Would you believe it if I said my New Year's resolution for 2025 was to finally finish my world map?
What if I told you I'd been working on it extensively over the past month, and that it's already finished? Would you believe it?
Well, it's true. I mean, I could still decide to make modifications in the future, but the important thing is that it's functional, it's complete, and it looks great!
Unfortunately, you'll have to take my word for it, because I don't want to spoil the sense of discovery you'll get from exploring it when you finally get to play my game.
So, what's next? Now that the mapping for my game is officially complete, the next step will be to start a fresh project (which I haven't done in five years) to clean things up - with the hope that this will be the last time.
I still have a lot of tinkering to do with the combat mechanics and mathematics, which will require a lot of testing. But I want to put out a combat-free version of my game, so that if I drop dead and never make it to the finish line, there will at least be a version of my game out there that people can play - to explore the extensive work I've put into mapping this game over the last too many years. So all that work won't have been for naught.
I'm looking forward to getting the combat functioning properly, but it's a big job, and even without it, I've created this exciting world that you can just get lost in. And I want to be able to feature that, regardless of what happens from here on out.
Update: It's only been two days, but now that I actually have a world map, I spent some time implementing a map function in my game. I added a compass and beacons that flash to show where you're at, and where all the important landmarks are - which I designed after the way the map functions in Final Fantasy 1 (Tceles B Hsup).
Except that my map is an item you can pick up and select from the inventory menu. The unique part is that it's modular. I split it up so that you can pick up pieces of the map to gradually fill in the whole picture. That way, the player still has the advantage of having a guide on where to go, without spoiling the entire adventure right from the start. It's working great, and I'm really excited about it!
Showing posts with label teaser. Show all posts
Showing posts with label teaser. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 1, 2025
Thursday, February 22, 2024
First Look
Proof of my geek cred. Miss PC Games February 1998 was my first ever centerfold! My preliminary opinion of Tomb Raider I-III Remastered - having played through the first level - is that it looks and plays fantastic. The best part is how faithful this remaster is to the original. The biggest complaint I've read online is the wonkiness of the (optional) modern controls, but the original "tank" control scheme is provided. Why wouldn't you use it? It may be a little clunky by modern sensibilities, but it was good enough back then, and it's part of how this game is played. So no complaints there. I love that you can switch between the original and the improved graphics on the fly, with the press of a button. So cool to compare. Plus there's a new photo mode where you can pause the game and fly the camera around and snap photos. I anticipate I'll be playing around with that a ton.
Wednesday, February 21, 2024
Tomb Raider I-III Remastered
Just found out this was released on Valentine's Day, and I'm so excited! Tomb Raiders I-III were my jam in the late '90s. Best 3D adventure experience in a video game EVER. They remade the first one 17 years ago (for the tenth anniversary), and although the then-modern graphics looked spectacular, they gutted the gameplay and even the fundamental architecture of the levels, which is what made the original so much fun to play through - like you were climbing around a sandbox, but the sandbox was all the most exciting and mysterious places you used to research at the library when you were a curious kid.
Cannot wait to revisit such thrilling locations as: a lost Incan city, Greco-Roman structures dripping with mythology, the ancient Egyptian pyramids, an underwater shipwreck, a Tibetan monastery in the Himalayan foothills, a sprawling undergound Chinese temple, the dense jungles of India, a tropical island in the South Pacific, Area 51, Antarctica, and more! Looks like my spring calendar's completely booked.
Cannot wait to revisit such thrilling locations as: a lost Incan city, Greco-Roman structures dripping with mythology, the ancient Egyptian pyramids, an underwater shipwreck, a Tibetan monastery in the Himalayan foothills, a sprawling undergound Chinese temple, the dense jungles of India, a tropical island in the South Pacific, Area 51, Antarctica, and more! Looks like my spring calendar's completely booked.
Monday, February 5, 2024
Ten Years Gone (& Dragon Island)
On this day ten years ago, I published my first post on this blog - a short introduction to Dragonfaith - followed less than a week later by the first ever demo release (which was basically a way of showing off my excitement after creating my very first town). I had only just started developing in RPG Maker, which I had asked for the previous Christmas, in anticipation of finally putting my plans of constructing my own RPG (based on the Final Fantasy games I had loved in my youth) into action. Truth be told, I had been brainstorming concepts for an RPG going back to the turn of the millennium (if you can believe some of the earliest time stamps I'm looking at), but not all of those ideas have survived the refinement process. A lot of it is lore (especially creation myths) and game mechanics (specifically outlining the magic system), little of which resembles the game in its current form. Suffice to say, it's hard to pin a date on when this game first formulated out of the jumble of thoughts I've been carrying around in my head for the majority (entirety?) of my adult life (although further searching reveals a document titled "dragonfaith.txt" dated 7/16/2005 that lays out much of the conceptual groundwork for the game), but the day I created the project file in RPG Maker marks a significant milestone early in the development (as opposed to conceptual) phase of the process.
