Progress on new Combat System - 4 (Patreon)

Replaced placeholders with images

I replaced interfaces -that show the kind of action you're about to perform, and it's properties- with real UI images. I used the UI image we used in the Tavern scene. I decided to give them a brighter look rather than a dark one.  Also created a few animations as you can see in the gifs above, A: is when an action is executed by the player and B: is when you hover your mouse on available actions to see what they require and what they actually do. Those animations may seem unrecognizable but they are %1000 important because our eyes are hungry for motion all the time. Almost every interface item must have motion. This concept is called "Mograph" and you can see it in every video game and even in apps, but we often overlook them. You can see great examples of mograph in HeartStone or League of Legends, those two games especially are masters of it.

Morte and I knew nothing about user interfaces when we started making Realm of Dominance and it is our very first game, and the game's interface were one of the most criticized parts of our game. But we learned a lot throughout the development process, we changed all the interfaces a few times whenever we learn a new thing.  We decided to focus on presentation even more to provide quality into our game. We give too much effort on the game but if we present it poorly, the effort is unrecognized.

9-Slicing

This is another technique we used on interfaces, people with game development background are probably familiar with this concept. Our UI images used to stretch and lose pixels when they are scaled. That would give them a mushy look, we also 9-Sliced our images so that they can adapt to every size. Some combat actions have longer descriptions and their panels are scaled, they won't lose resolution because they are 9-Sliced properly now.

 

Skills that require a few turns to execute

Some actions or skills will require a few turns to execute, and they are more powerful than the other skills. They deal more damage because you sacrifice a few turns in order to execute them. This is a great combat mechanic because it puts movement into action. You will try to move away when your enemy is preparing a very dangerous attack, or maybe you will get a little bit closer to push her and end up interrupting her strong attack.  The code behind it was frustrating for me and it took a whole day but definitely needed for this kind of a combat system.

Next, I plan on being busy with an indicator that shows the range you must fall back in order to evade those kind of attacks. And if I manage to do it fast, I will add more explainations for combat actions. Morte is busy with making the new animations for new combat system.
Take care.