Dragons take to the sky, and their fire burns
- Drakes fly. Under the open sky of the Cursed Forest and the Hollow Ruins, the Drake and the Elder Drake take to the air.
- Take-off: after a few seconds of a fight on the ground, it crouches and launches itself up on heavy wingbeats.
- In the air: it climbs above the trees (9–13 m) and circles you, banking into its turns. Every few seconds it slows to a hover, leans over you and pours fire down, sweeping it across the ground.
- Ranged only: while it's up there only arrows, musket balls and spells can reach it.
- Landing: after a while, sooner if you've hurt it badly in the air, it comes down near you, legs reaching for the ground. It fights on foot for a few seconds: the blade's chance.
- Shot down: break its poise in the air and it crashes and lies stunned. Kill it up there and it falls out of the sky.
- Grounded below: in the crypt and the catacombs it stays on its feet, as before. Drakelings never fly.
- Where they live: drakes now hunt the forest (weight 3) and the ruins (weight 3).
- Realistic wings and flight:
- The stroke: each wingbeat is a fast, powerful downstroke with the leading edge turned down and the wing swept forward, then a slower recovery. On the recovery the hand folds back and the wing twists to slip through the air. The wingtips trail the arms.
- Body: it lifts with every downstroke. Descending, it glides on held wings.
- Cruising: neck outstretched, forelegs tucked to the chest, hind legs trailing, the tail rippling behind.
- Hovering: rearing up, legs hanging, head down.
- Landing: legs reach for the ground, and touchdown comes down through the legs with the wings flaring.
- Sound: each downstroke sounds, and close to the ground it kicks up dust.
- Better ground animation:
- Gait: a four-beat walk when it's slow, blending into a trot when faster.
- Neck and tail: the neck nods with the front feet while the head steadies, and the neck leads into turns while the tail swings out.
- Head: it turns to watch its prey and aims its fire at it.
- Idle: now and then it rouses its wings, shakes its head, or snorts smoke (bigger drakes lick flame).
- Real fire. The breath is now a held stream of flame, not a fan of bolts:
- The jet: a tight, hot jet at the jaws swells into boiling billows of flame as it slows and rises, cooling from white-yellow to orange to red. It drawn with a new noise-driven flame sprite,.
- Around it: a sheath of smoke, thrown embers, and its own light along the way.
- Reach: it reaches 13 m on the ground and 22 m from the air.
- Damage: anyone in it burns, and a shield blocks it.
- Burning ground. Wherever the fire strikes the ground, a rock or a tree, it catches and burns for 8–12 seconds:
- Look: tongues of the game's living-flame shader, smoke, embers and a flickering glow.
- Aftermath: a scorch mark stays behind for a while.
- Damage: standing in fire burns you every half second.
- Limits: new fire close to a patch feeds it instead of stacking. Patches are capped at 28, and only 8 of them cast light.
- Co-op: each machine burns its own player, so fire works the same for the host and clients. An "air" event tells clients when the host's drake takes off, lands or falls.
- Sounds: a roaring breath, burning crackle, and fire catching.
- Network protocol 25: v0.59 players can't share a run.
VAEL is a co-op dark fantasy extraction dungeon crawler for PC, in active development. Get playtest news by email, or read the wiki.