Game Play Mechanic Change

Hi... its been a while... some of you have grown up and gone to college, some now have kids... and some of you have noticed a few more greys you didn't have the last time I've made an update here.

While I've been busy with some personal matters, I've never once stopped making games. I've been more busy on two mobile game projects but my heart and soul in game development has always been the PC games experience. Big screens, surround sound headphones and a full keyboard at your disposal to control a dynamic character in a dynamic world. In this case, for Guild of The Peculiars that would be the control of 4 character!

Admittedly, its been a very long time since I've reopened this project and taken a look at its levels and code behind the scene. The code of which was never fully complete. So not only were there plenty of bugs to unfortunately encounter but the game overall just didn't feel right. Especially the combat and quirks that come with overall turn based combat and grid-based movement.

Now I know there are a lot of people still out there that love these types of mechanics , even though its quite niche. I've decided that if I'm going to enjoy making this game and really push it to be more enjoyable, I'm going to have to let go of some of those mechanics that are holding me back from really making any progress.  As these mechanics are not natively supported by the Game Guru Classic engine of which they are made on. I've had to painstakingly create an system engine within an engine to get that grid-movement system and turn-based combat in. 

As I attempted to squash the bugs and improve the grid system and turn based combat, I felt I was really facing a dilemma. One that is probably very common with Indie Game Developers; whereas you spend months or even years on just mechanics and all the fun stuff like level design and story is being left out. All the cool special effects and interaction UI also takes a back seat. What you have left is nothing to show visually to anyone, as you spend your days staring at a screen looking at code. I felt completely unmotivated looking at the code and constantly rewriting it to optimize and improve for the same original mechanics of grid based movement and turned based combat, but both of which were not preforming that well on all machines for those that tested them. Also quite a number of players just were not used to this play-style since its from the days of old. With that I came to the realization that if I wanted to continue working on this project, I was going to need to make some BIG changes to not only make the game more fun to play, but to make it actually seemingly possible to continue development and start making some real progress. 

So I have recently striped out the Turn-Based Combat System and made the combat entirely real-time based! I have also stripped out entirely the Grid-Based Movement system. By removing these two elements the game allows for more complex level design elements that are not restricted to 100x100 tiles. We can possibly even go outside and make climbable mountains, caves and various complex geometries. The combat allows you (and the enemies) to attempt to avoid attacks and sneaking up on each other. But most importantly, by removing these two elements I can better use some of the original physics of the engine and not attempt to create my own. This means less code and more time coding more fun things in the game. I think that is the most important aspect of Indie Game Development as a hobby. It needs to not only be fun to play, but fun to make. The game is now once again fun to make and I'm not spending month upon months touching up mechanics, that you the player, may not even notice the difference.

OH and one more thing... I'm not getting rid of the 4 party member system! That's staying! Guild of the Peculiars will remain a unique fantasy medieval game by allowing you switch between your 4 party members in real time at any time, even during combat.

While I am still unsure if this project will ever get completed, I do know now how i should better approach it and I hope you will follow along with me on this journey. Thanks all to those that have supported me over the years with continuing this fantastic hobby. 

Until next time!