We’ve been busy preparing our Epic Games Megagrant application, so this post will be a brief recap of some new features that we’ve been working on over the last two weeks.

Damage Over Time

Earlier in the development process we had created a status effects system, where characters could have their stats increased or decreased based on leveling up or the use of skills. For example the Cadet character’s Born Leader skill increases the damage resistance of the Cadet, as well as all nearby allies. We’ve recently added a Damage Over Time feature; with the addition of this feature a character can use an offensive skill to initially damage an opponent, and the skill’s effect will continue to damage the opponent after the initial hit. An example of this is the Blaster character’s Fire Bomb skill:

Somewhat on fire: lingering burn damage after being hit by a grenade

Skill Trees

Each character can be upgraded using resources that are either harvested or found. These upgrades will follow a skill tree style of advancement, where each skill has prerequisite skills that must be obtained first. We have created preliminary skill trees for both the Cadet and Blaster characters and are currently working on completing one for the Archer. We’ve been busy adding the logic and animations for the action skills and the stat bonuses for the passive skills.

Preliminary skill tree for the Blaster character

Preliminary skill tree for the Cadet character

Weapon Types

Each character uses a specific type of weapon in combat. We currently have a bow, sword and shield, and grenade weapon types. In the future, we plan on adding at least one more type. Over the past few weeks, we’ve been focused on integrating the animations for each of the existing weapon types.

Animation graph for weapon use