Special Stats. They're Special.

Big cleanup day again. Actually, TWO big cleanup days. I'm getting the app to a great testable/playable state by Thursday so I can rest easy -- while coding my ass off for 48 hours at the Global Game Jam!

It turned out there was a lot of un-cleaned-up memory -- so I spent about 12 hours with that, and then another 8 touching up the game and bugfixing. In the meantime, I also implemented a few new things, like player health -- that's right, you can die now! So all the Standard Stats are "done" (they work).

So we've been through that whole thing with Health and Luck and all that boring stuff. Well guess what? THERE'S MORE! Special stats give you additional, special powers beyond the normal scope of your equipment!

Double-edged Sword gives you a chance with every swing to swing your sword behind you in addition to in front of you. In theory it sounds a bit odd, but in practice it's been amazing so far.

Life-Steal will occasionally return the damage you do to an enemy as health. This is not a chance on swing, but a chance on hit. So hitting five enemies at once will steal five times the health!

There are quite a few other special stats that are also a little less traditional, but I won't give everything away just yet. Oh, and I added sell prices too. You can't quite sell swords yet, but there is a formula for calculating their worth.

In case you're curious:

Sell Price = (d + st + pe) * (sp + vi) * st

d = Avg of damage range
st = Stat value total of all standard stats
pe = Flat percent chance of all special stats
sp = Number of Special stats (if 1 or 2)
vi = Number of Visual Stats (if 1 or 2)
st = "Star" item (2 if item is "Special")

There are many different "Special" items in the game, generally reserved for items with exceptional stats, interesting combinations of many stats, or even awesome/hilarious names.

As you can see, you are capable of equipping an item now and seeing how it affects your stats. A lot of tuning has gone into the game so far, and it isn't stopping any time soon. But I'm beginning to like how the stats are turning out and it's very fun to farm loot!

Eventually there will also be a "Favorite" spot (as you can see above), where you can put a weapon you really like for safekeeping. It has no bearing on your character or stats -- it just lets you save an item as a memento.

The game should be at "proof of concept" stage by February 9th (although it's VERY tight -- almost scarily so). By then I plan to have one complete level, although it may consist only of the "stupid" mobs I'm using now -- possibly a second type who tries to seek you out and hurt you, doing more damage than the "dumb" ones.

Stay tuned for more!