[Nax] Level Structure

So, I've been going back and forth on what kind of game structure I wanted for Nax. There were lost of different options, completely linear, linear + optional missions, level select, etc.
But ultimately, I decided I would base the game structure off of one of my favorite games this generation(last generation?) Demons Souls.


Nax would have a hubworld, from which he will have NPCs and sorts to interact with, buy attacks, items, upgrades, magic etc. And from there, he can enter one of the multiple stages avalaible.
Each level will be in a specific area of the world, and will have a boss monster at the end.

If you complete the level, another part of the level will open up, allowing you to deeper into that area. At the end of which, another boss lies.

Example- the Ember Forest stage I've been showing will have 5 levels in it.
1-1) Ember Forest (BOSS: Forest Troll)
1-2) Deep Forest (BOSS: Wood Guardian)
1-3) Mystic Hills (BOSS: Queen Wasp)
1-4) Ember Mines (BOSS: Last Miner)
1-5) Dark Abyss (MEGABOSS: Necromancer)

There will be multiple areas with a wide variety of environments. I have yet to decide on the number, as I haven't nailed down how big I want the game to be, nor have I decided the price, but 10-15 USD sounds like the right price range.


Here's an early screenshot of a new environment, the Research Facility.
I.imgur.com


I want to get my KickStarter launched soon, but before that I need to get a new Demo of the game out. It would contain a full level (including the boss). Their should be a handful of different monster types in the new demo and will be more feature complete than the current alpha
.
I'm aiming to get it finished by next week and it would essentially be a vertical slice of the game, which would show potential backers what to expect from the finished product.

[Nax] Level Design

Yay! got knockback effect working, and my new enemy is complete (unless I decide to add more attacks). I've been mainly working on small things throughout the week, so nice to get something relatively big done as well.

Im doing level design on nax. Deciding what to add to the game to mix it up, as currently I have a bunch of interconnected areas with monsters to kill, coins to collect, chests to find. I can see it getting stale pretty quickly. Need some variety.

I did a lot of brainstorming yesterday and here's some things I've come up with.
-Light platforming (eg: areas where spikes come out of the floors and you're to jump over them, or climbing up the side of a cliff by jumping from platform to platform)
-Special locked chests, which contain rarer items in them, but require a key to open.
-Destructible objects, so that there's some interactivity with the world, AND gives tactical options. (eg: cut the trees down to reach enemies easier, or leave the trees up, making it harder for the enemy to get to you)
-Some water traversal, where your options are limited to swimming or jumping, just to change the pace. And water sections might have monsters which you can't attack, but you can use the snatch ability to teleport them out of the water and kill them on land.
-mud/snow/shallow water - areas where your movement is slowed down, dashing is impossible. and monsters are sometimes hiding underneath.
-tall grass - areas where monsters can hide in, but you can also hide in to avoid detection from monsters. possibly leading to some pseudo stealth sections if the enemy is too powerful.
-Key puzzles/pushing object puzzles.
-implementing "sidequests" where mid-mission, there might be an NPC who asks you to do a task on that mission, being completely optional, but you get a cash/item/card reward. (eg: clear out monsters in a room, or retrieve x item, kill a miniboss, find lost NPC, etc)

Stuff like that should really make exploring levels more exciting and varied.

Thinking up these ideas is one thing... Implementing them is a whole different ball game.

[Nax] Little Things

I've been working on nax quite a bit. progressing has been going faster as I've been learning to optimize my time.

I'm still implementing the new enemy, the shielded one. It's been mostly smooth, except for having to rewrite a lot of AI code, but it's made the game better, so that's always good. I've also added additional hit reactions to Nax, so now, some attacks can actually knock nax back (much like how enemies get knocked back when you do a more advanced attack). This knockback adds a lot more impact to getting hit, and will punish guys who don't pay attention. I hope to show the new enemy in action soon.

In addition to that, I've mainly polishing up some stuff and adding little things. Like a neat dust kick-up when you jump/land. And changing the look of the snatcher, it's now an inversion color, looks pretty neat.
I've also finally implemented the Bomb item, now you'll be able to use it, and it'll deal big damage to nearby enemies (pretty much insta-kill)

I want to get the kickstarter started sooner rather than later, so am trying to get the word out about Nax. Luckily, the game shows itself off very nicely in gifs due to it being fast and action orientated. I've found reddit to be positively receptive of the game which is nice.

[SPEE] New Game+

Longtime players may remember New Game+, it was a feature that I implemented in Super Pokemon Eevee Edition in early versions of the game, I think it came in version 0.40.

During the 0.7 revamp, the feature was incompatible, but now it's finally coming back.

New Game +

This feature, after you finish the beta, will allow you to restart the story of the game while keeping all your other progress. You will keep the pokemon you've obtained, the eeveelutions unlocked, sidequests completed, etc. You will also keep your items, except for story items like the Pokedex, gym bades, axe, etc.

For balance, New Game + will reset all your Pokemon levels to 5. 

This feature will be coming in the next version, which will be named Beta 0.731

[NAX] Of the Universe

So I'm sitting here, infront of my computer, 12am, trying to implement a new enemy into Nax. Why? Because a game needs more than two enemies, but more importantly, because I'm going to be releasing a demo tomorrow.

Nax of the Universe: Pre-Alpha Demo. It'll be the first time the general public get's to have hands on with the game so far. I have to stress that it IS in pre-alpha.

If you don't know about Nax, which you might not, since this is my first real blog post going into detail about it:
Nax of the Universe is an Action RPG game that I've been developing for a few months now. It's an RPG that puts it's focus on the combat. It's fast, fluid and deep with Devil May Cry being it's main inspiration with a Stylish bar actively discourages button-mashing by giving bonus EXP for killing enemies in a stylish manner, multiple weapons with instant, on the fly switching makes combat varied.

The combat is half done- three of the five weapons have been fully implemented.

•  Redband- the default sword, non-elemental, average speed, range and power.
• Xatana- the wind based katana, fast and lots of range, but weaker.
• Tesla- the electric whips, slower, but has range and power.

With two more weapons planned:

•  Firefang- the fire gloves, slow, med range, strong
• Crystallis- ice knives, low range, med power, but fast.

 Moving, dodging, blocking, parrying, juggling, stylish meter, taunting, flux mode, controller support, and more have already been impemented, but there is a lot still to do including...

Magic system, card drops, card equipping, merchant, overworld, storyline, more enemies. etc.
These other systems I'll go into once I start implementing them.


As a fan of both character action games, and RPGs, I'm excited that I'm working on such a game, but even more excited that it's actually coming together. The combat already feels fun and I hope the demo will convince people to keep an eye on the project.

Welcome to Dream Module Games!

So welcome!


I'm Raonak, the developer for the Pokémon fangame, Super Pokemon Eevee Edition. A few weeks ago, I decided to relaunch the website, not as a website for Eevee Edition, but as a website for games that I'm developing under the umbrella "Dream Module Games"

 In addition to developing Eevee Edition, I am also developing an action RPG called "Nax of the Universe". The game is in early stages of development, but is already looks to be promising. It is also the first new IP that I'm working on, rather than being a fangame, which is hugely exciting.

I am developing both Nax and SPEE concurrently, switching between them as I see fit, usually, when I burn out on one, I switch to the other.


Anyway, this is the official development blog, where I will post updates on anything related to my games.