November Goals & Progress Thread

[Kes]

@Schlangan Wow - hmm, a time sink!  I've never been very good at snow.  It doesn't seem to come right somehow, so congrats that you can get yours to work.


@AceOfAces_Mod Cleaning up the database seems to be a never ending job for most of us.  Keep at it!


@Lantiz I don't think you've ever said what your tutorial is about? Your plan looks very thorough. I wasn't clear what this meant "one though monster spawn".


@Punamaagi I personally think that mixing and matching both premade and self-made things is the way to go.  It's what I do, though the premade get a lot of editing so that often they look very different from the original.  But editing an existing is so much quicker than starting from scratch.  I think that when one is basically doing this solo, there have to be adjustments.


@bgillisp I get quite a few ideas when I'm travelling.  I think it's partly because there's a certain freedom in not having to do everything to the normal timetable and partly because I do a lot by train, so I can just get on with it free from interruptions.  Will we see any of your NPCs?


@Marquise* Glad that you've got a couple of people up your sleeve (metaphorically speaking).


@EliteZeon I'm so glad you're rethinking the emphasis with the religious aspect.  I remember thinking when I played it (and may have mentioned it, don't remember) that it was a tiny bit cliched and would probably restrict how you could develop your story.


My update


I now have the script calls for the conditional branch all worked out for my equipment.  It has become so streamlined in comparison to the way it was shaping up to be.  Apart from that, mapping. Yes, mapping and almost nothing else.  I haven't put the enemies in, or the chests or any of the other essential of cave life.  But I now have reached the exit cave.  I wish I could show it with the lighting because I think it looks 400x better than without.  But for what it's worth, here it is.  It will be much reduced, because it's a fairly big map, but I think you'll get the general detail.

Spoiler

In case you're wondering, the water is cascading down a hole and emerges as a waterfall in the cave beneath.


EDIT


Nothing like posting to make you realise that there are several edge pieces missing.  Oh well.

 

[Lantiz]

I don't think you've ever said what your tutorial is about?

Oh I really didn't...


It's just a dialog explaining the bascis about the game interface and the movement/combat commands.

Your plan looks very thorough

Thank you, I'm trying to keep it simple... it's meant to be a demo.

I wasn't clear what this meant "one though monster spawn".

I'm sorry, the correct word would be "tough", my english is kind of hurt haha


Currently theres only one easy mob spawning, I want to add one more, but a bit more powerful.


By the way, your map looks great.


Seems you've been putting a big effort in it.


Update:

• Added action for calling menus directly from the gamepad: Equip, Item, Skill, Status.
  
• Changed the default key of menu opening to Start Button.
  
• Maped the same menus to keyboard for direct call.
  
• Fixed a bunch more plugins and added more features.
  
• Finished planet 1.
  

Lacking:

• enemies on space, to protect the exploration planets and engage the player
  
• main quest eventing on space
  
• random events on the first planet
  
• main quest eventing on the first planet
  
• one though monster spawn on the first planet
  
• landing on the second planet
  
• random events on the second planet
  
• main quest eventing on the second planet
  
• dungeon entrance on the second planet
  
• monsters on the second planet
  
• random events on the dungeon
  
• monsters on the dungeon
  
• boss on the dungeon
  
• main quest eventing on the dungeon
  
• ending scene
  
• credits scene
  
• title image
  

 

[EliteZeon]

@ksjp17 Ah yes actually, your extensive review those years ago really made me rethink a lot of things. I decided to keep many themes in, like some people still disliking the church in my setting, but overall I'll see if I can make things lie in a moral grey zone. Ideally, lots of branches of my world's government will be corrupt, but will be doing it for reasons other than pure evil. (Other than a genocide that I have written into one of my character's backstories, that will be legit evil)


I'm admiring your map. I still haven't quite figured out how to design caves. Luckily so far my game only includes one small cave section in order to grab a lock pick. But I'll have to learn it eventually. That waterfall you got on your map looks quite nice as well.


Welp I actually made some decent progress today in about 4 hours. I designed a possible animation for my game, where a banner flies down in order to buff the party. If it works as intended, I may start making more custom battle animation assets. I also designed the base battler sprite for a Chapter 3 character. I'm still in the middle of redoing the animated battler for my Chapter 1 Boss, but I made some progress compared to when I last mentioned him I believe. I'm also going to show before and after images of some of my renewed assets.

Spoiler

Buff Banner Animation: The banner flies down from the sky and the defense of the party rises up.

