Sound interesting, there are lots of different elements you could include with puzzle RPGs, so I'll be quite interested to see what all kind of mechanics you come up with.

I have some new progress to display! This screenshot, I made some decently big progress on the engine! I added the ability to write scripts for your maps. Scripts are versatile lines of data that define behavior of a certain map. In this case, I showed a script that warps the player to any other map, in any other coordinates. This is a "use portal" script, which, when stepping on a warp gate tile with defined behavior, shows a fading animation like I displayed, then puts the player in a new map. The warp gate script will be used to very good effect in the main map-pack, and map-makers will obviously be allowed to use this script to its fullest as well! You may ask how the warp gate is a mechanic worth showing, and I concede, it's not exactly a mechanic. However, the freedom that the warp gate script, and scripts in general, provide is enough to get me excited. When I start developing the main map-pack for real, you will be convinced on how to effectively use such a device.

Other script behavior has already been defined, such as a dialogue script, which displays the specified line of text upon triggering the event. I haven't written it yet, but there will be some sort of script editor. Whether that's included in the map editor, its own seperate tool, or whatever, it will exist.

Looks like this is coming along quite nicely. Nice work!

Thanks! I took quite a bit of a break, so I haven't made huge leaps in progress, but I do have something to show!


Here's a look at a little bit of work I did on this today! I added an HP display, removed FPS counter (you can bring it back by pressing a certain key, although I haven't decided which key yet), and added the functionality to spikes! Spikes reduce 1/4 of a heart in damage per contact, and you are also thrown back in the direction you moved. This is done by increasing your velocity so that you are automatically moved. This velocity system I put in place will also be used for enemies and maybe some more puzzle mechanics.

I have successfully implemented my own home-grown (yet not really unique) pathfinding algorithm! Enemies 1 and 3, or the bird and the stone giant. The 2nd enemy, the specter, can walk through collision. They (mostly) take the shortest path to the player from their starting position, and do it pretty fast too! With 2 enemies utilizing the routine, and a 3rd one moving without it, I get an uncapped FPS of about 450, which I find very impressive.The algorithm I used was just a flash-fill that takes data from the eventmap and plots a path through without colliding with walls, although I may extend that to not collide with other things such as portals, spikes, etc.

I'm really proud of it, as in 8 hours I went from not knowing anything about pathfinding to implementing my own into my game. I'm glad I could get it to work and the euphoria after realizing it worked was gold.

So right now, I'm reworking the main tilesheet to be 48x48, instead of 8x8 (upscaled x6). I figured I might as well show off everything the engine can do, including the resolution it can play at. I haven't made every tile yet, but I have done a few. I updated the spike tile in the upper left, the heart icon, the portal sprite (although I may not be done with that one), the sword, and the grass. I still have most of the tileset to do, but I figured I'd show off this progress. Here's some of my work so far:




I intend to keep this cartoony style for the most part. It's not only easier for someone who isn't really an artist, not only the way my 8x8 tiles looked, but I think it fits pretty well. I would like to hear any criticisms or suggestions you have to offer! Any praise is welcome, as well

As for work on the engine, nothing crazy has been added or removed, yet. I have big plans for features, such as fully-customizable boss behaviors, implementing new events and puzzle mechanics, adding dialogue, and more. The maps featured right now in the Main Adventure map pack are mostly test maps. The work on the real Main Adventure will come in time, mostly once I'm finished a lot of the big features.

RPG mechanics will most likely be present. I'm thinking pretty much just money and Exp as the two point systems in place, but probably nothing more, if just that. I don't exactly know if I even want Exp in the first place, and I'll have to see how it will play out. The money will for certain be in, and will most likely be used to buy techniques, items, and other goodies I haven't yet decided on.

I have taken a long break and got pretty sidetracked. I recently fully implemented dialogue boxes, and now there are two types: infinitely available, and one-time-read boxes. One-time-read boxes reset when you save & quit out of the map-pack, but I probably won't leave it like that. All you have to do to see the dialogue is stand inside the script's bounding box and press Interact (default Space) and you get a nice text box!

However, I have been working on something a little better. I'm making a webpage for my game! So far it's extremely basic and a little bit void of interesting things. I'm adding screenshots, information, my personally-authored map-packs, and more. If you want to see what it looks like so far, I've got it right here: https://123outerme.github.io/Gateway-to-Legend/

I've been working on this still, even though I've been rather silent. What's here isn't even a big update, but I've been preparing the engine for several more big things. After those, almost all work on the engine is finished, and then off to map-pack making, which should hopefully be easy after all the work I did on the toolchain program.


I did a lot of "grease" work, aka lots of engine work for things you won't directly see. I've been working to ensure the Linux/GNU version actually runs, reorganizing some code I made before this project, and more stuff. Here, I actually get to show it off. I've added text input, so instead of having to input various data in the command line, you no longer need that. Another thing I did was revamp the Gateway transition slightly and added a boss into transition.