EDIT: This entry was successfully completed - check it out here:

https://numeron.itch.io/rogue-vampire

Hello!

My name is Numeron, and my entry for this year will (likely) be called Rogue Vampire.

I haven't exactly worked out the goal and drive of the full game just yet, but it will be a stealth focussed game with a protagonist that is a vampire - Lurking in the shadows, surprise biting and using an array of vampire tricks to advance around a ye olde fantasy location.

Full disclosure, I'm not starting from scratch - I've been at 7DRLs for a long time now, this will be my 16th entry! I typically use the bones of my previous year's entry - ripping out stuff I don't need and shoving in everything new. This year will be no different, I am using the 3D graphics engine from last year's Dungeon Cards, and the backing game engine of many previous years.

It's 10AM on Sunday at my location, so that's my deadline next weekend.

Best of luck to everyone!

Day 1:

Created a cool little diorama for the menu screen, featuring our protagonist sleeping in a coffin. I kinda want the menu options to scale x1.5 (x2 is too large) but all my text rendering is currently works with integers so it could be a huge can of worms to start digging around in. Other code using it might be assuming float->int casts, so perhaps better to leave it, or maybe re-create the backing font image instead.

The 3D work this time is coming easy, as the groundwork is all golden from last year. The coffin model took a bit, because I haven't really done any modelling beyond cubes and billboards, but after than I was able to put together the above screen quite fast. I have the 7DRL week off work so I definitely have time for *some* of this kind of frippery, but probably no more modelling because I'm not experienced enough to bash out quick and dirty models for everything that will exist.

I spent more time than I would have liked trying to fix some audio issues that made the background music jolt around in volume when fading to/from different screens. I really should spend some time after this competition smoothing out my audio code because it's all very slapdash - last year was the first time I've ever used audio in any of my games (embarrassing I know) and it's extremely 7DRL quality code. Anyway one of the recent Humble Bundles has a lot of great music to go with so that's a plus, and SFX is really hard to find but last year's set is still good for re-use.

The game kind-of loads a simple test map (with lots of missing textures and models) based on my pre-existing engine, but rather that starting to look into that, or UI or gameplay just yet, I instead got a short simple opening story sequence in, and also got a good way into knocking the help screen and the win/lose screens into a shape suitable for this game. Once all of this framework is more-or-less out of the way tomorrow so I'll get into the fun part!

Always a treat to  play your entries! 

Day 2:

Been fixing up the in-game GUI and filling out my test map with new random things like fog and other various models, though there's still some replace-me images like the items below. I have a vampire main guy and here he is observing some human circulatory systems through a wall.

As a stealth game, you'll get to know where everyone is, though when they're out of sight it's just this - no enemy type or facing information. Enemies have half or quarter circle field of views which can only be seen when they're in line of sight.

As you acquire blood from defeated enemies, you can use it to purchase and power spells.

The spellbook is partially done, but will probably put it off now and finish it up later as I start putting together the actual spells.

All this UI taking much longer to do this now because unlike past games it's a) using a 3D engine which is more demanding of time and setup, and b) now includes mouse driven actions and audio which I've not historically had much experience with. Some of my animations and 3d work looks a little rough too - there's some nice smooth movement but it's jarred by occasional pop in/out for things entering leaving view and things like that. The fog is also jittery at the edges. If you look at the above gifs or just take it in general it's fine but the close details are messy. I'm going to have to keep my head on straight and ignore it until the end, otherwise I'll start to fall behind.

Tomorrow I want to skip ahead and start working on map generation. As a stealth game, the enemies and abilities all needs to fit in with the layout of the terrain.

Day 3:

Started on map gen, but didn't get very far. I had some real-life errands to sort out and then after that I was plagued by a lighting bug that was causing the screen to flash red for one frame every few seconds, and it was giving me a migrane. Thankfully fixed now. Map generation always take a few days out of the time, so I'm not happy at the delay. I'm not really getting into the groove with it either, I'm not super happy with the results so far. I might need to revisit the overall world structure or something. I did find a cool maze drilling algorithm in my trash code pile though that I'm looking forward to bringing back to life for small hedge mazes in the castle garden area.

I'm having trouble with some terrain features, that are drawn in pixel art with a front/top perspective - especially multi-tile features I'm resigning to leaving "flat" like the statue below. It doesn't quite look right but it looks good enough I guess to keep going... It's gonna kill me though the more stuff I add because I'm kinda a perfectionist.

