October Goals & Progress Thread

[Kes]

@Marquise*

I like the - I'm not sure what to call it - the "diagram" you show at the end of your post.  A lot of info there conveyed in a clear, aesthetically pleasing, way.  Well done.

@Hollow

I like the layout of the new menu.  I always prefer horizontal to vertical actors.

@theGreatEater

Those body maps are fascinating.

@Chiara

Just for you, the G.O. screens.  The image and colouring also tie in, but it's a bit complicated to explain wihout going through a lot about the game, so I'll just say why the tag line.

The three main protagonists in the first game were army conscripts.  The professional soldiers despised them.  

Spoiler

Tale of a common man - obviously not about the nobility, or knights, then.

Spoiler

And it's obvious what the connection of the line is for A Timely Intervention

Spoiler

Better, I think, than some generic "Evil will always win" sort of phrase.

Great that you got all your notes organised so that you can find what you're looking for.  It's not just the benefits of revising some aspects.  It's also that by doing that you have got the whole arc of things fresh in your mind so that you can see connections, missing links etc.  And if tempovores doesn't exist, well it ought to.

@Schlangan

There is something odd about the back view of the horns(?) but I can't quite put my finger on what it might be.  I think it might be the fault of the blue lines running the whole width of the head.  Or it might be the blue blob thing between the horns.  In the front view I'm sure that I can see the full outline of the horns in the centre, which gives the impression that they are in front of the blue blob.  Side view contradicts that and seems to show the blue blob coming further down the nose than is implied in the front view.  then in the back view, the horns are definitely behind the blue blob and I think the blue lines are too high up.

@BlackRoseMii

Even a few face sets is useful work.

@Milennin

'tis the season for facesets, it seems.  It looks good to me, but as you can tell with my stumbling attempt with Schlangan, I am not an artist, so I'd wait for a more informed opinion than mine, if I were you.

My update

More eventing, dialogue work and sorting out of my boss.  Started a rough playthrough of the dungeon and came across a difficulty with how the substitute script I'm using for my geomancy system is handling one aspect.  It's not actually a bug, but it's not how I want things to be, and it took me quite a while to work out that it wasn't a bug.  I've put in a request on the 'script call equivalent' thread, but it looks like all the scripters are too busy arguing about discussing the niceties of Javascript to respond.  Oh well.

 

[bgillisp]

@Hollow: Those cutscenes and their dialogue can sure take a while. I'm starting to joke that my next game will be a dungeon crawler with little to no dialogue after all these cutscenes. Ever feel the same way?

@Schlangan: Thanks, but I have the drawing ability of a 6 year old. I'll have to commission someone to draw them in MV style when the time comes, and since I already paid for my sprites in ACE, I'm going to at least get a game or two out of them at this point.

@Marquise: Or maybe it is just me in a silly mood?

@ksjp17: I like those game over screens. I actually never saw the one for Tale of a Common Man, I just x'd out when it was obvious I was going to lose and reloaded the game. I wonder how many others do that? And your post reminds me that I still need to work on my title screen and game over screens, I've been saving them for one of my last tasks on my to do list.

@Hollow (2nd time): Looks good so far. Hope those RTP actors give you an idea how things work out.

@TheGreatEater: I have 0 idea how to draw, but it sounds like you are making good progress at least.

@Chiara: Ha! That's what I told myself too. Though honestly I couldn't think how to write the next cutscene at all, so a break was needed.

@Ace_of_aces_mod: Hope that goes well for you! I made it to my senior year, decided I wanted to do something else when I grew up and now I teach math. Though guess you could say I'm still using some of what I learned by making a game?

@Blackrosemii: RL been slowing everyone down right now it seems. Don't feel bad.

@Millenin: How you planning to put 288 x 288 facesets in the engine?

@ksjp17 (2nd time): Up to implementing your first boss already? That's some good progress there!

10.15 and 10.16 update: No progress Thursday, I graded and then played a game. Today I did a little more polish to the cutscene I worked on Wednesday, then did all the remaining events for that area of the game. Now I just need to polish up the sequence in the Pit, and Chapter 1 has been through a polish run.

 

[TheGreatEater]

@Schlangan, That charset looks rather spiffy. Good job on those ^_^.

@Ksjp17, They are ^_^. I love finding interesting artistic concepts / things on the web [even if some of them are outside of my skill level.]. Good luck on your Geomancy system.

