One step forward, two steps back, and maybe hop to the side

Just when I thought it was safe to start working on actual artwork…

Well, I did some more playtesting of the AI and figured out why my kittris were vanishing into oblivion.  Apparently I forgot some basic vector math where a zero 2d vector has no direction.  I also found a few others minor issues which were corrected, including the “Headbutt” action continuing to do full damage after the kittri was at rest.

I redrew the main sprite for Arashi to get a better idea what look I am aiming for depth-wise, and also relative size.  I also threw in a bunch of makeshift trees to the map… which pointed out another oversight in my engine.  Well not an oversight, but something I need to be aware of as an object designer/artist.  Basically, I have to seperate the tree trunks from the tree leaves or Arashi won’t be able to walk under the leaves.

Also, I added the Dash button, which lets Arashi run a little more quickly.  Her guard drops while dashing so if she runs into an attack she’ll take extra damage, but she also has the chance to do a running slash which does bonus damage to the monster with timing.  I made a few more robust changes to the Enemy class so the map reader now has all variable data stored and editable in it.  Nothing variable you see in the game now is hardcoded except Arashi’s temporary sprite, and that won’t change until I begin drawing animation frames (which I tried to do tonight).

One last thing, I finally decided to revisit XACT, and found the compression xWMA hidden inside it.  I still say it’s not a very intuitive development program, but it does do its job once you figure it out.  My background music runs very smoothly and takes minimal space, and I still use the SoundEffect class for the FX.

Well, I’m going to keep working a little while after this entry on some of the issues I’ve run into in my engine design, but everything is going better than I could hope for, I can’t wait to see how the first full map will look and play.