RMMV Seaweed

Seaweed

​

Demo (alpha version) :

did it as a zip instead of a 7z:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/p9le9dg9ejqr91h/Seaweed Demo.zip?dl=0

It has a read me included, I am about halfway through play testing it and except for everything I want to fix and learn, it is working as intended!!




I will post in done area once I get this fully play tested and fixed! But I would appreciate input from everyone interested! Here is the readme for it:


Beta Testing Demo Read Me

The letter you got said to meet these other students and travel together to the school. You play as Jaded, 16, a thief who takes care what she takes and never steals from a friend. You need to meet 3 other girls at the Nomad Camp to the north.

This is an exciting year for the new magic school as it is having it's first graduating class and everyone is excited. As you travel, look at things and learn about the area and your new friends. Raven and Alima are both 16 like you, while Jesse is only 10. She is a prodigy but you figure no one else wanted to travel with her. She is kind and smart and a very good fighter so you soon feel lucky to have her with you.


Thanks for helping me test the game! It is my first one so do not expect it to be too epic! Hopefully it is a few hours of fun!

Some things to note before you start testing it:

{potion cheat} yes I know about this one and am leaving it in on purpose, I will leave it up to the player whether or not they exploit it...

{amount of enemies} it may seem like a lot because it is set up for a lot of encounters to help show something weird is up! But each battle should be easy to win.
In the Sea Coast it is very high to show the rush of fishing tourists that disturb the coast greatly, the water nymphs are there to try to keep things calm but too many people!


{Bounced Around a lot} You get transported a lot, at least it feels like it, but will work in your favor when the quests are in and you need to go back and forth a lot Plus the only place to get bait elixir is at the nomad camp, so maybe it is not so bad to get bounced closer to it.

{Cut Scenes} I know some of the dialogue should be in cut scene format but I do not know how to do that yet so...

{Only 1 Quest} there are more planned but I do not want to ruin the main game as this is just a demo version of it... This is just to get you excited for the main game!

{Dash Off} the notes are meant to pop up as you are looking around with no need to push a button to activate so if you are dashing around you may run into them more then one by accident...

So, as this is my first game, I need you to truly let me know what is good and what is bad! You are free to hate or find any part of it boring but I do need you to tell me why! It will help me fix it for the main game!





SECTION A: SYNOPSIS

Spoiler

• Ravenna is the mythical big city the game is mostly set in. You start off in a fishing village that the Innkeeper has been "upgrading" because she is a very elegant lady. So there are no shacks and things are slowly turning even prettier. Does the innkeeper have a master plan that no one suspects or just a lady who likes the finer things in life?
  
  I am from Alaska and "na" at the end of a word means river so Ravenna means Raven river. Which is the river that passes through our sleepy village.
  
  In the next game I plan to make it course through the city too somehow. but for this one, I just plan to keep it simple and doable and get something done to get feedback and tips and tricks to improve!
  
  In the even tinier camp north of ours we learn that the Sisters of Raven had a fire and are staying with the old seamen's retreat. Is there something more at work? Are we blissfully missing clues to our fate?
  
  And the fancy new school that a mysterious benefactor built, now is in ruins? What is going on and can a girl from a sleepy village actually make a difference?

IMAGES/SCREENSHOTS

Spoiler

I will take some screenshots and post them.

(These are optional)
SECTION B: CHARACTERS

Spoiler

• 
  
  Jaded: a clever thief who loves magic. She does not really steal from people, but if it is out in the open then...
  
  Raven: our sorceress who has a balance of light and dark magic.
  
  Alima: a tough warrior who wants to learn to use her brain more instead of just brawn.
  
  Jesse: a child prodigy who no one else will travel with because they do not want to "baby sit". She has the hero class but we call it "scholar".

SECTION C: STORYLINE/PLOT

Spoiler

• 
  Everything seems sweet and easy. You just need to travel to the school. The areas are not too difficult. The big city is new to all of you but you are not naive innocents. This is where most of the game takes place. You need to get to school, simple enough. But the grand brand new school everyone is raving about turns out to be a ruin. How do you lift a curse that no group admits to causing?
  
  There are humans and others such a elves, fairies and underworld sorts but most get along. You know there are places that are mostly not human but you have never been to them and barely know they exist.
  
  (I do need to work this out. Got the bright idea to join the forum without pre-planning it! Sorry, I love to preplan and most of my games are planned but nothing else as I want to learn Unreal engine for them My daughter tried this and liked it and so here we are... so this area will change as I update. This plot is just thrown together quickly to learn the system basically.)

SECTION D: SETTING AND/OR WORLD DEVELOPMENT

Spoiler

• 
  Ravenna is the big city and main place the story takes place in. You find you have seen some as tourists in your village so it is not overwhelming to be surrounded by so many people. The people here are set to high or highest speed so it seems bustling compared to us.
  
