December Goals & Progress Thread

[bgillisp]

12.9 Update: Spent the downtime scripting some, added some new features to my script to manage how random battles work. Now you can set it up to work like Ar Tonelico, where once you win so many random fights no more occur until you leave the map or restore a saved game.

Still working on chapter 2, all updates are to dialogues so no screenshots to show (sorry). Though I'm thinking of taking today off to play a video game, so might have no 12.10 progress to report.

 

[Tuxedo Leila]

Started working on my modern tiles (hadn't touched them in around 4 months). I noticed a lot of mistakes in... basically everything that I made and it kinda annoyed me, so now I'm working on fixing those flaws before continuing. Besides working on tiles, I finished writing out the plot of my game and the main characters. I just hope that by the time December ends, I can look back at what I've done and be happy with it.

 

[mlogan]

I really like that after Leila!  Nice touch ups!

Okay, plan for today - tiles, tiles, tiles, lol.  Still experimenting with this style, trying to see if I can get something to work.

 

[bgillisp]

So I did take yesterday off for the most part, though I did polish off a dialogue at the end of the day. Today, been working on making sure the game is still playable to the start of Chapter 3. Next up is to either implement Chapter 3, or polish up Chapter 2 more. Chances are I'll do a little of each throughout the weekend.

 

[Dark_Metamorphosis]

Well It's been a rollercoaster ride for me, both a lot of positve aspects and negative. Starting of with the positive I worked a lot on my project during the early start of 2014, managed to release a somewhat polished demo that most people seemed to enjoy. Also got a huge load of feedback from playtesters, that triggered a lot of new ideas and changes that I'm currently working on. I met a lot of cool people that inspired me in several ways, and people that showed interest in what I'm trying to make, and that wanted to see me succeed. A big chunk of motivation for me. I found interesting games on the forums that I playtested and gave feedback to, which felt great. Always nice to find some way to help this lovely community out. I also took part in some events, and won a wonderful tileset from Celianna (Rural farm tiles) after a map contest

During the process of making the game, and everything I learned by the community and myself I found that I evolved more than I thought I would, and learned many cool things about game-making. It's a long and hard road, but my dream of ever releasing my own game that I can be proud of always lingers in the back of my head.

As time passed though, things started to happen in my life and I sort of went to the rock bottom for some time. Even during my low I found people on here that gave their time to try and ease me up, which felt very heartwarming. As time went on though I became very inactive due to my real life and in the process I lost most of the motivation and the joy I had when I first started. Other reasons could have been that I went in with too much force, and worked way too much on the project and it wore me out. I also realized that I took a bigger bite than I could chew, and needed to limit and slim everything down.

As I recently came back to the site, it somewhat felt like I had let a lot of people down (mainly the ones that showed interest in helping me out with the project). But it really felt great to be back again, and I have already made a lot of progress to the game ever since it sort of got stuck on hold for a moment.

So my year has been a crazy ride, and I hope that 2015 will be a restart for me for sure.

As for my goals of December, I plan to rework everything that needs change and implement the features that is in my limit. And also figure out a way to fit in everything I had planned but in a much smaller scale. My goal is to establish all of this before the end of the year and be somewhat ready to release my new polished demo.

I'm also eager to setup a goal list that I can follow, in order to have steady progress so I'm not scrolling through the project with hesitation on what to work on.

Feels great to be back on the site, and working on the project though

 

[mlogan]

Dark - Good to see you back! Sorry to hear you've had a rough year and I do indeed hope that 2015 fares better for you. If you need anything, let me know!

My progress: I've been trying to work on expanding my tileset the last few days, but lacking a true artist's training I've been struggling with perspective with it. So I put that aside for the moment. What progress is being made:

I got the jump part of the scripts I commissioned today. Also got a bonus of a jump stamina menu bar! It's pretty nice looking, I love the font it uses!

Spoiler

So now, jumps will cost you stamina! Not 100% how this is going to work into the gameplay in the long run, but I love the concept.

I also got an animation done today. It still needs a little tweaking to make it look smoother, but it's pretty fun. I can't wait until it gets written into the jump script.

 

[Sharm]

I like the style of it. It's got me tempted to make something in the same fashion, bold black outlines, bright colors, and simple shading. The texture on the grass doesn't match up to the trees and sprite, you'll either need to make those more complex or simplify the grass more. I don't think you need any more frames on your slime to get it to work, it seems to me that you just need to adjust the timing and which moments to put into frames a bit. It needs hesitation, variation in speed, and a bit more follow through on the landing. You've made it stretch just fine but you forgot the squash part of the equation.

 

[bgillisp]

Weekend update: Well, Chapter 3 is moving along, got one of the maps I needed for it implemented, just need one more and all maps are done. Then it is eventing them. Also am about 50% done with the Chapter 3 events. Hoping to try to wrap up Chapter 3 eventing before I leave on holiday break, that way I can test it on my breaks while traveling.

 

[mlogan]

Sharm - Thanks for the input! The tiles are definitely a work in progress, lol. But yes, overall the look I'm trying to go for is a very cartoonish look.

I adjusted the slime a bit - I speeded up the frames to be a bit more accurate to what they would be in game and adding the "squash" effect was actually quite easy as I was able to just add in a couple of frames from it's walking animation - and I do think it adds a lot.



