[W13] Embellished Maps & Mortal Mobs

Map.prettify()

Procedural maps are certainly cool, but that doesn't make them automatically pretty! Until now, our so-called forest has been nothing but a plain patch of grass stretching in all directions. So to make it more appealing to the eyes, the generated maps are now sprinkled with trees, rocks, animated firepits, and other embellishments included in the amazing fantasy_ asset pack made by analogStudios_, which we have been using for a while.

As you can see in the picture below, things are now starting to look more interesting.

Slay the Little Devils!

Previously we showed you that mobs could attack a player who was in melee range, but the latter had no chance to retaliate. Not anymore! For our valiant heroes can now attack those wicked creatures and send them back to the abyss whence they came! Once the health bar of a mob depletes, it's the end of the road for them, and they vanish unceremoniously (literally) from the face of the world.

The number of slain creatures is also conveniently indicated in a new UI element at the top-right corner of the screen, as you can see in the picture below.

All the described behaviour was implemented in an online multiplayer context, and everything is correctly replicated to all the other clients. You can watch the following video to get an idea of what has been deployed, or you can download and try the most recent build to check it all out for yourself.

What's next

Although we've shown you progress, there is much to be done before «Boss Hunters» can be considered a proper game. There still isn't a way to win or lose the game and, so far, the key features of «Boss Hunters (bosses and skill cards) haven't been implemented yet.

In our next iteration, we plan on adding a couple of cards with fun skills to make battles more interesting, and a simple way to win or lose the game.

That's all we have for you this week. Thank you for reading, and stay tuned for more updates!