BF:BB engine revision: Weapons

If you’ve played my game, there is a fair chance that you’ll have noticed certain issues with how weapons work. For example, there is only one weapon attack animation, and that is the basic stab. While the animation isn’t terrible, stabbing with an axe doesn’t look all that good, and neither does stabbing in order to fire a gun-type weapon.

Each weapon currently has its own entry in the weapon selection list. While this is all fine and dandy for picking the weapon you want, it also makes the list very cluttered. Hence, a redesign of both the menu and the weapon code are in order. Rather than just one big list I plan on sorting weapons into categories, such as “sword”, “knife”, “axe”, etc.

At the moment you can also carry a shield for some extra damage resistance, but you are unable to actually block with it. In my new game engine I will make sure that this functionality is in from the get-go, and that it’s also possible to block with just a weapon or your fists (though at reduced efficiency, of course).

For gun-type weapons, I’m thinking that there is little point in adding ammo pickups. The only purpose they would serve is to cripple players who happen to run out, when projectile weapons in this game would not be particularly powerful compared to all the other powers you can use. As such, I find no reason not to give them infinite ammo. The guns will still have clips that can be depleted, but a reload only means lost time, not resources. Some guns will work in reverse, charging up briefly before each shot instead.

Most (if not all) the weapon sprites I’ve posted before will be added as basic weapons for your characters. Such basic weapons which do not have special powers of their own can be charged with whatever power the player primarily possesses. For example, a flame-user would be able to turn any non-powered weapon into a Fire Sword of sorts.

The upside to carrying an actual Fire Sword would be to have a burn-inflicting weapon on a non-fire user. Meanwhile, shooting flame at someone who is blocking would not do much at all, but a melee strike might still stagger the defender. In such a case, even a fire user might find it good to charge their melee weapon with flame, so that an eventual hit is that much more effective.

I am currently working on player character sprites; filling in missing poses that I need. Once those are all ready, I will start programming the new game engine. Hopefully that will not be too far in the future.

In the meantime, I will still update the current game engine with new abilities and such, which I can then just port to the new engine once it’s done.