Mike has started working on updating the old toolset for Aldon’s Crossing and now we have the world and map loading once again!
Also, Adam and I decided to raise the base screen resolution to 1280×720. Obviously we can scale down or up from here to match the machine and OS we are releasing on. I have some new screenshots but a word of warning, all I did was take our art from Aldon’s Crossing Gold that we never released and stretched it. The artwork will look a little fuzzy for now and we might even completely change the art style altogether once our artist comes on board.
Some other changes, we have decided to continue with our more traditional character creation process where the player can choose race and class. The journeyman concept from the original Aldon’s Crossing has been cut though, players will now begin with a class.
Let’s see…oh, Adam also got pixel based movement working. If you remember the original game had tile based movement. This will also allow us to have creatures and props that aren’t “tile-sized” and can be of various sizes.
The new combat prototype continues – I actually made a board game to test concepts and combat ideas we have. Our number one goal is accessibility. That doesn’t mean easy or simple, rather more like a card or board game with simple concepts but deep tactics.
More to come later!
So I wanted to write a post about some changes that we are making to the design of the game. First of all, none of these are written in stone but they are seriously being considered.
The first change we are thinking of is simplifying the character creation process. Instead of picking race, class, gender, and then spending your attribute points you instead pick one of the following:
- Dwarven Warrior
- Human Mage
- Human Priest
- Elven Rogue
You can then still pick gender.
EDIT: after talking it over with Adam we have decided to still allow the player to pick his race and class. Each race and class will have something unique to it for combat – details of which aren’t ready to be discussed. Races will be Human, Elf, and Dwarf. Classes will be Fighter, Priest, Rogue, and Mage.
Your stats will be determined by your starting class and as you level up your primary stats will increase. The other way you increase you stats is through the equipment you find and use.
The next big change is to combat. In the original AC, combat was ‘real-time’ but you just clicked on your enemy and the AI would fight for you. You could use items and special abilities that were on your hot bar, but that was pretty much it. Well, in an attempt to make combat more tactical and more accessible, we are going to turn base combat – but with a twist. We aren’t quite yet ready to talk about the twist yet.
If you have thoughts or questions about the change to classes and races, please leave a comment below!
We have not stopped working on AC! I can see how some of you might think that since I am the worst blogger in the world and never post my updates, but we are.
Adam has been working on pathfinding and movement still, as well as working on combat.
I continue to work on cleaning up old code and getting the new GUI in. The game still has just programmer art and what ever sprites I can find on the internet to suit our purpose for testing.
Not that things haven’t been busy. As some of you may or may not know, Adam and I work for Obsidian Entertainment. We were very recently working really hard as we prepared for E3, which is the Electronic Entertainment Expo held here in Los Angeles every year. So while we are still working on the game almost every day, we could definitely be doing more.
Mike has also been super busy so he hasn’t had a chance to do as much as he would like, but once things settle down for him he will start contributing too.
For those of you who follow us, feel free to ask some questions about what we are doing and I will do my best to answer.
Tomorrow I will post some more about the new design of Aldon’s Crossing and what we hope to achieve.
Happy 4th of July!
Things are going a bit slower right now due to the holiday festivities, namely me being in Texas.
I hope everyone out there is having a great Christmas and a safe New Year!
-ADavis
Uncategorized | ADavis | 
July 24, 2010 8:21 pm | 
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