decided to change my "mana" icon to be this yin-yang looking thing, because the previous version looked too much like the star shaped symbol that is quickly becoming what everyone associates with AI. 😒 #indiegame #gamedev #indiegamedev #sologamedev #devlog #screenshotsaturday

Got tired of doing tutorial UI stuff, so I made the unit projectiles follow a proper ballistic trajectory. Still no impact VFX. I'll need to update my particle systems logic before that. #indiegame #gamedev #indiegamedev #screenshotsaturday #rts #devlog #sologamedev

In the middle of doing tutorial stuff I decided that the text localization system needs to be reworked to use text ids instead of string hashes of the English strings... So that took awhile. #indiegeme #gamedev #indiegamedev #rts #devlog #screenshotsaturday

Getting a tutorial system to work requires a whole bunch of other systems to work together before that. Hopefully it wouldn't need to many hacks to get it to behave like past experience would suggest. 🫣 #indiegame #gamedev #indiegamedev #devlog #rts #screenshotsaturday

Working on a system for objectives. Atm displayed on the minimap and as text on the HUD, but an actual marker in the world might also help 🤔 This should eventually pave the way for a tutorial system and story cutscenes. #indiegame #gamedev #indiegamedev #rts #devlog #screenshotsaturday

Added some more mountains and trees to the campaign world map. Needs more work, but I'll leave it for a bit to do more gameplay stuff. #indiegame #gamedev #indiegamedev #rts #devlog #screenshotsaturday

Testing some simple trees for the world map. The colors still need adjusting. I should probably move on from this test map and try to make the "real final" one. #indiegame #gamedev #indiegamedev #rts #devlog #screenshotsaturday

Playing with a simple water shader. I still haven't figured out how to do waves crashing into the shoreline. I needed to generate a height map of the island mesh to do the blending based on depth. #indiegame #gamedev #indiegamedev #rts #devlog #screenshotsaturday

Doing some UI for the campaign missions + some camera transitions. Still placeholder-y visuals but the functionality is there. #indiegame #gamedev #indiegamedev #rts #devlog #screenshotsaturday

Experimenting with this bleeding edge new technology called "normal maps". 😅 There are still some weird artifacts present probably due to bad baking settings. Still the test placeholder campaign map mesh is now in game. #indiegame #gamedev #indiegamedev #rts #devlog #screenshotsaturday

Trying to figure out a sculpting workflow in Blender. I'll try to use it for the story campaign's world map. This is just a test mesh for now. 🛠️ #indiegame #gamedev #indiegamedev #devlog #screenshotsaturday

Summoning circles now appear when constructing buildings. And buildings no longer construct instantly. #indiegame #gamedev #indiegamedev #rts #devlog #screenshotsaturday

Updating the enemy logic to make use of the mana crystals. 🤖 Here 2 CPU controlled factions are fighting at 3x speed. #indiegame #gamedev #indiegamedev #rts #devlog #screenshotsaturday

Integrated the mana crystals into the slots around Nexuses and Towers. Currently updating the CPU opponents to make use of them. #indiegame #gamedev #indiegamedev #rts #devlog #screenshotsaturday

These crystal thingies will generate mana over time. This will help with balancing the resource economy and will also give you something to attack if you can't fully destroy the enemy tower. I also need to upgrade the tower model 😅 #indiegame #indiegamedev #gamedev #rts #devlog #screenshotsaturday

I spent multiple weeks of my winter vacation doing rendering refactoring just so that the engine can draw to different viewports at the same time. 🎨 Will this be needed for the game? Probably not, but it was interesting 😅 #indiegame #gamedev #indiegamedev #rts #devlog #screenshotsaturday

🔊SOUND ON Astro Focus is my productivity game where you build a space 🚀Roman Empire⚔️ in the breaks between your IRL focus sessions! I wanted to show off this WIP version with varying planet regions⛰️ buildings🏛️ and upgrades that produce different resources 🧱 #indiedev #gamedev #godot #pixelart

This mist is a new gameplay element I've been working on. The plan is to have a chance to lose control over some of your demon units if you choose to move your army through it. Its origin will be revealed in the story campaign. 🪄 #indiegame #gamedev #indiegamedev #rts #devlog #screenshotsaturday

Finally using the custom scripting language to do some scripting. Here when units enter the trigger circle, the camera moves and more units are spawned at the other circle. This will be used for tutorials and story missions. #indiegame #gamedev #indiegamedev #devlog #rts #screenshotsaturday

More development of the custom scripting language. Flow control and debugging. It has been fun, but I need to get back to making the actual game 😅 #indiegame #gamedev #indiegamedev #programming #screenshotsaturday

based on experience from my previous game, I decided the scripting language I'd need would be so simple that even Lua would be overkill. So as any irresponsible programmer I decided to make my own UI based language 😅 #indiegame #gamedev #indiegamedev #programming #screenshotsaturday

Save Game/Load Game functionality and Victory/Defeat screens. Next on the list: How will campaign scripted battles work? My previous game used Lua, but maybe I can get away with something even simpler this time around. #indiegame #gamedev #indiegamedev #rts #devlog #screenshotsaturday

Map configuration logic and UI done. Very simplistic for now. Next on the list - save games. #indiegame #gamedev #indiegamedev #rts #devlog #screenshotsaturday

Working on configuring the battle scenario before the battle starts. Lots of boring UI work mostly, but here I'm attacking from the opposite side of the map than usual and with a different team color. #indiegame #gamedev #indiegamedev #rts #devlog #screenshotsaturday

