Unarmed animations and map work
Added 2025-09-10 21:54:52 +0000 UTCOk, worked some more on the path leading up to the monastery and integrating that into the map better. Still a bunch of fine details to do but the landscape work is mostly done.
And as I was playtesting I realized that if the player wants to fight they're way out but doesn't have a weapon that they currently have no way of doing that. So I finally put together some melee animations for the player. The two different punches are shown but I also have the ready, unready, and idle plus the 1st person variants. Just need to plug everything together in game and do a bit of scripting to equip this weapon whenever the player doesn't have another weapon equipped.
And femme imp visit scene animation. This is from the first intro scene of hers. I'll drop the slightly spicier animations over on the discord (otherwise I have to paywall the post here). But yeah, I'll do some work on her dialogue tree and keep working away on her animations.
Then I also have the designs done up to handle NPC time schedules. I've gone through a couple different ideas on how to handle their schedules and they start to get unwieldy very quickly. What I'm going to try, and I think will work, is an upgrade on the current system of smoke and mirrors and spawn points. Where the spawn points will hold the waypoints and interactions as well as the time window for when an NPC should spawn there. And I'll have multiple waypoints per NPC. So the other novice will have a spawn point in the garden for daytime hours, a spawnpoint in the courtyard for mealtime, and a spawn in their bedroom at night. Then when the player rests or advances time I'll ping the parent of those spawn points and spawn the novice in the appropriate space and then set their behavior for that time period from the spawn point. There is a case though where if the player lets time pass without leaving the area or without resting then things could get out of sync. So if the player stands idle in the garden courtyard the novice would always be there performing the same actions as long as the player never leaves or uses the wait command. This isn't ideal but it seems like an edge case that isn't super game breaking. I dunno. I'm going to test it out and see how it feels in game. If it feels too clunky I'll go back and redesign things. But it should be quick enough to implement this version that I shouldn't lose too much time.
Comments
I tried so hard to get into the first darkest dungeon but always kept bouncing off of it. I love the art style and the vibe of it! The voice work is also so so good at setting the tone. I think for me it was just the gameplay loop and the turnbased combat didn't really click. But yeah, intro animations are awesome and can totally sell a boss but... doing them well and correctly in a realtime 1st/3rd person game? It's really tough to do. In Tainted Grail https://store.steampowered.com/app/1466060/Tainted_Grail_The_Fall_of_Avalon/ they did this but it breaks other things. Like if the player is doing the classic stealth archer thing you have to stop the player from killing the boss when they're barely visible on screen. Tainted Grail handled this by waiting until the player got close to a spawn point then spawning the boss and playing the intro - but they lock the camera and controls of the player during the intro. So it's really jarring and also limits the players options because they start the battle in melee range - so any ranged build is at a disadvantage. Also if the player dies to the boss then what happens do they always have to watch the intro each time? And I'm not totally sure how I'm going to handle bosses yet. I know there will be faction leaders and stuff like the person pulling the strings and giving the orders but I'm not totally sure how that all ties in with combat. I think a lot of this is going to depend on once I get back to the combat gameplay and balancing how that all works and how much of a gameplay focus that is. It's also I want to give the player a pacifist solution to every problem that I can and I'm not sure how that would fit with having boss intros. Lol, I guess that's really a long winded way of saying I'm not sure yet and not sure if cutscenes are the right solution at this point. 2nd edit! and also there's the added work for doing camera work, animations, and lighting to do a really cool looking cutscene!
slaen
2025-09-17 22:30:35 +0000 UTCNo worries, I mean whichever works better on your end. I usually get the notifications to my email but sometimes things get lost or slip my mind while I'm working. And it's been a stressful couple weeks and sometimes it's tough coming up with a decent thoughtful response to posts :)
slaen
2025-09-17 21:51:11 +0000 UTCSo, there's this game I really like called Darkest Dungeon 2. There's a ton of cool design decisions, but for this post I want to focus on boss intro animations. There are three "wandering " bosses that have ten second intro animations, and they're all awesome. What I'm proposing is that you add inro animations for your bosses to make them stand out. It's important to recognize that this game is turn based, so these may perhaps not have a place in your game. I'm going to post them here anyway. Who knows, you may find something else within these videos inspirational. First is a wretched boss call the Collector. I despise fighting him, but his intro animation is great. The enemy portion of the screen is void, until the floor ignites in blue fire and the Collector emerges from that fire. He takes a moment to look at the party, then flourishes his coat full of collected faces and begins to fight. Darkest Dungeon II The Wall Party Vs The Collector (https://www.youtube.com/watchv=TaVfBadtVJo) Th second is Death. This character only appears if you've got the flagellant in your party, and after a combat encounter. She is here to claim the Flagellant, and the party must now fight her! As soon as the combat encounter is concluded, the color pallet changes to black and white, and a wind blows. Death is rising out the ground dramatically and slowly transitions from limp to her combat stance. Her horse is up on its hind legs, neighs, and drops its front legs right in front on the party. All the while, Death is caressing her scythe. Then, the fight begins. Darkest Dungeon 2 - Death Encounter(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpaEmq9Shso) The third and final one, which is also my favorite, is the Warlord. Initially, he has his back facing the player. Then, he turns around and looks at the player and makes a metalic grunting. Finally, he turns to the party, stomps down his foot and begins the combat. The WARLORD - New Boss - Darkest Dungeon 2 - No Commentary (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYxA94-W4BY) It's worth noting that each of these bosses are pretty difficult, and if you do indeed decide to implement similar intros, that they be for difficult bosses. What do you think?
Oscar Wilde
2025-09-15 17:35:13 +0000 UTCI've responded to some of our earlier posts, and in case you're unaware of them, I shall post links to them here. Furniture, scripting, and UE 5.4?!(https://www.patreon.com/posts/furniture-and-ue-135173468) -I've posted a very long read about the valley of the giants in this one. More environment work(https://www.patreon.com/posts/136959855) -Here I've made a post about how book scarcity could work. In the future, would it be most convenient to post responses on your newest post, or would you instead prefer for me to do as I am doing now? Regardless, enjoy the reads and proposals!
Oscar Wilde
2025-09-15 17:01:48 +0000 UTC
