November Goals & Progress Thread

[skatasticdinoboy]

@ksjp17, I was quite confused for a while there lol.


And no worries, it happens to all of us!


progress: I'm still not sure about my pixel art quality, but I am almost done with that sprite sheet! 

 

[bgillisp]

@skatasticdinoboy: Ha! Glad to see I'm not the only one!


@Marquise*: What's sad is that anime probably really does exist...and I'm afraid to goggle and find out if it does.


@PsychicToaster: Excel seems to be a popular choice for listing how every weapon/armor/etc. Still, good idea to get it done, else you will have what I did early game when I just threw items at the game and hoped they sticked.


Page turn, more in a minute.


11.9 Update: Finished mapping the optional dungeon. Now a Chapter 2 party can visit...the Mushroom Caves! Dare to venture where the fungi grows? Will the heroes manage to make their way through the caves? Or will the deadly fungi be too much for our heroes?


And with that we now have a dungeon that is appropriate for the Chapter, so next I will work on deleting or moving (probably moving, as I think I can use it elsewhere) out the old dungeon that didn't fit.

 

[skatasticdinoboy]

I don't care if it looks terrible, it took me hours! 

 

[Kes]

@EliteZeon That is a nice distinction between how the Dark and Shadow elements will act.  I like the in-battle bits of dialogue.


@skatasticdinoboy I'm not surprised you were a bit confused.  I think my brain had packed up at that stage even if I was still moving around. A lovely example of the RL possibility of zombies.  As for your experience of tweaking/adding tiles during the mapping process - that happens to me all the time.  I often discover what I'm missing only when I want to use something and find it's not there.  When I'm using tiles for the first time or using them in a very different setting, I keep the tile sheet open in GIMP and work on it as I'm going along.


@Marquise* I had a real laugh at your final sentence of advice to bgillisp, especially the "snore your way out of it".  If brute force won't persuade the dragons to be finished, perhaps a bit of TLC?  It may be that underneath that brash exterior there lurks a sensitive teddy bear. 1100 words is pretty good.  Well done.


@Punamaagi I had a thought about busts.  Are you using them in battle as well i.e. instead of the faces that one normally sees?  The reason I'm asking is that they can look very good in that situation, but you have to be careful that they are not so big that they obscure the enemy.


@bgillisp Glad things are improving so soon, even if you're not there yet.  Do your mushrooms move around, or do they form barriers to movement that you have to get rid of in order to progress?


@PsychicToaster That chart is impressive, and very clear.  I know nothing about your game, but I can easily grasp what you're doing there, so obviously it's very self-explanatory.


My update


Discovered 3 significant bugs. Two I managed to wrestle into submission, but the third has left me stumped - though oh the relief when I worked out what was causing it.  I had thought that it was because of an error in the way I'd set up my classes, or how people changed class.  It isn't, it's because of a script.  I've posted a thread in Ace support and I do hope that someone comes up with a solution, as I've made this particular aspect an integral part of the story.  If I can't get it to work I'm going to have to do a significant amount of re-writing, and come up with different reasons for why/how a character joins the party.  That's non-trivial and I'm not looking forward to it.

 

[Lantiz]

Did you see the one with the single image or the one with the full animation cycle? The first one with the animation cycle looked awful lol. I just went back, deleted the other frames and improved on it some. 

It was a movement sheet

Sometimes, it helps to have an outsider's perspective because we can be way too critical of ourselves. A bit of confidence can go a long way!  

I know right? And sometimes it's really bad that we don't even need the outsider's perspective (my case... better no one see it lol)


Update:


I'm not working on the game... waiting for graphic assets to be done :/

 

[Marquise*]

@LantizYour way of typing about an interested to see Dragon Butts made me laugh.  I kinda imagined a lonely adventurer walking a dungeon and then not knowing what was the shadow covering him until he lift up his head and the dragon sits.  *inserts anime Dragon Butts generic music after a squish sound*


@bgillispSince I frequent this forum, I am caught with the more and more plausibility that things I never imagined with characters I portray in graphics are bound sooner or later to...  exist one way or the other *chase off a tap dancing new dragon from the top of my mind*


@skatasticdinoboyI don't care if it is ugly... it seems to be made to make any cute sprite flee or being attacked and devoured!


@ksjp17Me apart, I knew someone who was doing it very well.  Doesn't work thought with a bronchitis.