Can really see it in the super secret side perspective (not available in final game haha)

Day 4:

Much map generation done today - most of the framework of the world. Still plenty of detail to fill in, but the whole game is connected start to end, and everything has a place to go. Below is a potato quality gif of a generated world start to end, with a bunch of differently styled areas. The mapgen has come out fine I guess, but I'm not sure how I feel about the approach as a whole...

Leading up to the challenge I was in several minds about what direction exactly  to take this game, and I think I panicked a bit and went with what's most familiar to me, which is one large "corridor" level. I'm not sure this is really best though... It's going to have to lose some purity with stealth, there will be definitely be unavoidable direct combat as a result of some choke points.

I still have time left tonight to fill this out, so tomorrow should hopefully be all complete, and I can work more on abilities and interesting AI and whatnot. Clock is ticking!

Day 5:

Stuck still on world generation :( the detail is taking much longer than anticipated because lots of terrain features from my older games haven't translated into the 3d engine as easily as I had hoped. Mostly old things which form dynamic connections to images next to them, are static multi-tile objects, or even just stick up a bit into the tile above are all messed up... For example, fixing all the stuff in this open courtyard -

such that it now looks like this -

Has taken a significant chunk of today. Luckily many of these assets are reused throughout the world so it's a larger step forward than just this area, but time is running out to actually make a unique feeling game out of the world.

On the minor plus side messing around with textures gives some great looking bugs. This is the same menu screen as the gif in my Day 1 post haha

Day 5 part 2:

Some shots of the final world to close out the day -

With all this in place, also faced some pretty serious performance issues, which are resolved now.

Day 6:

Just some screenshots for now, showing some spawns, including those out of direct LOS. Will add words and stuff in a follow up post later tonight

Day 6 Part 2:

I was stung by a bee on the thumb. There is a lot of natural land around where I live, so they're around, and they do come in the house after dark. I think sometimes they don't always make it back to their hive before nightfall and they get lost in the dark, attracted to our house lights, then work their way inside. Once in they're angry and confused, and this one whapped me on the back of the head so I grabbed at it and it stung my hand. Today (Day 7 morning) it's swollen making typing a little difficult... I was hoping I wouldn't have to pull an all-nighter tonight to get a full 24 hours of final work in before the technical deadline of Sunday 10am, but if this impedes me too much I might have to.

Anyway, on to progress from yesterday. I did something I never even conceived I would have to do and that's write an extention to my hedge maze algorithm (seen in green in the post above) to detect/remove swastikas - it created one for me clear as day, perfectly separated from the rest of the maze. Glad it happened to me and not someone else, so I could fix it ahead of time.

I've done full enemy placement and patrolling, and some AI improvements to better track the player based on where they last saw you, but still act predictably. Also to because they have limited FOV now, to keep looking at the player when they have to go around and obstacle to approach.

I added a peek ability that offsets the player fov by one tile so you can peek around corners.

I think I might re-do my UI a bit, because I want to streamline that part a bit - I'll just give all the abilities to the player up-front, and not have item pickups or anything, but they are still cost-gated by the amount of blood you have

Love the look of this, incredibly excited to play it. 

Looks incredible, looking forward to try t.

Day 7:

It has been a long one! I've been working 24 hours straight to meet the deadline which is just now past - and the game is a success! I will package everything up for download after a bit of a break because I'm exhausted. I've also been dealing with a stupid swollen thumb from the bee sting.

Overall, the game came out better than I expected, I had low hopes at one point - as mentioned earlier, I wasn't really sure what direction to push the stealth mechanics, and through the week I was worried it would end up too combaty and samey as some of my past games, but it definitely isn't. Whether or not the new stealthy mechanics are any good though is up to you all! Your hero has very low health, and while he can go toe-to-toe with any one enemy, needs multiple enemies worth of blood to heal just one HP. There's lots of luring and cat-and-mouse with enemies, dashing out of view and then chasing them up from behind with a back-stab when they give up the fight.

Unfortunately I had to backtrack a bit on the planned abilities - I removed the spell book I had from the Day 2 gif, and simplified the UI and controls for 6 locked in abilities. These are available from game start, although 4 of the 6 cost blood from fallen enemies. There is no real character progression, however the world progresses instead - the enemies get harder, and the challenge increases. 

Will update soon with the itch page, and include there all the fancy finished product gifs :)

As promised, the game is now up, please enjoy!

https://numeron.itch.io/rogue-vampire