Updated Character Screens

As I mentioned in my last post, I've been doing a lot of changes to the graphics in the game.  I want everything to look great.  My initial intention with this game was to go "old school."  While there are a lot of "old school" ideas in the game, I see no reason to use pixel graphics or anything silly like that.  Layout is quite important when it comes to finding things and being able to read things easily.

With that in mind, I have redesigned the character screens.  The redesign allows it to use up most of the space while still allowing for some separation of the information.

For reference, let's look at the old screen from a screenshot that's at least a year old:

It works, but it's ugly.

The screen is functional, but that's about it.  Let's see how things have improved over the last year, just so you all know I've actually been doing something...

Easier to read, more information.

 I'm pretty happy with the final version.  I think the layout is a lot better.  Please be sure to leave a comment and let me know what you think.  You guys have been awfully quiet out there.

Character Names

I've never had trouble naming my characters.  Not since the early days of CRPGs.  It's not usually an issue for me to decide upon a fitting name for a character or to use one of the many names I've used for real D&D characters or NPCs over the years.

But, when I watch other people play CRPGs or MMOs, I watch them struggle to come up with names.  I never really thought this was a problem until I realized how many people either can't come up with names or don't like to mess with it.

So, I guess we all have our strengths.

One thing that some CRPGs have is a random name generator during character creation.  This helps people either give their characters a name when they don't care about the name, they can't think of a good name or they just need a starting point.

"Lands of Adventure" now has that functionality.

A randomly generated name.

The early version of this works pretty well, but it's currently using a lot of gender neutral names, which I don't like as much as using gender specific names.  So, I will probably revamp it so that it bases the first name off which portrait is selected.

Obviously, selecting a male picture will designate your character as male and selecting a female portrait will set them as female.  I think that's the easiest way to determine sex when it comes to naming (aside from that, the sex of the character doesn't play any other role in the game at this point).

What do you all think of random name generators?  Do you find them helpful?

UPDATE:
It didn't take long to fix it up the way that I wanted.  Maybe an hour.  The game now randomizes the first name based on the sex of the character.  Here's an entire party generated with random names:

Not promising they're all great.

 So, that functionality is now in place for those who might want it.  Before the game is done, I might even add more names just to give a lot of variety.

Health and Mana Bars

This will probably be another short update, as I'm only able to work on the project in small doses.  The most recent update hashed out all the issues with the Health and Mana bars and got them working as they should.  In addition, characters who do not have spells will have their Mana bars "greyed" out, indicating that they do not use or need Mana.

Here's a picture of this in action (because, you know how much I love pictures):

Picture not in high resolution due to me working from my laptop today.

In addition, there are some other changes to account for the six person party that you can't see.  This includes being able to view the additional character's stats and inventory and interact with their portraits.  Still a lot of work to be done in this area, but most of it is pretty simple and should come along easily enough over the course of adding new things.

More updates soon.

More Characters

There isn't a whole lot to talk about today.  The biggest change to the project right now is that I have kicked the number of characters a player can generate from four to six.  I've been told by the RPG community that the best games seem to allow for a party of six.  I'm not certain why that is, but I do know that some of my favorite game definitely did have six characters, so I'm going to go with it.

Six characters...or half a dozen...however you want to look at it.

So, there we have it.  It shouldn't throw off the balance of the game at this point, since I haven't started coding the game.  Unlike the version of the project that existed in 2012, the Unity version mostly only exists as a group of systems that interact with each other.  Haven't started working out all the story or combat details yet.

Speaking of which, I should probably start tackling that combat engine soon.  It's on my "to do" list.

Back From the Dead

I'm sure there were probably those out there who thought this project had died.  It's been quite some time since my last post...maybe five months or more.  And I've been really, really busy.

I decided to take a break from the project for a while.  People were giving me all sorts of "helpful" opinions on how the game should be made, and I decided it was for the best to just withdraw until that died down a bit.  Everyone thinks they know how the game should be made, but nobody is really standing in my shoes.  It gets to be kind of stressful after a while.

I had only intended to take a month or two, but with school, the holidays and a bunch of other things, I didn't return until this week.  But, the time away has given me some time to consider some changes.  When you come back after an extended leave, you tend to get a fresh perspective on your own projects.  This can help you realize what you like and what you don't like.

I decided I didn't like how cluttered the UI was.  I felt it needed some tweaking and should be made somewhat simpler.

For reference, here's what it looked like before:

Character info and buttons on the right.

It's not bad.  I wanted to squeeze a lot of information on the screen that the player could access easily.  But, as a CRPG player myself, I know that all that extra information isn't always necessary, and I can usually just access it from the character sheet. Some of it, I'm liable to remember anyway (like the character's class).

So, I went with a more common approach with the character portraits at the bottom, giving a wider angle of view at the top.  It's easier on the eyes.  In addition, I have changed the layout so that the buttons don't appear unless the player hits the ESC button.  And there are Health and Mana bars instead of numbers:

Everything at the bottom.

The UI is a bit plain at the moment, but it's also a work in progress.  I don't have any graphics to fill those spaces right now or any important information to toss in there.  So, judge it based on what it can be versus what it currently is.  Like all things in the project, it's likely to change.

Well, it's good to be back.  I look forward to sharing more updates soon.

Building Characters

It's been a while since I've had time to update the blog.  Since my last writing, I have started school again to pursue a bachelor's degree in Software Development.  So, I've been quite busy with school work and prepping for certifications.

However, work has not stopped on the game.  In fact, I have increased the number of options available for characters.  In the old version of the game, you got four randomly rolled stats (Strength, Intellect, Agility and Willpower) and you got to choose your from four different classes.  And that was it...you were stuck with those choices.

The new version of the game is a whole different kind of beast.  I've already mentioned that the number of classes has gone from four to twelve.

Part 1: Selecting your character's class

In addition to changing the number of classes you get, I have also removed the random elements from the attributes.  You are no longer stuck with fickle dice routines to figure out how strong or smart your characters are.  Now, instead, you can use a point-buy system to decide that for yourself.

The numbers are much lower now, but the outcome is the same.  Having a 5 or 6 is a really good score to start with, and there will be opportunities to increase them as the character goes up in level.

Part 2:  Figuring out your attributes (is it just me or does this screen need work?)

But, I really wanted to make the game do a whole lot more than represent classes and numbers for the characters.  I wanted to find ways for the player to tailor their characters to be individuals and to have whatever strengths that the player wanted to build towards.

So, I devised a working skill system:

Part 3: Buying skills using skill points

Skills increase a characters chance to do something.  Obviously, having a "One-Handed Sword" skill of 3 will make this character hit more frequently and perhaps for slightly more damage when using that type of weapon than someone who has a 0. 

There are even skills for dealing with things outside of combat, like diplomacy, research and bluff.  And yes, I do intend for them to be used within the game.  Nothing represented in the skills will be unused.

But, the good news is that none of the skills require you to have points in them.  A score of 0 just means you don't have any kind of bonus...so your chance is just less good than another character that might have spent points to build the same score up to 5.  All skills can be used "untrained."

Of course, I didn't stop with skills.  I went the distance:

Part 4:  Selecting Character Perks

Characters can also select from a group of perks to help enhance their characters further and really give them some interesting choices.  They will get a couple to start with and will have opportunities to pick up a few more as they progress in levels.

All in all, I think this will help bring the characters in the game to a whole new level versus the way that they were handled in the original version of the game.  I'm pretty excited about the direction it's headed.