Today wasn’t as productive as I would like it to be because of my job, but I’m still on track (I think), anyways, I thought it might be helpful if I focused a bit more on the dungeon mechanics first and then on the mansion, let’s see how that goes. Here’s what I’ve done today:
Day 2 Progress
The Rogue can now take damage.
If health reaches 0, a Game Over screen pops up.
Inventory System with item pickup
UI to open and navigate through inventory items.
The Rogue can now pick up potions and use them from the inventory.
Progress
Not a very eventfull death screen, but it’ll do for nowSmall inventory system, only up to 15 items allowed
Follow the Development!
I’m feeling the pressure of the jam, but I’m still active and hoping to release something good, thanks for following the development of the game.
For decades, roguelike adventurers have delved into dungeons alone, chugging random potions and waiting for the best, relying on their weapons, spells, and wits. But this time, things are different.
Dungeon Rogue-bery is a turn-based, top-down roguelike where you control two characters working together:
The Socialite: You are inside a big party inside a mansion, your job is to gather intel, disable traps, identify items, potions and manipulate the dungeon from afar.
The Rogue: You are beneath the mansion and delving into a more traditional roguelike, you’ll have a small amount of hit points so you’ll need the information as to avoid traps and make the best decisions in the dungeon.
It’s a blend of classic roguelike mechanics with a new duo-based gameplay twist: your actions above ground affect your survival below.
This is my first time working solo in a 7DRL, I worked in 2015 with Santiago Zapata (Slashie) in Stygian Abyss, I also made another roguelike in 2016 for another jam, but that one was 9 days instead of 7. And I made my first rogulike (Tull) in 2013 for the trials of Oryx. I’m happy coming back to this challenge.
Yesterday was a bit weird in terms of development, I don’t know if it was the change from C to Godot, the fact that it’s a jam or something else, but I struggled working on this project, I had to drag myself to build some mechanics, so the day wasn’t as productive as I would like, but I still made some features:
Grid-Based Movement: Both the Rogue and Socialite move on a turn-based grid.
Character Switching: Swap between characters, controlling each in their respective locations. I’m not sure yet if each character will control a global pool of turns or if the worlds will be independent.
Exploration & Doors – The Burglar can open doors and uncover new rooms in the dungeon.
NPCs are now interactive, but there’s still more to refine.
Eventually, NPCs will reveal dungeon secrets, disable traps, and help (or hinder) the heist.
Picking up blueprints in the mansion reveals dungeon rooms. Not sure if I’ll keep this.
Previews
The rogue in the dungeonThe socialite in the very empty and featurless mansion
Follow the Development!
Thanks for checking the development of this game, I’ll be updating it every day for the next 7 days.
This week was a bit slower due to life commitments, but progress on Solivium continues! The dungeon mechanics are taking shape, I’m also been thinking and designing on how to make them distinct and not just a buch of caves in the world.
This Week’s Highlights
Dungeon Navigation: The player can now move freely inside dungeons.
World Mechanics in Dungeons: Features like the stats screen (Ztats), inventory management, and other core mechanics are now accessible inside dungeons.
Treasure & Loot: Treasure chests and loot screen have been added to dungeons.
Preview
What’s Next?
Next week, I’ll be participating in the 7DRL Challenge, so Solivium will be on a short break while I focus on a brand-new roguelike for the jam. Stay tuned for updates on that project!
Thanks for following along, and I’ll be back soon with more Solivium updates after the challenge!
This has been quite the productive week, I worked on more mechanics for the town and finally started working on the dungeons, here’s what I did:
This Week’s Highlights
NPC Dialog System: Players can now talk to NPCs. While it’s not as complex as Ultima IV, NPCs provide hints that may help during the adventure. I’m still wondering on how complex should I do this system, I’m trying no to do the game just following the standards but just what I like to see and do in RPGs.
Merchant Interactions: Talking to merchants now opens the store UI, allowing players to buy and sell items.
Shops:
Added specialized weapon shops and armor shops to towns.
Each store offers a selection of items for players to purchase.
Item Requirements: Equipment now has stat requirements, meaning players must meet certain conditions to equip specific weapons and armor. I might also add a class requirement down the line, I’m not sure yet.
New Command: ‘D’ for Drink:
Pressing ‘D’ opens the potion inventory.
Healing potions now restore hit points when consumed.
Dungeons Begin!
Added dungeon tiles to the overworld.
Implemented first-person rendering for dungeons, for now the player cannot move in them, but the rendering was the difficult part, now I can focus on all the mechanics in there.