@Bgillisp, To be honest, I always loved art, but couldn't draw anything past abstract art to save my life till recently. How I see it though, is every day is a new day to learn something. That and while the VA does [eventually ... sometimes depending on what state your in] hook up it's veterans. I need something to fill my days so learning how to do the art side of things is something fun to do when not baby sitting my baby bro. 

_________________

*Most epic of facepalms* So today. I thought I'd simply learn how to make a Gimp Brush, copy real life skin into a brush setting. Then I'd be good to go. 

That failed epically on translating to a 2 picture texture for the face [came across as one color]. Took me all day to find several solutions to the problem [especially like a rube, I thought I'd add lighter colors to contour lines in the texture. Which now that I think about it would be a horrible idea especially since the contour part + face texture would = clown face [the contour bit will be thrown into the texture I'm using for the greymap / topography textures.

In the end though I found the skin texture that work for me the most. 



It's two layers. The first is a color that popped up when bringing over a real life skin texture [and turned to a solid color]. The one over that is a mixture of color and tone changers and noise filters. Ontop of a light Gausian blur to merge it together. So that it's mix of colors and blurred texures overlap [at medium lower opacity] the skin layer beneath it. 

 

[Chadzter]

Hi guys! im new here i hope that i can make friends here!

anyway what i want to accomplish this month are:

-finish my skill animations for my classes

-start the main story of my game (introduction)

that's it for now! 

 

[HawkZombie]

@Hollow: Love that menu you've got. It reminds me of something but I can't quite place it. Aesthetically I think it works incredibly well, especially have you have the background the actual map the player is on at the moment.

As for my update: I just hit 65k words in my novel tonight. I'm thinking 75-80k should be a goot stopping point, depending on where the story leads. I don't want TOO short, but I don't necessarily need long. Not bad for 16 days of writing

 

[Milennin]

@Millenin: How you planning to put 288 x 288 facesets in the engine?

I'll downscale it back to 144x144 for MV, but I like to have the original version in higher resolution.

 

[Marquise*]

@Schlangan


Thanks for the info and nice critter.


@Ksjp17


It was the goal kinda; being logical and artsy and hope it would help players remembering where all things stands


Your Game Over screens just let players want to go back for... REVENGE! XD


@Chiara.


Seems your acute vision for details paid off. Thanks!


@Bgillisp


I have to admit I totally lost track of the conversation >.< Sorry!


@Millenin


Is it just me or do I see an up-side down head with an upright face into your portrait ID?


Well seems that I was not on the best shape of all yesterday, Altought my brain kinda cogitated some possible solution to make the front walk works better of $Eg! Since I make it sideways too, and it will be beating its own initial box sideways anyway, I guess I can cheat a few pixels right and left off center and process each body parts behind the legs as different layer elements and swing them a wee bit right and left too one in regards to another!

 

[Schlangan]

@ksjp17 : The "horns" are kind of flexible ears. Taht's why they change directions in between moves. Nonetheless, I fixed the impression of "blob" on the head.


@TheGreatEater : Thanks ^^ Good that you succeeded in doing the skin texture.


@Chadzter : Welcome onboard !


@HawkZombie : 65k words, nice job already. Please don't reach the same number as the first part of my story : 1M words x)


@Marquise* : Yes, doing so your EvilGod should be walking, and you might get rid of the dancing curse


My update :


I'm done with the main character charset now. Then I joined Team Evil and drew the first sprite of one of the 7 dragons of destruction that appear later in the story.


Here is the main charset, the dragon lies in the Lair of Corruption

 

[Kes]

@bgillisp

I expect a lot of players do the 'x' instead of seeing the Game over screen, but I like to do something for those who do end up seeing it.  I think it is a neglected item in some games.  I know what you mean about the temptation of a non-dialogue dungeon crawler.  There comes a point when I think to myself "no, I can't, not another one!"  I've sort of lost track about whether you are putting out a revised demo once you've finished this polish run for Ch. 1.

@TheGreatEater

Skin - a nightmare.  If it only took you all (one) day on your first attempt, then you did well.

@Chadzter

Welcome to the thread and good luck with your first goals.

'HawkZombie

That's an impressive word count for 16 days.  Is that first draft or do you try and do first redraft/edit as you go along?

@Marquise*

Having separately moving body parts should make this a very interesting animation.  Good luck with that.

@Schlangan

Assuming the gold is the equivalent of the blue blob, that is much better.  And yes, ears do make sense of what I'm seeing - except that even with that knowledge, they still look like horns.  I think it might be because there is no opening in the ear for the sound to enter.  They look solid, and therefore, given their shape (especially in front view), horns are what come to mind.

