Sacred Gambit Devlog 2

Alright, sorry it has been a bit since any real update. I swear I was hard at work and just didn't want to interrupt the progress, hopefully by the end of this update post you will see that. I knew I would need to take a step back and log my progress eventually, I kind of pushed that boundary so it might be hard to fit all of the updated stuff in this post so I will be ditching the more structured approach for the Sacred Gambit updates as I'm not sure it worth the time as much as it is for CadEngine. I hope you like walls of text.

Pieces

Okay, these little suckers didn't even exist in the last update (unless you count the random video I posted) SO what up with em anyway? well they are based off of basic engine objects but hold a few more variables. They got names, teams, stats and what not. They got functions for adjusting their position so we stay on tiles. They keep themselves animated, uh all in all they aren't all that crazy. Most of they time they are being manipulated not the other way around. That being said, they are obviously important to gameplay and have a decent bit of functionally as of current.

Tiles

Tiles are even less impressive than pawns, in most ways. They only tell us their name and if we can walk on them, they don't even have any custom functions. Embarrassing... However they do provide us our environment context and without them we would exist within a void with no perspective and we would lack any foreseeable goal to fight for.

What IS cool about tiles is they are now able to be loaded from files instead of being hard coded. So now it will be easier to manage and adjust tiles in the long run, potentially extending to making custom levels...? Additionally we can load a file that contains a tile set so we don't have to again hand write out in the code what tiles we have.

Map

Okay now we are going to get into some interesting stuff here. The map holds all of the information about out current environment, basically once you are past the menus and into a level. This includes all the tiles, pieces and more stuff we get to go over! Rapid-fire variables: name, tile size, tile type list, grid of tiles that make up the map, list of pieces, its mega texture, camera position goal, zoom goal, tile selector object, tile display object, piece display object, action display object, our selected tile, selected piece, the paths that piece can take, object to display those paths, and finally what teams turn it is. This is just what exists right now, more will come but this is current.

Now buddy we got a couple functions here. Okay not much though, got one for getting tile position for our mouse, getting camera limits, and then 2 for rendering the map from tiles because its a bit more complex than just drawing every tile all the time, also we have a basic draw function override to match. Upon creation it also does a bit of set up like resizing grid and some basics.

Now if you can remember ALL THE WAY BACK to the tile section, you might recall some stuff about loading in tiles. Yes, we can load in maps as well. As with most things here they are in their infancy so don't expect them to be able to walk and chew bubble gum at the same time. Currently they do support loading a tile set up with them that it uses to construct the map, adjustable width and height (idk what the limits are, probably like way too large), and then well obviously its puts the tiles on the map. So sadly right now the only way to construct these map files is by hand and i can tell you first hand, it isn't great. Luckily for you and my future self, a map editor is on the road map which i plan to ship with the game so we don't have to suffer. Also this would have a tile editor and whatever else included.

Tile Selector

Okay so this bad boy is like your hand into the game, also it may literally be made into a hand instead of the box thing later but i sure as shit am not trying to draw a pixel art hand. You left click on tiles/pieces to select them, which pulls up the tile/piece display (more on this later). Right click will deselect. Once you select a pawn a few things happen, the action display pops up (more at 8:00), as well as our path display object gets populated with data. From having a pawn selected you can move them to any highlighted tile. While this does do pathfinding to determine where you can go within your given move distance and tiles, it does not yet take into account for pieces blocking your path. I have left that part out intentionally to make that not a requirement for all movement, and ill just leave that there to lead you on because i am a demented bastard. If you select an enemy Piece it will display in RED their possible movement so you can plan accordingly.

Tile/Piece Display

Not a whole lot to say here, they are currently quite rudimentary and need some love. They do however display what you have selected and their name. Eventually it will show more relevant data once it is worked in, and yes I know the text goes off the display thanks.

Action Display

This guy may not have much functionally YET, but come on give him a chance, I promise if you got to know him and how he works under the hood you would love him like I do. When you have a piece selected he's gunna show up and be there for you. When you aren't sure what options you have he's going to kindly show you and let you digest it at your own pace. Why yes those ARE real buttons on his display, they aren't just for show. Did you notice how when you select different pieces the options you have change accordingly? Wow how cool is that!

Conclusion

Hopefully I have covered everything at least somewhat, didn't really go into the nitty gritty because I'm not sure its too worth doing. Let me know any feedback you have, could be about my update format, the game, visuals, ideas, just talk to me or something. Lost of progress here, some of it also is on the engine that I haven't updated yet... once again thanks for reading, It keeps me sane, and I'm sure you can tell I need that.

TLDR

Just watch the video ?