This is a little post to share some changes that Saiyajin Legend is going through, mainly in it's battle system. I'll try to not ramble on too much, and use some screenshots. Screenshots are fun!


I recently posted a video on YouTube, showing off some battle system updates. In the video, you can see a power management system that utilizes a kind of combo points system for skill usage. In the screenshot above, you can see the little combo bar with full 5 combo points (the max was supposed to be raised a little as you progress), and the regular Ki bar used as a power bar.

The intention was to have some simple abilities (like Ki Blast) be free for use, and some cost combo-points (like Kamehameha. You would build up combo points with the simple abilities and melee combat, and spend them on your finishing moves.

The power bar would function as a damage multiplier, and would decrease a little bit every time you use a skill. You can charge it back up whenever you want, and some abilities will grant you the ability to break it's limit, and effectively power up to above maximum and have a higher damage multiplier.

While a pretty cool concept, we decided that it's not really the direction for a DBZ game, and then after some brainstorming we came up with some changes:





- Combo points are gone. I will keep the system for a different, more classic-RPG themed game.

- Ki bar is back to it's original form. Even before the latest changes which made it refill by melee combat and the charge ability. It is now quickly refilling over time, like it was in the earlier versions of the battle system.

- New bar: Power Bar - It was one of the good things out of the scrapped design so we kept it. It acts as a damage multiplier, consumed slowly by special skills, is rechargeable, and can be overcharged with special skills (Kaioken).

- Kick and Punch separated. This is still under some testing and might change soon, but we are trying this out. We separated kick and punch into 2 different buttons, to allow for more creative combo moves. We just need to create some creative combo moves now.

- New controls. This is only possible because I finally made a controls menu, so you can fully customize your controls in the game.
What we try to do now is reduce the overall number of buttons in the game, and have more things use button combinations. For example, Kaioken is now activated by pressing your Teleport button and your Ki Blast button at the same time. Power-up is done by pressing Guard + Punch. Much more of those to come.
This also allows for much better joystick/controller support.



That's it. Pretty simple and clean. You got your Ki, you got your power, you can play with both of those as you please and the gameplay is relatively free, fast paced and fun. If you read up to here, you are a champ, and thanks!

See ya!

It's been a while since I posted anything here, but the game did see some progress.

The Demo
I talked a lot about a demo in the works so I'll address that first: bottom line is, no demo any time soon. My original plan was to work hard until I can get that demo out, and then chill and take my time, and complete the game... whenever. But with the addition of George and Link to the team, I could actually create more stuff and worry less, which made me progress farther than I thought. I could have polished some stuff and get a Raditz demo out, but it would not have been as good as I want my game to be, so I'm glad I didn't do it. When a demo will be out eventually, it will be longer and better than what I had planned originally.

And now for the more interesting stuff.

New Menu System
If you've been following the game then you had probably seen this already, but I haven't talked about it too much. So there it is - the new menu system, with George's UI design.



I got the inspiration for it from George's new HUD, and after using the graphics to build a mock-up menu in Photoshop, I decided I want it to work much more fluidly in-game than the last menu. So it took some coding time but it was worth it. You can see the menu in action in various game videos, including the one here on the buttom.

The latest addition to the menu is the ability to choose an item to hold. After you choose your item, you can use it whenever you want out in the open world by pressing a key.



New HUD
As I said, George designed us a new HUD, which I showed before in some screenshots and videos, but here it is anyway:



Using the graphics of the HUD, the game will have a more consistent look all throughout, and I am slowly updating all of the menus to share to same look.



As you can see in the screenshot above, there's a system in place for multiple characters, which is necessary for most of the game, as you get to play as Vegeta.

Particle Aura System
This is probably my new favorite thing in the game - a custom aura system made of graphic particles. It can be used to generate auras of any color, and a variety of sizes and strengths. Here you can see some examples of colors. The intensity of the auras is around 5 out of 15 (there's not a real limit, it's just becomes too much at a certain point). In the end, a special Kaioken aura with multiple colors.



Other than that, there's a ton of under-the-hood improvements, and bigger changes such as enemy AI improvements (completely re-wrote it, as it was the most dated part of the battle system). Also new sprites from George, with more to come.

I probably forgot some stuff but I guess that's everything major. Untill next time, here's a video of some playing around with the newly reworked Kaioken. Also showing the new menu, some auras and the first version of King Kai's planet (before George overhauls it!).



See ya

... Still alive!



It's been a while since I posted anything here, and as you can see in the screenshot, it's been a while since I've done any progress at all. The reason for that is that I kinda missed my deadline for the demo - I wanted to finish it, including all the testings, before the start of July, because of that's when I start to get reeeeally busy at work for about two months.

The good thing is, my testers had a lot of time to find bugs/errors/balance issues/cheesy dialogue that needs fixing. :)

Well, those two months are about to come to an end and exactly a week and a half from now I'm gonna be able to resume work on the game, full power SSB mode.

I might have some news even before that, but no promises!

Cheers everyone

It's just that real life got in the way so I haven't had too much progress lately. Luckily I have Link_2112 who is helping me around - we are testing the demo pretty extensively and exchanging some cool ideas which really help to make the game more fun.

I did managed to get myself to rip some new enemies from LoG 2 & 3, so no more space bunnies for now! They will be back in Vegeta's part.





Cheers!

It's mostly Vegeta's fault, he keeps going on and on about that Super Saiyan legend.

So I think I kinda lied. I said that the last thing I do before I release the demo will be the title screen. Well, there it is. But no demo yet. I'm almost done tho - I now only have some events, dialogues and cutscenes left for this first part of the game. Mainly the starting cutscene of the game, and the post-Raditz fight one. The thing is, events, cutscenes and dialogues are pretty much Sphere's weak point, with it's non-existent framework for those things. My systems for events are nice but it's never gonna be as user-friendly as RM's point and click, for example. So that's why anything narrative-related takes me a bit more time. At least I finally finished this whole Island sequence.





I do get nice progress on all kinds of systems, and today I made me a new Load/Save system.



Next week is a bit of a busy one, but I hope I can find some time to grind some events, fix some bugs and start testing some demo!