January Goals and Progress Thread

[TheGreatEater]

Happy Belated New Year's y'all. Sorry I haven't been on in a while. Got absorbed by my awesome Xmas Gifts, and haven't been doing anything except either playing Assassin's Creed Origins / Odyssey. Or watching my bro play the games.

Starting back up on Character Design, and thinking on whether to make MonLife a game I slowly chip away at while working on easier games till I get all my assets created. Or keep at MonLife. Since I got a few games rattling around in my head over the last few years that I want to see done eventually. Going to work on assets regardless while I'm waffling on that XD.

 

[BreakerZero]

Yet another update on my progress in redesigned character profiles. Regarding my concept of a technologically-assisted officer on the force I decided to pare back a bit and make her more Robocop than Vader while keeping the continuance of the latter profile. Needless to say, this ended up affecting the coronary situation to the extreme.

It also led to the affected teammate getting redone as well in her later form. Same can be said about what she goes through - initially I had it as simple as feeder plating linked to neckline infusion on both teammates; however, because of a later scenario that I just wrote about in the plot progression I decided that particular design simply didn't work anymore. This is primarily because the new material involves a containment emergency necessitating full biologic protection - everyone has to make for the nearest research lab for response survival equipment just to make it through without being adversely affected by what's been cooking up that requires such protective containment measures.

To compensate for the change I rewrote the heart attack situation and made it slightly more realistic, ditching the feeder plate intermediary in favour of an emergency ventilation system and everything else that goes with it. Of course, because she is literally half beast the use of external supports does not affect her telepath sense. This in turn allows her report prior to the scheduled retrofit to be ascribed in full conversation as if she wasn't under the requisite influence ascribed to such extreme measures. And it also works as a plot advantage by allowing her to recount past experiences without any risk to her survival outside of the assistive influence of her biologic protection systems. I even used this as an excuse to throw in a few jabs and one-liners to break up what is otherwise a rather macabre tone relative to her situation at this point.

When she does come back to herself after the retrofit she also loses the feeder plate from the old design. And aside from solar-powered implants to control the long-term assistance devices in her protection suit, she is otherwise a normal "beast girl" at heart. That being said, I think I'll end up posting a before/after when I get back to my workstation to provide full visualization of exactly what has changed in the design specification for the assistive systems.

 

[artoni]

Finished up two images for the characters' equipment screens.

Spoiler

 

[tumblingapart_dev]

Finished up two images for the characters' equipment screens.

Spoiler

Nice work, Artoni! I saw this forum link via twitter and it's a great idea to stay motivated. My goal is to finally FINISH that last leg of Tumbling Apart and get it published on Steam!

 

[BreakerZero]

As promised, my before/after comparisons are ready.

First up, Isabelle Rogers has a profile pic/core design specification after the retrofit that ditches the feed plate and replaces it with a solar interface mounted upon her forehead to facilitate the power charge for her assists as I recently ascribed.

The emergency ventilation system from the coronary incident scene has been updated to be slightly more realistic. As a side note, her telepath sense allows her to easily admit that having an assist line shoved down her windpipe is a raw deal unto itself.

I also stripped the feed plate from Lt. Kyla Larson's design specification while keeping her assistance armour and communication aid.

As another side note, part of Kyla's old design lives on for plot reasons as the receptionist won't send her to ICU without something to shield her from anything going around in there (and for obvious reasons at that).

 

[BardoInsano]

Just returned to RPG Maker after years, getting RMMV on Steam new year sale... So i will put some simple goals for kicking it off:

Inside RM World:
- Get used to Map Creation (I Miss XP );
- Compile for Android APK
- Compile for As UWP
- Test UWP in Windows Phone 10 (In Lumia 640XL has laaaaag xD)
- Test UWP in XBOX One
- Get hold on the basic format of RMMV javascript. (I'm used with jQuery in website development, however in general i'm pretty low level in general javascript outside this).
- Start some simple short project (possibly using only main Maker tools, not plugins / scripts), just to get used to events in general.

