ProjectDragonfly Update Apr2022 (Patreon)

Managed to get a good amount done with the engine this month.

Better input system, mainly for easier access to key press and released events with the ability to change keybinds.

Lots of item functionality, specifically with familiars (which is gonna be the final name for options in this game) so now they move around a lot smoother and I have more control over how they shoot and collide with other objects. Homing has also been added but it is still slightly scuffed but it works for now.

The act system now properly moves to the next act and creates a boss event at the end of the stage and moves on to the next stage when it's defeated. Bosses have multiple attacks and refresh their health properly between attacks. Acts are not yet randomised and I'm gonna wait on that for reasons I'll get to later.

Auras are back like the poison and slow auras specifically, they are functionally the same although they don't quite look as nice as they did yet, I'll think of something super nice for them though.

Modifiers (Buffs and debuffs) are in and while I get the feeling they might be scuffed they work as intended so I'm not complaining. They have the option to stack up and have durations and apply effects based on the type of modifier.

Character Selection is in, the menu is scuffed for now but it works.

Lasers are also in later than I expected tbh, but while I was making the collision system doing line-based collision seemed scary to me at the time but it worked out very smoothly. Curved lasers are also working fine, although there could be places I could improve performance for them, the game doesn't like lots of long curved lasers but I feel like that's expected so we'll see what I can do.

The main things that still need doing with the engine is the Shop between stages, 3d backgrounds and probably figuring out a new texture and shader system so it's easier to pass them around between objects.

The last big thing I tried this month was implementing a scripting language into the engine. There are multiple reasons for this, the main ones are it would allow for modding which I'm interested in though it's not the biggest priority. It would also reduce development times for the actual levels since it wouldn't need to compile every time, the compile times aren't huge right now but it could become a problem later. Also a big advantage would be not having to code in C++ honestly, C++ is great for the engine but making the game is looking to be relatively painful with C++. This is why I've been looking at LUA for scripting, I already know this language from modding DOTA and it's apparently super fast with C-based languages. I researched and experimented for about a week but didn't get super far, I think I understand how to bridge LUAand bring in functions and values properly but I can't figure out exactly where I should start the bridge so that it would allow me to define new object types as well as the levels and gameplay in LUA. I think I'm going to work on this for a bit next month but I'm worried about how much time it's gonna take to bridge LUA considering I could probably make the whole game in C++ but also considering compile times blablabla I don't know which would be longer tbh. Now that I type that out I think I'm gonna take a break instead for a bit, probably draw some more touhous or somethin, it's too stressful thinking about the lua stuff for now lmao.