Check out my game on Steam! store.steampow... The new boss was designed by @elliesprites 🤩 Join my Discord! / discord All songs in this video were made by me for MOONSHIRE 🌙
2:35 you could have side quests where you have to bring a specific weapon to someone. It could be a good challange with weapons like the torch where you have to be careful to not waste fire to bring it to the goal
I absolutely love your devlogs! You explain your thought process behind each feature so incredibly well and I love how you're willing to experiment with and rework so many different features as you go. I personally have a hard time scraping my ideas when they don't work out, so seeing how many times you've tweaked the weapon durability system and how it keeps improving with each iteration is really inspiring to me. Keep up the incredible work man!
For bosses, I think having a slightly different animation (in the end) works better than just turning red. I know that's a lot more work, but I'd rather have a different sprite or a boss bar than a simple coloring effect. Love the idea of weapons for health.
I actually disagree. I think the red here adds tension, looks nice, and is much more readable than animation changes. Plus the added work of having to design new animations and effects.
I liked how the bosses scream once they go to low hp in hollow knight it was a unique way of telling them "ur almost done" without distracting you from the boss itself
Personally, I would just scale it down and attach it to a marker above the boss' head. Removing common interface elements can be good when done correctly but can also make systems feel half-baked if poorly executed.
for the boss part, you could make something on the sprites to show that the boss are dying, like a purple eye or the armor breaking, because the turning red is a cool mechanic to tell the life, but could be somewhat cofunsing for new players to understand
great devlog but maybe you can have a setting for the bossbar and it will be automaticly selected to the no bossbar/visual one. so people that like bossbars can choose
A cool solution to the health bar could be to have a small bar show for a second or so above the boss after it gets hits and then disappear, as well as how much damage the player's hit did. That way the player can still see their damage progress in detail, they can gauge how fast the boss will be killed and they also do not get distracted by the healthbar during the fight. This method also unlocks a ton of design options without needing to give the player additional information during the fight. What if you want enemies with weaknesses and vulnerabilities? If the player cannot clearly see they are not damaging the boss for a normal amount, they might just get frustrated thinking the boss has a million HP rather than understanding their weapon needs to be changed. If they can see their damage being low, they can easily make the connection that they must change their strategy in some way.
Sweet Update! I will say I prefer the previous lighting system and that requiring weapons from the blacksmith should cost some in game currency, an easily acquired like being dropped from enemies. Having it be free is a bit too much. Perhaps some legendary weapons come in parts which you give to the blacksmith to get the full weapon.
Love the new changes and stuff!, Here's an idea for the boss health bar issue. You can do it like in Hollow Knight, many bosses like Hornet, stagger when reaching a certain health percentage and this happens many times on different percentages during the fight. It indicates that a boss is slowly dying while also giving players a small thinking window to arrange their thoughts in the 2-3 seconds the boss is staggered. You can just put some hyper armor on the boss when its staggered if you don't want players to do damage during a stagger, or maybe just increase the health of the boss to account for such scenarios. Anyways, Keep up the great work man! Edit: The stagger actually depends on the number of his taken and not the health percentage in Hollow Knight like someone has explained in the replies. Sorry for the confusion! Though I think it will work better with health percentage in for this game
Just a slight correction in terms of how staggers work in hollow knight: bosses don't stagger at health percentage, but rather at the amount of hits taken. For example, I think hornet had somewhere around 12 hits taken needed to stagger her. The amount of hits needed to stagger a boss changes between the different bosses, and many just can't be staggered. This part you most likely already knew, but it's just to clarify things further in case anyone who doesn't know reads this
I think that having a black smith to get back old weapons is great but having no cost to it seems a little op, I think if you added resources you can find while adventuring you can use those resources to bring old weapons back. This encourages exploration as well as weapon variety.
I don’t see the connection between the blacksmith and being op since it basically just lets you choose your additional starting weapon of the adventure, which you will likely trade in for health at some point soonish? I really like the idea of collecting resources for the blacksmith anyway and would probably prefer that too
One cool thing with the visible boss health bar is that you can visibly refill it for a second or third phase if you want, which can be both inviting and unnerving for a player, especially if the previous phase was tough. 😊
All these changes seem really good! The black smith seems like a great touch! I feel like it would be cool if there was a boss that throws weapons at you that you can then use to fight them. Just a random thought
The healing is such a brilliant mechanic. I think different weapons should have different magic effects upon destruction. Eg torches give you boosted damage, lightning rods perform the lightning attack, etc. More powerful weapons can be worth more healing. The star of this game is juggling weapons so I think the more variety the better.
