RMVXA Records in Blue

[Heirukichi]

"Sometimes we wonder how different life would have been, had we found ourselves stranded and forced to walk a certain path. What, cut off from our standards of normalcy for long enough, would the new normal become? Cultures that started as one and the same, through parallel evolution, become nigh unrecognizable."

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Synopsis
A mysterious island, after disappearing for over half a century, has strangely resurfaced in plain sight. Because of such an odd phenomenon, the queen has sent her most trustworthy friend, Alma, to the island to investigate.

Our heroine will find herself immersed in an unknown landscape, where time froze for fifty years. Dungeons have weirdly started to appear all over the island, filled with monsters and dangers, and, after the so-called "Cataclysm", islanders had to learn how to survive, how to lead a relatively normal life, in a harsh environment, where even the slightest mistake might spell doom.

Will the brave young knight be able to unveil the mystery, or will she succumb to the corruption polluting everything in that remote land, on the border of erasure?

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Features
Records in Blue is a hybrid between DRPGs and side-scroll exploration games inspired by plenty of JRPGs, as well as our real life experiences.

• Side-scroll Exploration
  When visiting towns, shops, and interacting with NPCs, the player is going to experience a third person point of view combined with a side-scroll movement system.
  
  
  
  
  
• First Person Dungeon Crawler
  In contrast to that, dungeon explorations will feature an immersive, grid-based, first person standpoint.
  
  
  
  
  
• Combat
  The combat system in our game is going to be turn-based, with a turn prediction window to show the current turn order. In addition to that, the turn prediction window is going to react to the player's choices in real time, to make the whole system easier to read and more intuitive.
  
  
• Equipment
  Each character can equip up to three different items. Each normal item can be equipped by any actor and, depending on who is the one wielding it, the final effect is going to be different. Other than normal items, there are Limited Use Items, that have the same powerful effect regardless of who is wielding them, but limited uses (as the name implies). Picking the best combination among those items is going to be the key to overcome challenges.
  
  
• Meaningful Interactions with NPCs
  We want everything in our game to be meaningful, even NPCs; we don't want them to be just part of the background. For this reason, interactions with NPCs are something rewarding, other than (hopefully) memorable experiences. The kind of reward granted by those interactions can be either knowledge or items, both equally important in the planning phase before starting to explore a dungeon.

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Credits

• Art
  @JosephSeraph is the one making the art for this game. We are using 3D rendered backgrounds together with pixel art to give out a unique vibe and allow us to easily modify things in the future, should we deem it necessary.
  
  
• Coding
  Our first person dungeon exploration is possible thanks to MCG's FPLE, while every other script involved so far (from the side-scroll movement system to the battle system) is made specifically for this project by @Heirukichi (me).

The amount of custom resources is very big, and we are putting a lot of effort into this project. We are doing that because we want our finished product to be memorable, but also because we both think that RPG Maker VX Ace is a great and amazing engine, and we really want to prove that to the world by making a game that can get rid of the "RPG Maker Stigma".

Credits and Special Thanks go to Enterbrain, Inc. / Yoji Ojima for the amazing engine.

Even if I am the one posting this, the whole project was originally an idea of @JosephSeraph and, even if now we are working together on this, I think he deserves some praise and special thanks because of that.

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We sincerely hope that you can all come to like our game. We will definitely add more information as we develop this further. Stay tuned for more updates and/or check our other medias to learn more about the game and, of course, feel free to voice your opinion and give us your feedback.

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Check our other pages and follow us if you are interested:

• Records in Blue at TIG Source
• Twitter
• Our page at RPGMakerNet

 

[JosephSeraph]

Heirukichi's Progress

Spoiler

• Created side-scroll movement
  
• Created methods to handle transferring between locations in a very automatic way
• Added methods to handle slopes
• Adjusted interaction box when on slopes
• Adjusted sprite origin to achieve better results when on a slope
• Created behavioral blocks to handle dynamic animations
• Adjusted animation speed to avoid the "moon walk" effect and achieve realistic animations
• Fixed a bug causing a few frames in the animation to be skipped
• Fixed a big that caused the sprite to disappear at the end of the animation cycle
• Fixed a bug resulting in a weird behavior when changing direction during movement
• Started working on battle system mechanics

Jo's Progress

Spoiler

• Reformatted and improved Alma's walking and running animations.
• Created files to note down character lore and relationships.
• Rewritten and expanded lore on 1st town NPCs

Hey there! It's time for our first progress report on RMW! (We have a had a few more in our Tigsource devlog, before making this thread.)
Heirukichi's been a steamroller lately, pulling off a lot of bug-crushing and optimization, as you can see in the first part of the post.

This week I'd like to talk a bit about the denizens of the small town Alma and the crew comes across briefly after getting to the island.

The small pockets of civilization in the island are very isolated, as the shifts brought by the Cataclysm caused the wilderness to turn into a very dangerous place, forcing people to remain within the same small community, hardly ever stepping outside -- the main, if not at times the only, link between different settlements being the network of mercenaries that trade supplies around.

This village is one of the smallest of such. We'll get to know a dozen or so characters in it, although today I'm introducing three.

Frei is the village's sole innkeeper -- she provides clean beds and a place to stay for the weary mercenaries that bring the village supplies.
She is a kind, yet brash and quick to strike woman. Having lost her sister in an expedition a few years prior, who was the only family she had remaining, she got into a state of deep grief. Cook's mother also died the same day, eventually leading to Frei taking him in.

Shea is somewhat of a newcomer in town. She took many duties to herself, her main duty being the front of the Pub and dealing directly with the mercenaries. A skilled fighter herself, she is always wary of potential disturbances to the village's safety. She's good friends with Frei, who acts as a motherly figure to both her and Cook.

Cook is a reclusive, skilled young man. Since his mother's passing away he has retreated quite heavily; the town's secluded tension doesn't help him much. As a result, he spends most of his time locked in his own house, painting, or cooking for the Pub, which Shea helps to run.
Despite that, the whole town adores his food, no one cooks quite like him.
A troubled man who's out of touch with his own feelings, his relationship with Shea is complicated; both care much for each-other, but his sensitive, yet barricaded personality clashes heavily with Shea's practicality and constant tension; as a result both end hurting each-other quite often.


I'm hoping to create a world where every npc has a story to tell, and that your interactions with them will be meaningful in watching the storylines unfold. The existence of LUIs is heavily tied to NPCs also, with most NPCs eventually offering their own equipment, whose effects and lore broaden the players's knowledge of the world.

That's it for NPC talk! Hopefully now that I have a more organized platform to write in (I created individual .gal, which is the proprietary GraphicsGale file, to write the characters) the game's world will be able to organically grow

Though in reality what I really wanted was a good, simple to use wiki like Wikia. But most stuff I saw was quite complex to set up and wasn't really worth the trouble. (Really, editing Wikia is so easy! Too bad they don't allow private wikis.)

We're working on optimizing the walk/run animations in town as well, and the result of Heirukichi's code work is amazing! We're looking forward to showing it next week.

Thanks for for reading so far, and have a nice Sunday!

 

[Renicon]

I would like to give them game a try, is there a download link?

 

[Heirukichi]

is there a download link?

Unfortunately, it is still too early for a demo release, the main reason being the monstrous amount of custom resources involved. So far, as you can see from the screenshots, the only things from the RTP that we are using are icons and the font. Everything else - the UI, the Battle System, the Movement System and even the Menus - is being written from scratch.
While doing this makes our game unique, it is very time-consuming and, even if we are working hard, it still requires some time.

 

[DecentTreatment]

Very cool ideas. Are you actually generating the 3D dungeons in MV? I've seen that type of thing done before, but it was purely proof of concept. The sprites are especially nice, and remind me of certain Castlevania titles.

 

[bazrat]

This looks amazing. The combo of the graphics and player views is well done too. Ill be watching this

 

[Heirukichi]

Are you actually generating the 3D dungeons in MV?

No, we are not. As I said in my first post, we are using MCG's FPLE for the 3D view, which comes with Martha (its own dungeon generator). However, everything, from the game itself to the dungeon generator, is made using VX Ace.

@bazrat @thedeanreynolds
I am very glad you like the graphics and I thank you for your appreciation. I am sure Jo will definitely like reading that his work is being praised. I hope you will come to like my work on the battle system, which should see the light in its alpha version by the end of September. It is going to take a while, but it is something that has never been seen in any RM game before - not as far as I know at least.

 

[Biestmann]

This project is super promising. @Heirukichi knows his battle systems, so I am sure we are in for a treat. The art by @JosephSeraph has tons of flavor, and I especially love the pixel art. This will be a close follow for me.