My update

Balancing and rebalancing stats.  Originally I was going to kill off the first character, so I hadn't bothered much with his stats, but now that he has been reprieved, I've had to rethink them.  

Also trying to ensure that the fights are do-able (though with very different strategies) irrespective of which class you picked for the second character.  

The first mini-boss is quite hard, unless you use a very simple strategy - simple, but not immediately obvious.  Although like all boss fights, this one is evented, I've set it up so that a preemptive move by the player is plausible, and used that as a teaching moment for the strategy via a forced action.  More experienced players won't need it, but I don't want less experienced players to get a repeated game over on their first boss fight.  Too disheartening!

 I suppose if the player did everything (and it would be advisable, as exploring properly will get you enough EXP to level the second character up to nearly lvl 3 before facing your first encounter) there's about 30-40 minutes of game play done.  This is, of course, only first draft, loads of polishing to do, but I think that's not a bad amount given how horrific this month has been for game making.

 

[TheGreatEater]

@Schlangan, Is it horrible of me that I see your character and think of Digimon? And thanks ^_^.

@Ksjp17, It is a nightmare XD. Still I think it's turning out rather nicely ^_^, and thanks.

________________________

Did very little today. Mostly spent my day helping someone with their fanfic as pre-reader / editor [well grammar checker / living sound board]. But I got a bit done on my textures today. 

Edit:

Here's what I got done today. 



If anyone's interested I can write a short little tutorial on how I do it. So that others can do it without as much experimentation as I've had to do.

 

[Chadzter]

thank you guys for the support! i will do my best to finish my goals! 

 

[bgillisp]

@TheGreateater: I'm hoping to someday learn, but for at least this game (and maybe next) it's just been faster for me to commission the art. Though I have started to learn how to recolor, so maybe someday I'll be able to draw more than stick figures.

@Chadzter: Welcome! Good luck with the goals.

@HAwkzombie: You're a writing machine! Is that the final version, or just draft one?

@Milennin: Ah, I misunderstood. I thought you were going to use 288 x 288 in the engine.

@Marquise: It happens. I was talking about the boogie Evil God.

@Schlangan: Evil dragons? Maybe I need to draw an evil dragon lair now for my team,

@ksjp17: Actually, my side project is a low dialogue dungeon crawler that I fire up when I just can't look at dialogue any longer. I figure I might have it all mapped by the time this game is done. As for the demo, that is the plan, though it will need testing by my tester too, so probably 2 - 4 weeks after I finish it?

10.17 Update: Wrapped up the dialogues in the Pit, as well as tweaked the final boss fight in Chapter 1 to make it a little less random, as some players were getting a TPK if he decided to use certain attacks 4x in a row. Now you have to win before round 8 though, as on round 8 he will use a devastating attack that will be a TPK unless you guard (and the party is warned of this too). Might still tweak it more in testing, but right now since he on average falls in round 6 I think this is a satisfactory outcome.

Still need to touch up the sequence for after the party rests after that fight. Already done with the cutscene from before they rest, now need to work on the one for after they rest, and update my credits in the game. Once that is done, Chapter 1 has been polished up and is ready for the tester.

10.18 Edit: Finished. Now I'm going to sit on chapter 1 for a few days, then replay it to look for errors, then send it off to testing. So probably a new demo version sometime in November?

Now I can either work on polishing Chapters 2 and 3 (which use the same areas, so they go together on the polish run), or back to Chapter 5 and draw the deserted mall...who wants to go shopping?

 

[TheGreatEater]

@bgillisp, hey recoloring is still art. 

 

[Kes]

Such a quite day on this thread.
@bgillisp
I wouldn't mind going through that demo when it comes out, see the change from the very early one I played.

My update

Used an A3 roof tile to construct a new slanted roof and gable ends for the village the player reaches after the first short dungeon. Also decided to do something about the fact that no tile set ever includes sideways steps up a cliff, they are always vertical. I now have what I think is a successful set of steps going sideways, and it makes mapping so much easier. Those 2 things took far longer than I had hoped, so nothing else done.

