Hey all,

Since the last update, things have bee progressing quite nicely.  Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to dedicate as much time as I would have liked (a combination of work, other commitments and probably a good measure of procrastination!), but progress is real and things are getting back on track.  I picked up the prototype in Gamemaker Studio and just decided to get stuck into some of the core mechanics I think need to be in place in order to see if my designs are going to pan out.

Below you can find an overview of some of the functionality that’s been developed, along with a few screenshots to help give you an idea of what it all looks like.  Please note that for simplicity, I have opted to work without the sprites created by Sohei for now (excuse the dreadful placeholders!!).

Inventory Display & Toggle – The player inventory design is now shown in the top right and it now draws to the screen properly (it previously shook when you moved because it was drawing to the incorrect place!).  I have also implemented the foundations for the inventory toggle system.  When the player presses and holds the secondary inventory slot, the player has access to another 3 item slots and the GUI displays accordingly!

Health System – Added the foundations of the health system which is now displayed in the top left of the screen.  Coded it so that health moves up and down on key press for now.  This will evolve to become much more complex based on armour, the strength of the hit etc.

Transparency Behind Objects – Added a piece of functionality that causes the tree to go transparent when the player is behind it to prevent you losing sight of where you are 🙂

Item Placement – A large part of the game will involve building and placing structures.  I have put in a grid snap function with an outline to see which cell items will be created in, as well as placeable tree stumps and plants that change colour over time (those blue squares are actually fine crops ;)).

Bow and Arrow – Added in a simple bow and arrow function much like ‘A Link to the Past’, which has a slight timer delay to prevent arrow spam.  Next step is to factor in ammunition.

Block / Shield Function – We also now have a block function which raises a shield when the L trigger is held.  Again this is the foundation work for a defense system to reduce / block incoming attacks.  However its purely cosmetic at the moment and doesn’t do much…

And this pretty much covers most of the progress – but I look forward to showing some more soon,

Many thanks,

Pixel