Building Underwater Combat in my 2D RPG!

Welcome to another devlog for Dauphin! In this episode I begin work on implementing my first underwater attack animations. Turns out this was trickier than expected, requiring some refactoring of my state machine and some creativity when it came to some new animations for these various underwater movements. Would love to hear what you think! Hope you enjoy.

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🎵 Music:

[DevDuck]

Would love to hear what you all think about the animations I landed on in the end. Very undecided myself! Thanks for watching, hope y'all don't mind some more Moose b-roll in upcoming devlogs :D

[BillehBawb]

what if when you are underwater the player only has one attack where they just do an underwater flip while holding out the stick, so it hits in a circular area around them? this would likely have a longer cooldown because the animation would take a bit longer to play, so it would make the player have to be more careful about when they use their attacks while also opening the possibility of being able to hit multiple enemies in a group at once if you get in the middle of all them. I think this would also make sense more from an animation standpoint than the player swinging the stick above or below them in any of the implementations you show here. this would also maybe help differentiate underwater combat a bit more from combat on the ground from having a different style of attacking

[matangoldstien]

A quick suggestion, when swimming underwater add a momentum to the movement,
So when you stop swimming, the character will continue moving a little bit further

[abutterYT]

Having the character bob up and down when idling underwater timed to the animation would add some much-needed liveliness!

[elvismd]

Man I'm gonna say it: 50% of the reason I watch your devlogs is because of the awesome editing with mixing day to day footage of your life and your game's progress.
It looks a little like a pure vlog that someone would do (not gamedev related) but with game dev content together, it differs a lot from other devlogs that only shows a screen and the development progress... Idk how you remember to record all these situations with good angles (like you making stuff on your computer) and plan a nice video like this!

[novakaforsberg]

The Sword swinging Effect should have a different Color under Water. Maybe have dark blue insted Of yellow.

[TheHybridTurtle]

For the animations, maybe instead of attacking directly up/directly down, the attack could be angled instead. So if the play is facing right, the up attack would be up and to the right, down would be down and to the right? Moose is adorable! Keep up the great work, it’s been amazing watching this game come together piece by piece!

[AndreaFromTokyo]

i'd totally go for just left\right attacks underwater; they look so unnatural rn

[maxcampbellmusic]

As someone who is working on a game in a different engine, I have so much appreciation for the way you discuss your coding process- your discussions are more conceptual than technical so I can both understand the issues and think of how they may or may not apply to my own project! Keep up the good work, this has quickly become one of my favorite gamedev channels.

[lambbrainz]

DevDuck: "Let's change from a blunt object to a magical one as we are helping the environment and it's creatures, not hurting them"

Also DevDuck: *Continues to call it "attack"*

Lol but for real, it's funny how us gamers get so used to certain language that we don't even realize it if something simple like that changes. I guess the biologist could be said to be "attacking" the corruption so that still fits.

Joking aside, I've been following Dauphin for a long time and I'm so excited to see all of the progress, I cannot wait for this to come out some day. Keep up the great work!

[null]

Your dedication to this game is amazing, how do you stay motivated to work on the game so much?

[dazcarrr]

one of the best parts of these devlogs - the IRL shots between programming - is going to get way better with a dog in the picture

[Forged-By-Iron]

For the underwater attacks - for attacking up, the player should be in a position somewhere between laying flat, and upside down. Kind of like an angled down lay with the players head lower and feet higher. The attack down should be the same but inverted.

[tassaron]

oh, I thought the double state machine sounded like a bad idea. The switch to events was probably a great solution, I predict you'll keep that through any future refactors :) Your game is really shaping up. I'm looking forward to the next episode

[sub-jec-tiv]

You could keep the character facing forward for top and bottom attacks. For example, the character could lift up their legs and swing low while still facing front. Or do a kind of underwater kick and brief lunge up or down. The idea being, the character doesn’t need to re-orient up or down, but a lunge movement can show directionality. And, being under water, that lunge can be in any direction, without gravity.

[Eladsaysnothing]

I've been waiting for this for a long time and I was a bit worried so thanks for this video

[boomgoesthedynamite]

I wonder if the weapon(s) should just act differently underwater? I think it would be cool to have different attack styles for the different states. Maybe while underwater the attack animation is some kind of flip, so the swipe goes in a full circle around the player. Would make sense for the environment and fix the awkward issues with attacking upwards.

[mchael_dev]

Nice to see another devlog again. And Moose looks super cute.

[bobfish]

Moose is so CUTE! And I am loving this game I am very excited for when it comes out, I also love how theses are made it is very clear that you love this game but you don’t just spend all your time on it you keep your self organized and even make time for other things. you inspired me to make a better work life balance

Keep up the good work I think you will go very far!

[sasquatchbgames]

definitely keep some b-roll of Moose coming, super cute.

As for your animations, I kinda find the ones you implemented to look a little unnatural. The left and right works fine, maybe you could add a "spin attack' where he swirls and kinda hits up and down in one attack. I understand probably wanting to keep fine control like what you have above the water...it's just hard to animate an attack when he's horizontal. I think you might be close if you're wanting to keep it that way, it just needs more tweaking.

Great job on these devlogs. You are one of my inspirations