(repel visuals)
i was thinking that i'm probably going to be simplifying this game down as far as it'll go for the first iteration. how simple? gameboy original simple. black and white graphics, two action buttons like in final fantasy adventure, minimal hardware specs. there just isn't enough variety in the game for me to worry about anything complicated.
for this reason (and others) i figure using shines for repel, even if they're smaller or a different color, is probably not so great an idea. for one, its not different enough for you to know whats going on at a glance. instead i figure a series of blended rings, travelling away from the player, would be a better choice. it looks alot different from shines, and doesn't rely on color for differentiation - its a different graphic altogether.
i don't have its exact look in my mind yet, but i need to make sure the player can at least partially see what's going on under the effect - whether it be between the rings, or by doing something to make it blink real quick, or by hatching like on the edges of the dungeon lighting effect.
i drew a quick pic in my notebook at work, to give a better idea of what i mean:
(repel, stopspell & sleep chance)
i'm going to have to make a decision sometime on this one. i know that the chance of success of any of these three spells will probably depend on the difference between the player's HP and the monsters' HP, with a chance thrown in on top of that. the exact equation i'm going to need to play with during the tweak stage of development. i can't hazard any guesses until i have some rough HP estimates for the player's levels and for the monsters.
(stopspell effect)
not much to say here. probably going to go with a recent final fantasy status indicator on this one. here's another pic:
