Soul Saga - Dev Diary 32 news

Summary
Today I mostly worked on the item generation, and then also touched on the skill generation. I also started a little bit on a second skill type (area of effect at selected point).

I played with spell casting times a little bit before realizing it was a terrible idea for this game type. It's much more fun to get instant results from your skill casts. I also attempted to balance randomized skill stats by scaling the power with the cooldown. So skills that end up with a lower cooldown will have less power in general. This can be different in the case of terrible stat rolls for skills.
Tomorrow
I plan to work on the skill generation tomorrow, and also implement an area of effect skill. Currently there is only a single target skill shot.

Day 32 (2013/03/01 F) 10.75 hrs. (297)

• Actors
  • The Haste stat now increases movement speed.
    • Subject to diminishing returns.
  
  
  • Increased Hit Points per point of health to 20 from 5.


• Backend
  • Implemented a “Cake Tools” class that deals with methods that can be reusable between projects.
  • Code cleanup in various places, mostly migrating several methods to Cake Tools, including diminishing returns algorithms.


• Items
  • Implemented random stat generation of items.
    • Allocates points so that their sum is equal to the level of the item.
  
  
  • Implemented procedurally generated item names and icons.
    • Base of name is procedurally generated based on different information such as stats, then specific words are randomly chosen.
    • Example name is “Destructive Bulwark of the Hawk”. Destructive is chosen because the primary stat is power, bulwark is chosen because the icon is a shield, and “the Hawk” is chosen because the order of stats from largest to smallest is: Power, Health, Haste
    • Names can randomly lack an adjective or a trailing stat related noun.
  
  
  • Added a ton of new icons for items and added them to the icon database.
  • Added the item levels to item tooltips.


• Project Management
  • Attempted to establish a quicker and more reliable form of communication with animator (Fernando).
  • Implemented some animations from the animator (Fernando).


• Skills
  • Fixed a bug where skills would sometimes not trigger on certain terrain tiles.
  • Implemented random stat generation of skills.
  • Implemented random particle effect, and icon generation of skills.
  • Skill tooltips now display cooldown.


• Social Networking
  • Posted the news from last night on Google+ and IndieDB.