Progress UpdateWe've accomplished a lot of things for Cendric in the last two weeks as we've finally moved on from testing the engine to actually developing the game itself. Our first pre-alpha build (0.1.0) is pretty outdated and we wanted to compile the game in its current state as a test. The binaries of 0.2.0 for Windows and Linux (Ubuntu) can be found on Github:
https://github.com/tizian/Cendric2/releases. If you wish to play it on a Mac, you'll have to compile it yourself (it's actually compiling, we've tested that) You can download them for your platform and play through the tutorial of Cendric.
In the tutorial, you can see the four first quests, of which three are solvable. The map is not finished and it's really just a sneak peek into the game. There are three levels in the current build, one tutorial level, one "real" level and one level that's just there for fun and will be extended later. As this is just the tutorial and the beginning of the game, you only have a beginner weapon and the default spell. If you want to see more items and all spells, you can load the savegame "Elemental Power" but be aware that this is a major spoiler as all spells and spell modifiers are unlocked and there are items in your inventory that you should not have yet. But if you're not interested in the story and only want to see some gameplay mechanics, feel free to load that game.
New Features
CutscenesA simple cutscene format, where you can define the texts that get displayed and an arbitrary number of images that move with a certain velocity and angle, to create a parallax effect. The cutscene you see in the game is very scetchy and only a placeholder.
New GUI ElementsThe GUI has a new look and feel! We've implemented "arrow-selector" buttons (seriously, what's the proper name for this kind of button? See below) for the options screen and redesigned the tab buttons in the quest journal, inventory and spell book, to get a more homogeneous looking GUI.
Bitmap Text updateWe don't use TTF but our selfmade bitmap fonts. To make the text more visible, we've added a shadowed version. To avoid aliasing problems with the font, we've made a 8px and a 12px font.
HintsOur first intention was NOT to have hints in this game to make it harder. But, we've realized that it may be a better idea to have them and for the "hardcore" gamers who despise hints, there is still an option to turn it off.
Screen OverlaysScreen overlays that fade in and out give the game a nice touch. We've used them for location texts, quest state changes and hints.
Items with permanent boniThe consumable items in Cendric act as a buff, they can be consumed in a level and strengthen the player for a certain time. Permanent items add permanent attribute boni to the character.
Screenshot functionUsing the built-in function from SFML, we've included it into our game.
Scripted enemy behaviorA scripted (lua) enemy behavior can be fed into the engine. The hunter in the tutorial level with his speech bubbles is such an example and we hope that we can also implement the logic for boss fights using lua.
New items, quests and NPCsJust take a look
If you find any bugs or have other suggestions, feel free to write, we appreciate any feedback