Attack Redesign Continued.

So, I implemented Daisuke's new attacks. They're a lot more fun than the old ones. His regular attack is a 1-2 chain combo. He'll automatically do the follow up attack after preforming the primary as long as you're holding down the button. He also takes a half step back on the follow up attack which is good for approaching enemies.

The primary attack is 100% as strong as the original regular slash that it replaces, while the follow up attack is at 150% strength. This makes Daisuke much more powerful at close range, so as a trade off, I gave all the enemies a bit more health .. but even still, Daisuke can seriously kick their asses now.

Primary Attack:

Follow Up:

I also changed the look of the parry attack and decreased it's power down to 50%.

Parry:

The Parry attack can be injected in between the two slashes or immediately after they're preformed, acting as a 3 hit combo. The follow up attack can also be used immediately after the Parry as well. Good timing between enemy strikes can allow for some pretty awesome effective combos as well. You can also jump in with Daisuke's mid air slash. And for a cool finish, you can use a super strike! So Daisuke is now significantly more versatile than he was before.

I am however thinking about either limiting the supers to only 1 of the 3, or possibly taking them all out, however I am undecided upon this.

Attack Redesign.

So, I have not worked on Daisuke in about a month, but I'm trying to get back into it. I could really use a bit of help, mostly just someone to toss ideas around with. So if anyone wants to lend a hand, I would appreciate it.

In other news, I realized that Daisuke's main attack looks too stiff and boring, so I decided that I might try and improve it, not only visually, but also make it a bit more interesting.

I thought up the motions the other night and spent this evening animating it.

I've decided to change is main attack from a single attack to a chain attack based on timing. So if you hit the button once, you do one type of attack, and if you hit the button a second time at the right frames, you'll trigger a follow up attack. This could be upgraded later on in the game to be a multi-stage chain attack dealing out multi hit combos and special techniques.

I might actually use this system to change the entire way that Daisuke fights .. but first I have to develop it.

Anywho, here are the motions:

Step 1:

Step 2:

Improvements, boss battles, more difficult.

So, I've put in a lot of work, but I haven't made any update posts in a while.

To summarize, I've added/changed a lot of stuff, but nothing particularly amazing, although I did give Daisuke a new jumping slash. I've mostly done a lot of tweaking to the gameplay and fixed a lot of bugs. For instance I've adjusted the gravity, added music and more sound effects, fixed a LOT of glitches and bugs, given the bad guys a slightly more sophisticated AI, as well as rules and boundaries.

I have however finished building both the 1st and 2nd parts of the level, and am working on making the mini boss fight against the Naginata bandit. I'm trying not to make him too easy, without making him impossible to beat .. it really is a fine line.

What will be cool about this battle, is that it will be similar to a MegaMan boss, in that once you enter the boss battle, the background will no longer scroll and you will be able to freely explore a given area. What is also going to be cool, is that the camera will be zoomed out a bit to make Daisuke and his Opponent appear a bit smaller, in order to give more space for maneuverability.

I have also made the regular enemies significantly quicker, and thus much more difficult than before.

Here are some pics of what I've been working on, please excuse the hitboxes.

Jumping Slash:


Jumping Super:


Level 1 Area 2:


Naginata Bandit:


Fight !!


These images do not represent the final product. I have since changed many of the hitboxes, which will not be visiblae in the final version of the game, and I have and will continue to change several other elements as time goes on.

Senban Shuriken.

I haven't been able to put in too much major work on Daisuke lately, BUT I did fix some bugs, figure some things out AND I gave Daisuke a new skill.



Ah yes, would Daisuke really be a ninja if he COULDN'T throw shuriken ??

Figuring out how to get them to work properly was a bit of a pain, but now Daisuke can throw Senban Shuriken fast and furiously! They will be especially helpful since I'm beefing up the number of enemies per level!

Coding.

So, I've realized that much of my coding has been really sloppy and should have been made much more organized. At this point, I really don't want to go back and reorganize all my code, but it looks like I might have to.

Part of the problem lies in that I have certain variables which I want to remain constant throughout the span of the game (ex: points), other variables which will only need to be refreshed with each new level (ex: health) and the remaining variables would be particular only to the portion of the level in which they belong (ex: enemy variables).

So I would need at least 3 different layers of code, each spanning over various chunks of the game.

Also, I realized how terribly ugly and poorly written my hitTest coding for all my enemies has been. I really should go back and condense it, not just for the sake of organization but because the way that I currently have it written is just plain embarrassing.

I just don't feel like going back and dealing with this quite yet. Maybe once I've gotten a bit more of the art I need done, I'll go back and fix all this junk code.

I did however already go back and fix a bit of the code that I realized was just plain stupid. I managed to condense about 30 or 40 lines of code down to about 2 or 3. I don't even want to talk about how I did that because I feel really dumb for it was written before.

For some of the hitTest stuff, I think I'll have to go back and make some new hitboxes. I really realize now why making hitboxes are so important. It isn't about the structure of the box, or where it is that's important to the programmer, it's because it serves an independent purpose as an instance which makes coding SO much easier. This may however negatively effect the way some interactions occur between Daisuke and his enemies.

Gameplay Trailer.

Ok, so I made a little gameplay trailer using footage of me playing the current build. It shows off the first map and the various enemies that inhabit it. Enjoy!



YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKhEZQ8BXl4

Bomb Bandit details.

"Bomb Bandit" isn't a very strong guy, which is why he doesn't attack you directly like the other bandits. Instead, Bomb Bandit will hide behind something, or someone and chuck his powerful bombs at you.

Bomb Bandit hiding behind Hammer Bandit:


Together they make one tough barricade!