Lol. I changed mine to sparkles.
Nice work though VN

@Virtual Nomad: any chance that SetSpriteBlendModes works in AppGameKit Classic? Otherwise I'll just make all obtainable items flash occasionally (it would be too slow to check it it's behind another sprite).

any chance that SetSpriteBlendModes works in AppGameKit Classic?

It appears not, Studio only

Im thinking a shader is what you want the blendman did a great example of blending sprite images on the shader thread
ideally you just want the sword to bleed through or perhaps an outline also i did something similar on the top of the below thread
https://forum.thegamecreators.com/thread/222027

but im def no expert and have no idea about how you would use an outline, Its also possible with memblocks where you would just get the
rgb channel of the sprite and the tree and then mix them onto another image maybe by just mutiplying etc

failing all that the outline could also be an approach in which case you would have an outline of the sword sprite and place infront of the tree
so you end up with three sprites . That i feel would be the fastest and simplest approach. a bit of opacity changing and depth setting but thats all thats needed

your imagination is the only limitation this is a 3D xray routine i did with the skeleton created by blink

this was achieved with a skeleton model being placed inside and attached to the person and animated the same then a transparency shader
was used made the person transparent revealing the other model(skeleton) within a zoned area. Some inspiration or you

Maaan, I really wish I could use that blend mode in AppGameKit classic for animated characters, but oh well.

My main problem was dropping items behind other sprites. The characters move around a lot and can be selected on the sidebar, etc., so not a huge deal. I'm gonna just have the items flash with this little animation. Let me know if it's annoying. Thanks for all the help, too.

The next demo is gonna take another week, so here's a video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cADR5iegM8Y

I'm not 100% sure the blend mode would work for you anyway.
I'm thinking it would show EVERYTHING behind the wall as that shadow.
So if you had a tree behind the wall it would show it in shadow

Yeah, I also went out of my way to make sure characters would always be peeking their heads out from behind walls (if not trees) using collision, so I think I'm good now. Thanks again.

I thought of 2 suggestions.
1st, does the players really needs to know all of the items that are behind trees?...

Is it possible that the players only needs to see the items that are behind the tree next to him? So a radar like code "if players is near, transparents this tree" same depth values as initiated, just a transparent tree and only when needed.

2nd.
Create a shader, for highlighting the edges of an item and drawing it last to screen before render() / sync()

So you would see all hiddent behind other sprites with a nice highlight , drawing the render image last to screen with absolute the depth problem.

If you cannot create a shader (like me.. i dont understand the concept of building shaders yet) use phoshop or gimp maybe to create a highlighted img to every item you have, it should not be hard just may take some time to go over all the items. Since it is just a highlight img of the same texture, yoy can save disk space and loading time by reducing the resolution.


Actually now i have another suggestion to rule them all.

You can use like a little pointer if two sprites overlap aka coin and tree, where the pointer points behind the tree (same depth as the item) only that it goes up on the y value and down, making you notice something is there.
This could actually be real fun, as only one item is being pointed by this pointer if you took it after some delay a new item that the player did not see yet. Wil be pointed.

Cheers.
Awesome thread.

Hey haliop787, thanks for the suggestion. I already have moving arrows for the map transitions. So I decided on a little sparkle.

I'm gonna hopefully get the next demo out on the 14th, and I will post a link here so you can see it. But, the issue has been resolved.

Alright. Damn that took long enough:

https://blancaster45.itch.io/warlordocracy-demo

not seeing any Help for controls, etc? ie, how do we move, do things other than dialogue and pan the screen?

I was able to move when the compass symbol, above the hand symbol was highlighted, by clicking the right mouse button on a position I wanted to move to. I could 'take' things and open doors, by right mouse clicking them when the hand symbol was highlighted. Still trying to figure other controls out, but seems very nice so far.

Solid start! Keep it up!

I know it's only a demo, but a few suggestions/comments if I may:

1- Clicking to move somewhere that's beyond a closed door results in the character going haywire at the door until it's opened. Might want to check if the location is reachable before acknowledging the move command?
2- I like that the character keeps trying to move to where you click, but it also causes weird/funny behavior. I had a freaking chicken moving back and forth at the same time as my character was trying to go around it and it just looked like they were dancing together
3- Having to select the character before taking actions is a bit annoying. I don't know if later on in the game this control scheme serves a purpose, like having multiple characters or having to interact with the environment while not controlling the player, but as it stands right now, it's not the most user friendly control scheme.
4- Music feels out of place, a bit too spaghetti western for the fantasy style, and it doesn't loop either.

[mod edit] Renamed potentially offensive wording

@NoobStar: About that haywire behaviour, it's gonna take a long time to fix. Same with the pathfinding in general. I just had to get a story going first otherwise I would go insane, like the haywire chicken.

As for the click-select, there are already two other characters you can recruit in the demo. I think it would be impossible to beat the demo without them. You can get up to 5 on your main team. Then you can get another 20 in larger battles, and the maps will gradually get bigger as the game goes on and turns into more of an RTS as you recruit more people.

That music was commissioned by a fellow coworker for free when I thought the game would be more steampunk, but I couldn't find the art. Anyway, I might just stick to Kevin MacLeod, as we all do.

Later on I will throw in more tutorial.

EDIT: There are 5 maps you can go to in this one, just so everyone knows.

[mod edit] Renamed potentially offensive wording

Also, I just put in a quick update with objectives to recruit the two other party members, so you know there's other party members. I don't think it's possible to beat it without doing that.

EDIT: Also try going to the docks after midnight.

OH Yeah, one more thing just to help me out: is your FPS close to 60 and steady? Thanks.
Also, I uploaded a new demo that fixed a collision bug and more.

https://blancaster45.itch.io/warlordocracy-demo

A solid 60 on my side and I have a pretty old PC. Looks good.

@n00bstar, sweet. My DBPro FPS/RPG barely hit 33 and the AI was so-so. Didn't much matter because it was primarily gunfights, so running up against a wall looked normal. Now I gotta seriously work on pathfinding and AI. But I also have to make sure it doesn't run like a tortoise (full of rigor mortis).