That can be risky, as it is best to make what you know. Maybe you could use the idea for the game world without the music references in the worst case scenario?
But that would ruin the entire point of the world. It's a world based around music and sound, which is important to my lore (the world was created through song, no less!), and to take that out means it's just another RPG that just so happens to have a Bard as the main protagonist instead of your average Fighter, Wizard, Thief enc.
@Schlangan Yeah, it's not a crucial part. I just wanted to see if I could do it / reproduce a feature from Etrian Odyssey. I may very well remove it. It's main purpose is mainly more loot. Eventing to have it unlock equipment would be considerably more difficult, and probably not worth the effort.
@bgillisp I had in mind a somewhat larger pool of skills, to be more commensurate with what Dilara has. But on the other hand, working out the skill trees is proving to be a far more challenging undertaking than I had imagined and is really stalling progress on the project. I probably need to simplify still. It's also started me thinking of perhaps changing gears to a less mechanically involved project for a first attempt, perhaps to my Anima Labyrinth idea (still a dungeon-crawler type game, but more closely inspired in theme and style to the Persona and Megami Tensei series). Though I'd still love to keep working on the Explorers of the Labyrinth idea and get a good set of skill trees... I certainly have a lot more of the story worked out for the current project.
@Arcmagik: Makes sense. That just read as starting over the way you posted it.
@Little Adventurer: My point is though, if you don't know music, then you really should go learn it then in order to make this a good game (last time I checked there were a few free music classes online at Coursera.org. Maybe one of them would help?), OR go the route of the Ar Tonelico games, which managed to integrate music into the game world and lore without going deep into the terms. Otherwise, it will just be a game about a bard with music terms that happened to be slapped into the game.
Still, this might be a point you will want to discuss with more people either on a project page (do you have enough done to put together a demo for Early Project feedback and see what others think?), as if you're concerned about it and your friend is too, it might be a valid issue to look into earlier rather than later.
@Arithmetician: Don't feel too bad. I think I didn't finalize my skill set until about...24 months into development! Even did one major overhaul of the system 13 - 14 months into development.
8.16 Update: Spent today mapping one of the maps I didn't yet do for an optional area, and also figured out where to put some of the stuff the party needs if they want a better ending than the one I posted. Placed some of it now, and started writing up Ending #5, as that is the one I have the best idea of how to implement right now.
Might return to this later tonight, but got a few other things to do this afternoon that isn't RPGMaking related.
Didn't do much - still feeling the effects of a slowly-fading summer cold. It sucks. Last night I started on turning an XP tree into something that would fit my tileset. I really dislike tiny trees unless your aim is actually small shrubs.
Result:
Original Modified - new style & MV size
Personally, I think it turned out well... but it has yet to be tested in the tileset.
@Marquise* I used the colour palette from the existing resources, so yes. It's especially noticeable against the XP stuff; I always found that to be rather washed out in appearance.
Edit: My town's going to need some more pieces - some I should be able to cobble together, others I may have to request. The flat tiled area is meant to be a small, yet bustling, trade town center. I have almost nothing to put in it currently! However, the initial test of my tileset is looking good. I'm going to keep at it with what I'm using, I think.
Why, self, why can't you post your progress consistently? Granted, I haven't been too well, mental health-wise, but not talking to people (even if it's only in the form of a progress post) isn't a solution, either.
Beware, long post, lots of progress.
But firstly, yay for everyone's progress! Among other things, I've seen @Schlangan's destruction, @Marquise*'s EvilGod face that's almost too cute to be evil : D (then again, here we have a saying that translates to "the devil is a squirrel"), and @taarna23's outdoors map that convinces me that high-contrast tiles on a nature map actually can look pretty good and not as noisy as I would've expected (nice job on that!). <3 Sorry to everyone else I only mentioned those specifically, I'm trying not to make my post tooo long. D: (also, I'm pressed for time. Again.)
Progress, 13th:
did the quick studies of inns
did a new sketch of the inn, but as I was almost finished, I did something stupid
Learn from my mistakes: Never have a Photoshop Action on an easily-accessible key that alters, saves and closes your file. Yeah, that's what happened. Thankfully, I always copy all my working files over to my Dropbox after every working session. Lost only less than 1h of work that way. Then again, that was the whole sketch.
re-did the new sketch of the inn. I had the old version kind of helping me, but the stupid action had made it 10% of the size with a mosaic filter so a lot of squinting was done
typed down an asset list based on the sketches I did
Progress, 14th:
began with scribbling placeholder tiles – so I have everything to map with, final graphics can come later. Done the scribbles for A1 and A2 so far
did the placeholder for A4 later on the same day
For week #32, I finished all my goals except the doing studies one as on Sunday, I was out of refs I needed to sketch, and I haven't touched the Nice To Have.
