Game Making Drive March 2014

[Alexander Amnell]

GMD, Day 4, march 19th:

   Worked on skills, played around with stat boosts to add to said skills and finished up everything that was missing from the parties set of commands that replace the completely useless default guard command that for some reason manages to stay in almost all rpg's the world over even though it is completely and provably useless upwards of 95% of the time, so now everyone has something unique (and more importantly, useful) to do instead of guarding, each of which has at least an interpretation of defensiveness to it to make up for that last 5% that you might find a case to argue that a default guard command served a purpose. 

   Decided definitively that I'm going to use character portraits for the important dialogue because I like how the scenes look that way, also that outside of important conversations there will just be name boxes without faces, because for some reason I can't explain using faces in none important scene dialogue and then using portraits just looks strange to me. Playtested using the second party members 'enervate' command to absorb enemies and gain stat growth and skills from them, tweaked the events to make it more clear whether it worked or not and to let the player know what stats if any grew. Lastly I frustrated myself with mapping, for some reason right now all I accomplish when I try to map are a few random things scattered about and an hour+ of me starring at the computer monitor and occasionally coming here in between... hopefully I'll feel more like mapping tomorrow because today I just can't seem to do it at all.

 

[Engr. Adiktuzmiko]

March 20, 2014


- Working on 1 last cut-scene for the extra thingies


- Gonna map out new areas for the adventure project

 

[Hesufo]

Welp, I ended up missing Day 2 yesterday due to sadness.

Day 3:

Today, I tweaked many abilities from my main project, Realms of Arcanum. I've changed a lot of MP and TP costs, and also butchered almost all Cooldowns on my abilities. I realized that putting an external limitation like that doesn't really ring well with the player and, in the end, it's an unnecessary one. I've kept Cooldowns on:

- Instant-use skills that I don't want abused. Instant skills can be used before the battle turn, without wasting it.

- Stronger, desperation spells that I don't want to see spammed for cheap tactics, either. For example, one such skill allows the user to protect his allies by capping potentially fatal damage at 25% of their HP. As it's such a powerful skill, I didn't want to make it prohibitively expensive to encourage its use, but limiting it with a Cooldown is more than okay and doesn't mess with that intent.

I've also modified the JP cost for many abilities to make it harder to master some of them because JP gain was a bit quick (my game uses a job system much like Final Fantasy Tactics) and I've started working on Hidden Skills that are unlocked when you learn certain specific skills in a Job!

 

[Aurorain]

Day #3

 

Made a little progress today. First, I recolored(and resized) the tiny knight from rpg maker gba(I believe that's where it's from), to a more..well. Okay, it's not exactly good looking, but when dealing with something that tiny, it's a bit difficult.   And, the other thing is a behavior for one of my sprites that I mentioned last time.

 

(Bigger)Knight + Chained Vandir

 

He's not hanging(even if it might look like it), it's more like he's on his knees, or staying up on on the top of his boots.

 

I think I'm going to change how "Surges" are acquired, rather than just having them on the Tree Grids. I've got plenty of different ideas, so I'll think of something. :3

 

 

[Hollow]

GMD Day 5 - March 19, 2014

Today was spent mostly fixing up events and getting the variables and common event calls set up to display all the portraits, and also messing with the fog script I'm using to fix some bugs that came up. I also worked more on drafting and outlining the next cutscene.

 

[Lowell]

Post #2, Day #14 ｢The Red Pill or the Blue Pill｣

Engaging The Player: The Battle System

After talking with a few friends on the Irc channel on what direction I should go with this, I've finally settled on how I intend to portray battles in the game. Before I can effectively create synergy between skills and balance them out properly, I had to decide on if I wanted a classic/default battle system format, or individualized turns for actors and enemies. On the surface this doesn't look like much since all you're going to be doing is fighting, but for the designer the portrayal of the battle system has a high degree of influence on the design of skills, items, and other aspects on the players abilities.

Anyway before I go off on a tangent of something pointless, I decided to go with individual turns, a style similar to Final Fantasy X, but is designed to mimic the mechanics of the Trails in the Sky/Sora no Kiseki games. One of the major aspects of this format is that Attack Speed/Action Speed has a heavy influence on how quickly the actors next action comes. Additionally, much like Final Fantasy X and similar battle systems you can push the opponents next action back or outright cancel it out with the proper skills.

