March Goals & Progress Thread

[Arithmetician]

@bgillisp Yeah, that would just mean a * 0.02 multiplier instead of a *0.01 multiplier (+50% for 50 points of luck), which I currently have. I'll probably end up deciding somewhere between the two, though I do like idea of Luck being so significant.

Anyways, I didn't have time to formally work on my game earlier today, but I spent some time trying to think about the plot and how I could revamp parts of the story. Conceptualized a possible antagonist figure besides just a typical evil emperor or force of chaos, but that would be something for another thread. The real trick is trying to distance my plot ideas enough from FFV and the games that heavily inspired my class system. I may have to "kill some darlings" as far as ideas go to achieve the necessary distance. And as the details of the plot change, that would dictate changes in the world map too.

 

[Marquise*]

@bgillisp You wish! Not the bite but it is really close to be 3/4 done. Front and first side are the longest to do. But when done, I might have a dizain other pose states to do with him. Meaning, yes it will go faster for each poses since I can recycle a bit from each of previous poses. But it don't prevent me to do that back-kick type of tail whack attack! (Now if I get to do that on flying mode also... I will have to charge extra!)
@DragonVine it is a IRL busking bot. But the more and more I think of applying the researches into a game. Let say I do the Pangoflydragon, then I do busk and then I repeat the cycle... Or else I'll turn into a cyberpotato!

 

[Mimironi]

I've gotten a lot of stuff done, like the intro/first scene written/ character skills(generally done),
but I've been forgetting to post about it here.
I hope everyone's progress is going well this month, I dont think I've made a post in March's.

 

[DragonVine]

@Marquise* I'm not sure what a busking bot is, but that sounds cool!

Update: I have narrowed down a topic for one of my papers and will finish it on Thursday if all goes well and finished two assignments today. While again, unrelated to game development, I am drawing ever closer finishing my Masters. If all goes well, other than one paper and my final project (which will be like a thesis, but doesn't need to be defended), I shall be finished everything, giving me three weeks to finish my final project.

 

[bgillisp]

@Arithmetician : Why not just start writing the first idea that comes to mind, no matter how stupid it seems, and see where it goes? Sure, odds are high it will not be great in the end, but it will give you a base you can use for editing next time. In fact, I have a story idea I wrote down that ended up being so stupid that the last line was "And then aliens invaded", as that was my way of saying its over, let's just blow the plot to pieces.

@Marquise: Don't forget, this dragon has to be able to dance too *ducks*

@Mirpono: I've had months like that. Hope the progress keeps going well!

@DragonVine: Nice. I think the worst part of getting a doctorate was that defense in the end.

3.21 Update: Finished placing the NPC's in Aurora, and tinted the town and placed light sources as needed. Now it's time to finish up the side quests for Northpass and Aurora, and that will make 2 more towns done (though Aurora has plot events in Chapters 5 and 9 that will need tweaking to match the edits, which I will at that point in my plot editing).

Also updated the screenshots on my project page since I have about 50% of my towns final now (and all of my Chapter 1 - 2 dungeons, and most of Chapter 3 - 4 as well). Might still be a stray shadow that is off but the mapping, eventing, and tinting is all done for that much of the game now.

 

[Arithmetician]

@bgillisp True enough. I've actually had a full plot conceptualized for a while, just I was unsatisfied with it. "Oh, that pretty much copies the Void... oh, here we have another evil Emperor wanting godhood... the world doesn't seem devastated enough for such a recent cataclysm, etc."

Hence, I would like to almost fully rework the plot at this point, though I'd like to preserve the basic identities of the player characters and the rationale for the job system. But I may need to discard other longstanding ideas to make progress.

@DragonVine Good luck on your master's project. That must be a lot less stress on you, not having to formally defend it. My Master's Thesis in Astronomy required giving a 1 hour presentation on my research, answering the audience's questions, then half and hour of answering questions related to coursework for my thesis committee, and then another half hour of addressing their questions about and criticisms of the research itself.

 

[DragonVine]

@bgillisp @Arithmetician That would absolutely be the worst part. The stress of having to defend it would probably be worse than writing it. Thankfully, it's just like a paper - marked by one prof, no need to defend. It's just a lot longer hahaha. I'm definitely going to be breaking the 50 page mark, and could possibly go quite longer. Basically, it'll be done when it's done. The advantage of having no page limits is that I can write until I'm satisfied.

 

[Arithmetician]

@DragonVine Yeah, my master's thesis was about 50 pages too, though half of it was diagrams and appendices, IIRC.

But we shouldn't get further off topic.

As for progress: just continuing to think about potential plot changes I could make, and also considering the implementation of a few class features, but haven't been able to commit my full attention to it yet.