  This game is just basic and the next will be "Learning Curve" and more advanced as I learn the game engine better! So it is a 2 part series with the same 4 girls and people.

DOWNLOAD LINK

Spoiler

I am done with the first three areas! Of course the next area is the big city so might a bit...

edits: I am excited, having fun and got the first few areas as done as I am going to do for this sample game. I think it is enough to show the style and feel of the game. I hope to have it complete by Friday or Saturday, just the basic game with no real quests except 1... I wanted to test whether I did the structure right before trying to add in a bunch and make a huge mess i will drive myself crazy trying to untangle

There is still the big city, sewers, downtown, and school. I am making the first area after the harbor the busiest spot with people outside. I want to try to create a vaguely creepy feeling as they city seems emptier and emptier the closer you get to the school. These maps are premade, so phew! It is mostly adding messages and interesting people.

Luckily it is also fishing season so a good excuse to have it half empty



Edit2) Today I learned how to create the face expressions! but then went crazy and redesigned my party and am working on customizing the entire town! At least the starting village for now and can do the rest next version of this game... Still can not figure out how to do icons! I labelled them all "icon set" and it added numbers but that did not seem to help at all... So back to using basic set for now and can save icons for next version! Just in case i am gone a bit, I am busy customizing my village ;p



Edit: Developer Logs
I wanted to keep track of mistakes I made to remember them for when I do the next one...

1) Add stats to the weapons before equipping! ~Will save hours of heartache as you try to figure out why your girls cant hit nothing!

2) Not only save often but backup the game before adding resource packs. ~Nothing went wrong yet so phew but dont want to forget! Every rpg gamer knows: save often, save early

3) Always make sure right buttons are pressed, below or same or above!

4) Create Credit sheet right from beginning so you do not have to worry!

5) Do not get excited and post all the screenshots individually

6) remember to update this as needed

 

What I have been doing is trying to make each area more unique. I find it a bit hard to create the exact shape I want but maybe I need to use the pencil? Like in JadedFishing screenshot above, the game map was too bland so I wanted to make it more interesting. I tried changing the water colors but then the boat didn't work anymore. So I fixed the water back and tried to add a river.

It is not exactly what I would choose but the best I can do at the moment. So, I am learning and trying to change them enough that no one thinks they saw this exact thing in another game... I am saving the city ones for when I do Learning Curve and parallax and all that!

 

It feels strange that some maps are absolutely gorgeous, while others have elementary flaws, like the half tree in the village map, and the half wall in the inside map. The river map is also weird looking, but as I said, these are really simple to fix.

Of course there is good stuff to say about your project too. I find your synopsis good and simple. As this is your first game, I don't think you need a complex story with lots of plot twists.

Your characters are the best thing I've read today. A thief that don't mug people? A knight that wants to be smart instead using her physical power? The strongest party member is just a child that cannot even travel alone? I'm serious, this is really fun and unique!

I wish you luck, my friend! Please let me know if I can help with something.

 

I have been trying to make them prettier. The maps came with the game and I just loaded them, or were part of an asset pack I bought maybe? I am having fun trying to make the maps mine, though frustrating when I can not get a pretty curve instead of a straight corner... I am really enjoying the process too.

 

A tip for making you maps stand out more is to use a lot of elevation whenever you can. Of course I'm not saying to go overboard and put stairs everywhere but elevation can really add to a 2D plane. I typically don't see many new people take advantage of that.

 

I cant remember if I already showed the northern part of the town, it is improved now. (I hope)

I did add some stairs by the pink roof home, to make it look higher up. I couldn't find the end pieces so used a bush on each end to hide it But hopefully if you compare it to JadedInn it looks a bit nicer...
I was watching parallax mapping and will try that next game. This one I just wanted to get the basics down.

I am embarrassed, 2 of my girls never did damage so I went overboard trying to beef them up before realizing it was their weapons I forgot to set damages for... So I will need to learn to adjust to make them normal girls again!

Here is the improved coastal area between the sleepy village and the harbor. Tried to make it seem "busy" compared to the village... How weird, it does not show the people, just noticed that, used the games "same image as" thing...

to the north of Seaweed fishing village is the Nomad camp. It is full now because of the Sisters of Raven but the camp people went away to give them room so only a store or 2 is open...

Here is the swamp you can access from the cave hole in the top right corner of the coastal area map. Here lies the boss battle for this first part of the game. There is a moral choice you must make, but you wont know until I create "Learning Curve" to see the results of the decision...


ohhh oppps, just saw I have not done anything to that area yet... but at least you can see the before pic...

 

Jaded, please avoid double posting, as it is against the forum rules. You can review our forum rules here. Thank you.