The dungeons are going to work like in the early Ultima games or like in Dungeon Master, I have some ideas of how I would make them interesting and unique.
Screenshots and Previews
Talking with NPCsBuying weaponsSelling armorsDrinking potions menu
What’s Next?
For next week, I’ll continue expanding the dungeon system by:
Implementing movement within dungeons.
Adding doors, and interactive elements.
Creating dungeon encounters and mechanics.
The addition of dungeons marks a huge milestone for Solivium, and I’m excited to keep building on this foundation. Stay tuned for next week’s update!
I took this week to work on refactoring the game’s memory management. It’s not that it needed it, I’m pretty sure that I could do all the worst practices and the game would still run fine. But I did it as a learning exercise.
What Changed?
The game now minimizes the use of malloc and free, reducing dynamic allocations wherever possible.
The only systems that still use dynamic allocation are:
Game data loading (loading assets and initial world setup)
Saving and loading the game state
Managing the game state during runtime
While this is not visible to the players, it does helps me with development since now I have less allocations to track whenever I find a memory leak or other type of error.
This week’s video
What’s Next?
Next week, I’ll return to working on town mechanics, including:
NPC Dialogue System
Merchants Buying & Selling Goods
Bribing Guards to Remove Bounty
Thanks for sticking with me through this behind-the-scenes update! Optimizing memory may not be flashy, but I still had a lot of fun working on it. See you next week for more exciting features!
Welcome back to another Solivium development update! I’ve been really enjoying working on this game with the progress of this week the game feels more complete, but that also means that there are more things to test with each new feature. This week, I focused on designing and expanding the first town, Moonshade.
This Week’s Highlights
Designed Moonshade: The first town is now in place, acting as a key location for exploration, trade, and encounters.
Town Mechanics:
Enemies do not spawn inside towns.
The player can still move and act the same way as in the overworld, so they can attack, change equipment and in the future do stuff like steal.
Doors: Players and NPCs can now open and close doors.
NPCs can be static or follow preset routes and interact with doors along their path.
Merchants will follow the player behind the store counter, similar to Ultima II’s shopkeepers. They cannot be interacted in any way for now.
City Guards:
Guards remain static until the player attacks an NPC.
If attacked, guards will attempt to kill the player.
Leaving town resets their position, but the player’s bounty remains.
If the player re-enters the town, guards will resume their pursuit.
Persistent World Memory: The world now saves the position and stats of entities when transitioning between scenes.
The game auto-saves before entering a town.
Did some Bug Fixes and specially, memory realted bug fixes.
Video Preview
Since the game is now increasing in size, here I bring you a video instead of gifs and images:
What’s Next?
For next week, I’ll continue refining the town experience by adding:
NPC Dialogue System, I’m still deciding between a couple of ideas for this
Merchants Buying & Selling Goods
Bribing Guards to Remove Bounty
Finalizing the town’s core systems
By the end of next week, I’m hoping Moonshade will be fully functional! Thanks for following along, and stay tuned for more updates!
This week was a good one, I managed to work on some features that in my opinion are starting to shape the game. I just passed the first month milestone of development. Here’s what I’ve done:
This Week’s Highlights
Character Creation Screen: Players can now create their character by:
Entering a custom name.
Allocating 50 points between Strength, Defense, Agility, Intelligence, and Charisma (more stats may be added later).
Selecting a class: Warrior, Rogue, Mage, Cleric, Ranger, Bard, Chemist, or Monk. Each class provides extra stat points and starting gear.
Leveling Up System: A new screen allows players to allocate additional points to their stats upon leveling up.
City Tiles and Scene Management: Added a city sprite and laid the groundwork for switching between different game scenes while keeping the world persistent.
Bug Fixes & Memory Leaks: Continued improving game stability by fixing memory leaks and addressing various bugs.
Screenshots and Previews
Tileset for the first townCharacter creationLevel up screen
What’s Next?
For the upcoming week, I’ll focus on expanding the world and interactions:
Designing the First Town: Creating the first explorable town.
Entering and Exiting Towns: Implementing scene transitions between the overworld and towns.
Adding NPCs: Introducing NPCs with basic movement patterns.
Quaffing Potions: Allowing the player to consume potions directly from the inventory.
Final Thoughts
Thank you for following along with the development journey! Stay tuned for next week’s update as Solivium continues to evolve!
Welcome back to the Solivium development blog! This week marked another productive step forward as I worked on refining core mechanics and expanding the game’s functionality. Let’s dive into what’s new in Week 4.
This Week’s Highlights
Loot UI Improvements: Players can now specify how many items to loot when dealing with stacks larger than five.