And my goals for week #33:
finish the placeholder tiles and tilesets
once the placeholder tilesets are done, map the three maps for the intro
once the three intro maps are done, event a rough version of the intro
Nice To Haves:
same as last week: figure out how "crafting" and "vendors" are supposed to work
figure out a colour concept for the intro
do some of the non-RM things I really should have gotten done but kind of ignored last week
Progress, 15th:
did the A5 placeholder tileset
and the TileB placeholder tileset. Only some tree and plant sketches left
mapped the first map with the placeholder tiles I already have. Good thing I did so: noticed what's still missing, what doesn't work, and other important things
Progress, 16th:
wrote down an extended asset list thing for non-tiles I'll need
mapped the other two maps and took notes which placeholder things I still need and where I was being inattentive and messed up stuff so I'll know not to do the same mistake for the actual tiles later
needed a change of pace and tried sketching the main characters, but it ended up being a bunch of random stylized heads instead. Haven't drawn non-objects, non-landscapes in a while, especially not human heads. Have completely forgotten how aggravating drawing those can be ("You're supposed to be smiling. Smiling! Not looking like you're about to murder everyone!")
thought that it would be a good idea to post my progress before I completely forget about it
For your amusement, I've included the screenshot of the first map with annotations. Again, those are placeholder graphics and in no way indicative of the final version (always wanted to say this):
Yeah, it's screenshot (can I use that as a verb?) in the editor. The layout is somewhat final. It's mostly cutscenes on this map, only a little exploration between the "gate" with the two guards and the way upward. Also, the final version won't be using autoshadows.
Internet is back, and therefore so am I. ( @bgillisp - carrier pigeon was starting to look like an attractive option), but there are now too many posts for me to comment on. Sorry about that.
My update
Been doing what I think (hope) is some very creative work on skills, lots of small twists to try and make things more interesting to the player and add some more strategic depth. I shan't really know, though, until I reach those later in the game.
@AceOfAces_Mod Just a small point, as English is not your first language. If the word appears anywhere in your game it is 'rogue', not 'rouge'. Rouge is a shade of red, also a form of facial makeup. Not, I imagine, what you have in mind.
@Little Adventurer: Idea then: Maybe work on making a 15 - 30 minute proof of concept demo and see what others think? That way you can find out early on if this is a valid concern or if we're just worrying too much. Maybe just put the first quest (or first two quests) in it?
@taarna23: Glad it has managed to work out at least.
@Chiara: Wow...I thought I was the only one who put notes like Looks Stupid and things like that in my own notes.
@ksjp17: I have days here in the US I still feel like a carrier pigeon will be faster than my internet.
@AceOfAces_Mod: Been there. I still got about 30+ optional scenes to go back and write as I didn't know what to say when I was supposed to write them the first time.
@Yoraee: Hope you get some good feedback over there!
8.17 Update: Wrote Ending #4 (it was really 4, I typed 5 for some reason yesterday), this one is more a mediocre ending than anything. Then went back and edited the quest journal script to add in some quests that didn't exist, and also took one of my bigger town maps and split it into 4 districts since I was nowhere near the map limit of 999 (I think I just made map 210 while doing this). This way the game should run better on low end computers. After all, Effectus does help a lot, but it cannot work miracles.
Also a video of the last scene in Ending 4. It's a bit spolierish, but it doesn't tell you how you get that ending or anything:
@ChiaraI really want to play your game the more I look into your high preparations. BTW The devil a squirrel? REALLY??? Do you know most of my kitties have holy names and...kinda are talking with squirrels? In fact, some squirrels are still pestering me because they don't see Momma Cat and Daughter Cat anymore. Hey even one paid his homage to the body of Momma Cat. And since New Cat, poor Daughter Cat don't even go to the balcony anymore since New Cat risk throwing himself down the 4th floor balcony. 0.o
Progress... I was on doing the first realistic $Eg's battlers faceset (not inspired by what I thought I saw while merely looking at the front sprite) when my mouse froze. Uh well... It<ll leave me more to guess and interpret. We'll see there are two heads left also BTW!
@ksjp17: Small twists to skills sound interesting. And work-intense, unless I'm thinking too complicated. : D
@AceOfAces_Mod: If you can't think of the dialogue yet, maybe simply add a comment or text box describing the contents of the dialogue/scene? At least that's what I usually do.
@Yoraee: Would've been easier if you'd posted a link to your post, or simply posted a map or two here as well. Or I'm just lazy. : In any case, I think the style works well with the non-shaded colours.
@bgillisp: Interesting ending, with a nice subtle "Hey, player, if you'd done things differently, we wouldn't be musing over those two's fate now!"
@Marquise*: Haha, the saying means more something along the lines that you shouldn't underestimate seemingly harmless things/beings/persons x) Ugh, hope your mouse un-freezed since then! D:
Progress, 17th:
fixed the placeholder tiles where I was being dumbest and sketched what was missing
updated the maps to check what else is missing/wrong/dumb and of course I made other stupid mistakes. Good thing I'm going the placeholder tiles route, though, tweaking final graphics will be enough of a pain even without having to check tileability and such
began with adding events for the intro, and encountered the first problem. Why won't you move route away, stupid NPC! I postponed trying to fix this to the next day
I've left too many messages pass through, I don't have the energy to reply to everyone this time, so congratulations for your progress everyone
I was looking at my current goals for the month :
- Finish mission XIV. Merely half of it remains. \o/ DONE \o/
- Start mission XV. Probably a primary mission too where the Death Realm will be introduced. \o/ DONE \o/
- If I have more time, I also need to work on the new version of my Extended Character Generator.
So guess what, I'm even done with mission XV, hence I'm going to take a small break in game making and work a bit on a much more powerful version of my extended generator. Behold, mortals ! The current generator can't even do half of what is coming next. And the best among everything, it will become even easier to use !
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