It's humbling to acknowledge that ten years have passed since that day, but these things take time, and I'm just one amateur working on a pet project in my free time. And you can rest assured that I am still working on it. I could stand to spend more time in front of the screen during the summer, when other activities (like getting fresh air and sunshine while exercising outdoors) take priority, but I do enjoy coming back to this world every winter when I'm stuck inside at my desk anyway. In fact, after posting my latest Cacowards update just before the New Year, I made a conscious decision to put the series on temporary hiatus (though I look forward to getting back to it at some unspecified point in the future), because I realized that's time I could be spending in RPG Maker. And though it's a mammoth of a project, every little step I take gets me closer to the finish line.
Here's a short update on my progress since the last report. I mentioned working on some of the game mechanics; one problem in particular laid me flat (I still have tabs related to it open in my browser, even though I haven't worked on it for months), involving a superficial modification to the status icon display during battle. It's just another in a long line of issues that demonstrates two things: 1) that although RPG Maker claims to give you the power to, well... make RPGs right out of the box, there are a lot of functional and stylistic limitations that you have to deal with, and 2) the program seems to be more inspired by Dragon Quest than Final Fantasy, causing me to frequently have to bend the engine in pretzels (if I can even figure out how to do that) just to get the game to run smoothly in a way that feels familiar and like the experience that I want to give the player. It's frustrating.
In any case, although I said I was going to set it aside for the time being, I have instead re-dedicated myself to completing the all-important world map. (At the very least, I will someday have a project that you can explore from start to finish, even if there are no combat mechanics). Barring later revisions, everything else in the game is mapped out, so it's do or die. At least as far as mapping goes, I have nothing left to turn to as a distraction from the thing I should be working on. It's an enormous task encompassing an unprecedented level of challenge, but it has to get done. And I'm going to sit with it until it is. I hope. I've tried lots of methods to help me carve out these landmasses and coastlines, and right now I'm working on magnifying a smaller, simplified version of the map in increments, fleshing out the details before advancing to the next scale. It shows some promise. Meanwhile, I have framed prints of the world maps from the first six Final Fantasy games propped up beside me, so I can stare at them all day long in search of inspiration, and motivation.
I really wanted to have it finished in time for the tenth anniversary, but I forgot that was coming up (as I've alluded to before, my side hustle in photography keeps me insanely busy), and I've been dragging my butt. Still, I don't want to leave you empty-handed. So here's something I don't think I've shared yet (although in the past ten years, I could have forgotten). It's a bit of a spoiler, as it relates to the endgame - but it's not the final dungeon. It's actually part of the world map. So, to give you some context, I wanted to send the player through a variety of terrains leading up to the climax of the game (e.g., forest, desert, underground, volcano, mountain peak), as a sort of review or "final tour" of what the rest of the game has thrown at you - not unlike the Interdimensional Rift in Final Fantasy V - and related to the themes and pantheon of bosses in my game, which revolve around the elements. So, before I ever started working in RPG Maker, I pieced together a map of an island (or small continent), using individual tiles copied and pasted from Final Fantasy [1]. The original bitmap is dated back to 2006 (18 years ago!). I've already long since copied it into RPG Maker, but the final version will probably look a little different (it's one of the things I'm working on now). But here's the original:
It's a proof of concept! Now, you'll have to excuse me. I've still got a lot of work left to do...
It's humbling to acknowledge that ten years have passed since that day, but these things take time, and I'm just one amateur working on a pet project in my free time. And you can rest assured that I am still working on it. I could stand to spend more time in front of the screen during the summer, when other activities (like getting fresh air and sunshine while exercising outdoors) take priority, but I do enjoy coming back to this world every winter when I'm stuck inside at my desk anyway. In fact, after posting my latest Cacowards update just before the New Year, I made a conscious decision to put the series on temporary hiatus (though I look forward to getting back to it at some unspecified point in the future), because I realized that's time I could be spending in RPG Maker. And though it's a mammoth of a project, every little step I take gets me closer to the finish line.
Here's a short update on my progress since the last report. I mentioned working on some of the game mechanics; one problem in particular laid me flat (I still have tabs related to it open in my browser, even though I haven't worked on it for months), involving a superficial modification to the status icon display during battle. It's just another in a long line of issues that demonstrates two things: 1) that although RPG Maker claims to give you the power to, well... make RPGs right out of the box, there are a lot of functional and stylistic limitations that you have to deal with, and 2) the program seems to be more inspired by Dragon Quest than Final Fantasy, causing me to frequently have to bend the engine in pretzels (if I can even figure out how to do that) just to get the game to run smoothly in a way that feels familiar and like the experience that I want to give the player. It's frustrating.