Outside RM World:
- Keep laerning japanese (for now, with my materials i'm studing 1 grammar chapter and 1 kanji chapter per week, sometimes other stuff as pratice).
- Get back into making videos for my game channel.
- Read at least one more book this month.
- Write new posts to my personal blog.

 

[BreakerZero]

I noticed slowdown off UWP in my first go... and that's off Windows itself, none of the Xbox-specific stuff yet so any contributions from outside experience would be appreciated for that. As for the language stuff you mentioned I really haven't given thought except at bare minimums (and even then I've had to run material through app interfaces, particularly for translating quotes for my trailer... and also for my in-your-face version of the standard photosensitivity notice). There's not much to worry about with event writing either, and not much has changed so aside from new tileset features and media format changes there's actually not much difference. I just opened RMXP (also off the Steam sale) to check and the event interface is basically the same as in other makers. And plugin commands can be done as keyword-based triggers in addition to script calls when using RMMV (you just have to manually specify which one is being used as directed by the plugin, and they're both in the same part of the selection page in the third set).

 

[AceOfAces_Mod]

Progress Report #5:

Immortal Sins:
-Started improving the error handling on the launcher.
-Started improving my maps.
-I fixed a bug in the Skill Learn system. That caused an issue where the player could add multiple skills. I reworked the checks so it removes the old skills.

Spoiler

 

[artoni]

Finally getting to the point I can release the proof of concept demo, AKA pre-pre-pre-pre-alpha - that is, only 30 minutes or so, depending on how fast people move through.

My goals this month:

• Finish skeletoning the skills/find a plugin for the skill tree
• Finish the 'mountain pass' events

Mountain pass is done - though I could use some fine-tuning of the boss battle.

The skill tree is sort of on track; I still need to physically sketch it out somewhere, but the mechanic itself/proof of concept works. It's just going to use a lot of common events and variables.

Keeping the month goal to finish skeletoning the skills. Ideally, to physically map them.

 

[bgillisp]

1.8 Update:
-Finally wrote the Chapter 2 reveal cutscene. Now I need to merge it in with the dialogue that was already there for after it.

 

[BreakerZero]

0.55 status milestone update. First strike demo has cleared Steam review after changing measures to fix things not used in the demo version (primarily the save process that I had vestiges of which I apparently forgot to pull) along with some asset problems (one of which got pointed out to me on the first pass I did in my fix response from the support tech that handled my demo).

Also I am starting to populate some of the empty areas of the game starting with the coronary scene which is going to be loaded with a few more patients in similar distress to make it more like a real problem for a multitude of people as you would expect in such a situation. (Not with the same telepath advantage, of course.)

Edit: forgot to add this but I decided during the course of development to not use the most extreme words you can think of (meaning no f-bombs, b-calls and most certainly nothing approaching the n-word). However, I ultimately decided that the d-blast and h-slam would be as extreme as I'm willing to go. So early on in the coronary situation, Ms. Rogers is like:

Spoiler: Spoiler material

Okay guys. What's this situation? And how am I still....? And on top of that, THAT HURT A BUNCH!

Understanding when tough measures call for assist lines is one thing... but D*MN!!!

And when the true final boss shows its worst (among other things) even Tedd Meyers can be like:

Spoiler: Spoiler material

Oh, hell no!

Also, whenever the alert bubble is popped over someone during the course of the proceedings I have decided that I am going to use it as a means to "bleep 'em out". In other words, you see the exclamation bubble and "(bleep)"!

 

[bgillisp]

1.9 Update:
-Finished the rewrite of the Chapter 2 cutscene so that it no longer reads awkwardly. Now I just need to check it for typos and such.
-Rebalanced the Chapter 9 monsters some. Specifically the monsters guarding something you needed for Ending 6 (the canon ending if I *ever* write a follow up game to this) were too easy so I powered them up some. Should make it more challenging at least.

 

[BreakerZero]

0.5.6 update. Extended the coronary scene to where someone else freaks out over Ms. Rogers' telepath sense and you have to help her understand how it works. By request of course. And I plan on having it to where the annoyed patient will eventually return the favour.

