where you just start without something and then reach it, but I brooded and brooded and it took a lot of time- I spent about 5 hours on the actual development and polishing. It is of course available to play on itch and the source code is available on github

Development

I did a lot of mess in my code because I wanted to show what is in my head and I need to tidy it up. But it was definitely worth it. I have several versions of spells systems now and some redundant files which I need to merge together. I’m still researching and developing a fire propagation system and I’m writing a devlog about it

I’ve also gathered togheter many useful shaders: Defragments - a library of Defold shaders!

Story

A lot of characters is being designed with my brother thoroughly including their past life, relations, believes, problems and temperament. Whole mythology of the world is being created and because there are many ideas we are confronting it and choosing what seems to be logical and convincing. It takes a lot of time, but it’s a pleasant and creative work

[Pawel]

Exactly one year ago I posted here for the first time!

Let’s summarize what I learned with and how I see it now!

First things first - Defold is awesome, it’s the most affordable and user friendly engine+editor I used and its main language, Lua, is a very comfortable language allowing to use many programming styles, while always being easy and readable. I like to create things in Defold, even if I’m not so good developer, it’s just a pleasure. I started my journey with Editor 1 and awesome tutorials, so seeing the revolution, and then the evolution of Editor 2 from the beginning is worth seeing.

I remember how I was first amazed by the particle editor - it’s so intuitive and yet advanced, with live preview and great solution with curves - almost any variable can be willingly animated over time I wish there could be also simplified collisions for particles as well - workaround with factoring game objects as a replacement for particles isn’t so convenient as creating particle fxs. Imagine use cases - rain, sparks or other small particles or even part of the broken chest/vase or something like that are bouncing realistically from the

With Defold I learned a lot about game development, interesting programming techniques, render pipeline and shaders. Regarding the last two things - it is really complicated for me in Defold, even now Applying simple effects on the sprite is really easy, but drawing many textures on many models isn’t convenient nor easy and I see a lot of potential in making something like Unity’s shader graph - for me it was easier and it helped me understand some of the ideas. For now, I would love that we have at least more really “step-by-step” tutorials regarding making most common post-effects in Defold. Of course, it is possible to create something by gathering all the solutions from the forum and Defold’s site - but generally I miss one solution in one place.
I know I’m repeating myself likewise many users, but maybe there is a plan to add more components(?) that wouldn’t be so generic, but people will appreciate it? Many people are/were strugling to add lights to games, but was forced to actually learn/know the pipeline at least a little bit? That actually can be achieved without devs worrying. Like default light component with optional shadows simplifying and separating it? I never tried applying normal maps to sprite to make them interactive with simple 2d lights, because I don’t know how to start - there are posts in our forum (e.g.), but I still can’t reproduce it Probably the multitexture feature for sprite would solve the problem.
Going further, what about linked body / joints or something representing this new feature to easily create chains? People are using Defold because it is easy, there are many starting their development journey because of the undoubtly great curve of difficulty. Of course, there are many advanced devs that are able to create such effects or structures and I’m very thankful that you are sharing this with other Defold’s users! And I know Defold is aiming for professional devs, but the truth is, that Defold is a great solution for indiedevs (especially, because it’s totally free), who don’t have enough resources to spend too much time on such, I would say, basic features.

I definitely admire GUI components in Defold. I can create almost anything in GUI, even a whole game! In this case having the generic nodes is a great solution, but again - a curse scaring off newcomers. In that case we have a lot of great assets simplifying that, so after getting familiar with them it is convenient, so I’m just leaving a note about the initial problem solved by the assets. Many similar, initially though things, are well covered in assets - this is amazing, the community and also a Defold team are creating wrappers, native extensions, examples and other solutions, so everyone could take an advantage! I’m trying to add something from me and create useful assets too! Recently, there are also editor scripts! (So, just to note down my idea - I hope it would be possible to add editor script to create an gui node hierarchy with a gui_script (that may utilize e.g. Gooey or Dirtylarry), that could be used as a different types of instant buttons, input fields, checkboxes, lists or virtual joysticks! So you would just modify position, images and scale after to suit your needs)

Editor scripts are a real convenience! O, how I missed the functionality to create atlases quicker, it took me hours to add every. single. image… Now I can do it with few clicks! Defold Editor is more and more convenient, I remember revolutionizing feature when I could organise panes on the go and suit it to the current needs! Pressing “F” to fit current view to the opened pane is also great

My impression of Defold now is in parallel with its greatest advantages - it is really modern, lightweight and reliable. I was surprised that I could create a pretty sophisticated game that works the same regardless of platform - Windows, mobile, HTML5. It never happened to me that the app crashed not from my fault. The support is great and Defold team is always here to help, having any possible bugs or problems prioritized, like anywhere else.

In general, you are creating an awesome environment for developers and an amazing community! Keep on going and may Deforce be with you!

