Hi guys, today is a post just to give people some more information about the overall game.
--
There are 12 weapons. I'm going out of my way to make sure that there are no "one and done" types so each will be useful in some situation at different points in the game. For example the short sword is weak but fast. There are also some enemies who will take more damage from it, so it will still have its uses late into the story. And yes I've made the short sword actually SHORT this time around. It's almost half the size of the "short" sword in Hasslevania 1 
Some weapons have special effects, but most also have a secret hidden effect that is not readily made known to the player. For example, the Blade of Del Duio has some powers that come to life when wearing a certain suit of armor. Kind of like the Diablo 2 set bonus. Firing the Ray Gun ER-A is cool but try it while wearing the space suit and it does extra electricity damage. Blow a fireball while equipped with the Pyro Mace Iac and that fireball gets a giant damage boost. The first strike against any enemy with the Lost Axe will reduce their defense by 50% with no saving throw. These and many more powers await those players who want to mess around and try things out.
Armor influences damage reduction vs. enemies and also jump height. Some armor also has special properties that are not immediately known like weapons do. For example the iron armor is heavy enough that you won't get pushed back from a bike horn's sonic waves. If any of you have played far enough into the first Hasslevania to encounter bike horns I'm sure you can appreciate that 
Special items are now a bit more useful and easy to use in more situations as well. The shield blocks much faster than H1's shield did, however it can't be used when you're equipped with a two-handed weapon. In these cases, Rovert will automatically crouch down to defend himself. There are points in the game where you should actually take advantage of this auto crouch, but that's up to you to figure out where and when to do so. There's a pair of goggles that translates alien signage into helpful hints and tips. They also allow you to view and obtain invisible gems and jewels to line Rovert's pockets with more cold, hard cash he'll need. And good news, folks: High jumping with the correct artifact now requires much, MUCH less "MP" than it did in Hasslevania 1.
There are 3 main planets to explore and several other, smaller areas as well. It's challenging however I'm trying to basically make a huge Metroidvania game that spans all 3 planets and gives players multiple ways to win. For example, some artifacts can be found on more than 1 planet. Where you get them will determine the order in which you'll have to do other things, but the cool thing is that it's entirely up to YOU.
There are a few what we call "environmental consequences" in the game that I really like as well. For example, if you've seen in one of the H2 trailers there's a giant bat boss enemy. If you know your nature, a single bat can catch and eat hundreds of mosquitos every night. In H2 killing the giant bat will have the consequence of huge mosquitoes showing up in the swamps now, because the bat's not around anymore to eat them and control their population.
Engine-wise, Rovert's control scheme has been improved (in my opinion, but what do I know haha). High jumping is a lot easier to pull off now because it's linked to making Rovert look upwards (pressing the UP arrow, then the jump button which is SHIFT). No more jumping while coming out of a crouch, which was hard for some people. Breathing fireballs is also done from first pressing up and then the attack button which is SPACE BAR. Sometimes in H1 Rovert could get stuck in a small passageway while pressing right or left and doing a high jump and that's been fixed too. Weapons are set to one of three hotkeys which are swapped on the fly by pressing the DELETE, END, or PAGE DOWN keys. This is very important for boss battles because your subscreen / inventory is disabled for big fights. You'll need to decide what to take with you before taking these big guys on, so some strategy is required.
Sprite-wise, all armor worn is shown on Rovert. This wasn't easy to say the least but it's much better this way. There have also been some minor tweaks to the main sprite such as improved arm movement when he walks and falling now raises Rovert's cape up above his head (landing has the cape softly falling down too). Again, maybe this sort of thing wasn't necessary but to me it just helps things look a bit better than they could have.
Well, I guess that's a lot of info at once for now. I hope some of you found this stuff to be interesting and when anything new comes along progress-wise I'll let you know. Thanks!
|
Advertisement
Del Duio 
.
Favourite