Also, I think I have too much to do with the main quest now and will probably have to split off my second quest to its own experience as a sequel may be a much better option for what I want to do with it. I will still be keeping the "ultimate secret" mechanc however, but it will probably end up being for a priority classified surprise.

EDIT: 0.5.7 is set as well. I'm changing the order of information in the system boot process. It is now photosensitivity first because reasons, then splash, prologue and my legal advisory notices. Prior to this I was running photosensitivity, splash, legal, prologue.

 

[Canini]

I will start with the third demo for my game. The end goal is to put demo 1, 2 and 3 together into one big demo that contains:
-The opening cutscene and town
-The first part of the overworld (a mountain seguing to a swamp area)
-The first dungeon

My goal for the month is designing a fishing minigame and sketch up the first dungeon, with preliminary puzzles and enemy placements.

 

[Marquise*]

On busts right now. B&W only ^^

 

[FluffexStudios]

Finished so far:
- Creating a strong hook at the beginning of the story
- Add closures to the story
- Wrote up multiple endings
- Got feedback and suggestions regarding storyline

Goal for the remainder of the month:
- Look for artists for the game
- Get more feedback on story and characters
- Start working on dialogues
- Work on basic design and sketch of the map and each area

 

[mobiusclimber]

I set up my on map random encounters to have a chance between three different troops. Worked on some more classroom maps. But I'm getting burned out on all the stuff I need to do. It's just kinda overwhelming. I'm going to work on the scenes I left out of my demo, so that means making a bunch of rooms and a hallway and a kitchen, and hiding stuff around that's either story-based or healing items for later. I'm really not sure what to do about these maps. These kinds of RPGs seem to be allergic to hallways with doors on both sides. I hate mapping bc I want things to look realistic like they do in the real world. But all the things that are true of real life just look weird in RPG Maker. No one has a living room, or a bigger room at all, ever. Doors? In a house? Who needs those things!

 

[BreakerZero]

0.5.8 status update. Gave the menu screen a bit of extra pizzazz, now consisting of LCD animations of a certain inspiration (and yes, I've thrown in a lot of callbacks and tributes throughout) in addition to video panels that serve as a photographic showcase of the primary cast and crew which have all been mounted on support walls that also provide a video board for the menu itself. May also extend this (but still undecided) to include a look at the supporting cast members. Other video panels in the menu scene flash a color-shifting symbolic relative to my central hook for what makes everyone on your crew as they are for an extra special touch.

Also, my plan for the main story is starting to be a drag so I have ultimately decided that I will "fork my project" (or so to speak) so what I had for my second quest is now being reserved for any potential follow-up/sequel work. Again, I'm still keeping the ultimate secret in place (which will probably now be used for a hidden showcase mechanic) and what served for second quest planning is probably gonna end up being a more traditional implementation of the "new game plus" mechanic as I'd still like to keep something left over from this. I also ended up rebalancing some of my spawns in the part of the story that I'm actively testing (primarily I buffed their base attacks, and I'm probably gonna have to nerf their skill output as well).

 

[artoni]

4/8 down, 4/4 for the demo...boy, I'm getting things done! Only one character has their weapons list finalized, though.

Spoiler: Spoilery skills draft for character, + weapons notes

Fourth needs a bit of revamping, but I'm pretty much done with this! Now to code all of them...RIP ME.

 

[BreakerZero]

@artoni, I ended up doing likewise.

I'll be pushing it to availability on Steam in the near future once I complete my draft of the full game's description so that I have things ready well in advance of my planned holiday release.

And speaking of Steam, there's a NEWS FLASH going out. Basically, Steamworks just got some new DLC-related functions that I just finished analyzing. Not that it specifically relates to anything I'm doing right now (but is likely to be instituted as a stretch goal consideration) but you're afforded DLC-specific pages now in the store with quick access dedicated to three showcase selections of your decisive preference on the main product page. By that measure, if this is something for which the mods can get some community input it's okay to copy this note to commercial discussion.