December Goals & Progress Thread

[mlogan]

I thought I would go ahead and get this up and started since it's close to the end of the month and I won't have computer access for the next couple of days.

This thread is particularly meaningful for me because it was December 2013 that I came back to this forum after a long time away. When I look back over the year and all of the things that have transpired, it's a pretty cool sight.   So many things have happened - fun contests, IGMC, and most of all many new friends made that have pushed me and motivated me and inspired my creativity.

In addition to the things you hope to push through and accomplish before the end of the year, I would love to hear your "lookback" too - has your RM year been what you thought it would be? Have you made the progress you've hoped for? How have you grown and changed throughout the game making progress?

Thank you to all for taking this crazy ride with me.

 

[Gothic Lolita]

Well, I wanted to have the first full functional demo of my RPG. But I'm sure, I can't finish it till christmas.
There are many reasons for that, like only one PC, my bro plays allmost everyday on it, many customizations with scripts to make them work and the beloved script compatibility issues.
Like the save game doesn't work, the timer don't show up, can walk wherever I want, and on and on...
I know, those issues comes from too many scripts, but I allready shrinked them to the minimum I need for the beginning.
At least I have the character graphics 50% done.
Only the other 50% left and the tilesets...

All in all, I missed my goal widely... (\s/)

 

[Ms Littlefish]

Look back, hmm.

I joined here January this year but I don't remember if I posted until a month or so after that. My boyfriend kept telling me, "Hey, just post your music here." And I refused for awhile. Sort of a "Oh, what's the point?" Then I started posting my music here and the positive and constructive chatter around it just sort of exploded and in the 10 or so months I've been here I've written more music in that time frame that I have in several years combined. I now contribute music to the community in a number of ways.

The's the other thing! In the year I've been here I've also done a IGMC game. As short, simple, and imperfect as it may be, it's a working game! The notes for my main project are nearing 400 pages and the planning stages are starting to get closer to the end. Art pieces are coming together. Music is getting revamped. And Goldstorm has finally started the programming. XD

I wish I had more to show for my main project. But the purpose of our side project was to implement and introduce our game mechanics and designs so they can be fine tuned for our main project, that and to tell yet another (silly) story. I wish I had more to show of that too. Just more notes!

 

[bgillisp]

I joined in July, after the IGMC contest was over, and started with RPGMaker during the IGMC contest. Overall, its been an interesting ride as I started all of this at the midpoint of the year with *no* idea how to do anything in RPGMaker (map, event, etc), and now I have a couple chapters of a game made. Is it any good? Probably not yet, but with the feedback on here it is getting polished into something better every step of the way.

 

[Dalph]

During this year I practiced very hard with RM, my mapping improved a lot and I learned to create simple scripts and edit graphics.

I didn't release a game yet but I'm looking forward to do it, my main project focuses on Ralph and how he became my character, it will be a trilogy hopefully. I also played a lot of RM games (both good and bad) to help developers with feedback, understand how things work and learn from their mistakes.

I met a lot of awesome people in this community and some of them became my good friends, but the most important thing happened 4 months ago when I met my girlfriend here, since that moment my life became better and better. So yeah, this RM year was the best of the best for me and hopefully the next year will be even better.

I was hoping to release a demo of Ralph's game by the end of the year but I fear I won't make it in time.

 

[VideoWizard]

It's been a difficult year overall, especially around the May-October timeframe. However, early in the year wasn't too bad, and I got some work done January to April right before the major life event occurred. I made a long series of maps and started on the events right before that. By the time I picked the project back up, it was already late July, and I decided to start the current version of the project. From there, it's been like dropping a rock down a hill... starts slowly at first, but then picks up momentum.

Roughly late September, I started on the opening area, the first town. Then came October and the resolution patch. I decided on a resolution that would work well for me, and it turned out I could run it at max resolution. Dragon Kingdoms in 1080p? Why not.

Once November came, progress started to fly, The first drawing for the intro was made Nov. 2, the second on Nov. 5, the third on Nov. 16, the fourth on Nov. 24 and the fifth on Nov. 28. The intro is thus almost done.

Now for my plans for December:

Dragon Kingdoms Remake (still working title): I still want to at least finish the first town and perhaps a dungeon this month. Didn't do it in November.

Dawn of a New Era comic: I have four storyline paths to complete. I want to get through another one.

Dragon Kingdoms VI: Probably just a bit of the intro. Don't want to tackle too much in a month like December.

Best bet is Dec. 1-7 and 8-14. Worst is Dec. 22-28 (due to Christmas). Maybe no activity whatsoever Dec. 23-24. So-so is Dec. 15-21 and Dec. 29- Jan. 4.

And that should about do it for December and 2014 for me.

Previous: November Goals & Progress Thread

Next: January Goals & Progress Thread

 

[Sharm]

Well, looking back, this year has been pretty good.  I became a moderator last year, met some seriously cool people, came out with my very first resource pack and have been enjoying making the pixels that I want to make instead of just the stuff other people want me to make.

So, for this month I'll be focusing on my character pack.  Gotta at least make designs for all the other characters, bases for some basic behaviors, and a bust base for a child.  If I can do that I'll consider it a productive month.

 

[SquallStorm]

I joined in February after needing some tech help.  I managed to get my first project to 50% completion, and my secondary is now 20% complete.  I'll be hiatusing them for a month to work on learning some new skills to apply to The End of Eternity and The Dragon Heiress.

