Stu's Rusty Bucket

Magic! Shazam

Started the last piece of the 0.4 release schedule puzzle last night.  Basic magic/spell engine code.

When a player starts and he buys their first spellbook, Brilhasti will throw in two beginner spells (I haven’t decided which ones yet, probably some basic magic missile type spell and some random one).

I added data to the actor for known spells, I just need to add something to spellbooks/scrolls so they know what they contain. (You have to ready a spellbook to be able to cast from it). There will be two keys for spell casting, ‘c’ to cast directly in front of you, and ‘t’ to target a spell to cast. Targeting will be slower since things still happen in semi real-time and while your trying to target a monster. Targeting will be automatic, ‘t’ will cycle through monsters in your current field of vision.

Targeting will also be used for missile weapons like slings and archery, ‘t’ to select target and ‘a’ to attack.

Balancing is needle point right now, as the player at the start is fairly evenly matched with the start monsters that will be encountered. One just has to hope one does not run into one of the specials right near the start ^_^;;

I have to play through a lot more to see what the balance is like for beginning players who are trying to focus on magic over melee weaponry. Right now the beginning strategy is more to start with melee weapons and once you have survived a bit, graduate to using spells when you have a good melee weapon (not forgetting that bulkier/bigger weapons and armour have an affect on mana regeneration....).