Because of this design choice, I have to not only take into heavy consideration each skills speed modifier, but also whether they delay or cancel enemy actions. States have to be balanced out in a way where they aren't overpowered or underwhelming because of how Turn and Actions are updated. The most important aspect of all this, however is probably how I have to balance the AGI stat around a particularly small range compared to other stats, as this has a particularly heavy influence on turn order in battles.

Profession: The Vanguard

The Vanguard class is built to somewhat of a unit leader, rather than a pure physical monster. Although there skill list is incomplete, they are capable of raising the parties ATK and DEF with the Assault Command, break through enemy defenses with Blitzkrieg, and shield allies with the Protect command.

Thats it for today, didn't get much work done these past two days due to sleeping in a lot

 

[Alusair1]

Spent most of my time this evening working on an entry for the Farm Mapping Contest, mixing some of the RTP and Celianna's tiles.  I want to be sure to at least give it a try and see what I can do with just those resources.  It is tough working in such a small area.  After looking at some other entries, I know I still have a long way to go but every little bit of experience helps.

I did touch a little on my game working some on the backstory/world lore.  Whether it ultimately makes it into this initial effort remains to be seen but its fun just trying to flesh things out.

 

[seita]

Game Making Drive Day 4

• Began planning the open-world aspect of the game, to open up after Port Nasbeth.
• Began researching and experimenting with the in-game world map based on the WIP world map of Cielo'viv.
• Today was mainly delegating new tasks and resource creation to team members/contractors, providing feedback and direction.

Old WIP map of Cielo'viv

Port Nasbeth concept art:

 

[kj3400]

Day 3: Wednesday

Today I managed to finish the first town. I know it's far from good, especially since I was trying to do it during a livestream, which needs work too, but I kind of like it. Next is the interiors and the eventing wherein the player is told to head west.

Spoiler

 

[Makio-Kuta]

Day 3

Ugh, things have been so busy there just hasn't been much time for game dev. It's sad.


* Lined and flatted a battler

 

[Simon D. Aelsi]

DAY 3
 
I finally got a plot story... I've been tossing the idea around in my head but I decided to just go with it! Now, instead of a seemingly meaningless quest for treasure, there's a deep motive to go on. When he embarks on his quest, the protagonist discovers horrifying secrets about the tranquil island he calls home...

(Protagonist: Luca the crocodile . Big and bulky, he relies on his muscles to get things done, but he also has a powerful mind and is skilled in ways of magic. Due to his size he is slow, but use of magic helps in attacks from a distance.)

 He receives the message in a dream from a dragonfly spirit...

Spoiler

  it warns that a powerful evil is emerging--one that could threaten this and other worlds. In an age-old prophecy, a dark force is to come to power and through the ages, a warrior of legend is to stop that power. 
 
The wicked Faree Island people have plotted the assassination of the queen of the high-desert I'Namor people. Luca has to stop it before it even happens... but he's too late. The queen is dead and one of her two daughters was framed for her murder. The daughter, Cherry, is banished from the kingdom and cursed to wander for the rest of her days...
 
Through an unfortunate series of events, Cherry was killed and brought back to life using dark powers, causing her to thirst for magic and blood--over the years she grows into a powerful sorceress.
 
Her twin sister Noni takes over as the new queen and banishes her to another dimension, but as she goes, she drags Noni with her.  Luca has to use the Time Vessel, one of three powerful relics to travel to the future, then to the distant future, hundreds of years into the future. Then back to the present. And back again.
 
What started out as a mission to foil a murder plot quickly turned into an epic and dramatic quest.

 

 

[Tsukitsune]

GMD Day 2

Was a bit busy today but I managed to squeeze in some game dev time.

Brainstormed a little on how I want the combat tutorial to happen.  The events leading up to it, dialogue, etc.

Also played a little with skills.

 

[Ksi]

Day 06

Well, I spent some of the day mapping out inners. They still need extra lighting added (since when did this game become lighting bonanza? IDEK >.<; ) so they're a bit on the dark side at the moment but at least everything looks good.

I found an issue with the ice I edited - the edges were off for some reason. I tried to fix the damn things but ugh. I'll have to get back to them a bit later. >.<; I also started mapping out some other areas. I'm thinking of adding another video time-lapse of my mapping process. It's been a while and I don't mind doing them. If they help others out with their mapping then great. They're also pretty helpful for me to go back and see how I've changed compared to my current skills.

I am also burning myself a bit low on this game, feeling a little uninspired. I'm considering a quick 24-hour challenge for myself where I just make a game using the sample maps and default database stuff as bases to start off. Just something short and simple. I think I might actually make a week-end of it. That'll be fun.

