Making Fun Combat is Hard... - Devlog 1

Making a game fun is hard... Yes, I am writing this a couple minutes after finishing the announcement post about this project...

I have started multiple projects during these 2 years of game development learning. Some projects were left for now because they have entirely different and very specific mechanics which take their own course to understand (looking at you, racing project), some were left because of a technical roadblock (missing animations, incomplete ideas, missing assets, etc.), and some are left simply because they do not have a vision.

The vision of a project is a hard concept to define. If I were to try, I think it is the natural match between the theme, the mechanics and the feeling of a game. When these three aspects fit into each other it is much easier to see the way forward regarding what to implement, how to implement and what works or not.

The Shattered Veil has a vision problem... More specifically, I have the theme and I have the mechanics, but the feeling is a little bit off.

Although the spells I developed so far all make sense and work, they seem to not fit into the combat loop. When working on combat, some questions are always going through my mind:

- Why would the player engage with this mechanic/spell?

- Is this too easy? Is this too hard?

- How will this combat loop scale for later parts of the game?

- What am I doing to make the player interested in exploring and experimenting with different mechanics/spells?

- IS THIS FUN?

These questions made me revisit the combat loop several times since I started this project. The first iteration was a literal third person shooter-style gameplay. The player would "aim down the sight" and fire the spells. This required too much precision, without a worthy reward. So I went to the lock-on approach.

As for how the player selects the spell to be used and how they are used, I initially thought of implementing something similar to souls games, only adapted for a magic-focused game. The player selected the spells using the d-pad for each direction, and would fire it with the same trigger. Player also had a magic bar which refilled over time. This was clunky and limited the player to using only the basic projectile while waiting for the mana to recharge. I alleviated this a little by implementing a sectioned mana bar, with each spell costing either 1 or 2 bars depending on their power, and increasing the recharge. Yeah, that was still not it... (you actually can still see the mana bar in the current game showcase video, even though it is already inactive)

At this point I remembered one of my most random favorite games: Rage 2. As a game hoarder, I find it very difficult to spend my resources during combat. However Rage 2 is based on cooldown, and I remember that this made me actually use everything on my disposal, in turn making the game much more fun. So I went with this approach, which is the one currently in place. As for the controls, I got inspired by the clever Hogwards Legacy spell selection system which is working fine for the moment.

So after all these iterations, why do I still feel like the combat does not fit? Well, I actually don't know...

My current theory is that I have to improve how the enemies work, which is something I actually have not put that much time into. Currently there are 4 enemies implemented:

1. A goblin that constantly chases the player and melee attacks

2. A bird enemy which charges towards the player in an attack

3. A mage enemy which shoots a simple projectile with a light homing effect

4. A minotaur enemy which is currently in the works and as of now is just a tankier goblin

I am conscious that being the developer of all the mechanics, it is natural that I am able to exploit my own enemy implementations. Nonetheless, maybe this is what is currently missing from the game: more engaging and responsive enemies.

Right now I am working on completely new animations for the Minotaur enemy, which will be my test subject for the enemy AI rework. To me, animations play a huge part in the feel of a game, so maybe this will already make things better.

I really hope this makes the combat get to the fun and engaging point that I want, as I have so many cool ideas for this gameplay framework to implement next. Otherwise, other reworks may be required... Not excluding the possibility of another whole gameplay rework.