It’s Saturday evening and for this DotO Update Blog I want to tell you all about our new Turn Meter! Since our game is turn-based it is super important to know when your turn is coming up and when the enemies are going to be attacking you.

We originally had little bars under everyone that would fill up based on some weird equation that we grabbed online. It really didn’t work. You couldn’t tell who was going when or how fast the bars would fill up. And you couldn’t tell what your Dexterity was doing for you. It was impossible to know how much Dexterity your character needed to outspeed the Glubs.

We needed a new turn calculation and a way to show it. I got to brainstorming and came up with the idea of a “Tetris Style” meter. In Tetris, they tell you the upcoming block and in some versions I’ve played, they’ll show you the next five blocks. So I wanted a meter that would scroll each turn and show you the upcoming attackers.

I passed this idea on to Kel and he ran with it. Now, in our new build of the game, Prototype 4, we have a functioning turn meter that feels very clean and intuitive. I actually recorded a video of it in action yesterday, so you may want to check that out…

And now that you’ve seen it in action, you may be asking, “But Joe, how do you determine the turn order?”

Well, my friend, you’ve come to the right place. I’m going to let you into a bit of our Design Document and show you exactly what I gave Kel to work with. For the rest of this blog, you’ll get the nitty-gritty detail on how we determine turns in Dungeons of the Obelisk. At least for right now, it’s always subject to change. You know how it is. (But I really don’t want to have to change it.)

First, we go into our battle and need to know how big our turn bar should be. We may not show this bar anymore, but this is how it works in the background. We use the highest Dexterity among participants of the battle for the bar size. So say the Player Character is fighting 2 Glubs. PC has 10 Dex and the Glubs have 3 and 6 Dex respectively. Each set of turns is called a cycle.

• Cycle 1: 
  • PC gains 10 on its bar because its Dex is 10, and its bar is now full. 
  • Glub1 gains 3.
  • Glub2 gains 6. 
  • Because the PC filled the bar, they now attack and reset the bar to 0.

• Cycle 2: 
  • PC gains 10 and its bar is full. 
  • Glub1 gains 3 and is at 6. 
  • Glub2 gains 6 and is now at 12. 
  • Both PC and Glub2 filled their bars so they both get to attack this Cycle. Glub2 is fuller than PC so Glub2 attacks first, followed by PC. 
  • PC resets to 0. Glub2 resets but is at 2, because they had 12 and reset the 10.

• Cycle 3: 
  • PC gains 10 and its bar is full. 
  • Glub1 gains 3 and is at 9. 
  • Glub 2 gains 6 and is at 8. 
  • The PC attacks and resets to 0.

• Cycle 4: 
  • PC gains 10 and its bar is full. 
  • Glub1 gains 3 and is at 12. 
  • Glub2 gains 6 and is now at 14. 
  • Attack order is now 14, 12, 10. Or Glub2, Glub1, PC. 
  • Everyone resets their bar because they all attacked. PC is at 0, Glub1 is at 2. Glub2 is at 4.

• Cycle 5: 
  • PC gains 10 and its bar is full. 
  • Glub1 gains 3 and is at 5. 
  • Glub2 gains 6 and is at 10. 
  • Both PC and Glub2 are now tied at 10 and should attack. PC goes first because their Dex is higher.

Only other situation that is not represented in the above example, is if two or more characters have the exact same Dex. If we had an example where a PC was battling a Glub with the exact same Dexterity, they would both attack every cycle and their turn order would be decided randomly between them.

And there you have it! More than you ever wanted to know about Turn Order. Thanks so much for reading and if you have any questions, join our Discord Server and feel free to ask me!

Cheers,
Joe
Executive Prime

We’re hammering away at a lot of stuff here at Knob Cat. Kel is hard at work on Prototype 4. Nyka is animating the disgusting Puke Rat.

And Ben has been hard at work on our UI. That’s the User Interface for the combat in our game. It’s the HP and Mana meters that show at the bottom of the screen during combat.

There will be a lot more UI stuff to do in the future as the game continues to grow. But for now, we are all super excited for how this is turning out. I just want to click the AUTO button so bad!

Since this is one of the big elements of the UI it is really going to help direct the rest of the look for our game.

Other aspects of this UI are the Movement Speed knob, which lets you roll back your animation speeds so you can see what is happening in combat. There’s also a potion button that will let you heal in and out of battle. I’m super excited to have this in the prototype and be able to click that button!

Hopefully, the next video preview will be soon!

Cheers,
Joe
Executive Prime

This Saturday I’m taking it easy and passing on the blog duties to our resident Animancer, Nyka! Enjoy all the slimy movement! -Joe

Hello Obelisk fans! Over in the animation department, I’ve been working hard on bringing our first mob, the Glub, to life & thought I would share the spoils of some of my work! HERE’S A GLUBDATE!

First we have the idle! , something basic with a sense of weight. A simple baseline where other movements can extend out from!

The Glub ofcourse, no longer simply slides across the dungeon floors, now scooting almost like some kind of slug!

Of course, the Glub is no mild’mannered slug. They are HIGHLY dangerous infact! Any potential spelunkers best make sure they prepare for the Glub’s powerful headbutt before their own dungeon crawl!

& If you can even manage to survive to land a hit, it may stagger, but this Glub will surely bounce right back! SO resilient!

Of course..if you’re determined, maybe you may witness a slayed slime such as these! (Press ‘F’ to pay respects now)

but yes! this is all for the Glubdate! Look forward next time for a preview of our next animated mob, the Puke Rat! 🐀

Love you,
Nyka
Animancer, Creator of Movement

Ben has done it again!

Haha, happy Saturday everyone. Today we have a small, but really cool update. It’s gross and it comes to you in the form of the Puke Rat!

These tiny undead abominations have begun to swarm in the dungeons beneath the Obelisk. They’re not hard stop by themselves, but there’s just so many of them.

The Puke Rats and Glubs seem to have joined forces to attack adventurers that dare enter the sewer dungeons. Or perhaps the slime from the Glubs has created the Puke Rats?

Either way, I can’t wait to see these nasty little guys animated in a future Prototype!

Thanks for stopping by. See you next Saturday.

Cheers,
Joe
Executive Prime