Devlog may 9 - Combat and Exploration transitions

 Welcome to the first May devlog!

The game currently consists of two big elements: the tactical combat and the exploration. This period we've been working on combining the two. Specifically, we want the player to be able to explore an environment, enter into a combat and (assuming they win), return to the exploration environment.

We can now put combat encounters in the explorable world. In this example, interacting with the goblin will start a combat.

Once the combat starts, we have to ensure that the player combatant has the right stats and items. For example, if they find items and equip them during exploration, then those items should also be equipped in combat. Similarly, changes that happen in combat (for example losing health) should be remembered when returning to exploration mode.

We have added two new popups. One is the victory screen, shown if the player wins the combat

Although the popup shows XP, this is not implemented yet. Eventually we want to implement a system for improving characters and learning new abilities, but that is for later. Consider it a teaser for now.

With a bit of tweaking, we were able to reuse some elements from other parts of the game. The portraits will show your party members and their current health levels. The item icons show the items gained from winning the combat. Similar to the inventory, these icons can be clicked to show more information about the item.

If the player loses the combat, they will instead see this popup

Defeat looks unpleasant for our character.

Since we're working with transitions, we also added the functionality for travelling from one map to another in exploration mode.

While working on these transitions, we also added a few more sounds to the game. The victory and defeat popups each have a sound effect. We also have combat music and each exploration area can be set up to have their own music playing.

That's all for this period. Thanks for reading!

This was not a very visual update, but next update we will probably have more to show. The plan is to start implementing a dialogue system, so we'll have to draw some additional characters to interact with. The next update will be on May 23rd. Talk to you then!