Other than adjusting the white spots and the dark blue in a couple of places, I'm not going to do much else to it until I see how it functions in game. I can't imagine that making a GIF of it would be quite the same as what it would look like in game.

As for the grass, I might be pm'ing you for ideas at some point, lol!

 

[Sharm]

Yes, that looks much better, more like a hop now. And yes, feel free to PM me, I like helping.

 

[whitesphere]

Just started work on a new sci-fi/fantasy crossover game (NOT involving time travel).  Just roughed in the first part of the plot, so I now feel comfortable starting to implement the actual game.

Also started trying to make a simplified Cyberspace tileset --- a stylized set of lines, shapes and colors a la Tron or Neuromancer (what I envisioned when I read it anyways).  That should be within my modest abilities to do and I need Cyberspace for the game as well.

I'll follow Sharm's advice and avoid the water tiles since they're the trickiest to do.

If and when I get the Cyberspace tiles looking halfway decent, I might post them in a Resource thread if they'd be useful to anyone else.

 

[Sharm]

I've made some progress today! I'm really glad about it, I haven't felt well enough to work for weeks. Haven't made any monsters like I'm supposed to for my goal, but I made lots of other stuff. Icons, a smaller version of my Pixel Myth busts, and a few interior tiles, a tileable version of some trees. All of it for the new, non pixel myth set. (Avery, if you're reading this I'll show you the icons later when there's a few more.)


@whitesphere: The easiest water tiles to do are man made canals or sewers, since the sides are squared off. It might not be a bad place to start. I'm not sure how water tiles would fit with a cyberspace set though. ^_^

 

[Ms Littlefish]

Alright, guys. I think I'm down to the my last song for the month. Then I can really move on to those non-music bullet points I listed at the start of the the month. And I've been getting this song stuck in my head for awhile so hopefully that translates to getting it written. Though sometimes that's not true. There are times I can sing myself a melody and don't realize that what seems easy in their sound is a lot more difficult to notate.

I think an intermediate goal between my music and art goals this month; however, will be murdering some pancakes with my face and hibernating for  a day or two.

@Sharm Firstly, I'm glad that you're feeling better but to my ears that also sounds like a lot lot of work done.

@Whitesphere I'm hearing so many people trying to take a crack at making tiles and it's really making me want to try it myself, too. I think everyone else is pushing and shoving the idea. I should at least experiment. 

@mlogan Glad to see you're achieving and accomplishing tasks like animation and continuing to work on your tiles. Again, you guys  are really inspiring me to sit down with some learning material and try.

 

[whitesphere]

@Sharm

Yeah, that's what I was thinking.  The only "water" I could envision in Cyberspace is the pure Light the programs drank from in the original Tron.  And even then it wasn't an ocean, per se (they mainly travelled over a black landscape with bright lines IIRC).  But I'll stick to simple, stylized lines and such, which perfectly keeps in the Neuromancer/Tron theme.

 

[mlogan]

@whitesphere - I'm really intrigued to see how your tiles will turn out. I love the concept of Tron-like tiles.

@Sharm - Glad to hear you've felt up to making some progress. (hug)

@Ms. Littlefish - Join the tile cult!  You know you wanna!  Seriously though, I love seeing new types of tiles.

Okay, today, hmmm, any progress would be nice, lol. Was not feeling the RM love yesterday, so other than having fun making a title screen for someone, I did nothing.

I'm not sure what I will do today, likely try my hand at some of those tiles again. I need to rework the windowskin in my game, it's pretty terrible right now. And I also need to do some things with the menu, so that might be an experiment for today as well.

 

[SquallStorm]

My progress has been kind of slow.  Been bug testing a puzzle (the first of twenty planned) and with my roommate's help I was able to get the darn thing working.  Once I have the current dungeon completed, I'll be able to release a very short demo of the game so far.

 

[Sharm]

@Ms Littlefish:  Yeah, it was a lot.  I think I could only do that much because I missed it so much.

Not much today, just made a new tree and some furniture.

 

[mlogan]

Well, I got a pumpkin and a bush created today, and some tips and feedback and offers of help. I'd call that productive.

 

[Kaelan]

Whoamg, I actually finished my demo. Even though it's just a demo and there's still plenty of gam to mak, being 'done' still feels weird.

I don't even know what I'll do with the rest of my nights this month

Spoiler

spoilers: bug-fixing all the broken things other people find that I somehow never ran into but will of course show up in everyone else's playthroughs

Also adding new goal for the month: keep a set of notes for features to add in the next major release, which will have the first major Chapter of the game (out of 4 total).

 

[mlogan]

Kaelen - Congrats on reaching that milestone! I am sure you will still have plenty to keep you busy!

So this morning I sat down and made a list of things that needed to be done. Due to A LOT of distractions this morning, I got four of those things done. They were fairly minor things, but hey, at least they were things?

I think my plan for the rest of the day is to sit down with a pen and paper and brainstorm all of the possible gameplay features that could be implemented and then try to make some decisions towards that. One thing I'm struggling with is feeling a lack of cohesion in this game. And not having decided on many of the features is a key factor in that.