October Goals & Progress Thread

[Kes]

@TherainED

It's okay, fortunately I'm not a fool.  It could not be within days of release because there is a lot of investigation to do.  And it's not a question of feeling like I "should" do it (that's a slightly odd suggestion, actually) but of whether it would be to the advantage of the game - again this cannot be judged until I see the engine itself.  Lots of things to weigh up. 

 

[Sharm]

I've been trying for a while now to make a pirate themed Pixel Myth set and not allowing myself to make anything else in the Pixel Myth style unless it was part of that set.  Lack of inspiration, knowledge of piratey things, and personal interest in the subject has been killing my ability to get it done.  Excuses, I know, but I haven't managed to work through them and get it done anyway.  Today I decided to rebel and make some non pirate Pixel Myth stuff anyway 'cause I want to.
 
This is what happened.
 

 
*siiiigh* Yet another unfinished set.  Maybe my subconscious will let me do pirates now.

 

[Hollow]

@kjsp17: I've been in that boat for a bit, too--wanting to convert my current project to MV, that is. Though I think I'll end up keeping it in Ace since it currently relies on quite a few complex scripted and evented systems, and I'd rather my first project in MV be something lightweight and easy to deal with, lol. Definitely agree with bgillisp's suggestion--you can always make a backup and then see how working with it in MV goes before you settle on anything.
@Schlangan: Oh, for sure! I've not focused much on numbers/balancing at all just yet, tbh. I'm waiting until I've some enemies to beat up--ahem, I mean, test them out on, haha. I was more referring to what each skill is and does is still up for negotiation, so to speak. Also, the sprites in your screenshot look really neat! Though I do have to say, the map itself looks pretty monotone--maybe you can mess with the contrast a little bit to vary it up?
@Sharm: I love the way those tiles look! And are those sprites on a custom base? Do you think you'll be releasing them with the next PM pack (whatever it is)? o:
 
 
October 2nd, Progress:
Well, today was another productive day! ...Though not necessarily in the development sense, lol. I got a lot of homework done, did laundry, packed, and finished tidying up my dorm room before I head home for the weekend. And then in regards to actual game dev stuff, I finished writing up the opening's dialogue--I'm really excited to get to work on it the engine sometime soon, too. (Fun Fact: it's actually what inspired the entire game (well, that and the villain herself)! I hope I can do it justice. >_<)
 
Also ended up in a drawing mood for a little bit and so started working on a dialogue bust for the game's protagonist, Milagros. (I figured since I finished one of my goals way ahead of schedule, I could do with working on a few side things as well.)

Spoiler

 

[Marquise*]

@Schlangan


Neat map even if kinda minimal it seems there will be action soon in the open


@Sharm


Do what your heart desire for now on your new tablet... Then I'm sure cpt Jack Sparrow will be channeled!


@Hollo


Nice!


@ Everyone who were wondering;


Look in the battlers and the 3rd monster I think in $BigMonster_2 sprites and you'll have an idea how it ($Evil god) at least look when it is waiting.


And... recuperating today.

 

[Schlangan]

@TherainED, Hollow and Marquise* : Thank you for the comments on the map. It is true that it was a bit monotone, hence giving an empty feeling. I improved that now :

Spoiler

 

[Sharm]

@Hollow:  Yep, it's a base I've been working on slowly for a while now.  I think it's finally done.  I shouldn't say that, each time I do I find something else that needs tweaking.  Anyway, I just need to make a whole bunch of random clothes on it and release it.  I'm planning on a release separate from my tiles.  The sprites look good in stuff other than Pixel Myth and I want to make that easier for people to do if they want.  I think they'll work with the MV resources for example.  (Won't know until it's released of course, but the limited testing I've done is promising.)

@Marquise*:  The funny thing is that I use a mouse to make pixel art, so I'm just using my very fancy tablet as a screen.