[Pawel]

After many attempts I created a first working prototype of rope mechanics:

To create a line between hero and a joint, I’m creating a factored “line” which is just a game object with a 1x1 pixel sprite and change its properties in update:

        if self.hanging then
    		local posP = go.get_position()
    		posP.y = posP.y + 30
    		local posJ = go.get_position("/joint")
    		local x,y = defmath.average_midpoint_of_vectors(posP, posJ)
    		local pos = vmath.vector3(x,y,1)
    		local distance = defmath.dist2d(posP.x, posP.y, posJ.x, posJ.y)
    		local angle = defmath.angle_of_vector_between_two_points(pos.x, pos.y, posJ.x, posJ.y)
    		go.set_position(pos, self.line)
    		go.set_scale(vmath.vector3(distance, 2, 1), self.line)
    		go.set_rotation(vmath.quat_rotation_z(angle), self.line)
    	else

I hope, I can forge it into a good game’s feature, because it was nice to learn something new and it is so cool! Special thanks for @Pkeod here!

I was refactoring my render pipeline and now I can honestly say that I understand how the effect of lighting is created. Visually it looks same as before, but I am able now to add more effects. @britzl’s Lumiere was extremely helpful here, so thanks again!
Compressed gif:

Besides of that, I’m still refactoring the code

[Klear]

You may want to check out how I did rope and chain here. I don’t really remember how I did it, only that it took a lot of fiddling with the settings and that I don’t want to go through that again, but I ended up with a nice elastic rope and a more rigid chain behaving the way I wanted them.

The relevant code is in main/links and main/main.script in the start(self) function.

If you have any questions on my implementation, fire away. I’ll look into in any maybe remember why everything is the way it is.

[Pawel]

Thank you @Klear so much, I’ll surely look into this!

[Pawel]

Happy Holidays everyone !

Let’s check what is new and working in my project and then I will proceed to the year’s short summary. I changed the approach to three things: GUI, controls and quests.

GUI

I started using templates. This very powerful Defold’s tool allows to create one template and then instantiate it many times. My previous approach was to create a “template” gui node and then clone it and change its properties - so many lines of code. With templates I have a more organised gui and because of that I started to write a Lua module to control such nodes - I specified types of nodes I’m using - like a controls key indicator, health bar, selected element status, etc. And made them have their own properties and functions - so much OOP but actually it helps me to control it. Such wrappers allows to easily add similar objects to the game and are reusable, so if you are not using Lua modules nor gui templates yet, consider checking them

controls

There is also a whole module for controls that takes care of every input. Defold-Input is helping me there, and allows to bind different controls layout - to use keyboard, keyboard+mouse or gamepad. I didn’t tested any gamepad yet, but that’s on my todo list for the next year. What I did is that I reforged controls to give players better control in what they’re doing. I managed to fix all known bugs regarding moving and jumping and proceeded to attacks - those aren’t now interrupted, if you keep pressing attack key. Now you can also control where each magical missle will be striking - at first I was giving mouse to control this, but it came out that with the moving buttons it is quicker - I will probably allow those two controls type in a new demo and hopefully get a feedback on which is better

quests

I was using a global Lua table for the status of quests, until I realised it is so convenient to change the status of each statement there from any place, that I overused it and it caused a lot of bugs that were hard to find. Now I have a centralized managing script that other scripts can ask to change some statuses, but for convenience I left the possibility to look at those values from any place - but with restriction not to change them. This is easier to maintain. Now an area trigger that needs to be entered by hero sends a proper notification to the manager and it decides which quest is completed and what next task is. It communicates with GUI to properly display actual task - there is a space for more then one task and one todo here is to create a menu with all available quests and mark one that will be highlighted and followed in the GUI. Actually, I think it is so generic it could be used in any game, but to release it I will definitely need to create a tutorial, so when I will have one I’ll share it with you

Those are major changes, rest is just an evolution. The closest plan for now is to get levels back to be playable, add more sounds, especially as a feedback for players and more quests that are already designed, but yet not implemented. After those steps I will release a new demo, hopefully in January already!

To summarise 2019 I need to recall the first and second demo, that I presented on two jams. I also created three other really small games with Defold for jams, just to have a break from the main project. I started Twitter and Discord to promote my game and gained a lot of warmth and feedbacks. Despite, the small progress, I’m actually proud of its direction and achelieved things, because it was done all at night or in really small periods during day between taking care of twins, home and job. Now, they have their first year accomplished and I’m starting to teach them all the exciting things about our beautiful world, so next year is going to be even more exciting!

Wish you luck, happiness, joy, health and love for this new year, May your bugs be squashed, code building, features working and games played by everyone!
Let’s make 2020 memorable!

[britzl]

Wow, I love to see the progress you’re making! Very cool!

[Pawel]

Thank you very much, it means a lot to me, especially taking into consideration how many assets and examples you added, thanks!