Dusk Tactics*¹⁾ is a strategy role playing game being developed in Java. More info to come…

The soldier and the fighter face off in the debug room.

A ton of progress has been made on Dusk Tactics. The current alpha version is up to 0.0.9 with a series of new additions that really have the game coming together. As of this version the mechanics for basic map navigation, turn based system based on the speed stat, and a multitude of functions that are part of the turn based tactics system are really making the game look like a game.

As for the creative side the unit attributes have been set as have the elements and their rock-paper-scissor based mechanic. The world map has been created for the game world which is called Gaia. The world was split into regions representing countries with Acedia being the main character's homeland and where a lot of the story takes place.

Since features have been added, new UI graphics were created to show them. One of these is the new Unit Status screen which is your basic information window that can be displayed at almost any time by clicking on a unit and pressing the status button. This screen shows all the unit's statistics including experience points and bars for the HP, MP, AP, and XP, the current job, elemental alignments, portrait and even an icon sprite of the selected unit.

My next post will get into more about the intended timeline for the game's completion, it's planned release formats (definitely PC/Mac/Linux probably Android devices possibly Ouya), and a whole lot more concerning features and gameplay. Until then you can check out the various pages on this site which are literally added as I add new features to the game or come up with new ideas. I'll also try to add new screenshots and work on this main page to have some dynamic “what's new” type section. This seems to have turned into more of a to-do list than an update.

Currently we have a nice isometric map being displayed as well as a unit standing on one of the tiles. The game will be displayed in standard 2:1 isometric form much like in the Disgaea Series, the Tactics Ogre series, and of course the Final Fantasy Tactics series. This rendition of the game will feature both a 2D map with 2D entities that move around it. That being said, the code isn't important in terms of what libraries I use or even optimization. The goal right now is to get a working version up as well as creating a skeletal base for the various functions used for the non-graphical parts of the game.

I don't see myself changing the perspective or the graphical style of the characters and units. Basically it's going to stay a 2D isometric game as I am really fond of that style and I think if done right it can be just as appealing graphically as any other modern game. The map, however, might one day utilize something like OpenGL to give a 3D map in order to add various features to the game such as being able to rotate the map 360°, display a much more detailed environment with lighting and texture mapping, and other functions that are beyond the scope of 2D. Also, a switch to a 3D map doesn't have to change how the map actually looks in-game. Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together did an excellent job with it's remake for the Playstation Portable.

Work on Dusk Tactics continues at a slow clip with the building blocks of the game being coded and tested. I like to also focus on graphics as I develop something like this so that I am able to further my experience with image editing programs as well as get a break from the coding process to work on design.

User Interfaces are extremely important in all types of games and I personally enjoy working on them. I like interfaces to be clean, minimal, and intuitive, all while making user interaction as simple as possible. A mistake I used to make, and still do, when working with the graphical side of UI is to over emphasis the aesthetics and end up with something that is too ornate and over-flowing with unneeded information. This is about as far into graphic design as I would like to go. As much as it would be fun to design everything from characters to sprites to animations, there are limits to both time and talent.

Hopefully there will be more information about the actual gameplay in the next news update. Even if I don't get to coding anything beyond the basics of the game, I'd still like to iron out a basic plan for how this game will play and the various systems it will include.

Project begins basic design phase including a mock-up of Java code to theorycraft some ideas. Named after a much older project I worked on and played called Dusk. Dusk was a graphical MUD coded in Java and played via applet.

Plans for this game are to simply work on a turn based tactics game, that's all. Since the majority of all small projects like this almost never reach completion my goal is to focus on the journey rather than the end product. Obviously seeing this game to even a playable state, let alone completion, would be great, but more important to me is furthering my knowledge of Java, the inner workings of turn based strategy games, and testing my constitution so to speak to see how far this project goes.