 

[Kes]

Just dropping by to say
No progress, I've got a streaming cold, eyes watering, not a pretty sight.

 

[Marquise*]

@bgillisp *a cybermental sink flies out of nowhere in bgillisp's direction*
LOL No sincerely, I needed to laugh a bit; since last week my noisy neighbors kinda did some moving and then... I saw again a new bed and living room couches being thrown at my tree... and received a call for Friday... me and the kitties in the cold for 8 hours preventively... also need to break my back pulling from the walls all of my furniture... :S Just had the phone call today. (

@Kes Aww sh... Get well soon. Iwould send you my lady cat nurse... but I think we are not even in the same country (yeah I meant Daughter Cat... She makes a good impersonation of a massaging plushy vibrating hot water bottle when we need to sleep)!

I want to be on my dragooooooooooon! *about to cry* Did lotsa house work like pulling furniture... THEY are back! Not in my bed but ... CLOSE!
Hey... just so I have fun a bit,I think I gonna make some bits tonight... (Grrr They are not yet even in the home and they will kill me and Daughter Cat~!)

 

[Celianna]

I finished a character portrait, despite only appearing like three times, and only half of her body is visible.

Spoiler

Still, it was fun drawing her!

Larger portrait:

Spoiler

Now I can wrap up the rest, and I am ready to release my second beta, yay.

 

[Andronius]

Wooow I've been away just for like 2 seconds (2days I think) and there are 109765 new pages of great progress in this thread

I suppose you could say it's a "turn poison into medicine" kind of scenario. I tend to be a very analytical & skeptical person by nature, which works against me to a great degree (...) I can't simply state a character accomplished some feat, unless I can plot out their exact chain of actions. I can't simply ascribe an action to a character, without understanding what their motives are, & why they think their current course of action will yield the desired result. So my detail obsessive nature, serves me rather well, when it comes to world/lore creation. On the other hand, it often leads me to fixate on minor details, that others would happily gloss over.

@XIIIthHarbinger Ditto, right there with ya: feel with you totally and it's a blessing and a curse at the same time (progress is much slower... unless one learns to function with just 4h sleep as u do -personally I need 7-9h LOL).

@Kes Oh no! They say Orange Juice, and lots of Green Tea can help. I know for a fact @Marquise* is right: pets do have magical healing powers: just by being around they already make everything better. Get well from that cold! (and thanks again for the help the other day! )

@DragonVine Congratulations on your progress! Choosing and narrowing down the topic is like half the work (don't worry for the defense, it passes so quickly! just bear in mind they mean you well, and they usually also want to get done with it as quickly as possible LoL ).

Well, I guess I was just dropping by to say hi and see how everyone's doing. As for my recent progress (if we can call it such ) I discovered the power of what they called in a tutorial a "Game Design Document" (just a Excel Document to organize stuff when there's too much content, like happens in Normort Quest). It's a soothing exercise to try to put everything in writing... it gives at least the illusion of progress

Oh, and also replaced the More State Overlay Plugin by @Hakuryo with the SV Overlays Upgrade by @SumRndmDde (for some strange reason, for me it's just not enough with the state animation or the state icon alone; I NEED my states to show the icon, a nice state animation, AND ALSO the state overlay, everything at the same time).

 

[Arithmetician]

@Andronius Nice world map! And you seem far more organized when I am when it comes to maintaining a master file describing all of your skills.

 

[byronclaude]

Just dropping by to say
No progress, I've got a streaming cold, eyes watering, not a pretty sight.

I went through it hard in January... I am sorry Kes . Hang in there... it will get better! Just keep fighting. (Good music was key to my recovery in January... ...strangely...)

I am reviving an old project. Opened it the other day, and realized it is just too good to let go. The thing is over 75% finished! It is down to final mapping, and debugging! (But it is a very very large project).

Anyhow, I'm back in the game. (with more to post in other threads even)

 

[DragonVine]

@Andronius I actually don't have to defend it, thankfully. And yep about that being half the battle. I'll be doing research and writing one paper tomorrow, and two on Friday! Almost there.

Update on progress: I actually worked on some parallax mapping, so this post is actually game related haha. I have no idea if the map will be in the final version of my game, but it's progress!

 

[Lantiz]

@bgillisp Thanks!

I'm late again! :0
Ok, so... I did reach my goal already but I kept working.