Chapter 1 Boss: Big Guy... erm I mean Biggs, Guardian of the Sashnean Church, Left is the new idle animation. The bigger canvas size allows for much more movement to be made when designing the character animations. For the most part, his posture was changed and he was given shinier chainmail and white cloth on his armor to allow for a much more majestic look.

Low HP Animation, Basic Attack Animation and Use Item Animation

Jin Zhou base battler design - He is a Justiciar of the Sashnean Church

Jasper Blackwell base battler design - Character to be introduced in Chapter 3. He uses a fantasized gun shield.

Fortune's Original facial portrait:

Her renewed design. (I'm less paranoid about art thieves than I was earlier... but if you do steal my assets, at least credit me so I will be less ticked off!) She is intended to be the main character in the sequel game if it gets to that point.

Finally, I got around to playing about with in town stuff... I was kinda disappointed at how my custom icons appeared in Yanfly's Shop script. This kind of makes me sad, my options are either to redo all my icons and clean them up for when they get enlarged, remove the script to hide how brushy they are, or made custom images for every single item. (Snaps finger) Also, I think I broke the intended UI...

Ah, working on graphical and art assets is a nice break from the system data base.

 

[AceOfAces_Mod]

@EliteZeon, Yanfly's shop script allows you to use an image when the item is selected. See the script's instructions.

 

[EliteZeon]

Yeah, I mentioned it in my original post... I really don't feel like making a lot of high res images for all of my items. Plus I don't want to clutter up my image files more than it already is... Making a high res image for every item is going to be a nightmare for me.


I went with my first solution and just spent the last few hours completely redoing my item icons or cleaning them up so they wouldn't be as blurry when the script enlarges them.


It's really easy making icons that look cool when scaled down. But it's a bit difficult when you want them to look impressive as well when they get enlarged. I actually spent an hour and a half trying to figure out how to make a new rapier icon that would fit that criteria.

 

[Kes]

@EliteZeon I use the item menu script, and there is no way to rely on the scaling up done by the engine.  It's not that the original icon is messy, it's what happens when it's resized.  Rather than go totally off topic, I'll pm you with the details of what I do.  Takes all of 2 minutes maximum to do.

 

[AceOfAces_Mod]

Two goals down. One to go. Just in time where the next update hits release candidate.


Progress Report #7:


-Almost all of the new face designs are loaded. The title screen needs changing though.


-Fixed more bugs.


-Finished with the save patcher in-game.


-Refined part of the launcher's error handling.


-Cleanups gallore!

 

[Vox Novus]

@Schlangan Two small maps or big maps? Two maps can be a lot depending on what you are doing.


@hiddenone One thing that I've seen before in recipe books or crafting systems is the use of synonyms. For example the description for the item to use in the recipe might say Container and the actual item you need is a Flask. It gives the player some info to figure it out without directly telling them. Helps them keep track of what item to use to.


@AceOfAces_Mod Excellent, seems like you might meet your goals then. You'll have to give us a screen of all the faces for the party members when you get them in since we saw some of the placeholders before.


@ksjp17 Map looks nice, looks like a nice map to wander into a dead end and find some loot!


@Lantiz All the gamepad support sounds awesome! Seems you got a bit of in-game stuff implemented to.


@Marquise* Your forum title should be Old Geezer Animator lol. Sounds like steady progress on your dragon. I bet it will be a real beauty when its done.


@EliteZeon You can certainly have a game where the religious organization is directly evil and uses its status to cover it up. Otherwise showing how the religion is viewed by others is a good approach; in some parts of the world it might be praised in others they might not care and in others it might be hated.


@Punamaagi Good work getting your busts drawn up. Post them if you want some feedback and aren't sure what isn't quite right. It definitely takes some fine tuning to get your gameplay just right; no matter your skill level with game making. In the case of a skill being spammed to much to win it sounds like there needs to be some sort of balance to it to prevent that; either a high cost, a higher accuracy or a new strategy by the boss to overcome or deter it later.


My update 11/17/2016:


Finished some mapping for the final dungeon, just the initial area and the area where the secret boss is fought. Implemented the secret boss fight in-game and finished all database related aspects with it, still working on fine tuning it though. I'm sort of trying to decide how lengthy of a fight I want it to be and if I want the player to have to go through the final dungeon to get equipment upgrades first before the secret boss fight is made manageable. Might just tinker with the defensive stats by increasing them a bit and leaving the player the option of an easier fight if they grind for money to get an equipment upgrade or two. For those that were wondering my monster was based of rock musician Alice Cooper. 

