October Goals & Progress Thread

@ksjp17No worries!  It may be better that way.


Well, before my mouse froze and my browser didn't seemed to know what I was up to while listening to a video about Canadians being errr having a hard time crossing the borders on YouTube, I almost all finished first row of wings on the facing of the new dragon.  :/

 

Only a few replies, not much energy.


@ksjp17: The worst of move preparations is the waiting – waiting for paperwork things, waiting to hear back from moving companies, ... D:


The cliffs are starting to look nice, and for the water, my gut tells me that making it look a bit more "muddy", might work, though it might also end up looking pretty shallow.


@Marquise*: Noooo not another invasion! D: Hope those invaders disappear at once! And yay wings?


@Vampire Vox: My attention span only allowed me to watch til after the first battle, but the skill names already sound super fun! : D


Progress of the last few days:

• some tiny thumbnail scribbles of environments for the first area and tiny thumbnail scribbles of Salin done during an appointment
  
• implemented the handwritten new version of the intro, changed a few lines here and there. Also found out why in the older version the boss battle had a weird bug: I'd forgotten to call my "Battle End" common event after the battle before it (note to self: Prevent loot drops during the intro!). Balancing's still all over the place, and the timing for a few things is off, but pretty much everything's in place now for the intro
  

 

Well I am finally back at it, picking up from where you left off after a break is kinda hard to begin with.


Starting off with just some more map design.


Didn't intentionally have a break more happened by accident, but I feel as though my creativity has went back into overdrive so I will pump out some more sweeeeeeeeeeeeeet maps!!  


also HI all, its good to be back!

 

This I would love to see completed!


Myself I'll probably try a little sideproject with a halloween theme, currently in the finishing stages of development with my current "main" project so we'll see.

 

It's done actually:







Now I'm working on the menus. [:

 

That's pretty cool. I like the log in the corner, it looks like what you'd find in an MMORPG. 


I'm working on a tactical system right now. Only thing is, it's all events. At least I've figured out how to move the heroes on the map. After having them spaz around in approach mode and come nowhere near my cursor. Turns out all I needed was a move toward player command and a switch. Next, I need to figure out how to put a space limit... hmm. 


Yes, I am working on this on top of my portraits, because I need to work on multiple things at once because I've already been working on this for a year. 


The entire game, I mean. 

 

You mean the range of the character? If so you could use a sensor plugin that activates a self switch on the event when the distance from the character is less or equal its range.


Mog Hunter has one. If I'm not wrong, Iavra has one too.

 

Yes, how far the player can move in one go. 

I'm using Ace. I'm not sure if there's a sensor script. 

 

Oh not, its not range its like movement points.


But if its a tactics game, theres a tactics script for ace:

 

I know about that script. Long story short, I don't know how to cancel out the three dimensional thing (looks weird), and it doesn't work with any scripts that I have. And it doesn't quite do what I was looking for. I was trying to find a way to summon units, and I did find a script to do that, but of course it gave me error after error, and none of my scripts would work with it. I also tried Kiseki Ex, but that failed enormously because I could only move one character, which would've put me into an infinite loop if that character wasn't in an attacking spot. 


It is actually working with events, because I can summon, I just need to beautify it a bit more, and figure out how to give the enemy an AI. And, of course, set up the movement points. 

 

oh I see...


If it is only movement points, is not a difficult logic. Maybe if you start a script request topic someone would make one for you

 

Something like this might work?

 

@ksjp17: I hope to release a final version of the demo to match when the game goes final at the minimum. I would like to do it sooner than that if possible, but it does depend on how much is still holding together with duct tape and gum at that point in time.


@Vampire Vox: That is so true! If you ever want to find all your dialogue errors at once, take a 5 minute video of your game. About 6 of them will suddenly show up, waving neon signs at you.


No update today, just stepped in to reply to a couple of posts.

 

@ksjp17


Thanks.  It does tempt me to actually use something like that monstert, as much as it is inspired by the final boss of FFV... but I still want to try for some more originality.


No real progress to report; been stalled for a few days as I do graduate homework / play some other games.  Need to get back to fleshing out plot of characters.

 

@BigToastie Sometimes a break really can help, it also helps to sort of re-ignite your passion and get you missing game making.


@HexMozart88 No worries, will look forward to when you post something. Cartoony is a word in the dictionary of Vox so I approve its usage! 


@Lymmet I'm making a Halloween project to, nice to see someone else interested in working on one.


@Chiara No problem, It felt weird to record only a few seconds so I recorded a small segment. Really it was just to show off the flying anyway. Getting everything in place is good, after that you can begin playtesting and balancing it out. Its difficult to get it 100% perfect on the first set-up anyway.


@Lantiz I'm liking what I'm seeing! That's shaping up to make a fun game.


Update: 10/10:


Nothing major today, did some slight adjustments on the boss for part 3 because I wasn't happy with it. Databased the characters stat boosts for their next ranks for part 4 and am working on finishing up skills and animations for them. 