 

[AceOfAces_Mod]

@bgilisp, to be more specific, the versioning is XY.YY . X is the branch (D: Development, E: Experimental, R: Release) and the Y's are the major and minor versions. So to translate this to English, the version is 0.10 from the development branch. Thought to be more creative on versioning. However, I have to format it like this in order to publish on Gamejolt: 0.10.2015-1002

 

[HawkZombie]

UPDATE

I have not done any serious (IE: Any ) work on my video game plot and story. I have, however, managed to do over 13k words of my novel in the past three days. If I keep this up I should be done before my self-imposed deadline of Oct. 30th.

 

[Another Ned]

@Everyone who posted their goals after my last post: Lots of energy, motivation, etc. to reach your goals!
@AceOfAces_Mod: Hope you get the story problem solved. Things I do when I'm stuck, story-wise: Read history things (from different places and time periods. Sometimes, this might help if one stumbles across something that actually reminds one of their own story); do something else entirely; take a shower/do laundry/something that completely relaxes the brain so it feels compelled to solve the problem by itself.
And nice to hear that the conference was worthwile.
@Schlangan: I like the sprites, and the new version of the map looks a lot more interesting with different colours and such.
@Hollow: Those skills look quite interesting. Makes me curious about how they play (this sounds weird, hope it's understandable what I mean).
And lovely lines (alliterations!). Though something about the eye placement feels off to me. Maybe it's just me, and because I was moving around eyes yesterday myself. Still wanted to point it out. ^^"
@bgillisp: Sounds like there's a lot of eventing waiting for you. Or it was waiting for you? Done already?
And my brain somehow scrambled the line with transportation and paper drawing and ended up understanding that they were going by paper plane. I had to re-read it.
@Marquise*: $Evilgod was the 32-legged creature thing, wasn't it? D:
@ksjp17: I will be posting finished designs, yes. Once she's inclined to let me finish her design, that is.
Sounds like quite the serious thing to think about, with the new RM coming out and such. Even I am torn, but I'm lucky in that I haven't even done much work in the engine at all with this particular project.
@BlackRoseMii: Yay for progress. And get well soon for your back. Back pain is one of the meanest things, ever, because there are so many possible reasons for it. From overexertion to bad posture, to other things I haven't even thought about.
@Sharm: It's looking great (but blurry for me..? Nevermind, I can see what's going on). The armour of the guards is quite nice, too. And <3 the windows. We need more windows like this (yes, I really, really like tall windows).
But I can relate a little bit to having to work on pirate things and the subconscious starting to work against me (once did work on a pirate-themed browser game. Haven't been able to even sit through drawing a ship since then).
@HawkZombie: Yay for having written a ton of words!

Progress, 1st:

• pondering one very crucial question: Ashanah is the first party member who joins Yael after the intro. She also is the final boss Yael faces during the intro to get the Quest Item. Now, do I go with my first idea and have Ashanah not remember the fight, or pretend she doesn't remember, or have her go "Oh, right, you kind of defeated me back then, but thanks to you, I finally got out of that boring place and technically, I still do my duty by sticking close to the Quest Item, so everyone wins." All of those have pro and cons, but the more I think about it, the more the latter makes sense given Ashanah's personality (and the fact that she was living quite the sheltered life, with no access to stories and similar things that would've taught her how to lie and such). As usual, typing things out here really helps me with thinking
• more thinking about different characters' backstories and how they are affecting each other

Progress, 2nd:

• prepared the full body lineart of Ashanah, but somehow, I'm still not happy with the direction I'm going in. Even did a few quick studies and thumbnails to try different things but nothing worked out so far. Need to try a different approach. Or throw in some environments

Edit, way later the same day: While helping my mother with cooking lunch, I had a revelation: my issue with Ashanah's design came from her stance! Redrew her since then, a lot happier since she's starting to look like herself. Triumph! Now, let the colour headache begin! (As in: I have a plan for her colours, but how can I convince them to look decent? " )

 

[AceOfAces_Mod]

Progress Report #3:

-Last day of the conference (the one organised by TEI of Athens). It was slightly longer (as they were giving awards for best paper (their presentations)). It had more insteresting stuff though.

Nothing done in any front except uploading the preview builds to both Gamejolt and IndieDB. And I forgot to disable a debug flag in the launcher, resulting poping out a message box with the save folder location written  .