 

[EliteZeon]

@Vox Novus It still pertains to that old cliche. Back when I originally drew aspects and ideas to my game (11 year old 4th grader me) Final Fantasy X had just been released. So a lot of my in game lore and story I've been building up for over a decade drew a lot of inspiration from that. So now that I am a hopefully wiser 24 year old idiot, I'll see if I can get something more original. I'm leaning heavily on the moral grey zones for my game now.


I mean, the religion is sort of over protective and zealous upon how magic should be developed, used and recorded upon the world. Such that, historically in my setting, at first all practitioners of magic were only holy and sacred individuals. Then 600 years prior to the game's setting, the goblin-like race is discovered when settlers venture in and learn that these non-human races have powerful druidic magics... and well that threw things off for a bit of a loop.


(Warning, I am going to start rambling now)


The path I am thinking of going with for my game is that the Church doctrines on rediscovering history and magic gives them a bit of a dictatorship vibe, but then I will go and say that the leaders are making their decisions in order to prevent the world from rediscovering cataclysmic weapons so they will never be used again. But with that history may just end up repeating itself when some brilliant mind reinvents a doomsday spell and the Church didn't work to build countermeasures. On the other hand, the Magical Research Society fellows can easily argue for the mass development of the world. But also want to rediscover said cataclysmic weapons and publicly claim that they are working on reverse engineering counter measures in case they do get used again, but will also have the knowledge to use said weapons.


So it gets kind of difficult to figure out what is truly right or wrong. Both organizations want to prevent evil more or less, but the way to go about it conflict with one another.


The first player character in 4Runes is a Mage named Kyo that is more or less acting as an Indiana Jones type figure who is documenting a rediscovered ancient civilization. Though he is a little bit of an idiot, so he is alone for the first 30 minutes of the game. Originally he runs into a Church member named Biggs who is/was a rival faction, and things ended up going south and a fight happens. I think I'll instead make it so they were meant to work together on "how" to properly report this to their respective superiors and see how both religiously and magically the world can benefit from the ruin site. But, an argument occurs somewhere, they fight and well... now Kyo has to explain to both his Organization and the Church what happened to Biggs. I feel like the plot will pace out much better that way, while still retaining the spirit of the original story, and it gives more motive for the characters to interact with each other more.


The game is going to be a lot of world building if anything, with characters being conflicted on their choices throughout the entire adventure. Or rather, I will do my best to make it so it pans out that way.


So back to my graphics and icon stuff... I've been using Photoshop to clean up and completely redo my resources so they display better in Yanfly's shop. Turns out testing the icon at 500% and 1000% magnification helps to see if it scales up sharply or not when displayed in the yanfly shop. What I've managed to pull off is in the spoiler tag below:

Spoiler

Here are 4 screenshots that have been pasted together, to show how the icons look at their original 24x24 format, and then when they get scaled up in Yanfly's script.


Top left shows the new icon I am using for some greatswords, basing the icon on pixels makes the image appear much cleaner and sharper when it gets scaled up. The top right image shows the original great sword icon, it was made by air brushing a sword-shaped object relatively quickly in a 240x240 format and then scaling it down. IMO, it looks pretty nice as a 24x24 icon, but it is garbage when scaled up.

On the bottom portion, I tested to see how cleaning up my original airbrushed icons would work. The Bottom Left image shows the magic tunic icon after it has been cleaned up and lines were solidified. The Bottom Right shows the original airbrushed format, which is kind of blurry. Overall, I feel like the touch up kept the original 24x24 icon looking as nice as it did before while still maintaining a somewhat detailed image when scaled up for the shop display.


Next up, since I have made a lot of animated battlers (though no where near Holder's level of variety and expertise), I thought I would try my hand at making more custom sprites. In particular, behaviors. For the most part, I just relied on default stuff... I got kind of sad that the Game Character Hub program didn't help make behaviors or damage sprites. So, I thought I may as well draw things out myself using Photoshop.


So what we got here is, on the left is Kyo's default overworld sprite. Then I tried giving him a "magic" behavior, a "journal" behavior, and an attempt at a damaged sprite. I think they look alright for now. Copying and pasting saved me a lot of time, much like how I work with animated battlers

 

[Lantiz]

@Lantiz All the gamepad support sounds awesome! Seems you got a bit of in-game stuff implemented to.

Hahaha, it is. I've been playing and found it to be really funny.