In any case, although I said I was going to set it aside for the time being, I have instead re-dedicated myself to completing the all-important world map. (At the very least, I will someday have a project that you can explore from start to finish, even if there are no combat mechanics). Barring later revisions, everything else in the game is mapped out, so it's do or die. At least as far as mapping goes, I have nothing left to turn to as a distraction from the thing I should be working on. It's an enormous task encompassing an unprecedented level of challenge, but it has to get done. And I'm going to sit with it until it is. I hope. I've tried lots of methods to help me carve out these landmasses and coastlines, and right now I'm working on magnifying a smaller, simplified version of the map in increments, fleshing out the details before advancing to the next scale. It shows some promise. Meanwhile, I have framed prints of the world maps from the first six Final Fantasy games propped up beside me, so I can stare at them all day long in search of inspiration, and motivation.
I really wanted to have it finished in time for the tenth anniversary, but I forgot that was coming up (as I've alluded to before, my side hustle in photography keeps me insanely busy), and I've been dragging my butt. Still, I don't want to leave you empty-handed. So here's something I don't think I've shared yet (although in the past ten years, I could have forgotten). It's a bit of a spoiler, as it relates to the endgame - but it's not the final dungeon. It's actually part of the world map. So, to give you some context, I wanted to send the player through a variety of terrains leading up to the climax of the game (e.g., forest, desert, underground, volcano, mountain peak), as a sort of review or "final tour" of what the rest of the game has thrown at you - not unlike the Interdimensional Rift in Final Fantasy V - and related to the themes and pantheon of bosses in my game, which revolve around the elements. So, before I ever started working in RPG Maker, I pieced together a map of an island (or small continent), using individual tiles copied and pasted from Final Fantasy [1]. The original bitmap is dated back to 2006 (18 years ago!). I've already long since copied it into RPG Maker, but the final version will probably look a little different (it's one of the things I'm working on now). But here's the original:
Dragon Island
It's a proof of concept! Now, you'll have to excuse me. I've still got a lot of work left to do...
Monday, March 27, 2023
Completing the Final Dungeon
I was thinking that my last Dragonfaith update was last year around Memorial Day, but it turns out that was two years ago. The update I was actually thinking about was from February of last year. In any case, I wanted to check in again and report that I've finished mapping out the final dungeon. It was a monumental effort - I'm not sure whether I should be proud or embarrassed that it took me a year to complete, but it's not like I've been working on it every day (this past summer was another busy photography season).
Now all that's left in the mapping department is an even more monumental effort - the world map. I've reconstructed overworld maps from the first six Final Fantasy games in RPG Maker as practice (do you recognize them?), but I still find the mechanics of the process of structuring landmasses (and the terrain they contain) to be intimidatingly inscrutable (oh, if I could pick the brains of the team members who developed these maps). There's just such a large canvas to work with. But I'll keep trying.
And anyway, in the meantime, I just might start working on hammering out the combat elements as a distraction (I'm never so productive as when I'm performing a task in order to avoid working on a different task), and slowly piecing together everything else in this game beyond the maps. I know how the world map is generally going to function, and I know every important element that will be in it, so I don't think I need it to be completed to work on the other stuff. This is where I've really gotta start making decisions and laying out a plan for progression re:items and weapons and growth and things like that.
I'm ruing the day I ever decided to take on this project singlehandedly - although truthfully, I enjoy working on it. I like going into my own little world; it's a pleasant escape from reality. But the pressure of needing to eventually end up with a completed game just builds and builds with every passing year. However, thinking of the alternative - spending all this time and work and never having anything to show for it - is no less dreadful. (And I'd love to show you more of what I have completed, but I'm always torn because I don't want to spoil the experience of playing the game). So I'll keep chugging along.
I can but hope that I'll have something more substantial to report next year on the 10th anniversary of starting this voyage (at least in RPG Maker - I brainstormed it even before that). Don't expect a completed game - but maybe by the 15th anniversary? I don't want to spend the rest of my life working on it, and I want at least someone to be able to test it (at the very least) before we're all resting in our graves...
Now all that's left in the mapping department is an even more monumental effort - the world map. I've reconstructed overworld maps from the first six Final Fantasy games in RPG Maker as practice (do you recognize them?), but I still find the mechanics of the process of structuring landmasses (and the terrain they contain) to be intimidatingly inscrutable (oh, if I could pick the brains of the team members who developed these maps). There's just such a large canvas to work with. But I'll keep trying.
And anyway, in the meantime, I just might start working on hammering out the combat elements as a distraction (I'm never so productive as when I'm performing a task in order to avoid working on a different task), and slowly piecing together everything else in this game beyond the maps. I know how the world map is generally going to function, and I know every important element that will be in it, so I don't think I need it to be completed to work on the other stuff. This is where I've really gotta start making decisions and laying out a plan for progression re:items and weapons and growth and things like that.