Enemy Combat Stats: Enemies now have their own combat stats for their damage, defense and damage if they use a ranged weapon.
Treasure Chest Logic: If a treasure chest spawns on top of another, the two chests now combine into one.
Title Screen: A title screen has been added, with options for starting a new game, loading a saved game, or exiting.
Save and Load Functionality: The game can now save and load the player’s data, enemies, and treasures on the map.
New Enemy: Shadow Hound: A fearsome enemy that acts twice per turn, but are easier to kill.
Bug Fixes: Fixed additional memory leaks.
Screenshots and Previews
What’s Next?
For the upcoming week, I’ll focus on the following features:
Character Creation: Allowing players to customize their character at the start of the game.
Leveling Up: Introducing a progression system tied to experience points.
Entering and Exiting Towns: Expanding the game world with interactive towns.
Final Thoughts
This was a busy week, I had several things to attend in my personal life, but I still feel like I did some good progress, working on the saving system was probably the most consuming task, but it seems to be working fine for now.
Thank you for following along with the development journey! Your support and feedback are always welcome. Stay tuned for next week’s update as we continue building the world of Solivium.
Welcome back to the Solivium development blog! Another week has passed, and the game is steadily growing in depth and complexity. This was a productive week, here’s what I accomplished.
This Week’s Highlights
Stats Screen: A new stats screen has been added, activated by pressing “Z” (for “Ztats”). While in this screen, the game is paused, allowing players to review their character stats at any time.
Experience System: Players now gain experience points for defeating enemies, bringing us closer to implementing progression and leveling mechanics.
Console UI Improvements: The Console UI now supports scrolling, making it easier to review game events.
Inventory System:
Added player inventory and integrated it with the UI.
The inventory displays item names, dice modifiers, and quantities.
Equipped weapons and armor now influence the damage dealt and received, adding strategic depth to equipment choices.
Ranged Combat: Introduced the bow as a new ranged weapon for the player.
Treasure Chests and Looting:
Added treasure chests to the game world for looting.
Defeated enemies now drop treasure chests with loot tables.
Implemented a looting screen (still working on limiting item quantities for looting).
Bug Fixes: Fixed memory leaks to improve stability and performance.
Screenshots and Previews
Here’s a glimpse at this week’s updates in action:
Ztats screenInventory screenTreasure chests in the world, also, I need to initialize the gold variable to 0Looting screen
What’s Next?
Here’s what I’m planning to tackle in the coming weeks:
Add enemy weapon and armor stats to damage calculation
Allow to specify how many items to loot
Create a simple title screen for testing moving between scenes
Saving and loading the game
A character creation screen
Leveling up system
Final Thoughts
I’m happy with the progress this week, specially because the inventory system tends to be one of the tasks I don’t like doing too much, I’m expecting to start working on towns in the next couple of weeks.
As always, your feedback is invaluable. Let me know what you think, and stay tuned for next week’s update!
Welcome back to the Solivium development blog! It’s been an interesting week working on the combat system and learning how to store and play audio next to the sprites in the data file.
What’s New This Week?
This week’s focus was on enhancing gameplay mechanics and polishing combat interactions. Here’s what I accomplished:
Turn Management: Players can now pass their turn using the ‘P’ key or the spacebar.
Character Sheets: I’ve introduced character sheets for both the player and enemies. For now they only have stats for: name, HP, Strength, Defense and Agility.
Combat Enhancements:
Enemies now attack both at melee and ranged distances, ranged attacks can collide with mountains.
The player can now attack enemies, currently limited to melee range.
Strength, defense, and agility stats are used to calculate hit chances and damage.
Enemies also spawn outside the player’s view every 15 turns, although they might not appear if I can’t find a valid location for spawning them, I’m thinking on changing this to keep searching for a spawn location. I’m not so sure yet.
Sound Effects: Added sound effects for key actions like walking, attacking, and missing attacks. I’m using old school chiptunes sounds, I’m not sure if keep them, remove them or change them for more modern sounds, I think it would be weird to have modern sounds with everything else being oldschool.
Screenshot
Here’s a glimpse of what’s new in Solivium this week:
What’s Next?
This next week, I plan to:
Create the inventory system.
Allow the player to equip armor and weapons and use their stats during combat.
Create ranged weapons to allow the player to attack from a distance.
If I have enough time I will create loot and experience when defeating enemies.
As always, thank you for following along with Solivium’s development. Your feedback and support mean the world to me. Stay tuned for more updates, and don’t forget to share your thoughts in the comments!
