Upcoming Moves

I've been talking to other creators, and they have impressed upon me the need for weekly status updates, and that it might be better for my project to also update the project itself twice a month. That's gonna be something I'm gonna start getting into the swing of, as we move into the winter, starting right now.

So I have been working on stuff, namely the next combat update, let's take a peek at the old combat version.

ORIGINALLY the moves were 64x64 pixel art, and seven frames. Enough to show some movement and impact. To make the new moves I needed more fidelity, so I went back and doubled the pixel size of original art, making moves 128x128. As I planned out the more complete combat version you might have noticed that the monsters on the field now stand more centered, directly across from one another. I then expanded the blank canvas moves were on so that they are now 7 frames on 128x256. With the deployed fighting monsters standing across from one another this would allow me to be more creative and detailed with moves. I could for instance, show one monster grabbing the other with vines, powering itself up, or launching at beam attack, without having to mess around with too much code.

GIFS don't like transparency, I assure you the white is actually a semi transparent GLOW that the PNG frames show much more softly in-game. Anyways here is THUNDERBOLT, a big STAB move that also Paralyzes your foe.

I don't think I nailed SLASHFIRE, but it looks way better than the old fireball move, and BURNS your opponents. I placed DULLAMON here intentionally, she's a GHOST monster, but she is getting the move SLASHFIRE to represent her flaming sword and FIRE affinity. This will make her objectively the best GHOST type for a while, more on that in a bit...

Self buffing moves are also super important in monster catcher RPGS, the ones in EGGOMON are going to be very strong. No low level status moves here, these are the equivalent of swords dance or belly drum. Flame Sovereign burns your opponent and gives your monster the RAGE status. Energize isn't super strong but it also applies to the rest of your team, boosting energy regen across the board for 3 turns!

This first slap at new moves is going to make FIRE and SPARK monsters strictly stronger than other monsters, I appreciate your patience in this, and want to point out you don't want to wait for all TYPES to be buffed simultaneously, and me to have to do 20+ animations and deliver them in an extremely buggy update. Also it means the first enemy trainers I will be adding will be FIRE SPARK WIND WATER AND GRASS specialists, since these TYPES are getting fleshed out sooner.

Not all Monsters are going to get all moves, and teaching/unlearning monster moves is NOT even on the priority list for me at the moment. All Fire monsters and Spark monsters will get Flame Sovereign + Slashfire or Thunderbolt + Energize respectively. Except for Thundama, who isn't going to get Energize at all. Sadly she will have to settle for sharing Megamoo's normal type buff move which is also finished; MILK TANK, which costs a lot of energy but gives your whole team the WELL FED status.

We can all agree that Thundama and Megamoo could keep your team WELL FED. With that I should also add that WELL FED improves your monsters across the board, but also mostly boosts their GRAB, VIRILITY and FERTILITY stats, numbers not super important until we get ENEMEY TRAINERS to sick your mons on, so be patient. In future combat I imagine monsters being (broadly) assigned moves to act as Strikers/Sweepers, or Supports, or Grabbers.

With that said I am going to squeeze out a little SHINY and SHOCKBUN update tomorrow or the day after, after bolting down the combat update, and then next month we can start bug testing the new moves in the combat system version 1.2. That's what's happening you'll hear from me again on Sunday / Monday to finish the Shiny / Monster deliverable catch up. Oh and TESLA is nearly ready to debut as well.