This devlog has been very silent because while I've been working hard, I've been working on trying to implement pathfinding for my enemies. As something I'd never done before, this took much, much longer than I anticipated. I wasted at least a day trying to figure it out on my own before realising there were algorithms for this sort of thing already worked out. Another day was lost trying to figure out how to translate A* into actual code. Then there was a lot of time spent writing hundreds of lines of code and trying to fix all the bugs that hundreds of lines of code will throw up.
The good news: I learnt a lot about pathfinding! It works exactly as I want it to and now I have it there is actually gameplay that can occur.
The bad news: I still don't have a 'game', as such, and strictly speaking two weeks from the start of the jam will have passed by the time I wake up. This is my priority list of stuff to work on during the last day:
- Stairs, aka the goal at the end of the level.
- Doors. I would really like for there to be some delaying tactics that aren't just spells.
- Wait button. At the moment you can choose to do nothing on your turn by pressing 'T', but without a tutorial there won't be any indication of that as is. It's a good way to restore your magicka if nothing is currently chasing you, so it seems important to include.
- Spirit Guardians. At the minute the only enemy type in the game is Stone Guardians, and they don't even have their door/block smashing ability. Enemies that call for a different approach seems like a good addition to a currently very sparse game.
- Level map! This is the really important one, and is likely to get bumped up the list if I can't finish the previous items quickly enough. Having an actual level to play through would go a long way to making this a game rather than just an uninteresting prototype. (It's still absolutely a prototype though.)
- Treasure/buffs. Loot is a big part of roguelikes so it would be nice to have some temporary buffs that the player can pick up throughout the level.
- Movable blocks. A companion to doors in that they're environmental ways of delaying enemies.
- The Stone Guardians' Break ability. I originally planned for Stone Guardians to be able to break through doors and blocks after a few turns.
I have absolutely no idea how much of that is feasible (probably less than I think) but I would really like to be able to submit something vaguely game-like! I intend to keep working on this after the jam so it's not a huge loss if I can't make something playable in time. Would still be kind of disappointing.
Good luck to anyone still working on their game! I'm really looking forward to seeing what people have come up with once the deadline has passed. :D