I'll start working on the global settings later on.

EDIT: Huh... My Google Forms for the feedback tool has received no data at all...

Apparently some websites hid messages by blending them with the site's colors in the old times.

 

[Sharm]

Oh wow, I've never seen anyone break rule 12 before.

AceOfAces_Mod, please only use readable colors in your posts.

Edit:  This thread is unusually slow today.  Feels weird to do a normal post inside one started for moderating purposes.  Oh well, progress time!  Made a new window skin and a few more super tall windows.  I attempted a really big fancy thing of stained glass but it looks out of place.  Hopefully it's just the colors, but I think I'll have to start over from scratch on that one.

@Chiara:  The blurriness is on purpose actually.  It allows me to show it off without worry.  I've had people take my screencaps, extract the tiles and try to show them off as their own.  On this forum no less.  It's sad, but I've got to take measures.

 

[AceOfAces_Mod]

@Sharm, I apologize for this. I had no intention to break any rules here.

Progress Report #4

-Having issues with IndieDB when uploading the preview build. Fails when 1/4 of the file is uploaded. I'll try again today.

-Fixed the debug flag on the launcher, but I'll hold it off until the next build. I may add a diagnostics tool.

-No luck on modifying the System Options to save the settings to a separate file.

 

[Ms Littlefish]

Progress October 4th

• I've been making a number of sound effects this morning for Halloween. 
• I drafted out this painfully catchy song (I am confident in proclaiming that) on the piano. It will have to wait to be orchestrated sadly. Here is a piano preview. https://soundcloud.com/mslittlefish/early-piano-draft/s-LZoiB
• I've completed one pirate song that is full orchestra, hoo boy!
• Dungeon songs for M+ are only needing to be looped
• Four characters for another project of mine have been sketched and I don't hate them.

 

[Another Ned]

Posting after having spent almost the whole day drawing. Feels like my left (was it left? Thinking is slooooow right now) half of the brain is still in stand-by, so I really, really hope my usual post-drawing issue of jumbling language(s) doesn't happen.

@AceOfAces_Mod: Hope those issues resolve quickly.
@Sharm: I suspected as much (which is why I said nevermind But still wanted to say it just in case). Really sad that such things happened. But yay for more tall windows! I can imagine that stained glass is quite hard to make look decent on such a small scale. I mean, I find it quite hard even in painting.
@MsLittlefish: I found myself being unable to sit still while listening to it. Also, took me all my self control NOT to start humming along (as I'm not alone in the room). And yay for all the other bullet points!

Progress, 3rd:

• like I mentioned in my edit yesterday, I managed to redraw Ashanah and have her look like herself; then I went to draw her clothing and added flat colours in greyscale

Progress, 4th:

• finished Ashanah's front view and prepared the first sketch for the back view. But since it was even sloppier than usual, I decided to call it a day

Spoiler

Note: I was planning to show the grey one when posting in the morning, but then forgot to post. So, have both of them. Isn't it fascinating how much of a difference colour, shading and embellishments make?
Was lazy efficient with the pattern on her dress, so it doesn't follow the folds or perspective or anything.
Oh, and the thing in her hand is a placeholder until I know what to give her. Just needed something so the pose didn't look off.I'm also not sure if it's not too noisy, with all those patterns and things going on.

 

[slimmmeiske2]

Figured since I'm back, it's time to get into actual working/doing stuff mode, so here's my goals for this month:

• Restaff stuff (currently working on this as I type)
• Map the remaining maps for the next demo of BBW.
• Think of a small project for when MV comes out.

I don't dare to write more, as I've got a deadline for a paper, as well as work this month.

 

[Astros]

I didn't make much progress with my September goals so will be continuing with them. Anyone else get as hung up on names or just me? 

 

Aspirations

• Evolve characters. Establish their history, name, personality, and sprites. 
• Envisage and record plot ideas in relation to characters. 

Development

• Chose a handful of names out of a 1000. Still need to look for more and develop personality, history, and sprites. 