 

[Korthulhu]

I know theres not a lot of content to discuss at the moment, but between the original artwork and first-person dungeon crawl mechanic, I'm excited! Can't wait to see more!

 

[Heirukichi]

Thanks @Biestmann! I hope we will be able to show something about the Battle System by the beginning of October. However, if you take a look at our DevLog on TIG Source, we already talked a little about the general concept behind our Battle System. More detailed information will definitely follow in the next weeks.

@Korthulhu, you can take a look at the links we provided and discuss about the information there. Unfortunately, due to the differences in the forum rules, we were not able to start this thread earlier as a minimum of two in-game screenshots is required to start a thread. When we managed to start this, the other one had already existed for a whole month, that is why we added the link here. Anyone who is interested might go and take a look although a summary of those concepts is also present here.

 

[Kes]

This looks really interesting. It's going to be the first game thread that I've decided to 'Watch' in a very long time.

 

[ex0rc1sm]

So keen for this, really killer art style! Love the pairing of sidescrolling exploration and 3d dungeons!

 

[JosephSeraph]

Thanks for the support you guys!! I'm glad you're looking forward to this, it's an honor!

@Heirukichi and I have been working on movement within the sidescroller parts as of late, he's developed a pretty complex system that weaves animations and transitions them naturally into one another so the transition from walking to idle is never odd. You can read about it in the Tigsource devlog thread.

And I just finished the walking and running sprites for Alma, the protagonist.

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Right now we're moving to brainstorming dungeon mechanics, we want every dungeon to feel like its own thing, with its own little fun twist. Are there any particular dungeon mechanics in RPGs which you like? Or, especially, which you don't? (I particularly loathe pitfalls) What are some mechanics you don't see often or always wanted to see? Anything goes to our big ol' pile of brainstorming and deconstruction!

 

[JosephSeraph]

Awesome news! On @Heirukichi 's side, the battle system has gotten to its 1.0.0 version! We're ever so closer to a playable (internal for now) prototype.
You guys have NO idea how much code he rewrote so we're basically reworking Rpg Maker from scratch LOL.

On my end, dungeon graphics!

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I made the base tiles for the first dungeon this week, as well as some moss tiles for the floor (not pictured).
Now I'll work on more tiles for the dungeon; I'll also go back and color the monsters (which are just grayscales up to now)

Thanks for checking this out!

 

[Biestmann]

Great progress! Can't wait for more!

 

[Heirukichi]

It looks like we will be able to fulfill our promise and show a screenshot of our current battle system prototype in a few days; we are currently adding the finishing touches to the skill selection. Of course, it is still an alpha version, but it should give you an idea of how combat is handled in our game.

 

[Heirukichi]

According to the forum rules, I had to wait for 72 hours before I could post something about our battle system. Even so, as a real man of his word, here is a little something for all of you.



The video shows both our current 3D test dungeon, with Jo's textures (still at a lower resolution compared to the real one, but for testing purposes it is fine) and the normal exploration HUD that can be shown/hidden according to your preference, and the battle system itself, showing how the same weapon grants access to different skills depending on the user's class.

It goes without saying that there are still many things that have yet to be implemented, but having this prototype means that we can finally start play-testing our gameplay, at least internally.

Feel free to voice your opinion on this matter. Every piece of advice/feedback is much appreciated.

 

[Finnuval]

Somehow this reminds me of wizardry which is not a bad thing. Looking very promising on all fronts.

 

[BlueMage]

These are my opinions after watched the video:
- Characters' portrait should be frontal or turn toward center of screen.
As in the video, Alma's portrait make it look like she was staring at the wall of dungeon
instead of observe enemies in battle
- There should be some animated elements in battle, either animated enemies or animated background.
Everything is static make it looked lifeless to me.
- Shouldn't we have another UI for outside-Battle, beside of that default UI?
That UI look good in battle but i feel like it doesn't really useful outside of battle or even take up screen's space.
Instead player can just open a simple menu to check Party, Gold, Item...

 

[Ateliae]

It is an interesting design! I've never seen anybody do this in VXA.

I agree with the post above with regards to the animated enemies. It's a little static, so maybe a few frames or even a "breathing" effect would bring it to life more.

I look forward to seeing the full build with music and such.