It's... It's day 3, right? Right...?

*ahem*

At long last I have a prototype available! The art is placeholder (although some might end up in the final product due to time constraints), the gameplay is likely rather unbalanced, the enemies are simple, there's little feedback on hits, the thematic element isn't yet there, there is neither sound nor music, and there are bugs--but you can now at least try it for yourself!

You should be able to download the prototype via the link below:

Powerthief
(I'm not hugely happy with the name, and may change it in future versions.)

Feedback would be appreciated, I do believe!

Controls:
[indent=1]Movement: WASD
[indent=1]Aiming: Mouse
[indent=1]Casting: Left mouse-button
[indent=1]Spell-selection: numbers 1 through 4, or scroll the mouse-wheel up and down.
[indent=1]Return to menu, or from menu to game: Escape
To entice at least a little, have a new screenshot (cropped to show just the interesting bits):


A quick summary then of the major changes that I've implemented (as far as I recall): The game now has four spells available, and two types of enemy; both the enemies and the player can be killed. When the player is killed, a game-over screen appears, and after a short delay the player is free to return to the main menu. Objects all have a simple blob -shadow or -"light".

I'm tempted to take an idea mentioned in one of DifferentName's journal entries, giving the basic enemies movement patterns that are more complex than their current "charge!" approach.

There are some known bugs, I'm afraid:

• Enemies occasionally spin wildly around the player.
  
• When the frame-rate drops too low, something occasionally goes wrong with the movement code, and things seem to lurch a bit.
  
• Enemies can spawn very near to the player.
  

The following, then, is my list of remaining major goals for this project (in rough descending order of importance--if nt implementation):

• Implement death-related changes
  
• Saving of the various pieces of data such that the death-related changes persist between plays
  
• Animations
  
• More enemy types
  
• More spells
  
• Sounds and music
  
• Some basic special effects (explosions and the like)
  
• A very simple options menu (allowing for key-rebinding and volume control)
  
• The main boss
  
• The mid-boss, with some means of altering it to reflect a player-death
  
• Interior walls and pits, the latter being a hazard for the player.
  
• Proper level geometry, including outer walls, inner walls, and pits
  

So, plenty to keep me busy over the next two days!