Here, have a tent map, missing the lantern (so it's a little dark atm):

 

[Lars Ulrika]

Day 4

So today has been quite busy even though not on what I planned first. Included Shaz's awesome mouse support script so I reworked on many events to include the right icons etc. I worked on new skills animations, a weapon system giving more customisation options to characters , worked on refining dialogs again, made new interactions and started to work on a system to make heroes change appearance depending on which equipment they're wearing. 
Also , brainstorming with my new writer/proofreader mate about the Tadpologist "Church". Created new enemies and two new states. Made a new buff item that has it's pro and cons (boosts dramatically attack but gives a berserk status.). I also modified the window skin a bit. Nothing groundbreaking though. 

All in all I'm very happy about this day! I can't wait to have finished to implement all this and release the second demo version.

Tomorrow should be under the sign of mapping , eventing and putting this custom weapon system to a further test. 

 

[Sharm]

GMD DAY 3

Goal: Make a patternless carpet tile that doesn't look modern. Work more on Priska's bust.

Figuring out the goal the night before helped, I was able to just push through the morning blahs and work anyway. Made a carpet with a subtle pattern to replace the much too modern one. It's not gone forever, it'll just have to show up later when I do a modern set. The further I get in this set the more of those tiles and items I'm collecting, it's kind of fun.

I'm so happy with the way Priska's bust turned out! Sorry about the jpg, I didn't feel comfortable posting the real thing. I am so proud of myself for getting it all done yesterday! It's all in pieces too, so you can turn off her vest and still have the shirt or turn off the braids and still have the rest of her hair.

I figured out the names of the other characters I'll be making later and came up with a bit of flavor text for Priska. It's really pointless stuff considering I'm not actually making a game, but it's fun and maybe it'll inspire someone.

Spoiler

Today's Goal: Make small mine details.

 

[PixelLuchi]

GMD Day 4:

Apart from saying goodbye to my pet project, Enelysion, for good ( ), I did some other things today:

Picked up a pencil and drew something in months. For some weird reason, I get better the longer I leave my art alone. Anyway, my scanner is bust so no preview... >< I will try to get it up though. Even if it means taking a picture with a digital camera.

Fixed up a few tiny bugs for Ep. I of Tristian ( even though the game is already available for download ).

Did some interior lighting for a gloomy mining town.

Should be able to do alot more tomorrow ( it's a public holiday, so long weekend ^^ ).

 

[Clord]

Day 6


Today I worked with a scripter who I paid to make mouse script more intuitive with the battle system my game project is using. It comes with hovering box that follows the mouse cursor and shows stuff like enemy's name, level and HP, plus highlights them. Targeting enemies and allies is entirely done with the mouse.


I also tried out one public script.


Later I did more forest mapping and stuff. I have an actual picture this time but it is still just your typical forest.

Spoiler

 

[Blindga]

Day 4

I am still working on this one character design. I've been trying to get some feedback from some of the people I have been relying on, so I instead have worked on an alternate design in the mean time to contemplate. Ultimately, I have made little progress in favor of waiting for some of my friends to get back with me, and have chosen to take a setback and wait for more feedback on some of the different body type designs I have instead of blindly moving onwards. Ultimately, this means meeting my goal over the weekend will be impossible, but I should be able to get close.

Just things moving very very very slowly right now while I wait on a few different friends to get back with me. After this progress should be much much faster. Just waiting for another day to seriously push forward until then.

 

[Sharm]

Is there anything you can do that isn't waiting on feedback?  It's a bad idea to delay development so that you can wait for something or someone outside of the project to finish what they're doing, it absolutely kills momentum.  Maybe work on hairstyles while the body types are being discussed?  Or gather some reference images?

 

[Kes]

My Day 4

Following on from yesterday, Tsukihime produced a new script for the Battle Test with more than 4 members in the party.  Implemented that - it's going to be even easier and more efficient than the first one.  Tested a couple of mini-bosses using it and was able to adjust their stats.

Although the player can save anywhere, I have been persuaded to include visual Save Points as well.  Even with save anywhere, there are still players who complain that they have lost a lot of game play time because they forgot to save.  At least this way they will have a prompt to save before significant moments.  I couldn't bear the thought of seeing that crystal yet again, so have devised something else which works quite well.  Had to spend some time adjusting the sprite, then worked out where save points are needed, and different dialogues for each instance.  That task is now fully completed.

Also changed the default script back to ordinary text display.  Because I'd changed it there I had in fact ended up disabling the choice in the Options Menu where the player can select either default or instant text.  The player can now have whichever they prefer.