I'm ruing the day I ever decided to take on this project singlehandedly - although truthfully, I enjoy working on it. I like going into my own little world; it's a pleasant escape from reality. But the pressure of needing to eventually end up with a completed game just builds and builds with every passing year. However, thinking of the alternative - spending all this time and work and never having anything to show for it - is no less dreadful. (And I'd love to show you more of what I have completed, but I'm always torn because I don't want to spoil the experience of playing the game). So I'll keep chugging along.
I can but hope that I'll have something more substantial to report next year on the 10th anniversary of starting this voyage (at least in RPG Maker - I brainstormed it even before that). Don't expect a completed game - but maybe by the 15th anniversary? I don't want to spend the rest of my life working on it, and I want at least someone to be able to test it (at the very least) before we're all resting in our graves...
Friday, February 18, 2022
Welcome to the Endgame
As predicted, my productivity (working on Dragonfaith) waned over the summer, after leaving COVID lockdown (before Delta and then Omicron started making waves). But then, around the time of New Year's, in the dead of winter, progress picked back up, as it tends to do. I've completed mapping a major dungeon, the last two towns, and a couple of outposts since my last update. Do you know what that means? It's on to the endgame dungeons! I don't want to overstate my progress - there is still a lot of work to do outside of the mapping department (particularly with combat), and the world map is still a hurdle in my path - but I have a game that's almost completely mapped out!
Granted, the final dungeon is going to be a behemoth. There are multiple stages, that the player will be able to tackle progressively (because I want it to feel monolithic, while still being manageable). As always, I don't want to spoil too much, but the initial stage involves three floors, the intermediate section will be a tower with several [smaller] floors, and then the final section leading to the climax will be a sprawling labyrinth ("labyrinth" may be an exaggeration, in case you were getting worried; I just wanted it to sound dramatic). I'm quite excited to finally get started on it after all these years.
Granted, the final dungeon is going to be a behemoth. There are multiple stages, that the player will be able to tackle progressively (because I want it to feel monolithic, while still being manageable). As always, I don't want to spoil too much, but the initial stage involves three floors, the intermediate section will be a tower with several [smaller] floors, and then the final section leading to the climax will be a sprawling labyrinth ("labyrinth" may be an exaggeration, in case you were getting worried; I just wanted it to sound dramatic). I'm quite excited to finally get started on it after all these years.
Wednesday, December 8, 2021
Checking In
So, two springs ago I finally released Ascension. Then I returned to working on Dragonfaith, which I posted an update for last spring. Since then (as predicted), I've been busy getting back out into the world post-lockdown, and haven't had much time for developing.
Truth be told, I've been working my ass off on my photography gig, modeling all summer long and processing photos in my downtime. Having just finished arranging my year-end portfolio, I'm dead sick of working on photography right now, and need a break.
I'm eager to get back to working on Dragonfaith, but in the meantime, I've started playing Doom again for pure stress release and relaxation. By the way, I did eventually get my SIGIL box, and it was awesome (I've already played through it twice on separate occasions).
I hinted once before about doing a series of reviews of old fan-made Doom levels that I like to play, and I'm thinking about going through with that now. I already have reviews of the first ten level sets written up from a couple years ago, and am starting in on the second ten now. So I think you can expect to start seeing those soon.
I promise I'm not going to even think about working on my own pet project Doom levels right now, as that's time I need to spend on Dragonfaith. Although looking back at the schematics for the level I was working on - damn, I'm impressed! I have so much ambition, I just wish I had a better ability to finish what I start...
Truth be told, I've been working my ass off on my photography gig, modeling all summer long and processing photos in my downtime. Having just finished arranging my year-end portfolio, I'm dead sick of working on photography right now, and need a break.
I'm eager to get back to working on Dragonfaith, but in the meantime, I've started playing Doom again for pure stress release and relaxation. By the way, I did eventually get my SIGIL box, and it was awesome (I've already played through it twice on separate occasions).
I hinted once before about doing a series of reviews of old fan-made Doom levels that I like to play, and I'm thinking about going through with that now. I already have reviews of the first ten level sets written up from a couple years ago, and am starting in on the second ten now. So I think you can expect to start seeing those soon.
I promise I'm not going to even think about working on my own pet project Doom levels right now, as that's time I need to spend on Dragonfaith. Although looking back at the schematics for the level I was working on - damn, I'm impressed! I have so much ambition, I just wish I had a better ability to finish what I start...
Monday, May 31, 2021
Return to Dragonfaith (with Progress!)
Although this blog has been silent for the past year (since my beta release of Ascension), that does not mean that I haven't been busy. I've just been following the philosophy of working more and talking about working less. Moving on from Ascension was a perfect opportunity to return with full focus to Dragonfaith, aided by the longterm stability of my schedule during COVID lockdown (without the ever-present distraction of the outside world intruding into my life). That is now changing (for better and worse), since I have received the vaccine and am re-entering society. Which means this would be a good point to document the progress I've made in the past year.