I merged your last four posts together. Please use the 'Edit' button if you wish to add something to your last post.

 

I am so sorry, I did not realize that applied to our own development thread!!

So, I just "edit" my first post to add in the newest stuff? Will do!!

 

I love the indigenous Alaskan idea. Are you going to have lore, decorations, enemies etc. that would reference the culture?

 

In a later game, yes. I dont have the art yet, so once I get that done I can. The default peoples are what I plan to use for this one as a first one just to get it to get feedback on. Then the one after is where I try to recreate the areas with parallax mapping! I need to learn so much still!

 

Woot, finished the demo! Going to give it a day to forget about it then play test it! Once I fix anything that needs fixing, what do I do then? DO I "deploy" it and put it on drop box?

​

 

That's pretty much what I did. I would playtest it once it's deployed too just to make sure everything is in working order.

 

Been going through correcting any typos, adding a touch here and there... Is there a difference then between our play test and it being deployed? I am having some people try it once it is deployed to let me know what they think before I upload it for you guys to try

I am having fun trying to figure out the upgrades to it and how to do it! But concentrating on getting all the typos and stuff fixed for now... but hard not to dream of it as imagined and hoping I can do it! I also cant wait to try all the map stuff too!

One thing I learned was the "r" tab has nothing to do with shading the map in game I added a touch of blue here and a touch of green there thinking it would add dimension to the map but figured out it has something to do with marking a region...

One question I had was does it matter if there are unfinished common events before I try to deploy? I think it would ignore them but now I am worried I might crash the game by leaving them there. Things I had ideas to add but not skilled enough yet so left them until I can do it right. I can read the forums too, so no worries, I just like to keep track of my thoughts as I go...

 

Sometimes when I deployed my project some files were missing which prevented the game from booting. Also sometimes it's good to test it just to see exactly what the player is going to experience.

It depends on what's in those common events. Look through them and playtest. Actually just playtest your game as often as you can. Ask yourself every minute if you are enjoying it. Sometimes you'll come up with ideas to do something you thought you wouldn't know how or that it would be impossible until you can actually visualize it happening through playtesting. That's probably the best advice I can give you for now. Playtest as much as possible and try to add as many elements that would make the game fun to you as possible. Trust me you'll learn a lot just from playtesting.

 

I am having to go through and do a check in the starting village whether or not you got the rest of your party yet, it happens automatically when you go where the dialogue says to go... I realized some of the dialogue assumes you do not have them yet so fixing that. I am enjoying it, replaying the beginning over and over.

I am only to the coast area, which is the third map. I crammed it full of people to show the "fishing season" rush of people. My daughter was saying it looks "busy" but it is meant to, so one area to keep note of when people test it for me! The fishing spot common event is in the main MV section if you want to check out the code for it. suggestions to fix it are welcome, though I closed it because I got it working.

The half finished things are where I wanted each girl to have a special thing happen. Like my thief will get items every 23 steps, mostly like a carrot or 1G she found on ground and picked up. I finished the fishing thing, dividing it into 2 parts so I can easily add items on one and change the coding with the other... I hope to find a cool fishing animation somewhere, and figure out how to do that, I have a fishing pole as an item and as a weapon. But it is things like that, ideas I had and created a thing and mostly text talks to remind me why it is there. I read "parallel" slows the game so trying to do it as a called thing instead. I know there are things that will need to run parallel, but need to learn the engine better to even try to code them so trying to do most as basic way so my game isn't slow and clutzy!

I think I added a bunch of, what are they called, switches? Like thief, chat, etc. that I plan as a part of the game later... I want to keep track of whether or not the player found talk spots, instead of a cut scene I decided to blend most into the game where random talk happens. I back up my copy of the game in the document folder often calling it seaweed ,05 and seaweed .75, so wont lose a lot if I mess it up during deploy!

But haven't figured it out for this game, will leaving all those switches crash the game or will the game not deploy them since nothing links to them yet? (This is more note to self but feel free to answer. I like to remember thoughts I had during spots, helps me remember ideas better, and why so many unused switches )

Play testing it shows most of it looks good and works like I wanted. I noticed I assumed the player would do as directed so having to fix that. You can have a chat with the girls before finding them at spots... I need to add a check in spots around town to see if whole party together yet since I forgot and did them as if the whole party was together and talking. So, besides that one wrong assumption, it looks good so far! I am sure having others play it will show things I need to fix before showing you guys, but so far it seems ok... still very excited about it!

One thing I might do as "feedback and suggestions" is let us use our development threads more often then once every 3 days I think it was... I like to keep track of my thoughts at the time since I can easily change an idea about something and might not remember original idea to compare which I like better. Or am I weird and no one else does it that way?

