.plan

October 12, 2020

Less than three weeks left to go in the DOS Games Fall Jam, and I need to start focusing on getting as many game features in as possible, instead of working on under-the-hood engine stuff that can wait until later.

The three biggies left to do:

Add at least one more enemy type (two more would be better)
Add one more playable character (demo will be Allie and Roslyn)
Add at least two more levels (three more would be better)

Had a lot of fun drawing the new enemy, the "Bruiser." He's a big motherfucker. Probably going to treat him like Barons of Hell in Doom: a miniboss to start off with, and then a semi-regular "normal" enemy in later, harder levels.

- To do
+ Done
/ In progress
X Not a bug / won't fix
------------------------------------------------------------------------

/ Implement Bruiser
    + Graphics
    - Behavior
+ Add score popups
+ BUG: player can get stuck in floor if grabbing a sufficiently low
  ledge (ex.: boxes on top floor of E1M1)
+ BUG: game can softlock in E1M1 secret room (room on top level that
  reveals yellow key -- if you stay in the room, the door closes and you
  get locked in. Add a way to open door from the inside)
+ Fix Enemy::canSeePlayer so that it does a simple line-of-sight check
  (tile-based check is sufficient)
+ BUG: invincibility isn't being applied when player takes damage if
  armor > 0
+ Add point totals (and displays) for killing enemies
+ Simplify weapon handling:
    + Remove ammo limits
    + Remove coach gun
    + Remove minimum shot count (chaingun)
+ BUG: player doesn't stick to platform when platform is moving downward
+ BUG: horizontally-flipped sprites are drawn incorrectly when at the
  very left or right edges of the screen
+ BUG: character select screen not drawing properly
+ Finish re-drawing Allie's sprites
- Work on sprites for other characters: Roslyn -> Harry -> Dad -> Buddy
- Make two or three more levels
- Record demos for all levels
- Implement conveyors and a few other hazards
- PC speaker sounds
- High score table (integrate into demo loop)
- Don't load in player graphics until that character is the active
  player (this will reduce load time -- and overall memory requirements
  by only having one set of graphics in memory at a time)
- User settings should load from a file (currently hardcoded)
- Don't allow player to fire weapon when in special states (hanging,
  climbing, sliding, etc)
- Add frameskip option
- Modify player to use separate leg and torso sprites -- Player object
  should use two Spriteset members