Hey there! Wondering why there was no devlog for around a month? It's because of this godforsaken feature and its implementation.

Why?

NEXO QUEST is meant to be an open-world game so that the player can freely explore the area. However, there's not much use for this if there's nothing to explore. To fix this, I needed to add all sorts of structures and characters. I first started with enemy camps and random NPCs, but there would be no reason to fight the enemies if there was no reward. Plus, what would happen if the game was too hard? That's why I decided to add shops (This was a bad idea)! 

Planning

I decided that shops would carry items/abilities that would make it easier to fight the vast number of enemies. However, I couldn't just add weapon chips (You should know what these are if you read the last devlog), as they would be collected by exploring the game world (This adds another incentive to make the game open-world!). After getting insulted in the r3sgame Discord (Which you should join), I realized I should add a new type of ability to the game: buffs! These are purchases that grant the player strength, speed, armor, or sight for 90 seconds. I also decided to add a health refill in the shop, as there is currently no other way to heal (A very good idea!).

Implementation

This was a train wreck. I don't remember all of the details, but here's how it went:

• Add shop class.

• Add shop logic. After wondering why it doesn't work, realize that I added two instances of the script.

• Add Shop UI (This is just a clone of the dialogue system but with buttons)

• Add abilities (Lots of "if" statements and coroutines!)

• Add ability UI (Appears and disappears based on whether any of the abilities are activated)

• Add coins
• Give each enemy in the game a number of coins that are added to the player's coin pool when they are defeated
• Add coin UI

• Require the player to have sufficient coins in order to purchase abilities
• Done!

The End

...And that's why I've been relatively inactive! The prototype is nearing completion, but I still have to add chip collection and a game menu to manage chips. I've made the scope of this project very large, and working on it is pretty exhausting, so I might take a break and work on a different project once the prototype is finished. Don't worry, this game is far from discontinued.

Stay tuned!