I might have 3 days in a row have to take a LONG computer creative work as my robo-prototype is requisitioned for some charity funding experiments!

 

[Lantiz]

@LantizYour way of typing that you would be interested to see Dragon Butts made me laugh.  I kinda imagined a lonely adventurer walking a dungeon and then not knowing what was the shadow covering him until he lift up his head and the dragon sits.  *inserts anime Dragon Butts generic music after a squish sound*

Ooooh man, I said "not sure if I would", it sounds too scary for me, glad that I don't know what "squish" means haha


And it was frightening when I started reading this post of yours, when you said "dungeon" I pictured a cave entrance... and... you know... tought it would be the dragon's dungeon if you know what I mean... hahaha


You got a horror game plot there.

 

[Marquise*]

@LantizHad to be ninjaed as I corrected my post but squished is like the noise made when you put your feet on an insect to crush it.    The alternative was a mumbling "LEMME OUT!  HEY!  LEMME OUT!"

 

[Lantiz]

@LantizHad to be ninjaed as I corrected my post but squished is like the noised made when you put your feet on an insect to crush it.    The alternative was a mumbling "LEMME OUT!  HEY!  LEMME OUT!"

Oh thank you!


Hope the adventurer is not the main character, otherwise your game anime is over already xD

If I can't get it to work I'm going to have to do a significant amount of re-writing, and come up with different reasons for why/how a character joins the party.  That's non-trivial and I'm not looking forward to it.

This sounds awful, hope you find a way.


What's that script about btw?

 

[Marquise*]

@LantizIt might be fun, for once, for a dragon series to have actual dragon protagonist...  *fail*

 

[Lantiz]

@LantizIt might be fun, for once, for a dragon series to have actual dragon protagonist...  *fail*

Hahaha right... could not think about one, really.

 

[Kes]

@Lantiz While waiting for your art assets, could you not perhaps be doing e.g. some database work?  Or planning out on paper (or wherever) more skills, states etc?  I find that keeping going doing at least a little something helps keep the momentum going.  For your question about the script, see my update below.


@Marquise* With your description of the dragon butts, I was reminded of the famous Monty Python foot coming down out of the sky.  Enough to give a headache to even the toughest hero.


My update


Forum members have come to my rescue.  The fuller description of the problem I had is this.


I have a character who if, and only if, he has a particular accessory equipped, can learn some skills from enemies when he is hit with that skill.  Blue magic, in other words.  What was happening was that he was learning every single skill he was hit with, even though those skills had not been tagged as Blue Magic ones.  Clearly not funny, and totally game breaking.  The script is a solid one by a reputable scripter (Tsukihime) and has been around long enough that if it were fundamentally bugged in this way, that would have come to light.  So it had to be caused by my particular setup.


The solution involves an elegant use of the damage formula box - how I love that feature of Ace, I've done so many things with it.  It took a bit of back and forth before the final version was arrived at, and endless testing as I had to stand there and keep the party alive until the particular character was hit by a relevant skill to find out if the latest proposal worked or not.  Even when the enemies had only that skill, my luck meant that everyone else in the party was being hit instead of this one.  I had to jack up his target rate just to persuade these grunts to notice him.  Finally, though, success was achieved.  Oh the relief!


I'm not going to have time to do anything else today, so I'm doing this update a bit earlier than usual.  

 

[Lantiz]

@Lantiz While waiting for your art assets, could you not perhaps be doing e.g. some database work?  Or planning out on paper (or wherever) more skills, states etc?  I find that keeping going doing at least a little something helps keep the momentum going.

Yeah probably... I need to:

• Combat - waiting for characters and (probably) skill animations
  
  Want to edit skills and monsters, the hardest part, but for that I'll have to define lots of events and set their images to show on map (roguelike)
  
• having their images I won't need to edit them twice, and I'll test animations on final characters
  

[*]Village - waiting for tiles and sprites;

• 
  not much about this, just some walls, floors and nature
  

[*]Characters / Plot - waiting for character sprites (villagers) and portraits;

• 
  Need to write te game text, but having the assets (mainly portraits) will help me a lot and also, don't want to redo it later
  

[*]Eventing - waiting for sprites;

• 
  Mostly treasure boxes, and transfers
  

[*]Audio - relying on plot and environment;

• 
  Want to feel the game mood before this one
  

Creating characters will be a lot of fun, the sad part is just combat balance...