• Improved the procedural map generator base plugin
  • Added A* pathfind to (mostly) draw pathways
• Created a procedural town generator plugin
  
• Improved the procedural world (outside) map generator plugin
  • Added option do draw pathways from entrance to exit
• Improved (a lot) the roguelike battle system
  • NPC's now fight each other when enemies
  • NPC allies can heal the player or the opposite
    
  • Followers can help in battle by killing enemies or healling the player or other ally NPC
    
  • Added character HP, MP and TP bars (near the character sprite)
    • Integrated with the HUD plugin for showing or hiding
• Updated Warped, was using a non commercial free font
• Created itch.io page for Warped
• Created Steam project for Aeternial
  
• Started a new short project
  • It's going to be called Kaht, that takes places at the main project world and inspired by Kingdom
  • Gathered graphic resources

Maybe I come back before the end of the month.
Cheers!

 

[Marquise*]

@Lantiz great good good job!

Sorry everyone for the progress... I am in a bit of a lotta of IRL drama right now. Fighting imaginary invasion, Exterminator tomorrow and ^&%^&% have to get my feline family out of the house while tearing my apartment apart kinda. Something worth to make a game about it some day when it will be fun to talk about EPIC IRL. :S

 

[XIIIthHarbinger]

Update:
All terrain groupings for all four hundred field maps completed.
All transfer points from field maps, to castle, town, & village maps completed.

Beginning work on field map to field map transfer points on roads connecting castles, towns, villages, & shrines.

 

[Lantiz]

@Marquise* Thanks mister! All hail the king of the cats! lol
Good luck

I was about ot start coding but... meh, I'll just sleep.
Working on a procedural sidescrolling map generator

 

[Andronius]

Hey guys!

@Arithmetician thanks man, I'm glad you like the mapping (is very modest you know, working mainly with RTP and no parallax at all). Someday, when I win the lottery perhaps, I shall be investing in Tileset packs

@DragonVine It's great you don't have to defend it (in truth, one does always get a little nervous with the committee and all that jazz).

@Lantiz that's GREAT JAW-DROPPING progress! Really awesome. I'm very curious about those generator plugins you made! And that rougue-like battle system? Can you share a link or vid to see it? Also thanks for the links (never heard of Kingdom: New Lands before, it's looks GORGEOUS, really beautiful to see, would love to try it one day).

@Marquise* I feel with you , been there done that: just two months ago I had to call a exterminator too, because I saw a bug and I'm totally terrified of them. Had to leave my baby dogs at mom's for a couple of weeks. Hang on in there and give my warmest regards to the feline family!

@XIIIthHarbinger Cool! (against all predictions ).

As for my progress, I have many new ideas to implement in Normort Quest (thanks to @byronclaude , who shared with me the most amazing hidden jewel, a true Secret Classic called UnEpic , of which I never heard before). Also been run-testing some other ppls projects, to give them feedback. But... while playing all these games, I suddenly found myself in a big dilemma. I call out on your wisdom, advice, and good guidance (everyone here has much more experience with RPG Maker, so perhaps some of you had the same dilemma once?).

Recently I've been experiencing very serious doubts regarding my project... I don't know how many weeks I've been unable to even sleep thinking about it. The thing is that Classes, abilities and skill-leaning system influence hugely lore and plot, not to say the whole gameplay experience. I having doubts regarding the number of characters/classes, and the skill-learning system. An "open system" would probably require less characters, but much more work. So here's my dilemma:

As some of you know my game is NOT solo-oriented (meaning a team must be assembled compulsorily in order to progress). So originally I had in mind to let the player recruit up to 15 playable characters, which is to say 15 different classes, with their own skill-trees, background, lore and what not. However, while playing many other projects and different games these days, I've noticed how interesting it is also to let the player choose class, abilities and skill-trees, to give them at least the illusion of customization and freedom.

So it's a big internal debate for me: traditional Locked-Classes vs. Open Skill Systems (or a free-form system, if that's the phrase). This is a very difficult, utterly important question, at least from the development point of view of any game, and I've been doing quite some research about it, because I'm not sure which path to follow.

The lack of granularity, of "class estability", makes it very hard to fix overpowered skill combinations or incredibly weak, poor character building. The already extremely hard, excrutiating problem of balancing, becomes even much harder whenever there are not stable, fixed-classes. Free-form skill choice would be much harder to do than the static typed-classes I already have. That’s what it boils down to... especially regarding BALANCE and those damned FORMULAE!

​

There are lots of possibilities between strongly-typed classes and very generic open-skill lists, of course. But in this stage of my project's developement (btw my very first project as some of you know), moving just an inch towards an “open skill system” would bring massive, unimaginable amounts of extra work. And annoyingly, any compromise one chooses between the two options will always create rabid angry critics, claiming "it's a bad game"… before they even try it.

I don't know if perhaps anyone else had this questions when working on their projects, but for me it's an urgent issue because the class and skill-learning system affects so deeply all the aspects of the game, including plot and character development, and of course PROGRESS...