Where are the pictures of your maps? xD


Update:

• playtesting
  
• more plugin fixes
  
• main quest eventing on space
  
• landing on the second planet
  
• random events on the second planet
  
• main quest eventing on the second planet
  
• dungeon entrance on the second planet
  
• monsters on the second planet (they are tough D: )
  

Lacking:

• enemies on space, to protect the exploration planets and engage the player
  
• main quest eventing on space
  
• random events on the first planet
  
• main quest eventing on the first planet
  
• one though monster spawn on the first planet
  
• landing on the second planet
  
• random events on the second planet
  
• main quest eventing on the second planet
  
• dungeon entrance on the second planet
  
• monsters on the second planet
  
• random events on the dungeon
  
• monsters on the dungeon
  
• boss on the dungeon
  
• main quest eventing on the dungeon
  
• ending scene
  
• credits scene
  
• title image
  

 

[AceOfAces_Mod]

@Vox Novus, only Maria and Elena need their faces changed (the third version, the other two versions are set already).

Spoiler

 

[Marquise*]

WOAH peoples are motivated!   so many nice works!


I am on the wings and doubts are now plaguing me...  And I can't show anything!


@AceOfAces_Modnice portraits.:3


@LantizYou are really methodic 


@EliteZeonthat menu mosaic seems great!  I like your sprites too!


@Vox NovusI can do that?  And urgh... One day as the bassist of Kiss started his own animated series, my executive producer kinda almost insta-killed my animation project wanting my main hero to bare the very same make-up!  >.<  Can we be ORIGINAL AND SERIOUS PLEASE?


@ksjp17Hey... I like the map but since that ends with a lake... I wonder if I could have the audacity to suggest that you put a whirlpool near the south edge?  Just something that could makes players on their toes and makes look the bridge crossing look perilous for some reason.  (On the other hand... maybe it means also another SFX :/ )


@bgillispAlways good to read you!

 

[Lantiz]

@LantizYou are really methodic 

I'm I? :0


Why? hahahaha


Also, what's going on with your project?

 

[HexMozart88]

Been a while, but here's my update. 


I realize I need to fix my dialogue enormously before I can make anything look pretty, so that's become my new goal. Now, I'm making sure there's no cheese, the speech patterns are in order and all the portraits are in place. 


Right now I've gotten through about two or three cutscenes of proofreading (after deleting that useless bust script).  

 

[Kes]

@Lantiz It must feel very satisfying being able to strike through one goal after another.  A great way to keep up momentum.


@AceOfAces_Mod Those faces look good.


@Vox Novus Yes, all of those dead ends have loot, and the one with the cave has a mini-mini-boss (it's only a baby, and the mother's not there)  Ah yes, as soon as you said Alice Cooper I could see the reference.  I think that secret bosses are always tricky to balance - there will be players who don't find it/can't be bothered looking, those who will grind away happily and those who want to be able to take it down the first time they meet it, if they get their strategy right.


@EliteZeon Actually your 'ramble' made good sense.  I think it's shaping up to be something particularly interesting.  Will there be a new demo soon, or is it still some way off?  The revised icons look good.


@Marquise* That's not a lake.  What you can't see in the screenie, because of the scale, is that it's actually a hole, with water cascading down it.  But see my update for further info.  I can see that it must be hard to be doing all this work and not be able to show it to others.  But there is the compensation of sorts that when it does finally go public, people get to see the polished, final version in all its glory, rather than at different, incomplete, stages.


My update


Having put in enemies etc., now playtesting my caves.  On that water/hole - I had to make a custom waterfall edge because my custom stream autotile is quite narrow (more realistic, imo, than the default size) but here is going across 2 tiles.  However the default foam is a full tile wide, so I had to make 2 sets of foam, one with the correct sized gap on the left hand side, and one with the gap on the right hand side.  Here is a screenie showing our heroes contemplating it, knowing (as they now do) that the water falls down into a lower cave and eventually runs underneath the town.  Of course, in-game it looks more realistic with the animated water, foam and cascade effect.  A lot of work for something that they will only see once.  Sometimes I question my work:reward ratio.

Spoiler

 

[Lantiz]

@Lantiz It must feel very satisfying being able to strike through one goal after another.  A great way to keep up momentum.

It is indeed. I don't wana do anything else when I'm working on the game, but life calls. :/


This demo made me realise that working on small projects tend to be more satisfying, the chances of giving up are lesser, and you keep seeing a result after another.


It's really cool.

A lot of work for something that they will only see once.  Sometimes I question my work:reward ratio.

I like your maps and I think the details are what makes all the difference. Please, don't give up on them.

 

[Marquise*]

@ksjp17Aww I can see it now!  beautiful!  seems pretty dangerous too!


@LantizI am about to get dragon transmitted finger arthritis if my metacarpal don't start hurting me on those *&^&*%^(*&^*&^%&%$^#$%%$#$&%&^ wings!