 

@Vampire Vox


Thanks, really appreciate the words.


I'm currently reworking the menus... this is the status menu:

Spoiler

 

Progress Report #4


-Tweaked some of the tilesets to better match (along with adding new ones.


-Working on the drafted dungeon.


--Working on the common event to select an encounter (bigger than on the last dungeon).


--Deciding on the new monsters that will be added to the pool.


--Laid the design. Now to add cosmetics.

 

Due to a mixture of real life business, forgetfulness and procrastination, I haven't posted here for a small while. Thankfully that doesn't mean that I wouldn't have got anything done.

• Bridge event (and thus all the necessary dialogue for the demo) is complete for three main characters out of four. I should probably revamp some parts of the dialogue to make them sound more natural or better, but for now, I'm trying not to do too much of that so I won't get stuck rewriting things one million times.
  
• Enemy stats have been adjusted to make them more forgiving, and players skills do more reasonable damage. It's not nice if a common spider hits for quarter of your health on level 1, and it's not nice if my melee fighter's basic attack does more damage than my caster's first spell.
  
• The "rift between dimensions" i.e. introduction area looks more sensible now that I decided to redo it and remove the maze-like part which made absolutely no sense. Sure, the map is supposed to feel somewhat unnatural, but I don't know why I thought that squiggly corridors were a good way to do that...
  
• Window skin is approximately 40% complete. I've finished the basic shapes, so now I just need to shade them properly.
  
• Tutorial battle is better now and the first in-game instructions for controls etc. have been implemented. 
  

Goals for the rest of the month:

• Finish the rest of the dialogue needed for the demo (meaning one major scene and some minor stuff)
  
• Redo part A of introduction by integrating text into the cutscenes
  
• Try out DreamX's ITB to see if it makes battles more interesting
  
• Find out a way to prevent the melee fighter from taking 0 damage from wasps (weakest enemy in the game) at level 2
  
• Finish window skin
  

Things I'd like to get done but which aren't as necessary include at least drawing one bust image for each main character.

 

Oh, demo. I don't even know how long is good for a demo. Though I don't really have anything playable in my game at the moment because my switches have been a mess. I do have a lot set up, but due to event/script testing, I've moved my events all over the place. And I hardly have any portraits to show for it. Ugh. 


Anyway, update: 


1. battle system - Gotten a little further. Can now move my units and players around. Can delete units now. I'm trying to figure out a good condition for the units to attack in. I was thinking to have them only be able to attack the same element and have a means to make it randomly decide which side wins. 


2. portraits - I may re-ink them using a felt tip pen instead of a brush tip. I have to experiment, but the brush tip didn't turn out the way I wanted (which was to have a cool, sketchy looking feel) and now it looks too cartoony and lighthearted for my game, which is pretty heavy. I'll use the same file probably, just scan in a new ink and delete the old one. Make any changes I need to. 


3. general story - coming along, coming up with some ideas for animated cut scenes, all while practicing my different voices to myself (I need to have a British accent with old-fashioned, medieval era speech, and I need to be able to pronounce the Japanese names correctly.


4. other mechanics - going okay. I'm not touching my general menu, but, I'll probably need to make a unit stats menu too. I have no idea how to do that, but I will make an attempt. 


5. music - I have done

• a home town theme
  
• a title theme
  
• a castle theme
  
• a village theme
  

Now I need a battle theme, and character themes. Fun. 


6. sprites - ah. Not good. They all look like trash. Perhaps I'm just trying too hard to make proper proportions. 


7. graphics/UI - Um... well, I kind of sort of haven't started my title screen yet. But, I have really started to crack down on my maps. I wouldn't say they look good by any means, but good by my standards, which are low. I need to redo those diary entries though. They look cheap. I'm not doing a HUD, as none of my battle systems are ABS. But one of my battle systems (yes, I have multiple) has pretty decent UI in my opinion. Considering I did it all with Photoshop and events. Debating whether or not to do an idle video for the title, or even just have it before the title.


I have so much to do and I've been working on this for a year!

 

@Lantiz: Nice menu!


@AceOfAces_Mod: Pictures of the tilesets?


@Punamaagi: Sometimes those first areas of ours need a reboot from time to time. I should show you the version of my game when it was 2 weeks old sometime. From time to time I still fire it up and usually I go "What was I thinking???". To give you an idea, I had a 90 x 90 tile house in that version of the game.


@HexMozart88: For a demo I usually aim for one hour playtime. Though since my game is divided by Chapters, I went with end of Chapter 1 as that was a logical place to end, which happened to be 1.5 - 2 hours depending on how fast you play.


10.11 Update: Still none. I've been taking Monday - Wednesday to do the book work so I can free up Thursday - Saturday for game dev. This way I still make a little progress and don't forget when I'm doing when I got the book all done.