 

[Aoi Ninami]

Oh, definitely. At the moment, I have names for the playable characters and half a dozen of the most important NPCs -- and some of those have names because they're part of a story/world I created years ago and have drifted into this project by a very convoluted route. I'm stuck on names for the main characters' parents, all the magical attacks, some of the bosses, weapons, and several locations. I find it really hard -- the names have to feel right, even though I can't exactly pin down what I mean by that. Sometimes all I can do is concentrate on one name at a time and hope that eventually the right name will come to me.

As for my own progress, I'm now mapping out the upper floor of Kiriyama Mansion, the seventh map of the game. Next one after this will be the first map with encounters -- at last!

 

[Hollow]

@Sharm: Cool! I can't wait to see more, then.
@Chiara: Yeah, I see what you mean about the eyes. I fiddled with the placement of the eyes a little bit earlier, and it seems moving her right eye to the left a few pixels did the trick, haha! And I LOVE Ashanah's design! The colors and patterns are absolutely stunning. *o*
@Ms Littlefish: Ok, I first listened to that piano track a fefw hours ago, and it's still stuck in my head!!! >_< Your confidence is well earned, lol.
 
 
Yesterday, I didn't do much of anything game dev-wise, since I was busy driving home for my fall break. So,
 
October 4th, Progress:
Today was spent mostly hanging out with the family and going shopping, haha. By the time I got home, I didn't feel in a super creative mood, so I mostly worked on inputting the finished skills into the database and plotting out a few event movements for the opening.

 

[hiddenone]

@Ms Littlefish - The song sounds great, and I can't wait to hear the pirate song!
@Chiara - Ashanah looks awesome, I love the colors.
@slimmmeiske2 & Astros - Good luck with your goals!
@Hollow - Getting the skills into the database correctly is pretty important, even if it's not the most creative thing to do (which reminds me, I need to fix my skill mistakes >.<).
 
Did a bit of music hunting, and worked on some sprite pieces.  Tested the sprites in ace and everything seems to be looking good so far. 

I'm sure these guys aren't up to something bad.

 

[bgillisp]

@Sharm: You planning to release the new castle tiles though? Maybe it can be used for a pirate theme, after all, who says pirates don't need castles?

@Hollow: Do you right up your dialogues outside the engine first?

@Marquise: But the question is...will the Evil God be dancing the Can - Can? On that note, have you ever seen the movie Stardust?

@Schlangan: I always start with a pretty bare map, and fill it through the story. Sometimes I do have to shrink it down in the end, as I learn I don't need all of the space, but most times it works out.

@Ace_of_aces_Mod: Interesting. Is that a standard release system, or one you created for your version numbers? I've just been using 1.0x, adding to x as I release it.

@Hawkzombie: That's a lot of writing! Have you ever entered that contest for write a novel in a month?

@Chiara: Ha! Maybe I should do that in my next game? Or save it for a scene when the heroes are running in miniature or something? Hmmm...

@Ms Littlefish: I'll have to keep my ears...er eyes opened for the new songs!

@Slimmmeiske2: Planning to release the next version of bww soon? I'll have to keep an eye out for the new version.

@Astros: You're not alone. I use a random name generator (you can find many if you google random name generator) for when I get stuck. Though I think it's starting to repeat itself, so I might need to find a new one. Also, be careful, some will give you really bad results, one gave me the name Snrg once. Another game me Aaiiiiiieee. Maybe I can use it for a scream or something?

@Aoi Ninami: I used placeholder names for a *long* time in my project until I settled on the true names. A few even had the RPG Maker default names for a while. In the end, only one of my placeholder name became the real name (Sarah), but the others were edited as the names came to me.

@Hollow (2nd time): Did the anti-creative bug bite us all this weekend? You'll know what I mean in my next update.

@Hiddenone: I dunno, maybe they just want to summon the pizza guy?

10.3/10.4 Update: Nothing. Between a little RL work and a couple personal obligations I got nothing done at all on the game except a little brainstorming on how the next area will be mapped. Hoping to start sketching it on paper soon.