You could make a certain form of magic that lets you use creatures souls as a sort of casting token. This would give players a reason to fight all the small enemies they come across and feel rewarded for doing so.
I think the health bar is handy. Imagine you are fighting a boss, you have one weapon left, and if you break it, the boss dies from the lightning effect. If you have the health bar, you know that, but if you dont, you cant really tell, so you would likely never break the weapon to harm the boss in a danger free way
I played the demo and still trying to get all the dyes. I would recommend making the enemies have an indication when they are about to attack because when they attack..you just have to guess. If you want or can.. make a multiplayer mode to play with friends. And thank you for making this game. it's a wonderful experience :>
I think not having health bars is great, as it helps to keep the tension of "i can kill it at any moment" throughout the fight. Maybe having it stop and rage/roar halfway would help convey you are halfway to killing them, and help to show their attacks are about to become stronger.
This update is so cool! In 2:22 I think the blacksmith's menu does not fit the game pretty much, I feel like if you add pictures of the weapons it would be better than only their names, and the textbox should be more expressive like have the name of the npc and like their face, a good example for this is Undertale's textboxes
Regarding boss health bars, I think it depends greatly on the type of game. For example, I can't imagine playing cuphead with a boss health bar during fights. It would be too distracting. In my opinion though, if boss fights don't require constant attention at all times (which is the complete opposite in cuphead), health bars are nice to have. Like other have suggested, maybe make it a user configurable option. I like the idea of indicating a boss's health through other means too, like changing color or attack patterns.
Idk if you’re gonna see this and I don’t know how hard it is to do this, but I think putting this game on the Nintendo Switch would be a great idea. I can just see myself chillin on my couch playing this game. It feels like a perfect combination.
That weapon system is very clever and simple. The perfect combination in my opinion. Just make sure, that the pickup weapons are stronger than the base sword (atleast in terms of moveset - range, aoe, attack speed, dps), so player should always think twice about destroying the weapon, because if the base sword is really good, player will treat the weapons just as health pots. Added your game into wishlist for support.
I just finished the demo, and let me tell ya. You got something special here! I really liked it. One thing i might ad as an idea, and i know that does not occur so much in this demo, but it would be nice, when the character is obscured or behind something we can still see a silhouette/imprint of the character.
This would go along with some of the visual changes others have recommended, but I think if you had the sound effects upon hitting the bosses change slightly the further you get into the fight, it could serve to provide an additional way of telling how far you are. Maybe even the last five or ten hits, regardless of what percentage of a bosses health that may be, have a specific sound effect so players get the sense of coming up onto the finish line and recieve a lit bit of extra adrenaline that makes winning even more rewarding.
Just wanted to say, I love the demo! It's super fun and interesting. Idea: I think someone else said this, but what about a spell or type of magic that traps enemies and releases them under your command? Basically, you use the magic and depending on how strong the enemy is or how low hp they are or something, you can trap them inside an orb or something. Then when you release them, they fight for you for a few seconds before disappearing. Could be tweaked/improved, just thought it was a fun idea.
Love all these changes! Using weapons to heal or for different powerful attacks sounds great and the animation looks very satisfying. Love the change to lighting. I like when bosses don't have healthbars but I know a lot of people take issue with that in some games.
It's awesome we can play the demo now! I tried it on my steam deck, technically it worked flawlessly! A few points that I think could be improved (at least I would prefer them as described below, I don't want to imply them being objectively better): - When menuing, it would be nice to cancel by simply pressing the B button (or Esc on keyboard), instead of having to navigate to the Cancel Option and pressing A - When NPCs ask you a question, the default action is "No" - I would prefer "Yes" as default with a shortcut to "No" by pressing B - Going into or and out of water looks quite nice (except for a visual glitch/missing animation when leaving the water to the top) but it feels kind of sluggish as it is easy to fall into the water and getting out is slow (especially on bridges) - maybe it is enough to allow the player to get a little bit closer to the edge of bridges (specifically at the bottom edge of horizontal bridges, I often though "I have 3 or 4 extra (texture-)pixels below, I can walk further" - and *splat*) - To me, the invincibility while rolling did not feel so good (in comparison mostly to Bastion) - I often got hit when trying to dodge. Maybe I just have to get used to it, but maybe the invincibility could be communicated more clearly (e.g. by flashing the player character at the start and end of the roll or emitting particles or similar). Maybe extending the invincibility a little after the roll would help as well. All in all the gameplay was a lot of fun! Keep up the good work, I am looking forward to the next update!
