Getting There

By tomorrow, the only content that will be left to fully implement will be the final level. So this week is when I'll be devoting all my dev time to that level. I was gonna work on a lot of the stuff I'm doing now after working on that final level, but I swapped around the order of things.

Just the level and 2 boss encounters left to fully implement. Well the ending too.

Game Progress: What's Left?

This is an update about what's left to create.

Currently I'm revamping Gate 6, which previously I was unhappy with. There was a heavy dialogue edit along with new encounters coded. It was pretty sparse before this. It's kinda hard to talk about it specifically, considering spoilers, and only the testers saw the previous version of it. So I'll leave it at that. It's almost done though, will probably have it done by tomorrow.

Next up is the encounter that occurs if the player completes all of the Nightmare Gates. That's not a spoiler, everyone knows SOMETHING happens.

After that is the final level and all its fun bits that go along with it. I'll code/script the ending during this as well.

And then, I need to return back to the world itself and finish up some loose ends. All the little secret/hidden areas in the game that aren't there now and finish placing all the optional items, like the remaining heart pieces, etc. This phase won't take very long.

When the above are all in, all the game's content is finished! THE GAME WILL BE RELEASED THEN... but not really. After that, I'm of course playing through the game again and heavily editing the game where it needs it. I'm guessing this phase will last about a month. There's a lot of feedback from the testers that I agree with and haven't actively addressed in the game yet. They're mostly small edits and tweaks, but those small things definitely address real issues, and it's during this last pass that I'll be going through those and iterating on them. No new content will have to be added during this phase, so overall, it should be quick comparatively.

When I'm happy with the game, it'll be released. Well no, that's a lie, I don't think I'll ever be fully happy with the game, but there will be a point during that last phase where I'm saying, "DONE, fuck it!" I'll be announcing a release date just before this phase hits though.

So this is where I'm at with the game. It really isn't all that much left.

DT3 Multiplayer Mode Confirmed

You may have noticed that DT3 has been taking me longer to finish up than I thought and said it was. This is partially due in part to life changes as mentioned recently, as well as just having a more social life outside of gaming. That's all good and true, but there's another reason the game has been delayed for this long. I've been working on something alongside the main project that is now integrated with the game. The testers have been working hard with me on it to make sure it runs great and its been awesome this last month.

DT3 now has a multiplayer mode. One player will control Jerry, while the other controls Claire. It's a mode independent from the main game, though a lot of it does use levels from the main game, but redone a bit to make use of multiplayer. It took some work, but it's all done through network play, though unfortunately I couldn't quite get local multiplayer to work. It's best done over a LAN, so I'll provide links to Hamachi and such when the time comes.

Below are a few screenshots that should show somewhat how it works.

As shown, you can see the other player's current energy (of their current active ability) next to yours. Both players have to be on the same map, but they aren't confined to the same view. Map exits work the same except both players must be near it for it to work. (Within half a screen.)

Both players share the same health pool. This also means that if one player plummets down a pit, it's game over for both players. The game over rules are the same, though it's the host player that has control of what happens in menus. Currently only the host player can control the pause menu as well, which means that player is also responsible for allocating skill points and equipment for both players. I'm looking to fix that before release.

I had thought about announcing this last month, but it wasn't as far along as I had wanted it. A gameplay video of how the multiplayer looks will be coming soon.

Actual progress on the game proper is still moving nicely as well, despite not having worked on it all that much the last 2 months.