A Guided Tour!

As always, this update is live now and can be played for free in browser at https://isochronalgames.itch.io/timelinegame. Updates like this will be coming out every week, so please follow if you're interested in seeing future updates!

A smaller update this week, but one that I hope will make things easier for new players - A guided tutorial!

-A reported bug that was stopping the Spring Loader trinket from working has I think been fixed.

-When you first start the game, a popup asking if you want to run the Tutorial will pop up

-Say no and the game will allow you to start like it did previously - if you say yes it will guide you threw the beginning of the Ogre fight.

The tutorial was actually pretty difficult to plan implementation for. There are a lot of automated systems that I hard coded in to the battle script that interfere with the idea of a guided tutorial, and I had to override them all in this particular case.

For example, I had to turn off the randomization of enemy attacks and player draw, so that I could write steps that would always be possible for the player to take.

In the end I came up with a solution that I'm pretty happy with and should be pretty easily maintainable. I have a special TutorialDatabase script that contains all the tutorial text, and some conditions about those steps. It also contains special code for each popup that determines whether the player has completed the next step.

There's a lot of code in the actual battle screen that handles the tutorial placement and such, but adding and changing steps should be all within the TutorialDatabase, which I like as a structure.

It's a pretty short tutorial - you block an attack, attack through the enemy's block, and then dodge their next attack. Pretty simple, but I think it should make it a lot easier to get into the game. If you're a new player who tries out the Tutorial, I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below!

In development - On the docket currently is the final shop item category and some improvements to the preview system - I'd like it to telegraph when certain ticks will fail due to stun, as well as predict when battlers will die. I'd also like to figure out some way to show when a summon will appear.

Gifs in this were created using ScreenToGif - thank you ScreenToGif!