For many years now, since I upgraded from RPG Maker VX Ace to the new version RPG Maker MV (which by now has already been replaced with RPG Maker MZ - but I'm not upgrading again), I've been locked into the process of transferring everything I'd already completed in VX Ace over to MV. Well, I'm happy to report that I am finally finished with that phase and am developing new areas of my game again. I've completed five new dungeons in the past year (I take pride in my level design, and a lot of time and effort goes into creating a dungeon from a blank page), and I spent over a month last holiday season compiling combat-related graphics, which also means that I have my full enemy roster (including bosses) pretty much picked out.
What's next? Lifting quarantine restrictions (and more trips and social visits) means I will unfortunately be more distracted and less focused, but I'm going to continue on the path I'm walking - finishing up the mapping (I'm getting towards the endgame now). I've also been drafting scenario as I go (which means writing dialogue and also choreographing cutscenes). When I'm finished with the adventure and dramatic aspects of my game, then I can turn my full focus to the action - engineering the combat and tweaking numbers until I have a functional RPG on my hands. That's the part when you'll be able to start testing it.
For the first time since I started developing this game (a sobering seven years ago), before I knew how much work went into making an RPG (especially all by one's self), I can envision a day when it's complete in a playable format, from start to finish (with the same disclaimers I gave for Ascension - it will never be perfect, but at some point you have to put the brush down). I've taken to updating a checklist to give me a [very] rough idea of how far through the development process I am, to inspire me to keep working toward that goal. And also to show that I haven't just been sitting on my hands these past seven years, since I've taken on this mammoth project (to be completed in my free time). Without spoling too many details of the game, here's a chart of my progress:
Mapping:
Writing:
**This is largely flavor text that I can fill in once the world (and combat mechanics) are more fully realized.
Graphics:
Combat:
For many years now, since I upgraded from RPG Maker VX Ace to the new version RPG Maker MV (which by now has already been replaced with RPG Maker MZ - but I'm not upgrading again), I've been locked into the process of transferring everything I'd already completed in VX Ace over to MV. Well, I'm happy to report that I am finally finished with that phase and am developing new areas of my game again. I've completed five new dungeons in the past year (I take pride in my level design, and a lot of time and effort goes into creating a dungeon from a blank page), and I spent over a month last holiday season compiling combat-related graphics, which also means that I have my full enemy roster (including bosses) pretty much picked out.
What's next? Lifting quarantine restrictions (and more trips and social visits) means I will unfortunately be more distracted and less focused, but I'm going to continue on the path I'm walking - finishing up the mapping (I'm getting towards the endgame now). I've also been drafting scenario as I go (which means writing dialogue and also choreographing cutscenes). When I'm finished with the adventure and dramatic aspects of my game, then I can turn my full focus to the action - engineering the combat and tweaking numbers until I have a functional RPG on my hands. That's the part when you'll be able to start testing it.
For the first time since I started developing this game (a sobering seven years ago), before I knew how much work went into making an RPG (especially all by one's self), I can envision a day when it's complete in a playable format, from start to finish (with the same disclaimers I gave for Ascension - it will never be perfect, but at some point you have to put the brush down). I've taken to updating a checklist to give me a [very] rough idea of how far through the development process I am, to inspire me to keep working toward that goal. And also to show that I haven't just been sitting on my hands these past seven years, since I've taken on this mammoth project (to be completed in my free time). Without spoling too many details of the game, here's a chart of my progress:
Mapping:
World Map............................................ incomplete* Towns/Outposts....................................... 11/13 complete Dungeons............................................. 13/17 complete*I know where all the important stuff goes, but filling out a 256x256 tile grid is proving to be a monumental challenge.
Writing:
Scenario/Choreography................................ ~25/32 scenes drafted* NPC Dialogue......................................... on the light side** Menu Captions........................................ on the light side***This category is approximate since I may feel it necessary to add/remove (more likely add) dramatic moments to the game as I go along.
**This is largely flavor text that I can fill in once the world (and combat mechanics) are more fully realized.
Graphics:
Enemies.............................................. pretty much complete Battle Backgrounds................................... pretty much complete Tilesets/Characters.................................. pretty much complete Skill Animations..................................... indeterminate**Animations can be a lot of work, but it depends on how much customization I opt for (which I won't know until I dive more deeply into the combat).
Combat:
Equipment (Items/Weapons/Armor)...................... partially implemented Skills/States........................................ partially implemented Enemies/Troops....................................... partially implemented Math (Growth Curves/Damage Formulas)................. ???This last category is going to take a lot of work (and may require some coding for unique effects). I've been putting it aside while working on the mapping (although I have a rough outline for much of it, and have worked on bits and pieces of it here and there), but it represents the final hurdle between me and completion. Add to that the world map, and the endgame maps/scenario (which is next on my plate), and that's mainly what I have left to do. So now I'm going to get back to work!
