The last few months have been finalizing the way animations look, programming in base battle mechanics and Enemy AI.

Animations

Years ago the first idle and run animations were done before character writing and visual design were done, so costume and colors were somewhat arbitrarily chosen. After focusing on writing and the game engine switch, it was time to go back and redo the animations with the new costumes and character designs. Since 2021, there have been many fighting game releases by ArcSystemWorks which really elevated how 2.5D games look, giving me alot of great reference and inspiration. In particular, how to get the sweetspot of how many frames to include in each type of animation to create a smoother look.

New | Old

New | Old

Battle Mechanics and Enemy AI

Up until recently, the weapon types that would be in the game were in flux, as I have to figure out what kind of animations I was going to commit to doing. Having characters fight together via the flank/guard system is a major component of the game, and I designed how different weapons would work with that mechanic first. Individually, I wanted to implement something similar to the weapon triangle system in Fire Emblem games, as it’s a nice simple initial layer of how to instructu new players on what to do with their units. Instead of having a RockPaperScissors system between just the melee weapons (sword/axe/lance), I made it so weapons are “countered” by one of the other 5 weapon types. For now the counter effect is 100% hit chance but that will probably change.

Enemy unit AI follows a similar tree to traditional FE games, where they favor available tactics instead of long term strategy, usually at the cost of their lives. With flank/guard being available to enemy units as well, the major adjustments to enemy AI cause them to favor attacking, when they can surround a player unit, and then favor attacking units that they have a weapon counter against. There is a unique exception for Bows, as they have new mechanics compared to FE games, where bows can now attacking at melee range, but do more damage the further way they are from the unit they’re attacking. Enemy Bow units will move as far as possible before attacking.

Next short term goals is to complete the attack, critical attack and death animations for the first character above, and start implementing 2D effects into the main battle animations, to make combat a more cinematic experience.