What've I been up to?
It's been a little while since my last update so I figured it's high time I post an update on my progress. Since the last video axe update a while back, I've been working on a lot of code related stuff. Specifically, I've been cleaning things up and reorganizing a lot of my classes so that they work better (I keep hearing optimization isn't necessary and especially so with 2D games but I like to keep things as efficient as I can), read cleaner (while I'm the only one working on the code, it's good for me to comment on a lot of what's going on since some code I don't revisit for months at a time), and play nicely with each other. In addition to that, I've started to work in experience.
How I plan on setting up experience
I won't be able to go into detailed specifics about how this system is linked to the story in my game, but it is and it works in the context of the game world I'm creating. The system may seem a little bit complex, but I feel that once everything is running, the details will be handled by the game and the player will only have to keep tabs on a limited number of things. I'll try to explain as best I can and hopefully the idea will get across.
Replaying for a reason
A lot of games have things such as new game + or just the ability to replay levels for the sake of replaying them or to collect trinkets they may have missed on the first play through. I plan on giving the player a real reason to replay levels they've already played with a purpose and to play better rather than just plow through the level. When a player beats a level, they will gain experience for beating that level that they can use to unlock various abilities, items, upgrades etc. The amount of experience they gain on that particular level will be logged. If the player decides that they can do better, and eek out more experience from a given level, they will be able to do so. The catch is that they will only see gains, if they actually play better. The way I plan on doing this is that the player will only gain additional experience for replaying a level, if at the end of the level they have acquired more experience in the current play through than the last one. If the player does gain more experience on the new play through, they will gain the difference between the better play through and the last best play through. This will make sense within the story I have set up for this game. Now, I'll need to explain how there would be a different amount of experience attainable in a repeat play through of the same level.
Experience modifiers
If enemies all gave off a certain amount of experience, and that was final, then every play through where the player kills everything would always end up yielding the same amount of exp. This however will not be the case here. The combat I'm setting up (and finally have implemented the roots of) will take into account the method the player uses to dispatch his/her enemies. There will be a multiplier bar that fills up as the player dishes out damage and every time the bar fills up, the player will have the option of using the entirety of the bar to multiply the amount of experience he/she has accrued in the bank. This bar fills faster if the player uses a larger variety of combat moves as opposed to the same ones over and over again. For example, the first time a player jabs, it may give 10 points. The next time the player jabs this same enemy, it'll only give 5, then 2.5 on the third and so forth. It will also take into account how large a combo the player currently has and a variety of other factors that will make it easier or harder to fill up the multiplier bar. Once the player banks the bar and uses the multiplier on their experience, the bar will reset to zero as will the enemie's record of what types of attacks were placed. It's really hard to describe and hopefully it'll only be a little while longer before I can demonstrate what I'm talking about with a video.
Risk reward
This system I hope, will give the player during combat a constant sensation of risk reward and incentive to play better. During any combat sequence, the player will always need to determine whether to continue trying to build up their multiplier, or if the situation is dangerous, to bank what he/she currently has rather than risk losing it due to taking damage, dying, etc. Of course, the enjoyment of this system will depend entirely on whether or not I can make the combat fun. I hope I can, and I've got a slew of ideas for combat and especially enemy AI to keep it interesting but I won't be able to really dig into the enjoyment of the combat till I've got more assets/moves/enemies and whatnot in place, which all takes time. . .
Replay?
So, in theory, as the player progresses through the game and unlocks new combat abilities and upgraded attacks, they may want to go back and replay some earlier levels to get more experience for more character progression. In the story, this idea that you only gain experience if you do better will be explained in this way.
You only gain actual experience to better yourself if you do something better than your previous best. For example, if you go jogging, and jog the same distance or sometimes less every day, you won't be getting the same improvements as you would if you were increasing the distance. At some point, you would be maintaining rather than increasing your ability to jog. There's a lot of holes to this, but I hope you sort of get the idea I'm trying to get across here -_-;; Also, in game, it should make more sense when backed by the story =P
So anyway, I'm still chugging away at developing my game and I'll continue updating my progress here for anyone that's interested. As always, I'm open to any suggestions, questions, criticisms or thoughts. If you have an idea that may improve what I've got goin, feel free to throw it out there, as long as I can use it for free =P I'll try to have a new vid up with the base mechanics behind the experience system in place so you can see what I'm talking about. I'm sure this reads like garbage =\
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