Anyway, I am going through and noticed my typos happen worse around 3am coding sessions But I find it hard to sleep with this game whirling around in my brain and wanting to get this done so I can do the parallax mapping that looks so cool! But then it occurred to me it might be hard to change a map and not have to redo the game... so also trying to go through and add touches that I meant for later in case this becomes the only version of it and I pretend it never happened and do it from scratch

I find it interesting to see these kinds of thoughts years later when looking at ideas for games I want to make someday! I have about 4 planed in my mind and on paper... But realize it might be annoying to those who just want to check if there is a question they can help answer!

 

Yeah there have been times when I wished the post restrictions were at least 24 hours for this forum.

 

[edit] A funny thing happened, my spell checker decided to try this engine for their game and bought it today!

Yes, having my last spell check done before I deploy and have my alpha testers try it! I hope they enjoy it and they know it is just "flavor" so far so wont expect an epic game

I was trying to add in some more character development, I think it progresses nicely but I guess I will see what the alpha testers say and hopefully can have you guys beta test! Was down with a cold and did not want to work and then have to undo it all so way off from when I thought it would be done, I guess I need to adjust that idea accordingly! thought would take a few days to test but been 2 weeks I think, so will need to add another week or 2 to that for when the game has actual quests in it I think! So is a month to a month and half reasonable or should I plan "months" instead? None of my game ideas are complex so it should be fine!

It has only 1 actual quest in it because I do not want to ruin the game, has 1 potion cheat that I plan to leave up to the players conscious and lots of story and fun... there is a lot of bouncing around but it fits with the quests so wont be as annoying in the actual finished game! I have a ton of hints and clues around too, I am curious what people notice...

How do we find beta testers once it is ready to try? There is probably a thread somewhere that explains it and I will go look for it I guess! So hopefully by next Friday I will have it uploaded to my drop box!

 

Not sure if anyone is interested in seeing the "alpha" demo version, for pc only right now...

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ql1ulenhimpq8z0/Seaweed demo.7z?dl=0

Hopefully that link works and it should have a read me and the game folder... It will be much more fun once the quests are in, I did not want to give it away in the demo so only did 1 quest and just lots of explore and getting to know the girls...

Edit: Finding some interesting bugs!! I did not realize that me play testing the demo would end up in the zipped file so there is my saved game... ooopppsssss... I wonder if that is throwing it off since a conversation is missing... but maybe I had it before I saved... but we will go through the rest of it and find them all and if I cant figure it out I will come ask!

It is interesting what did not show up in the play testing like the background paralax I tried to add to the windows before I had any clue what I was doing... it shows up in the final game ;p

I am learning a lot though!!

 

Link in first window to newest alpha demo, I have not finished playtesting it myself. But am liking it so far! I cant wait to see what others think of it!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/p9le9dg9ejqr91h/Seaweed Demo.zip?dl=0

Beta Testing Demo Read Me

The letter you got said to meet these other students and travel together to the school. You play as Jaded, 16, a thief who takes care what she takes and never steals from a friend. You need to meet 3 other girls at the Nomad Camp to the north.

This is an exciting year for the new magic school as it is having it's first graduating class and everyone is excited. As you travel, look at things and learn about the area and your new friends. Raven and Alima are both 16 like you, while Jesse is only 10. She is a prodigy but you figure no one else wanted to travel with her. She is kind and smart and a very good fighter so you soon feel lucky to have her with you.


Thanks for helping me test the game! It is my first one so do not expect it to be too epic! Hopefully it is a few hours of fun!

Some things to note before you start testing it:

{potion cheat} yes I know about this one and am leaving it in on purpose, I will leave it up to the player whether or not they exploit it...

{amount of enemies} it may seem like a lot because it is set up for a lot of encounters to help show something weird is up! But each battle should be easy to win.
In the Sea Coast it is very high to show the rush of fishing tourists that disturb the coast greatly, the water nymphs are there to try to keep things calm but too many people!


{Bounced Around a lot} You get transported a lot, at least it feels like it, but will work in your favor when the quests are in and you need to go back and forth a lot Plus the only place to get bait elixir is at the nomad camp, so maybe it is not so bad to get bounced closer to it.

{Cut Scenes} I know some of the dialogue should be in cut scene format but I do not know how to do that yet so...

{Only 1 Quest} there are more planned but I do not want to ruin the main game as this is just a demo version of it... This is just to get you excited for the main game!

{Dash Off} the notes are meant to pop up as you are looking around with no need to push a button to activate so if you are dashing around you may run into them more then one by accident...

So, as this is my first game, I need you to truly let me know what is good and what is bad! You are free to hate or find any part of it boring but I do need you to tell me why! It will help me fix it for the main game!

 

I'm looking forward to giving this a test. I'll let ya know what I think of it, fam.