You can play the demo here: https://toto1205.itch.io/elflemental. Please don't hesitate to give me feedback =)

Hi all! I recently started a new project, it doesn't have a name yet and still early in developpement but I want to share it with you :)

So it all started a few weeks ago when I was bored in class and drew this little dude:

Then I drew a couple variations and got these cute creatures:

as well as a few more that I won't show now to keep some secret elements for the moment :)

At the time, I was watching the Lemon's devlogs on his game Patch Quest (which you should definitely check out!) 

So I was very inspired by his bullet hell game and wanted to create one on my own. I am still pretty new to Unity so I figured having a bigger project like this would be a great way to improve my skills. So I jumped in and started this game.

Synopsis

You play as a little elf who is unfortunately pretty clumsy so he freeed every creature in his master's possession by mistake. Now they are running around in the wild and your job is to bring them back! You can count on your master's weapon: a magic staff that can shoot projectiles to weaken the creatures. But these won't be so obedient as to let them get caught, they will fire back with projectiles on their own, putting to profit various attacks and projectiles.

Catch

Every creature is different, especially in terms of their element. For example the 3 little dudes above are of element Water, Grass and Fire (very classic yes). They will use different projectiles, different attack patterns and have different weaknesses and strength. 

By fighting them, you can make these projectiles and attacks your own, and hence adapt to the situation, expanding your arsenal as you play. This gives a metroidvania vibe to the game, which brings us to the next section.

Genre

This game is a Bullet Hell at his core, the screen can quickly become filled with various projectiles, and it will be your task to avoid them while fighting back. It will also contain Metroidvania elements: the world will contain various areas, and you might need to use certain projectiles to open the way forward (example burn a bush to access some zone).

Controls

Very simple: move with Arrow Keys, aim with Mouse, switch projectile with Scroll and shoot with MouseLeft and MouseRight

Progress so far

The first tasks I tackled were the implementation of a flexible Attack system, as well as the Enemy class and the Projectiles, so that I can easily create new enemies with new interesting patterns in the future. I then started actually implementing our 3 boys, and the player character. I'm also adding a bit of polish as developpement goes to keep motivated.

A quick word about the projectiles so far: 

• Water bubble: pretty slow, big damage, splits into water droplets on impact
• Fire flame: fast and rapid fire, small damage
• Grass leaf: medium fast, long range and homing (follows the target)

Future plans

I plan to launch a first prototype, hopefully pretty soon. It will include these 3 enemies, a small portion of the overworld and more of the mechanics I talked about earlier.

For a more distant future, I plan on adding all the creatures I came up with, along with their moveset expanding the map, and deepening the combat mechanics.  A lot of balancing will also be needed.

If you have any ideas, suggestions, feedback, critics, please feel free to drop me a comment!

Thanks for reading until the end! See you next time :)

Thomas

I added a few features, here are some gifs to showcase the state of the game so far:

You may have noticed the bar in the top right corner, it's the special attack bar which, when full, allows you to unleash a powerful attack, here are the 3 elemental ones:

06/06:

It turns out that some systems were still needed before actually creating this little world. I spent some time implementing the transitions between scenes so that it would be automatically done and I wouldn't have to always specify which scene would link to which others. I also implemented a basic audio manager and a spawning system for the enemies.

I also spent some time designing a versatile yet convenient system for the obstacles (e.g the burntground and the bushes), so now they are all part of a general class and their interactions with the different projectiles is pretty much automated in code.

But what took me the most time was definitely the management of data at the start of the game and between scenes, using a combination of static settings and singletons. Not very exciting but that was necessary, hopefully it doesn't break in the future.

Now there is only (or at least should be) one main mechanic/sytem left: the upgrade system, allowing the player to unlock new projectiles as he progresses. But this means that he should overcome a special challenge to earn this, and what best than a good old BOSS FIGHT ? So I started implementing the boss class and experimented with what the "first" boss could be (using "" because it will be up to the player to decide which one to go for). For now, I settled on this THICC BOI, clearly I'm not an artist and this might change in the future, but at least it fits the style of the game.

I also drew a few environmental props to populate the scene a bit more, you'll have to wait for the prototype to see them in action!

Thank you for reading =)

The prototype should be ready within the next couple of days! I just want to implement a few sound effects and a Start screen, then I can share it with you all! Looking forward to your feedback