September 28

This week I'm hoping to finish the Eastern Trilith area, clean up the accumulated bugs, and do a few reworks - class XP, combat experience, and loot.
The week started with GDWC launching a new vote round which includes LOTLW - exciting! The results should be mentioned further in this entry. Anyway, today I have been working on small features. 1) I have fixed bugs with banisher dialogue. Banisher is meant to take the demon pearls from the player and give coin pouches, and the whole thing was filled with bugs. Negative gold values, "Give all pearls" working like "Give one pearl", dialogue accessing wrong inventories, ugh. But it's in the past now. 2) I have implemented the silk grass gathering. Now it's possible to equip a new tool - iron sickle - and use Gather ability to get raw silk grass from silk grass plants.
There are only a few of those in the game right now - most of them will be in the upcoming Eir Meadows area. 3) I have filled the matter kilns of the new area. There are 5 of them: - V1: Silver and iron weapon recipes. - W3: Silver and iron armor recipes. - L6: Processed crafting material recipes. E.g.: Silver ore > Silver > Silver glyphs. - R6: Efficient armor and weapon recipes. This kiln is in the abandoned fortification. - T5: Another kiln in the fortification. Claymore, beacon, arc, and amulet recipes. These will be fun to use and discover! 4) I have added the new teleportation spells! - Desert Gate: Teleports to Locul. - Battlefield Gate: Teleports to the battlefield between 2nd Strategic Fortification and Eastern Trilith. - Long Street Gate: Teleports to the Long Street in the town of Eastern Trilith. Desert Gate and Battlefield Gate instructions are hidden in the Eastern Trilith area, while Long Street Gate instructions will be found in treasure chests of Spellscarred Desert. Teleportation spell instructions will be rewards for exploration and combat - unlocking every teleportation spell should be like a small quest. It's inspired by Gothic 3 Forsaken Gods and RuneScape. These games make unlocking fast travel methods very rewarding.

September 29

The day was full of interruptions, so I didn't work as much as intended. What I managed to do is add drying racks and make the rock grinder in Locul work. Rock grinders and drying racks are what I internally call "Production devices". They turn materials into different materials. Drying racks turn raw silk grass into dry silk grass, and rock grinder turns junk rocks from mining into ore. Pretty simple. Production devices should make crafting more varied, more grounded in the world's reality, and they are interesting assets to decorate areas with.
The joke is that I have implemented grinding today. Literally =]

September 30

Today I have: - Made some adjustments to battlefield NPC placement. - Added the last of Eastern Trilith assets: Door to Spellscarred Desert. - Fixed many bugs.
The Eastern Trilith area is now officially complete!

Devtober

It's October again and I'm joining the Devtober! Many people seem to choose the challenge of working on their projects every day of October, but it's no challenge for me. I confess that I'd rather spend 10 hours coming up with my own solution through trial and error rather than watch a 5-minute tutorial. Would be great if my trial and error gave good results - unfortunately, I often feel like I'm reinventing the wheel AND not doing it well. So I am going to try to do as many tutorials as I can during October - ideally for something I can quickly implement into Light of the Locked World for visible results.

Devtober 1

After 7 years of game development, I still don't know how to implement sliders. That's embarrassing! Sliders are so useful - everything I tried really doesn't replace them - and my own trial and error sliders feel awkward to use. So I have followed an excellent tutorial by HeartBeast and it's done!
I am liberated from no-slider-hell! So happy! It did take me the rest of the day to fully integrate the sliders into my UI system so it's a bit scary. I don't really want to only do tutorials. Might have to change the plans that if it becomes a trend.

Devtober 2

Today I have done a tutorial about a 3rd-party text renderer for GameMaker and now I can do this:
Big thanks to DragoniteSpam and JujuAdams! Now that I know how to do it, I'm not sure where to use it, but I guess I'll figure out eventually. Today I have also fixed several complex bugs, the game is becoming playable again =]

Devtober 3

The day started with GDWC results: Light of the Locked World - 3rd place. Thanks to all who have voted for the game! It's not a big achievement, but I am very happy that the game has participated in the championship - I've got some views, new followers, and proof that my reach isn't that small. It's great. Today's Devtober progress:
I've learned a lot about shaders and implemented a saturation slider! Thanks to Gaming Reverends channel! I'm hoping to do more of his tutorials in the future - shaders are a very powerful tool for making graphics and I want to become good at using them. That's all for this entry, until next time!