Having the graphics, soon there will be a demo

For your question about the script, see my update below.

Oh, seems to be a complex feature, it's nice that you found a way around it [:


@ksjp17


May I ask you something kind of offtopic? You chose to answer or not...


Does having the game on steam (or any other commercial platform) gives enough profit at last to buy custom assets?


Cause I've been thinking of making some small games using mostly RTP and a few Steam Packs for free, but if it's worth, I would go for custom assets and try to sell the games to pay for the resources.

 

[Kes]

@Lantiz I'll pm you, as it would be totally off-topic for here.

 

[bgillisp]

@ksjp17: Not quite. It's a cave where the people of the town go to gather mushrooms, as that is what the town 'grows' (if one can be said to grow mushrooms). However, if you venture far enough into the caves, then you will find a few living mushrooms that are indeed hostile.


@Marquise*: Well, we already have Minotaurs dancing the can-can, right? Maybe next it will be An Ogre dancing the waltz.


@Lantiz: I've wondered the same thing about games on steam (or other platforms). I did look up most RPGMaker games on Steamspy, and estimated the revenue based on average sale price, and it seems the average RM game was making about $10000 - $20000, before taxes/Steam cut/etc. Though, obviously that would be lower if you released a game as bad as Gulpy Gulpy on there for $0.99.


11.10 Update: Small update today. Spent today working on more sprites so I can start putting my NPCs in towns.

 

[AceOfAces_Mod]

Progress Report #4:


-Populated the last optional dungeon.


-Tweaking some maps.


Misc:


-Had to re-calibrate the display (again) with Windows' color calibration tool. The laptop's display needed a tweak on Gamma. If it wasn't calibrated right, it could screw up the overlays.

 

[Arithmetician]

Been busy with real life, but I'm starting to get a more coherent backstory plotted out.

 

[Vox Novus]

Shoot I can't keep up now; I think I tend to slow down when I'm close to finishing a game for some reason. Great job with the progress, everyone!


@skatasticdinoboy I'm no spriter by any means, but that doesn't look too bad at all. I think the extended leg looks a little too large though when its stepping. Creepy looking monster!


@bgillisp Got to fill them towns up! What's a rpg without the townspeople telling me their insignificant woes?


@ksjp17 Glad you got everything figured out! The greatest game development asset for a rpg maker user? The rpg maker community and forums.


@Lantiz Demo! *Pounds fists on the table repeatedly and shouts*


@ Everyone else I missed, good work!


My update 11/10/2016:


Finished up all my memory events just got to do a quick playtest to see if they run properly. Next, I get to work on the final dungeon of the game and draw up the secret boss of the game which can be fought in the beginning of the dungeon if the player has a special item. The boss monster and its rewards are a reference and throwback to a certain trio from Chrono Trigger and Cross.

 

[Lantiz]

@Lantiz I'll pm you, as it would be totally off-topic for here.

Awesome, I saw it and I'm very thankful.

@Lantiz: I've wondered the same thing about games on steam (or other platforms). I did look up most RPGMaker games on Steamspy, and estimated the revenue based on average sale price, and it seems the average RM game was making about $10000 - $20000, before taxes/Steam cut/etc. Though, obviously that would be lower if you released a game as bad as Gulpy Gulpy on there for $0.99.

Oh it's a good chunk of info, thanks for sharing.


I think it's a good return for a hobbist, for me at last...


Looks like I gota think of a way to make some hype hahahaha (calling Hello games for a class... lol).


@Vox Novus


Hahaha gota love how you show interest for my game, it's really nice of you, thanks.


I'm thinking about making a simple combat demo using RTP while I wait for my assets... do you think it woud be cool? 

 

[EliteZeon]

Well... I was going to reply much earlier, but lots of issues irl popped up. Hell, I was in the middle of typing a reply last night but then **** hit the fan and well... long story short, dementia really, really, really sucks. Anywho, I'll just continue the reply I had pretyped:


@Punamaagi Ah thank you for your interest! I'm really glad you like her design, I had to redo her a few times to get the right feel I wanted from her. Unfortunately, she is only a side character in this game but should things pan out successfully, I actually have plans to make her the leading character in a sequel if I get to one. I wanted to make this an RPG where the heroes that are saving the day are not always together, or rather, I'm trying to establish multiple heroic parties exist. Since we've all seen those settings where there is a world of heroes, magic and technology and only four can save it.


