Development Update 2

 UPDATE

After progressing passed the basic movements and the animations that comes along with them, it was time to start building the combat system so we can start having a demo as soon as possible. For the main player, the idea was to be able to showcase player melee combat and ranged combat, this includes a melee combo and a raycast shooting style. 

We wanted animations to trigger what happens instead of writing everything in code, so using Unity's animation system we can call functions that do certain things instead of calling the function in a script. For example we can call a function to awaken the collision box to be able to damage enemies and also close them specific to each animation. We can choose what frame of the animation triggers the function to do these things. I have also added things such as take stamina damage so players cannot spam attacks. 

I have also started adding A.I. in the projects so that the enemy is able to react when seeing a player. So far two enemy types have are possible in the game, a melee one, and a ranged one. The behavior is there but shooting still needs to be done, good thing that player and enemy can use the same shooting system so I only have to write code that fits both requirements.


BUSINESS

On the business side, after hearing the feedbacks that we received, I started looking at the competition more, ones that are in a similar situation and state as we are. One that I researched that resembles our game is Ex Natura by Blackburne Games. It is also an RPG and is the company's first release. 

Blackburne Games company - Indie DB



They are active on YouTube and twitter as a form of marketing their game which is going to be sold on the Steam platform. They also have a discord channel here they give updates to the community. To get people excited, they have also released a playable demo before the game is released.



Their game is released soon soon February 20 so I will be following them and see what their sales are like after looking at the marketing work they have done.




CHALLENGES

Since we are still using a mock animation, I have to redo some of the animations steps again when we receive the final animation, this will create more time spent on the animations instead of doing them only once.

It is challenging to make an enemy seem much smarter. I have to make the enemy more unpredictable to make it harder for the player and more engaging. My thoughts are trying to make the enemy strafe left and right between attacks.


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