U can incorporate weapons that are made specifically to be destroyed by the player. Giving them a small buff depending on the type. Give them the option for different playstyles.
the healthbar thing reminds me of HK and honestly sometimes it can be kinda frustrating not even knowing how far you’ve gotten but i dont reslly like the disctracting health bar mods and such. Cuphead is a game i think has a clever way pf showing you how well you did after the fight so you can see your progress and also gets rid of the health bar also you can make the healthbar toggleable in the settings cuz it seems to be a feature liked by many and a complaint many ppl sometimes have with HK while keeping it dissbled by default as the intended experience
I don't love the lighting change. I actually think the blend of 2D with more realistic lighting is really cool. Aside from that, lots of great ideas here. Can't wait to see where things end up once everything has been finalized.
@@Challacade (I haven't finished binging all your videos yet, but) I think a mixture might be better. Make it pixelated like the new one to better match the art style, but have the radius for the light dimming change so it's a bit closer to the natural light spread. Make it a slower gradient essentially.
I always prefer no boss bar in games personally. It means I'm never sure when I'm close to beating a boss so I never feel like I wasted all my healing and should just give up (looking at you From Soft) and I also never feel like I can just go balls to the wall and tank face because the boss is about to die anyway. It forces me into a a balanced, consistent playstyle that I think is more fun
Blacksmith - “that’s some of my finest work! Player takes weapon and shatters it in front of them Blacksmith - holding back tears… “hey need me to make you any weapons?”
amazing to see you progress on the game. I wanna make my own game now.... Also at 03:35 when the player dies, his health returns to the default value (here it's 3) instead of going to 0. 🤔(maybe it goes to 0 but then it resets to the default value??? HMM...) ANYWAY love seeing your progress. TIPS: - Take breaks, - Do MARKETING, it's important to let people know about your awesome game (Twitter, Reddit, [Presskit?] )!!!
Every boss should get a unique health bar that will reflect his own theme and also every boss should get a name so the health bar won't display "boss" all the time i think it would be a great thing for your game
In my opinion the way dark souls handles health bars isn't distracting, and i think it would work here. just a tiny bar on the bottom or top of your screen, doesn't have to have anything but a red bar going down, out of the way but still there
I understand what you tried to do with the new lighting and not putting a health bar mechanics but although i think they r good ideas i dont think they are well implemented, maybe try chang8ng things like putting new animations or sprites, add speed and even more difficult atacks when the boss is with low health and also i think the change in the ilumination is to drastic maybe try something combining both ideas of the light system
Love the blacksmith, and the idea of incentivization over punishment for weapon breaking. But feel like you could do even more to drive incentive with the blacksmith. Crafting disposable weapons is nice, but not *great*, given that the rewards are... well, disposable. What if he upgraded certain weapons, or provided other incentives if you had destroyed X number of them? You could either track this invisibly, or have an inventory system, like "destroy a dagger to get 1 dagger shard" or "1 spearhead", or keep it generic "scrap". And then you could trade those in to him for bonuses? This could even provide a basis for a bit of a side quests system.
This is an awesome game so far, Here are some of my thoughts... 1 :You should be able to delete save files... 2:The fan is great, but it kind of kills the lightning rod as a weapon... 3: You need to introduce breaking rocks better. maybe as a sage teaching? 4: The game needs to... explain some of the bosses. i was wondering why i was beating up some random girl for the electro boss. 5; Great job. those are my only major criticisms. Great game!
The idea of having lots of disposable weapons sounds surprisingly fun! It's definitely unique! Does this also mean having special, more rare weapons won't be a thing? Looking forward to seeing more of what's to come!
Hey man. I really like indie games like yours and i am really looking forward to the official launch of Moonshire and I can't wait to play it. But there is a problem. When I went on steam to put Moonshire in my wishlist and download the demo I saw that the game was only available on windows. I personally as a mac user really struggle with the fact that so many games are not available on a mac. So this got me wondering. Will you ever consider in the future coding Moonshire so it is compatible with apple products. I really enjoy the concept, the looks and the mechanics of your game and i am looking forward to future updates and changes.
I was wondering and it would be really cool if you add a feature that seems like hollow knight's charms: you would unlock them through your journey and they give you small benefits on the gameplay, but you can't equip all of them at the same time, so you have to choose the ones that fits more your play style just an idea
I think for bosses that they should turn red still and hide the health bar but what if they are split inti phases not in combat but in just that ever time you damage it and the phase ends it gets angrier this can also be used as a way to prevent one hits because you can at most finish one phase at a time its a little dumb but i feel like it could work
Hey, I just played through the demo and was wondering if there is a way to get to the chest in the Village north of the blacksmith. I kept looking but couldn't find a way. Anyways great demo, looking forward to the next Update :D
It seems weird that destroying weapon heals and casts a spell. Unless every weapon would cast different spell (apart from healing?), then it would look less weird, as kinda alchemist magic system.