As for the elemental stuff, yeah I plan on having tutorials and npc reminders that state what does what. I'll most likely throw in a key item book that explains what every State and Element essentially does. Looking at my charts... I got a total of 48 elements and states combined, about 11 elements then 20 bad states and 17 good states. So I don't expect people to really remember what each thing does specifically. Also the elements and states will all be introduced slowly, such that I only have two elements and about three states appear in chapter 1 of the game, but in chapter 2 more elements are introduced as well as a decent amount of bad and good states. I made an icon set specifically for my states and I made items essentially clear all the most of the bad states in one use.


I also got to make sure the skill descriptions give enough flavor text and information about what they do. But character limits, augh.... I'll have to search around to see if maybe I can get a skill description extender that works with the battle huds I am using. Otherwise, I could always make a codex players can refer to.


@ksjp17 I always value your opinion, I think I'm happy to see that you like my distinction. As for battles, they were pretty tricky to get the dialogue working at first. In the ATB system, it has an issue where it crashes if I don't have the dialogue box wait 30 frames before opening up a new dialogue box. Essentially the ATB timer will stop flowing completely and the entire battle freezes. What sucks is that I can't even force player character actions without breaking the system... so it's quite limited and a pretty shoddy work around, but it will due for now. If I can find a battle system that is more similar to Hero System tabletop turn rules or something like Final Fantasy X turn style, I might swap over immediately.


Hrm, as of right now bosses die to fast, I'll need to see if I can make it more cinematic, I'll play around with the system. Also, I noticed some skill failures that causes a game crash in some battles, I am not sure what the cause it, but it is pretty rare. I am thinking it might be when two characters act at the same time or too many animations occur at once, so it's likely on the ATB side or the Victor's Animated Battlers side.


@skatasticdinoboy I haven't seen the original yet, but that sprite looks pretty good!


In terms of progress, I'll go through my thought process:


I started to chart out the skill system more and came up with conceptual ideas as I balance out the states and elements in classes. So for instance I decided to flavor the Warlock class around Otherworldly magics, and balanced them with Shadow and Chaos as an element type. Chaos being my element that mostly is non-resistant by any monster and Shadow being based around Eldritch Horror stuff. After charting out all my elements and states for my Mage character (the Warlock is a subclass for the Mage character), I placed on a lot of "Hex" based States flavorfully based on essentially breaking the mind of a target. Also I noticed the Slashing element was lacking in which classes could use it... so I decided to let the Warlock use it, because why not? After that was settled, I just decided to come up with as many cool or more unique sounding skill names as possible related to the States and Elements I had. And with the Warlock in particular, the class gets these skills:


Spells [TP Based]:
Reality Slash [Slashing Element, High Raw Damage, one target]
Nether Darts [Shadow Element, Horror Mark state low chance, random 3 enemies]
Flail of Anguish [Shadow Element, No Guard state high chance, one target]
Eldritch Blast [Chaos Element, Glass Armor state high chance, one target]
Void Memories [Chaos Element, Mind Break state moderate chance, one target]


Utility Spells:
Tainted Armor [Target Self, Parameters MDef +1 PDef +1, HP Regen State]
Nightmare Catalyst [Target All AoE, Sleep state, Horror Mark state]
Abyssal Sight [Target Ally, Target Hit Rate Up, Crit Rate Up, Remove Blind State]


Now I just need to put them in the game file... after I build the rest of the database.


I also decided there were not going to be any "Fire 1, Fire 2, Blizzard, Blizzaga" skills in my game. So many of the Spells in particular should scale better based on level and should never become obsolete or useless. As such, with the way I have my stats scale, I made the forumula for base spells deal damage equal to 4*a.level+4*a.mat-2*b.mdf. And this interestingly, with my stat system, made it so that on average, spells deal roughly 20% more damage than if they use a regular attack action. So... I think I'll use level scaling for more skills. But... let's see, I have 4 main classes that get about 5 combat skills each, then each gets 4 subclasses that get 8 skills each... meaning I got like 148 skills or so to make? But I also got special snowflake skills to make for one-shot party members (IE Fortune), some monsters (IE A Basilisk Gaze) and bosses... so I am aiming for around 200 skills in my game.


Finally, I got around the redoing some of the lore of the world and mapping out the races and other things. At the very least coming up with brief descriptions of characters, races, regions, etc... so I can elaborate on them further when the time comes.