Thursday, April 30, 2020
Progress Report
I keep telling myself, "you don't need to post another progress report, you'll have the next release ready in a few more days." But then, every few days, it ends up taking another few days, until almost a month has passed since my last update. Every time I run the game, I find something new to change or tweak or fix...
I've finished the cleaning process, and am now doing final testing, to make sure everything is in place, and there are no glaring errors before I release the game to the semi-public. It's pretty much the first time I've played the game start to finish, as I've been testing stages one at a time so far. I was curious to see how long it would take to complete the game. I've beaten it on a speedrun in twenty minutes, but obviously you'll want to take longer than that to savor the story and the atmosphere. On a normal run, taking my time to explore and test everything, I beat it in two hours and forty minutes. Then again, as the developer, I know this game inside and out, so I'd be curious to find out how long it takes others to beat it. I'm at a bit of a loss as to how to rate the amount of content in this game in terms of gameplay hours, if it takes different people different amounts of time to complete...
At the moment, I'm going through and taking screenshots of all the levels, to accompany the impending official release. There's just this one annoying bug (Uncaught TypeError: Cannot read property 'width' of null) that I would love to fix, but I can't pin it down. It happens whenever the map is being reset after the player loses a "life". But it's occurred on several different maps, and it only happens once in a blue moon. As such, I can't pinpoint what's causing it, or how to fix it. And even if I did have some idea (and I've had a few), it's hard to test a solution because the bug only pops up every so often. Unfortunately, it's a game crashing bug, and although the automatic progress retainment system in my game (which eschews passwords or save files) would normally render it at most an inconvenience - just restart the game from the level you were at - there is one exception that causes me to be hesitant to release the game as is. I want to make accessing the secret level a challenge, so you have to collect the fragments all in a single playthrough. If the game crashes while you're in the middle of doing that, well...that's a considerable source of frustration that is both completely out of the player's control, and also something the player would justifiably be inclined to curse the developer for not taking care of. So, we'll see...
Update: I believe I know where and when the bug is occurring, but I still don't know why (my best guess is something to do with a timing discrepancy, calling on an object before it's defined), nor can I force it to happen, in order to test a solution. However, there is evidence that a plugin I'm using (a Bind Pictures To Map plugin) may be involved. So, in lieu of being able to fix the presumably problematic portion of code, I'm looking into a workaround that will allow me to ditch the plugin altogether. It's a pain in the ass, but luckily I only needed that plugin in a few places. I have no idea if this will even solve the problem, but if I do it, and I never encounter the bug again, then I'll consider it a victory.
I've finished the cleaning process, and am now doing final testing, to make sure everything is in place, and there are no glaring errors before I release the game to the semi-public. It's pretty much the first time I've played the game start to finish, as I've been testing stages one at a time so far. I was curious to see how long it would take to complete the game. I've beaten it on a speedrun in twenty minutes, but obviously you'll want to take longer than that to savor the story and the atmosphere. On a normal run, taking my time to explore and test everything, I beat it in two hours and forty minutes. Then again, as the developer, I know this game inside and out, so I'd be curious to find out how long it takes others to beat it. I'm at a bit of a loss as to how to rate the amount of content in this game in terms of gameplay hours, if it takes different people different amounts of time to complete...
At the moment, I'm going through and taking screenshots of all the levels, to accompany the impending official release. There's just this one annoying bug (Uncaught TypeError: Cannot read property 'width' of null) that I would love to fix, but I can't pin it down. It happens whenever the map is being reset after the player loses a "life". But it's occurred on several different maps, and it only happens once in a blue moon. As such, I can't pinpoint what's causing it, or how to fix it. And even if I did have some idea (and I've had a few), it's hard to test a solution because the bug only pops up every so often. Unfortunately, it's a game crashing bug, and although the automatic progress retainment system in my game (which eschews passwords or save files) would normally render it at most an inconvenience - just restart the game from the level you were at - there is one exception that causes me to be hesitant to release the game as is. I want to make accessing the secret level a challenge, so you have to collect the fragments all in a single playthrough. If the game crashes while you're in the middle of doing that, well...that's a considerable source of frustration that is both completely out of the player's control, and also something the player would justifiably be inclined to curse the developer for not taking care of. So, we'll see...
Update: I believe I know where and when the bug is occurring, but I still don't know why (my best guess is something to do with a timing discrepancy, calling on an object before it's defined), nor can I force it to happen, in order to test a solution. However, there is evidence that a plugin I'm using (a Bind Pictures To Map plugin) may be involved. So, in lieu of being able to fix the presumably problematic portion of code, I'm looking into a workaround that will allow me to ditch the plugin altogether. It's a pain in the ass, but luckily I only needed that plugin in a few places. I have no idea if this will even solve the problem, but if I do it, and I never encounter the bug again, then I'll consider it a victory.