Boss Idea: B.A.D ·A BTD6 reference ·Stands for "Bioligically Accurate Dragon" (But, don't show what it stands for in the game) ·Only 20-30 centimeters longer than character (If "Lua" is 1.80) ·gulps metal and sulphur for making fire (But doesn't consumes it, okay) ·Spits the metal ·Chance of combusting when get hit ·Bad Dragon🤨
Also, bosses get that little coloring after hit, change based on the what biome, area you are (Example, electric bois gets yellow or bluish green over time)
I think removing the health bar was a good call. It's my first time seeing this game but when the health bar was gone, I felt like I could focus more on the boss themself and also appreciate the art. I would also imagine it would help the player attack and dodge easier. As for the boss, rather than just tinting red, it would be cool if you see a visual change with the sprite after a bit as if it's slowly getting more and more beaten up - kind of like the iron golumn from minecraft. I also think the lighting system would look better if it was more of a gradient like before, but as pixel art if that makes sense. Seems like the perfect mix inbetween you were mentioning. I really like your free and open perspectives with game design and I think it's a really cool looking game!
i also commented this on ur steam community post but just in case: all really great changes. except maybe the boss one. have an indicator that the boss is at half hp or something. or have a visual indicator in the sprite, like panting or things breaking off. the flashing red thing doesnt bother me but i know it can be difficult for both colorblind people and if you start designing red bosses or arenas. also the death screen is really buggy. you can move during it, once i made a clone of myself with it, you can die during the death screen and, once the death screen overlay was permanently stuck on the screen. so maybe try and work on that. also menus dont pause the entire game. but still makes you invincible which is awful. i dont want to pause the game to change settings to go back with all the enemies on top of me. also not a big fan of the projectile enemies, they need better tells before they fire. like the cloud sentry guys need a more blatant startup animation imo. otherwise, damn. looking great. excited to see what more to come
don’t listen to anybody else. keep the health bars in the game, but just attach them to the characters rather than the screen. shrink them down so they hover just above each character’s head. the boss fight would be fine that way, just make the health bar move with the boss so it keeps focus on him.
Please keep the bar. Its not a big distraction and players value information. As a matter of fact, withholding information can sometimes lead to frustration
The weapon breaking to use lightning is just a bit meh I think . I would have it like in oot or majora's mask. So you have bad weapons which break , decent weapons that can blunt back to normal weapons, and amazing weapons that do not break later on in the game . My personal opinion
In my opinion the old lighting style was better. If you think it needs to maybe show less or be moodier I would just tweak the old system to try to make it darker or something. I think it was far more visually appealing than the new one.
The lighting looked much better before. I don't like the new one at all. I prefer health bars, too. There's nothing more frustrating than not knowing how much dmg you have to do to a boss before you beat it. Visual tells give you an idea, but it's not good enough. There's a reason most games use health bars. If you're set on no health bars. Look at Death's Door. They did a great job with visual tells.
cant say i agree with these changes personally.. The light - shadow thing looked better before. The destroying of weapons to get hp back doesn't make sense, why would you get hp from destroying a weapon? This feels forced imo. Lastly boss healthbar is usefull and i would not remove it. Just my two cents here do with it as you want.
I have been following you make this game for awhile now , I have bene using Unity to get into 2D games and did not even know Love2D was a thing lol. I have a strong coding background do you suggest using Love2D when making my first 2D game ?
So with the spells i think it might be nice to have an option to use the spell itself and using the weapon to instantly ready the spell. If the spell takes a while to ready it could give a good incentive to use it, but not have to rely on breaking your weapon go use a cool spell. Also with the boss, im usually against the boss changing colors as the only indicator. But how to change that is a good question. Trying to think about other games ive played, metroid dread left you in the dark for the most part besides the emmi which glowed and bosses have multiple fases, (which is similar to what you have) zelda has a healthbar in recent games, but you were left in the dark in the older ones. sometimes the health bar can be used in portaying later bosses as getting more powerful. Also i don’t think leaving the player in the dark is the right move either. Pikmin uses a circular health bar. I dont know if any of these are really the right move. Maybe it would be better to pioneer a new way, or find a more different way, idk. In the end color changing by itself isn’t terrible. An idea of mine would be a more vague health bar. Not showing a precise level of health, but still knowing that you are getting close to the end without trying to figure out “is that shade of red because the boss is red?”
