Pescua [title work in progress!]

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Pongo
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Re: Pescua [title work in progress!]

Post by Pongo »

Thanks all!

I added the shops and some random NPCs to Horngrim, but it still feels a bit empty. Its so hard to get a town to feel right - something enjoyable to explore, rather than a chore. I'll overhaul it a bit later on in development and try to make it feel a bit more alive and interesting. Giving it a bit more of an overall "theme" or unique identity would be a good step, but I'm not feeling the inspiration at the minute.

I'm much happier with how my dungeons are coming on. This month I've worked on an evil temple, a tomb, and a series of monster filled caves. They mainly use DungeonSoup tiles but I also made quite a few myself (eg stone doors) or adjusted them (eg the wall tiles to keep the perspective consistent). Several of the background tiles are animated, giving it a nice, dynamic feel.

I think the locations feel dangerous and different, and there are a nice balance of enemies. I'm having fun with monster attack effects to create some nice challenges - a particularly nasty one is the Wight, with two attacks that temporarily but cumulatively drain strength. They're total bastards, I love them! In other areas, giant spiders cause havoc by throwing webs at the party before charging in with poisonous bites, orc clerics throw out spells whilst their bigger brothers charge in to engage in melee, and I'm working on two types of "exploding zombies" (one gas cloud, one immediate impact damage) to shake up undead encounters - although I'm having a few difficulties getting them to work properly at the minute (If I can't figure it out I'll post a question at some point, but hopefully I'll work it out).

There's a long way to go and plenty of bugs, but it's finally got to the point where it's actually good fun pulling together a party and chucking it into the fray to see what happens. I'm seeing that as a nice milestone!

This month I'm going to continue fleshing out these dungeons, getting combat effects working, and adding convos etc. Good fun.
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Dorateen
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Re: Pescua [title work in progress!]

Post by Dorateen »

Ah, I remember the exploding zombies from the Eldarin Stone. All this sounds very good, facing enemies with dangerous ability.

One idea for towns, how about just a side quest associated with a particular location. That might help give some flavor, something players will attach to visiting that town.

Look forward to seeing more, and can't wait to play the module.
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slowdive
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Re: Pescua [title work in progress!]

Post by slowdive »

This all sounds great to me. Your areas and encounters have all been top notch so I'm sure you will figure the town out and it will have the feel you are hoping for. The encounters you spelled out sound like they should be fun, varied, memorable, and challenging. I very much look forward to giving it a go once it is ready for testing, hopefully I have all the engine bugs fixed by then :lol:
Pongo
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Re: Pescua [title work in progress!]

Post by Pongo »

Thanks guys!

Dorateen yeah the exploding zombies are making a comeback! I liked them in the Elderin Stone but I thought I could have implemented them better, so they'll be slightly different here (still basically "a zombie that explodes" though!)
Good tip on the town. It does have a side quest but it just feels a bit generic at the minute. I'm sure inspiration will strike at some point.

Slowdive, most of the bugs are of my own making you'll be pleased to hear - typos that kill scripts and missing convo lines, that kind of thing. :)
Pongo
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Re: Pescua [title work in progress!]

Post by Pongo »

I think Dorateen already asked this question somewhere, but I can't find the thread.

In the screenshot below there are multiple combat square effects in place caused by magic. It looks like affected party members should get a symbol on their token/portrait to show the effect, but I haven't added any so its currently just coming up as "blank". Could someone please explain where I need to add the pngs to get these effect icons to show up properly? Thanks.
magic effects.png
magic effects.png (481.15 KiB) Viewed 4979 times

Also, do area of effect spells always dispel previous area of effect spells, or can they be cumulative? I wouldn't want a high level spell that applies burning damage to an area over time to be easily dispelled by casting a darkness spell over the top of it, for example.
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slowdive
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Re: Pescua [title work in progress!]

Post by slowdive »

It is the effect's spriteFilename

I think the way Karl has it setup currently is that a square can only have one effect on it at a time so the last effect added to a square is the one attached to it. I'll dig into the system a bit more and see if I can adjust it... I'll add it to my task list.
Pongo
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Re: Pescua [title work in progress!]

Post by Pongo »

Great, thank you!
Pongo
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Re: Pescua [title work in progress!]

Post by Pongo »

I've fixed the towns, I think. I renamed Horngrim as Tull, and added a little optional haunted house quest, some forshadowing of characters that will appear later in the mod, and set up a quest-line that will trigger in Chapter 2. It's feeling much more vibrant and alive now - I'm happy with how it's turned out! The other town you can visit is Culcheth, which is a little larger and attached to a large graveyard. Three further towns are mentioned but you can't visit them yet (at least in chapters 1 and 2).

I've completed three of the four critical path quests that make up Chapter 1. These are the quests that you are given at the start of the mod by the Kingsguard, that you can tackle in any order:
- unknown monsters have taken over a local lighthouse. The Kingsguard want you to drive them out;
- the Mayor of Tull has put out a call for urgent aid. The reason for his request is unknown - go and resolve his problem;
- one of the Kingsguard has gone missing after visiting a roadside tavern - you need to find out what happened.

After those three are completed, a fourth quest triggers that ties up the themes of chapter one and forshadows chapter two. I haven't started that one yet - it's next on my list, so will get that done in August.

So good progress overall! I think I'll wait until the critical path for chapter 2 is also done before uploading anything though - there are too many empty areas and incomplete optional quests at the minute, and I think they'll be a bit more fleshed out when chapter 2 is complete.

This month I'd like to finish Chapter 1 and get Blood Mage, Mage and Cleric spells added up to level 3.
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Dorateen
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Re: Pescua [title work in progress!]

Post by Dorateen »

So far, I really like the way you've structured the module. Sounds like a fair degree of openness from the start.

As slowdive mentioned, the name of the png file needs to go in the Effect spriteFilename.
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slowdive
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Re: Pescua [title work in progress!]

Post by slowdive »

The starting towns of Tull and Culcheth are sounding great so far with lots of lore and hints at things to come as well. SOunds like waiting until chapter 2 is ready is a good plan. Do you plan on releasing in chapters like Hearkenwold has been doing (that would be great if the story allows for that format)? I'll stream them on my first attempt/playthrough to capture that for my own memories :D
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