Saturday, April 4, 2020
Progress Report
I am still hard at work preparing Ascension for beta release. I've completed an inventory of the resources used, now I am trimming and organizing and cutting out the fat. Other than the reduction in file size (which, 230 MB isn't all that big to start with), most of this work is more for my benefit than the player's, and would be unwieldy for a larger project besides. But I really want to take the opportunity to clean up the project file, because I may not have the chance on my next project. It will take some more time, though.
Wednesday, January 9, 2019
Resurrecting Doom
So far, I've only used this blog to talk about my RPG Maker projects. But I recently learned that original Doom titan John Romero is set to release (in February) an all-new chapter to the original Doom in celebration of the game's 25th anniversary. It's titled SIGIL, and will be considered episode 5, to take place between Ultimate Doom's episode 4, and Doom II. I've been going back and playing through all the old Doom levels in anticipation.
Romero mentions in an official interview that he used Doom Builder 2 to create these new levels - the same level generator fans can use to create their own custom Doom levels. It's a perfect example of how, ever since id Software released Doom's source code, the game has been placed into the hands of its fan community, which has kept it alive with continually new user-generated content over the past 25 years and counting.
SIGIL isn't even an official product by the company helming the modern Doom franchise (which I must admit, I do not keep track of). The levels will be released as freeware - like the first episode of Doom originally was - and can be loaded onto your favorite Doom source port (GZDoom seems to be the favored one at this time). It's essentially another fan-made product, except that the fan in this case is none other than one of the masterminds behind the original game itself!
---
Naturally, in all of this, my mind has wandered back to level editing for Doom. I've dabbled in the past, but it had always been a chore wrestling with level editors which tend to be finicky about how you build lines and sectors and such, often producing frustrating errors. But technology tends to improve over time, and Doom Builder 2 looks to be as user-friendly and foolproof an editor as I've ever seen. So I've downloaded it and already gone through some basic tutorials. It's worth giving this level editing thing another try.
Sadly, from what I can gather, all of my old files and folders related to custom Doom levels I've worked on have been lost, probably in hard drive crashes over the years. All I've got is what little I've held onto in my own memory, and an unfinished project I fortunately had the foresight to publish to the 'net at some point. It's my magnum opus - it's called Realms of the Berserk, and merges three of my favorite fandoms, with a story inspired by dark fantasy manga Berserk, and levels drawing on environments from the cult PC adventure horror game Realms of the Haunting.
I re-downloaded and played through the two levels (out of nine planned total) I have posted in semi-complete form, and I have to say, I'm very impressed with what I'd managed to accomplish. The levels are imaginative, even more complex than I'd remembered, and actually quite challenging (I say as a veteran Doomguy who only ever plays on the Ultra-Violence difficulty). And seeing some of these environments from Realms of the Haunting rendered in Doom is a sheer delight! I feel inspired, and disappointed that I'd never completed this project.
---
If I am to work on this project some more, however, I feel like I should warm up by building a "dummy" level in Doom Builder 2 first, to get familiar with the program and make sure I'm confident using it. I've decided to try putting together a stand-alone level I have in mind from a separate unfinished project. Once upon a time, it was intended to be part of a total conversion (where even the names and sound effects and graphics are changed), replacing the violence that is intrinsic to this game with sex, instead.
The whole idea is that there is this demon beast invasion (think Urotsukidoji/Legend of the Overfiend), and rather than killing, their goal is to mate with the human population (with a nod to Duke Nukem, which I enjoyed playing immensely as an adolescent). Your only recourse is to stimulate the demons to exhaustion before they have a chance to push you over the edge to orgasm.
Instead of health, your life meter is replaced with sexual stamina. Your armor is just clothing - a buffer against the ministrations of the damned. Punching becomes stroking, the chainsaw a vibrator. Instead of rockets you can launch dildos at your enemies. All bodily fluids would.be changed from red to white. Chaingunners are re-envisioned as trenchcoat flashers; Barons of Hell become satyrs. You run around collecting panties (clothing boosts), and gulping down Red Bulls (stamina boosts). Secret sectors consist of hidden naked virgins that must be found before the demons do!
I'm pulling this all from memory. I'm sure it sounds silly, but I had it all worked out. In lieu of the total conversion, however, I think it would still make a fun straightforward Doom level. You start out in a holding cell in a police station, break through the wall into the sewers, climb up to street level, then explore some high-rise buildings. I'm gonna try to put the level together and see how it turns out. I know - it's pretty ambitious for a "dummy level", but as you've probably figured out by now, I'm nothing if not overambitious...
Romero mentions in an official interview that he used Doom Builder 2 to create these new levels - the same level generator fans can use to create their own custom Doom levels. It's a perfect example of how, ever since id Software released Doom's source code, the game has been placed into the hands of its fan community, which has kept it alive with continually new user-generated content over the past 25 years and counting.