 

[Another Ned]

High stress level made me super unsociable the last few days and now it's so many posts I can only say Yay! Progress everyone! Only one thing @ksjp17: those game over screens made me smile. Not sure they would if my party had just been wiped out, though. Also, it's kind of nice to see how your graphics skills improved with every GO screen. No offence meant, but the first one is a bit on the visually overly noisy side. ^^"

Progress, 16th onward:

• taking pen and the guards + Ashanah's boss version to my sketchbook, I finally got a design I'm happy with. Details I'll decide on when I need to
• storyboard-ish scribbles for the first four scenes (one scribble each) – helps me to decide on some things like interior details, props, and such early on
• more sketches/study things to test out a few workflows
• finished face design for Veiril – she even got hair and headwear (she wears it the same way Yael does), as well as a first idea on her colours
• several minor things I can't even remember but that were progress in a way (I remember being inspired by hearing that air becomes liquid when under enough pressure, for example. Let's see if that inspiration is enough for me to come up with something or if it only gets filed under "interesting things")

On another note: the estate agent guy I mentioned recently was here again and this time, we spoke to him directly and got his card. Also, I was able to take photographs of squirrels and a woodpecker. So cute. They're all crazy for walnuts.
Oops. Monday. Better check last week's goals:

• […] complete Ashanah's design with back view and sketches for the Final Boss version //both things done
• more design and sketches: the guards that'll appear[...]; as well as Veiril – at least her face and preliminary colour choices; and ideally, more environment stuff //sketched the guards, Veiril's face got designed and I'm probably going with red, brown and probably yellow accents for her; only studies for the environment part, though
• more work on the story for the intro //done

Goals for this week:

• more design and sketches: at least face design for the remaining two characters that are needed; nice to have: sketches for the interior of the Temple
• start thinking more about gameplay things and stop procrastinating on this
• more storyboard scribbles (at least four, ideally all that are left – 11 scenes are left, takes me up to 30min each, so time-wise, it's actually feasible that I get all of them done)

 

[bgillisp]

@TherGreatEater: Maybe, but all I do is put it in GIMP and use the colorize buttons and look for something that isn't ugly. Not sure that really counts.

@ksjp17: I think you'd hardly recognize it. About all that is still the same is it is the same characters and same basic plot flow. Maps are new (Laura's house is not a 90 x 90 map anymore!), there's new music, and new graphics. I'm still WIP on battle balance though, as I'm going to do that last when the game is done.

@chiara: Congrats on meeting your goals!

Rest of 10.18 Update: None. I put the game making down and played Shadowrun Returns. Did you know that game is ridiculously short?

 

[AceOfAces_Mod]

Progress Report #12

-Still working on the Auto-Backup system. Trying to figure out on how to call the function.

-Evented a portion of the dialogue.

-Preparing for the next preview build.

 

[slimmmeiske2]

I've finally finished beta testing an upcoming commercial game. There were unfortunately quite a lot of game breaking bugs in the ending scenes, so I had to replay the boss fight at least four times. I'm glad it's over though; I like testing, but it takes so much time. Time I can now spend on my own game or on the Good vs Evil event (And on MV when it comes out of course ).

 

[TheGreatEater]

@Bgillisp, it does. When I first started [back in 2008] I used blank body templates, added new colors, and then moved up to making clothes. But yeah image modifying and color changing is definitely a legitimate art. 

___________

No personal work done today. I've been busy baby sitting. 

 

[Kes]

@Chiara

Yes, you're right, my graphic skills have improved enormously.  I look at that first game now and wince at the visual aspects, though I still think it's rescued by the writing and general game play.  I'm glad that you've had the opportunity to speak to the Estate Agent.  I'd never thought of woodpeckers eating walnuts, but now you mention it, it does seem logical.  Congrats on all the progress you've made.

@bgillisp

Shadowrun - How short is short? As a step up from colorize, try playing around with an option a bit further down the drop down menu - Curves.  Great fun, and capable of producing a much wider range of colours and tones.  It's amazing what you get by adding and subtracting in different places on the curve.

@AceofAces_Mod

Still as methodical as ever, I see.  When you say 'Preview build' I'm not sure exactly what you mean.  Is that another way of describing a demo?

@slimmmeiske2

A good beta tester is worth their weight in gold, so I hope your dev has expressed appreciation for identifying those bugs.  You're right, it is time consuming, and having to pay a huge amount of attention to every detail can be quite tiring too.  Enjoy yourself with the Good vs Evil event.  It looks like it's a lot of fun.

My update

Must be something in the air - bgillisp has done nothing, TheGreatEater has done nothing, and now I've done nothing.  Just couldn't summon up the motivation.  Did do some hunting around for non-humanoid side view battlers.  There aren't many, and most of the ones that do exist are rips.  Quite disheartening, really.