Progress; see my Lantiz line Ow Ow Ow Ow Ow !  (What is more masochistic? sewing leather obipurse by hand and get needle poked like 5o times per hour in the fingers? Or crisping my finger joints and teeth on  insect like hexawings in pixel art on multilayers?)


....AAAAAAnd no one can see it!  I am not masochistic, I am MAD!

 

[EliteZeon]

@ksjp17 Unfortunately it will be awhile. If I drop everything else I do in my free time though, I suppose a new demo could've been ready in a week or two, assuming I only wanted to release the first chapter again for the 3rd time.


Lets see, for a new demo, assuming it is just Chapter 1 again, I need to:


- Crop up and color new cinematic art assets that have been sitting in my computer for too long


- Finish Bigg's new battler - He needs his "Skills, Magic, Run and Defeated" animation rows completed which an optional Starting animation and Victory animation in case I have plans for him to ever become playable for whatever reason.


- Create new sprites and a character portrait for Justiciar Jin Zhou, who will now be introduced at the end of Chapter 1... his mask is going to be a pain in the rear to design properly


- Redo the "temple chamber" map that is seen at the end of the chapter as a cinematic, and make it an explorable area with dialogue exchanged between all three characters as the room is examined


- Set up new dialogue and event them to proper cut scenes for when the boss fight occurs and the aftermath of the fight


- Possibly redo the lighting system. As of right now, it is just a big picture with the middle erased to emulate darkness, I'm currently staring at Victor's Lighting engine.


What I really want to do though, including all the above mentioned stuff, will be Chapter 2:


- Figure out the proper transition from the ruins to Clay's Hometown


- How to introduce Fortune as a temporary party member and figure out how to make it not cringeworthy. Essentially Clay is a blacksmith, Fortune is a traveling warrior merchant... and someone didn't complete a custom weapon order for her...


- Redo some custom sprites and furniture


- Event out Chasa Village and get the sidequests functional... conceptually I think I can easily do two of the side quests, the third one which acts as a bit of a mini dungeon might be more difficult, especially since I am trying to draw from a horror vibe


- Finish mapping the entire forest zone


- Event out the forest zone and get chasing mobs working, as well as gathering and cinematics that occurs in said forest


- Rewrite the events leading up to the boss encounter for like the 5th time


I actually redid a good chunk of what I had released so far. Whenever rifts were touched small crappy cinematics played out. Well, during the summer I actually completely redid them.


Here is a screenshot showing how I changed one of the cut scenes during that summer:

Spoiler

On the very top left shows the original cut scene. Courtesy of Toaofgames. The original cut scene shows a mage and some knights walking into a door, and then the guards get slaughtered in a messy 2 second long attack scene. The new scene shows panicked people attempting to reach an inner sanctuary, but the guards only allow nobles in... and well... the rest of my screenshots tell you their fate.


I also added in a quest log as well for the game during that time. So basically, part of the newer build for the first chapter was completed several months ago. Huzzah!

 

[bgillisp]

Sheesh, I need to get to this page more often. Only able to reply to a few of you at the moment:


@ksjp17: I think that's something we all question. Wait until you read my update.


@Lantiz: I feel the same sometimes, and often find myself wondering what could I get done if I didn't have to handle all the other obligations.


@Marquise*: Try spriting 10000000000 NPC's, even if you are using the generator. Ok, that's not quite the number, but it sure feels like it at times.


@EliteZeon: Good luck with that transition. And your post reminds me, I really need to get around to update my demo too *adds to growing to-do list*


11.18 - 11.19 Update: Did a play through of Chapter 2, and noticed the ending is really weak. As in, I probably should redo it. So added that to my to-do list, with notes on what I think would improve it. Then, I spent the next few hours creating a realistic schedule for the sport Monsterball, which is the sport that everyone in that world obsesses over. Probably not the most effective use of my time, especially as I doubt the average player is going to care, but I had fun while doing it, so maybe that's all that really matters?


Plus, way I look at it, I can use that to create my NPC lines at the bars and such, especially now that I have listed who wins what game with whom by how much, as well as when in the story each game is played.


Maybe not the most effective work/reward ratio thing I've ever done, but I did enjoy doing it at least.

 

[Canini]

@Canini Reminds me of table top hex tile games, cool! That Elephant is clearly the final boss or something though, right!?

The elephant is actually an ally. She can defeat any enemy but tramples allies close to her underfoot, so it is kind of a mixed blessing.Speaking of the elephant, I am working on the game still, writing some dialogue for all the instances where the player makes the wrong choices.