GA1A02/05 Game Maker - Update 2

 Game Progress So Far

The current prototype consists of:

• 2 Rooms = Oldlyn and Lynroad (3rd only just started). Oldlyn is the starting town, and Lynroad is the first wilderness.
• Player stats = HP, EXP, Hunger, min and max Attack.
• Other stats = Time.
• Inventory system = Consists of the master inventory list, player's inventory, and each NPC shop keeper's inventory (currently only 1). All inventories are created using 2D Arrays. All items are non-stack-able except coins. This is to give the game a bit more of a survival aspect as the player can't just load up on a massive amount of a single items for health/hunger/other gains.
• Buy and sell system. Items are bought and sold depending on their value.
• Currency = Coins.
• NPC = 1 blacksmith at Oldlyn, sells a few items, buys any the player sells to her. Mousing over an NPC displays a green outline. There is also a simple conversation system by selecting a speech option on the displayed texts.
• Item usage = Depends on item type. Consumables are one use with their effects cast immediately.
• Equipment = Weapons are equip-able, increasing min and max Attack of the player.
• Combat System = The combat works as follows: Click on an enemy to do damage based on your Attack stat, then the enemies do their damage on you based on their Attack stat. The player may equip weapons to increase Attack, but can only equip one weapon at a time. 
• Each weapon also consists of a Cool-down, so after player attacks with an equipped weapon, the weapon cannot be used again until it's Cool-down has expired (calculated in turns). 
• Area of Attack(or Effect) weapons also added into the combat system, which can do damage to all enemies on the screen at once.
• Enemies = Wolves, spawns at Lynroad, between 1 and 3. Click a wolf to apply damage and receive damage. Possible to do area damage to all wolves with certain weapon types. Mousing over an enemy displays a red outline.
• Loot System = when enemies die they can drop loot, which appears at the end of the battle The player can choose whether or not he/she wants to take each loot.

 Some screenshots of the prototype:
(Note: All in-game graphic are simply placeholders for the time being)

The NPC Buy & Sell System + a Simple Conversation System

The Combat System, showing the current weapon equipped and the mouseover target for attack.

 Major bugs/obstacles so far:

• The inventory and equipping system was a nightmare to get working correctly. Multiple scripts were written to give custom functions of adding a certain item from the master item list to the player's inventory as well as equipping an item if it is equip-able. I tried coding an idea I had about increasing and limiting the amount of equipped weapons to 4 and have it displayed at the bottom center of the screen, however writing code to keep track of both 2D arrays simultaneously as well as the mouse clicks and array empty slots proved to have too many bugs and not worth the time. Instead I went for the original idea of just allowing 1 equipped weapon at a time straight from the player's inventory.
• The area of attack weapon abilities proved somewhat difficult to implement. Bugs kept popping up left and right with cooldown not working correctly at one second, to not being able to attack at all the next. By tonight I finally managed to get it all working in order.
• The Cooldown system had a few hitches which was tied in with the area of attack weapon ability.
• Buying and selling and managing the NPC's inventory took quite a few goes with different methods to get right. Selling an idea from your inventory was easy. Buying one from the NPC, it moving to the correct slot in your inventory, the correct amount of coins deducted, and the NPC item stock decreased accordingly was not as easy. When one method might work for one function it screws up the other. Took many tries to find one that worked for all.