 

[Ms Littlefish]

Well, I thought I might start out by listing my tentative to do list. November ended up being a month of one thing happening after the other, sighs, groans, and taking some time off. So I have to kind of kick it into high gear.

• I have a multitude of music projects to finish. Most are drafted out or at least have some skeletons laid down so hopefully that shaves a lot of time off the creative process and I can start a lot of things off on the technical side. I'll finish what I can by my "due date", but anything left over will just have to released at another time.
• I have new sketch books and last month I did manage to do second drafts of my character designs so I'd like to start my fresh sketch books with a third round of sketches and lay down some color as well. I don't really think I'll end up with completed digital work this month though.
• I have Spriter now and I think I'll be very happy if I find the time to make a single practice animation with that.

 

[Mage Heart]

For my game Shopkeeper's Alliance I would love to finish writing the story and have at least half the maps done.

 

[mlogan]

I didn't actually post my goals, so I guess I will do that now.

My goal for the month of December is to have a 10-level demo out by the end of the month. This will largely depend on the scripting I am waiting on and the funds to finish paying for it.

With that, I hope to get a thread started for this game in Project Development. I'd like to wait to have the demo to do so.

 

[Matseb2611]

It's good to hear everyone's had a great year in the community. I guess I'm going to join in with the comments that this year has been pretty great for me in the RM community as well. I've made some good friends and acquaintances here, which is probably the main reason why I feel like at home when here on the forums. Apart from that, I really got into contributing for ReStaff releases (and hoping to continue doing that), and finished 2 more games over the course of the year, one of which is commercial.

My goals for December:

 - Work with New Reality Games to keep pushing my commercial project, Atonement, out there.

 - Post a thread and release a demo for my short non-commercial project I'm doing now, which I still haven't announced.

 - Start work on Incitement 3.

 - Release a couple of more episodes of Just Face It.

 - (carrying over from November goals) Start my own commissions thread. I keep putting it off for some reason, but there's no excuse. Gotta make myself.

 

[Kaelan]

This year was awesome for me. I made several fairly large changes to my game, I'm very happy with all of them and even though I haven't been talking too much about it, I've been making great progress in the last several months. Hit every one of my November goals, including finishing all the maps in my demo, so feeling pretty good right now.

December goals:

- Spend some time tweaking sound effects and dialogue

- Keep playtesting my demo and tweak the balance on all of the fights

- Make a project thread and release the demo. Shooting for mid-December.

 

[slimmmeiske2]

Mmm, I think I came back this year as well after a one year hiatus. I just remember I was back a few weeks before GrandmaDeb returned.

I'm a bit disappointed of my lack of progress the last two weeks of November, but it was expected with school stuff pretty much exploding. As for goals, I'd like to get a demo out for testing this month.

 

[bgillisp]

My goals for December are to finish polishing up Chapter 1 (as much as can be until the entire game is final), and then start working on doing the same for chapter 2. I would also like to finish Chapter 3, though that might be more than is possible as Chapter 3 is a really long chapter compared to the others.

I figure the best time to work on the game will be December 10th until about the 23rd or so, as I'll have a lot of half days due my job being only exam proctoring and grading those days. Also figure I can make decent progress the 28th or so onwards due to the holiday break, but that is trailing into January.

Also got some good ideas for a side project, so am hoping to jot down more for that on paper when I get tired of the main game. No official goal for that, just going to see what flows out over time.

 

[Sharm]

Changed my mind.  December is going to be a terrible month for doing anything difficult or that requires a lot of focus.  Also, I think if I focus on the character pack I'll burn out again.  I'm going to make some simple pixel battlers instead.  I think one for every day of the month will work.  Maybe some battle backs too.

 

[bgillisp]

Decided to change my goal too, here is the new goal for December:

December plan: Polish up Chapter 2, and finish testing Chapter 1 for bugs. Also, take some time off and learn more scripting, so I can wrap up those scripts I need for the game. If I have any time left over, then finish Chapter 3, but I doubt it unless I get some snow days.

 

[VideoWizard]

I didn't know whether to put this under November or December. I guess technically my scene was made December 1, even though it isn't yet sunrise and therefore would be November 30 in parts of the world.

I think I might be getting better at making these scenes for my intro. William casts a spell just outside the town gates to undo the damage he has caused from running through the nearby woods. The nearby town doesn't mind him being around, as monster attacks and crime have fallen as no one wants to have to fight a towering 100-foot Gigan male. He's even nicknamed William the Mounteen there.

As for the dragon from earlier, it turns out it may not have flown as far away as he thought. Finally, the hero's story can begin soon.

 

[Sharm]

Not a bad start! Made two monster battlers and the first frame of a sprite for each. I also started working on a battle back but I kept changing my mind about the resolution so it didn't really get anywhere. It is really hard to keep the battle back appropriately simple when using pixel art, there are just way too many pixels to obsess over.

 

[Ms Littlefish]

I tell you what. I think December might kick my butt. I have this weird mixture of 'what to do' versus "need to do" doing this tug of war with me. Deadlines are flopping all over the place. Things I wanted to get done at the New Year now are needed before Christmas. And here I am sitting on the couch trying to make a battle plan.

I have two songs entering the final mix stage. So at least something happened!