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Reboot.

I took some time away from the project for the last few months. I've been investigating some different things that I wanted to get in to the game, but they needed a lot of experimentation to find the best configuration.

I also toyed with the idea of spinning off a new, less complex project but didn't quite go through with it. I've got a couple of things which are ready for further development if I ever decide to focus on them though.


The first thing I did was to investigate non grid based movement. I know it's a step away from hard core roguelikes, but as well as being faster than grid based movement, it's easier to manage. The experiment was for a RTS game, but most of what I made can easily be reused in the RPG.


 I also spent some time working on particle effects and time control.


I briefly entertained the idea of making the game a real time RPG with the ability to slow down time or stop it altogether to aid with strategy. In the end I'll only be using the ability to pause the game while still moving the camera, something that wasn't possible before. I designed some nice particle effects to use for magic in the game too, including lightning bolt and ray of light type effects. I'll continue to use the above demo to develop more particle effects, it's nice to be able to walk around and see them in action.

Sometimes I wish I could make the game real time, it would make it so much easier to code, but it's not the game I want to make.

Anyway, I'm going to continue using the level generation code I was developing before the break, changes to navigation mean that I'll also be able to include some more detailed set pieces too, which will be non grid based. I'm going to be going back to the drawing board for a while though, working on basic player and enemy movement, doors and inventory management, combat and spellcasting. I want to get in to the meat of the project and not spend too much more time planning.
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