So i did some soul searching on Seacrit and I did come up with an idea that I think is going to bring everything together! Sometimes you come up with an idea that isn’t really a new idea, but a nice neat packaging that brings other ideas together that were floating around in your head.

So here are the random ideas I'm combining into 1 big milestone task:

1.  Boss enemy
2.  Gate new area based on completing a “quest”
3.  Killing enemies reduces cooldown on new rare enemy spawn
4.  More blatant timer for NPC spawns akin to Dota and LoL, this will add a fun layer to timings for certain rare fish, and i’m putting my own spin on it by making kills on NPC’s reduce this timer, tying the overall NPC play with boss killing. Killing tons of minor fish = you get to kill bosses more often = more loot.
5.  Farmer NPC with cool little house

So I think this will both tie Seacrit to the core ARPG loop by adding strong bosses you are intent on killing

Mini bosses: Same deal as bosses but shorter respawn timer, and less powerful loot.

This will also allow me to tool around with the robust look and itemization systems i’ve just incorporated.

Revamping required:

1. Need to retool spawning to allow NPC’s to spawn in a specific location, and that NPC will need to not despawn based on distance. I need to also make this NPC not wander about by giving it a neutral movement speed of 0. Also since this fish can spawn on screen, i’ll probably try to give it a “poof” particle to try to mask it’s spawn it a bit, I can have the spawner spawn this poof particle a fraction of a second before the fish spawns at the spawn location.

1. Add gating mechanic where the payer is only allowed to move forward AFTER they kill the boss, and swap out 2 different dialogue NPC fish, one telling you how to advance, and one telling you that you have defeated the boss and a bit of discussion about how boss mechanics work and how they give superior loot. Once killed, Environment assets “unfreeze” and can be pushed  out of the way to allow entrance into the cave.
2. World build the farm NPC and boss spawn area.
3. Itemize the boss with specific boss loot items. Secondary spawns should take longer and longer to avoid the player focusing on a single boss too much for loot.
4. Create the boss and give them decent enough AI that they are at least a little fun to kill. I do not plan on going overboard on bosses and AI routines as there is much mor important things to do. Just need a big beefy enemy with AOE attacks to gear check player and soak up damage while dishing out a bullet hell scenario.
5. This can be made into a new item mod! "of the slayer" will allow the player to reduce boss spawns by greater amounts per kill, allowing them to farm higher tier items faster from bosses. Speaking of... I haven't added other luck modifiers, like magic find, I'll add that to the todo list. (these would be modifiers for rings)

So why do I think this new setup of spawning will help seacrit be fun? The gameplay as it stands is just a tad too random and free form, it feels as though you’re playing a game that’s procedural and things just kinda come at you, there isn’t that “hand crafted” feeling of exploring a world, and being rewarded for giong to specific areas and finding specific creatures. Up until now bosses have been random spawns, and that makes them feel iffy, like if you’re not ready for it you hate it, or if you don’t get it and you ARE ready to fight them, it just isn’t fun.

This will create a true flow to adventure/ rewards/ bosses, and I really think it’s going to bring the game together. And I think the novel element of reducing spawn times on bosses for killing enemies will really draw on the core element of seacrit and reward top end play as seacrit is more a combat oriented game than Diablo.

Seacrit is not about exploring randomly generated dungeons, it’s about kicking ass as hard as possible and getting badass items and then kicking even more ass.

So that’s my plan for tomorrow, Get the new spawn system in, get the gating mechanic working, and then over the next few days get a couple more zones in. I’m pretty sure it’s doable, and I think this game is going to really be coming together in the near future!

Probably dumb to announce this as i'll likely still be burned out but who knows, I feel like I'm on the precipice of the final push to finally land on a decent demo and I can feel tomorrow could be the day this all comes together.

Been lazy and worthless and distracted by real life stuff the past week, time to get some damned work soon!