Weekly Report (June 30th)

Well hello there!

Posting this build earlier than I usually do. The reason being the comparably stable state of the build (I hope it is), as well as the fact that I don't really know what else to cram in before tomorrow. As expected, I mostly worked on combat actions overhaul. However, there are a couple of other changes.

Here's the list of them:

- Implemented combat queue portraits fading - now the portraits actually fade in at the start of a combat encounter and fade out at the end of it;

- I forgot to add backlog messages to escape attempts last week - they are properly logged now;

- Changed the structure of the combat/dialogue images - previously, the backgrounds acted as masks, but I decided to add a mask on a separate layer. The good - I can now use bigger sprites for backgrounds, not just 880x440. The bad - the 'shake effect' is only applied to the background sprite, so when a background picture shakes, the mask will remain stationary. I could 'tie' the mask to the background, but it felt like a crutch more than anything;

- Updated character rates and associated calculations - they are now less cluttered; variables' names are more reflective of what they stand for, too;

- Overhauled combat actions-related code - the logic is now more sound compared to its pre-overhaul state. There's still one somewhat questionable decision I made regarding escape combat actions, but I couldn't find a better solution. I tried to amend the situation by placing an explicit warning in the Unity editor, but it still bugs me a little.

Next week is (presumably) the final week of me working on the combat mode. For the demo, anyway. I really need to program the characters to not act like headless chickens. I have an idea of how to handle the matter, and I'm actually kinda excited to try it out. It's nothing groundbreaking, and I'm sure there are better ways to program the AI, but hey, cut me some slack. I don't know what I'm doing half the time, so making the AI work in any way, shape, or form would be formidable for someone like me.

Will let y'all know about the progress later.

UPD: I forgor I haven't yet implemented critical hits and dodging. FFS.