Yal

Working on some battle background layers... So far pretty much every background is sourced from a photo I've taken myself, it's wild how many traditional videogame biomes you can spot IRL if you just touch grass hard enough #gamedev #indiedev #JRPG

No concrete stuff to show yet, but I finally went through my boss plans and created placeholders for all their state machines (with precise details on exactly how each attack will work) Now I can do the actual implementation in my sleep... once I have the motivation #gamedev #indiedev #Burgertale

I just fixed a bug where the "don't draw if hidden behind a fake wall unless the player is also there" code also applied to THE PLAYER (letting them get stuck permanently invisible sometimes) the solution (special exception for player) feels kinda inelegant though... #gamedev #indiedev #JRPG

Though ultimately, I don't see when it ever could cause a problem (the player also being hidden by foreground geometry was never the intention, and if I want the player to be hidden I can turn off "visible", which doesn't interact with the foreground system and thus can't cause the softlock)

Simaster figured out it's possible to bring Frie to Miasma Village if you backtrack / use spellboosts (and a lot of patience) after you get the miasma immunity herbs in the Witchgrave sequence I kinda wanna keep that exploit and turn it into some kind of Burgertale weird route...

Finally got the save system complete enough that I can start TESTING it, and it has had some really intriguing bugs so far. Highlights includes NPCs loaded from a savefile having corrupt palettes, and me learning GM has two different, unrelated JSON parsers... the hard way #gamedev #indiedev #JRPG

Sorted most stuff out at last! Currently the most serious bug is that the player's palette isn't read properly, you need to take a step to apply it. ...unless you saved behind fake wall, which covers you up during init, making the palette not generate that frame, making you PERMANENTLY invisible

Finally got the save system complete enough that I can start TESTING it, and it has had some really intriguing bugs so far. Highlights includes NPCs loaded from a savefile having corrupt palettes, and me learning GM has two different, unrelated JSON parsers... the hard way #gamedev #indiedev #JRPG

seeing these right next to each other in the store gave me a laugh

Slowly chipping away at the save system... the file select menu works, and also my structured data format! (This isn't a real savefile, I created it by hand to test the menu code that detects which slots are in use) #gamedev #indiedev #JRPG

I realized I'd somehow forgotten to draw ears on Falala so I had to transplant some from one of the other deer portraits. I guess my original line of thought was that she has enough hair to completely cover them up, but none of the other portraits does that so it felt kinda inconsistent...

I'm slowly approaching something that feels like a reasonable save system... data is stored as JSON-like structures, with per-datatype validation tables to validate that stuff has reasonable values and all mandatory values actually are in the files when loading them. #gamedev #indiedev #JRPG

I can't just stow them away in predefined city data, because cities are also fundamentally just map chunks, and most of them are procedurally generated too instead of being preset.

I'm slowly approaching something that feels like a reasonable save system... data is stored as JSON-like structures, with per-datatype validation tables to validate that stuff has reasonable values and all mandatory values actually are in the files when loading them. #gamedev #indiedev #JRPG

It might seem like overkill, but one of the core issues with my progen world chunk system is that tons of very DIFFERENT things can be in a chunk, and I only want to save certain types of data (objects have a lot of temporary cached stuff, like e.g. VRAM palette texture references)

Added a day-night cycle which affects the mood lighting of outdoor areas! Not 100% sure I got the golden hour / dusk right but the night at least looks kinda passable... #gamedev #indiedev #JRPG

And slowly getting stuff done on the OTHER menu that uses materials: crafting. Everything uses the same underlying recipe system, but you use different crafting stations for different item types (e.g. a cauldron to brew potions) #gamedev #indiedev #JRPG

I'm not sure how much I want to focus on this aspect but especially in the early game it'll be hard having access to a shop to restock on consumables, being able to make them yourself feels like a natural fit to plug that gap.

Next up from the feature backlog, a menu for upgrading gear at blacksmiths! It's mostly reusing the inventory menu, but I added a new window that lists material/cost. (I think pointing out you're missing something by coloring it red is pretty much mandatory for a menu.) #gamedev #indiedev #JRPG

Two stretch goals I might add later is upgrading stuff you're wearing, and peeking into storage containers for materials rather than requiring you to have them in your inventory (fully upgrading something requires holding 30 slots' worth of upgrade stones, and your inventory starts with 50 capacity)

Next up from the feature backlog, a menu for upgrading gear at blacksmiths! It's mostly reusing the inventory menu, but I added a new window that lists material/cost. (I think pointing out you're missing something by coloring it red is pretty much mandatory for a menu.) #gamedev #indiedev #JRPG

I realized the flavor text for the Necromancer ("revives slain enemies to fight for you") was completely inaccurate since all their skills generate specific undead summons, so I'll need to rename it and introduce a NEW necromancer class (already planned it out at least) #gamedev #indiedev #JRPG

Didn't feel like starting to code the 4 new bosses yet so I finally got started on the level design for the first Nameless Institute level. The green path is mostly about two types of spiderwebs (climbable and bouncepad) #gamedev #indiedev #Burgertale