Project Minotaur Progress Report: Spell Casting

Note:  This post has been sitting around as a draft since Friday morning, but the Blogger mobile app has issues with placing images.  I'll try to get updates out on Fridays here on out.

Legend:
(-) Goal incomplete
(~) Goal partially complete (buggy/hacked)
(+) Goal complete

Goals for this week:
1. (~)Complete a proof-of-concept of the spell-casting system that contains:
a. (+)Basic interface that accepts player input and reports selection
b. (~)Generation of spell circle
c. (+)Placeholder art for spell orbs
d. (-) Measure and report casting time

Goals for next week:
1. First pass art for elemental spell orbs
2. Complete initial spell design
3. Rebuild casting prototype as sustainable code
4. Add timer
5. Allow combining elements
6. Create development schedule

Other:
1. Working title has been chosen

This was a slow week starting out, busy and and somewhat undirected.  Android and Java have their quirks that are slowing me down a bit, and Eclipse is definitely not one of my favorite tools.  Excuses aside, I really just need to hunker down, plan out my development path, and get cracking.

So how does spell casting work?  A spell is created by choosing an element, a form, and a target from successive spell rings.  First, the player is shown the element spell ring.

 

After choosing an element, the player chooses the form for the spell to take.  These forms determine what the spell does (e.g. bolt is a missile attack, shield is defensive).

Finally, the player chooses the target of the spell.  Since this concept is based on idea of true names/words, the player may cast the spell on his/her self or other (the enemy).  There's also true self, which will have a much greater effect, but also allow the enemy to cast spells using the true name of the player character.  However, if the enemy casts a spell using their own true name, then the player may cast spells against them with greater power using "true other."

At this point the spell is cast, with damage dependent on the casting time and character abilities.  In this proof-of-concept, the spell orbs chosen are displayed on the left of the screen.

However, all I've got for this first week is the bare-bones of the concept, and the insides aren't pretty.  Over the next week, I want to rewrite this system into something I can sustain and build on, and hopefully make it prettier on the outside at the same time. Most importantly, I need to plan out what I can accomplish by March and how I'm going to go about doing that.

See you next week!