Rudimentary Main Menu and Pause Menu. Going in and out of gameplay. Not too hot as far as updates go, but an important step nonetheless. #indiegame #gamedev #indiegamedev #rts #devlog #screenshotsaturday

Even more map edits, because I got carried away. #indiegames #gamedev #indiegamedev #rts #devlog

Using the latest map edit tools to try to prettify the map a bit. Conclusion: more and better assets needed, but good enough for now. #indiegames #gamedev #indiegamedev #rts #devlog #screenshotsaturday

Painting textures, grass and elevation. Map editing tools are now almost complete. Next I'll have to put them to good use and try to make a pretty map. #indiegame #gamedev #indiegamedev #rts #devlog #screenshotsaturday

The world is no longer flat! ⛰️ Next week I'll try to add ground texture painting. #indiegame #gamedev #indiegamedev #rts #devlog #screenshotsaturday

Trying to improve melee units AI. There are still some that sometimes hang around doing nothing while their friends are fighting for their lives. 🤖⚔️🤖 #indiegame #gamedev #indiegamedev #rts #devlog #screenshotsaturday #sologamedev

More gamepad updates. 🎮 Special cursor, more pronounced move confirmations, updates to the (still ugly) radial menu for building stuff. #indiegame #gamedev #indiegamedev #rts #devlog #screenshotsaturday

Testing gamepad controls. 🎮 Still need a lot of tweaking but the basic actions you need to do a fairly simple. Also improved mini map! Approaching the point where the full gameplay loop will be pretty much ready for playtesting. #indiegame #gamedev #indiegamedev #rts #devlog #screenshotsaturday

The beginnings of a minimap 🗺️ I need to find a way to efficiently draw all the trees there too. #indiegame #gamedev #indiegamedev #rts #devlog #screenshotsaturday

New building that I'm calling an "Amplifier" for now. Unlike the Tower it won't allow for summoning of units, but it will generate twice as much Mana. I'll later upgrade the visuals of all buildings, but lets make them exist first. #indiegame #gamedev #indiegamedev #rts #devlog #screenshotsaturday

Increasing the time step for gameplay to test AI. Still more chaotic than I'd like. Some behind the scenes refactoring will be needed before it can be improved further. #indiegame #gamedev #indiegamedev #devlog #rts #screenshotsaturday

New cursor, clicking and camera panning UI feedback. 🖱️ I should really get back to doing gameplay, but it's time for some summer vacations 😎 #indiegame #gamedev #indiegamedev #rts #devlog #sologamedev #screenshotsaturday

Some UI explaining which element is strong against which. And some more selection circle effects. More unit coordination and AI work for next week. 🛠️ #indiegame #gamedev #indiegamedev #rts #devlog #screenshotsaturday

Decals on the ground for selection circles. I finally got rid of the debug circles that draw on top of everything. #indiegame #gamedev #indiegamedev #devlog #rts #screenshotsaturday #sologamedev

Updated the building UI - now with a radial menu ⭕ Also units now have elemental types and deal more/less damage depending on the opposing element. 🔥⛈️ #indiegame #gamedev #indiegamedev #rts #devlog #screenshotsaturday

When your trees are only meant to be seen from top down. 😅 PS: also working on more UI stuff, but nothing interesting to show so far. #indiegame #gamedev #indiegamedev #gaming #rts #devlog #screenshotsaturday

Fiddling with stb_truetype to get it to draw Bulgarian Cyrillic characters 🔤 It's hardly an essential feature at this point, but better to make sure it can be done, before there are too many strings in the game. 😀 #indiegame #indiegamedev #gamedev #rts #devlog #screenshotsaturday

Added some new UI features. Texts can now have words with different colors and icons for stuff like resources and elemental types can be inserted in there as well. 🔤 #indiegame #gamedev #indiegamedev #screenshotsaturday #rts #devlog #sologamedev

Computer controlled forces becoming a bit more coherent. (I'm afraid to say "AI" so that people don't think it's somehow an LLM :D) Performance dips are becoming noticeable. I'll need to do an optimization pass when I'm happy with the behavior. #indiegame #gamedev #screenshotsaturday #rts #devlog

Debugging movement issues involves lots and lots of helper lines and circles. 🛠️ #indiegame #gamedev #indiegamedev #screenshotsaturday #rts #sologamedev #devlog

Both sides AI controlled. It still needs a lot of work. Trying to get it to allocate groups of units to specific goals. #indiegame #gamedev #indiegamedev #devlog #rts #screenshotsaturday

Towers will have buildings attached to them that will allow for summoning different kinds of units. Also: adding more creatures from my previous game as placeholders. #indiegame #gamedev #indiegamedev #rts #sologamedev #screenshotsaturday

Longer video this time. Super basic AI and basic gameplay loop. There are too few gameplay elements present for any actual "strategy" apart from "click the build unit button faster than the other guy" :D #indiegame #indiegamedev #gamedev #rts #sologamedev #screenshotsaturday

More map editing tools. I'm going to try to do some basic enemy AI using this node network. I expect this to be one of the hard parts of the project. 🤖 #indiegame #indiegamedev #gamedev #rts #screenshotsaturday #sologamedev

Trying out more destructible buildings! #game #indiegame #indiedev #indie #godot #godotengine

Demons now require Mana to summon. The "pop cap" will be called "Focus" as in - how many demons the warlock can focus on and control at once. 🧙 Also more UI work. #indiegame #gamedev #indiegamedev #rts #screenshotsaturday #sologamedev