.plan

October 19, 2020

Now with fewer than two weeks left to go in the DOS Games Fall Jam, the scramble is on to finish adding game features, fix late-breaking bugs, and add that last little bit of polish.

Most of this week's effort was focused on:

Implementing enemy behavior for the "Bruiser" enemy that I had created graphics for last week
Creating graphics for the second playable character, Roslyn, building on work by two amazing artists:
- Original commissioned character art by Angel Nichols
- Sprite work started by my best friend Rachel Wil Sha Singh (@Moosader) and finished by me

At this point, not everything I have planned is going to make it into this demo. The most glaring omission will be audio; I really should have spent some time at least learning how to program the PC speaker, if not the AdLib as well. But this is a long-term project that will continue on well after this jam is over. (It's actually the second jam I've entered Acronia in, and depending on how long development goes on, it probably won't be the last.)

I'm still aiming for a 2021 release. Maybe it'll be the hot new DOS game of the summer.

- To do
+ Done
/ In progress
X Not a bug / won't fix
------------------------------------------------------------------------

+ Implement Bruiser
    + Graphics
    + Behavior
+ Implement Roslyn's graphics
+ Finish implementing character switching
    + If swapping out while character still alive, resume level progress
    + If character is dead, re-start level (TMNT for NES rules)
+ Implement "game over" state
+ Implement pause key
+ BUG: demo playback crashes with objarray out of range error
+ Make Bruiser check for player line of sight once after each action;
  after three fails in a row, go back to idle state
+ BUG: Bruiser throws projectiles backward if player moves between
  projectile init and launch (Bruiser should track player, and adjust
  facing direction)
+ Fix Roslyn's "ledge hang/climb" graphics -- they're too big. Use
  Allie's animation as a base
X Modify player to use separate leg and torso sprites -- Player object
  should use two Spriteset members
- BUG: Things are being drawn more often than necessary (every frame)
- BUG: if player's name overlaps portrait, the name's drop shadow leaves
  black pixels on portrait border (should include portrait border in
  mask bitmap)
- BUG: opening door to escape secret room turns entire east wall into
  a door
- BUG: Bruiser uses right-facing death animation even when facing left
- BUG: "paused" and "game over" text sometimes leave artifacts behind
  when camera is moving. Should store a "previous dirty box" for those
  text displays
- Bruiser should be solid so player can't run past
- Work on sprites for other characters: Harry -> Dad -> Buddy
- New ENDTEXT screen for fall jam
- Make two or three more levels
- Record demos for all levels
- Implement conveyors and a few other hazards
- PC speaker sounds
- High score table (integrate into demo loop)
- Don't load in player graphics until that character is the active
  player (this will reduce load time -- and overall memory requirements
  by only having one set of graphics in memory at a time)
- User settings should load from a file (currently hardcoded)
- Don't allow player to fire weapon when in special states (hanging,
  climbing, sliding, etc)
- Add frameskip option