SIGIL isn't even an official product by the company helming the modern Doom franchise (which I must admit, I do not keep track of). The levels will be released as freeware - like the first episode of Doom originally was - and can be loaded onto your favorite Doom source port (GZDoom seems to be the favored one at this time). It's essentially another fan-made product, except that the fan in this case is none other than one of the masterminds behind the original game itself!
---
Naturally, in all of this, my mind has wandered back to level editing for Doom. I've dabbled in the past, but it had always been a chore wrestling with level editors which tend to be finicky about how you build lines and sectors and such, often producing frustrating errors. But technology tends to improve over time, and Doom Builder 2 looks to be as user-friendly and foolproof an editor as I've ever seen. So I've downloaded it and already gone through some basic tutorials. It's worth giving this level editing thing another try.
Sadly, from what I can gather, all of my old files and folders related to custom Doom levels I've worked on have been lost, probably in hard drive crashes over the years. All I've got is what little I've held onto in my own memory, and an unfinished project I fortunately had the foresight to publish to the 'net at some point. It's my magnum opus - it's called Realms of the Berserk, and merges three of my favorite fandoms, with a story inspired by dark fantasy manga Berserk, and levels drawing on environments from the cult PC adventure horror game Realms of the Haunting.
I re-downloaded and played through the two levels (out of nine planned total) I have posted in semi-complete form, and I have to say, I'm very impressed with what I'd managed to accomplish. The levels are imaginative, even more complex than I'd remembered, and actually quite challenging (I say as a veteran Doomguy who only ever plays on the Ultra-Violence difficulty). And seeing some of these environments from Realms of the Haunting rendered in Doom is a sheer delight! I feel inspired, and disappointed that I'd never completed this project.
---
If I am to work on this project some more, however, I feel like I should warm up by building a "dummy" level in Doom Builder 2 first, to get familiar with the program and make sure I'm confident using it. I've decided to try putting together a stand-alone level I have in mind from a separate unfinished project. Once upon a time, it was intended to be part of a total conversion (where even the names and sound effects and graphics are changed), replacing the violence that is intrinsic to this game with sex, instead.
The whole idea is that there is this demon beast invasion (think Urotsukidoji/Legend of the Overfiend), and rather than killing, their goal is to mate with the human population (with a nod to Duke Nukem, which I enjoyed playing immensely as an adolescent). Your only recourse is to stimulate the demons to exhaustion before they have a chance to push you over the edge to orgasm.
Instead of health, your life meter is replaced with sexual stamina. Your armor is just clothing - a buffer against the ministrations of the damned. Punching becomes stroking, the chainsaw a vibrator. Instead of rockets you can launch dildos at your enemies. All bodily fluids would.be changed from red to white. Chaingunners are re-envisioned as trenchcoat flashers; Barons of Hell become satyrs. You run around collecting panties (clothing boosts), and gulping down Red Bulls (stamina boosts). Secret sectors consist of hidden naked virgins that must be found before the demons do!
I'm pulling this all from memory. I'm sure it sounds silly, but I had it all worked out. In lieu of the total conversion, however, I think it would still make a fun straightforward Doom level. You start out in a holding cell in a police station, break through the wall into the sewers, climb up to street level, then explore some high-rise buildings. I'm gonna try to put the level together and see how it turns out. I know - it's pretty ambitious for a "dummy level", but as you've probably figured out by now, I'm nothing if not overambitious...
Friday, January 5, 2018
The Resurrection of Ascension
As you are no doubt aware (or have surely suspected), development on Ascension has been on hold for awhile, despite my initially over-optimistic plans to have it released by Halloween 2015 (or even 2014 before that). The reason for this is that I got so caught up in what Ascension hypothetically could be, that I lost sight of what it is, and I buckled under the pressure of the anticipated workload.
As a perfectionist, this is, unfortunately, a common problem that I have. But a wise man once told me that any project is a product of its moment, helping me to realize that it's better to make a statement with the possibility for improvement, than to withhold expression of one's talents until some hypothetical (and probably never-to-be-reached) point at which ultimate perfection will, hypothetically, be achieved.
Ascension is not the first project I started on RPG Maker, but it deserves to be the first project I finish, given the sheer scope of the RPG I am working on. I cannot even envision completing a project like Dragonfaith, until I have realized the completion of a smaller effort like Ascension. And I'd rather put out a complete project - imperfect and flawed though it may be - as an expression of what I am capable of at this point in time, even as an amateur game developer, than to withhold it until it satisfies some impossible rubric of professionality that exists as a vague, ideal form in my head, and that I cannot hope to reach at this time (indeed, if ever).
At the end of the day, I know I can't compete with the professionals out there. And I don't want to. I haven't dedicated my life to that path, and I'm not sure it isn't already too late if I even wanted to. But I don't. All I want to do is learn what I can - whatever bare essentials are necessary - in order to tell this story I have in my head that I want to share with the world. I don't need to make a flawless, groundbreaking game. It's just a delivery mechanism for my creativity.
So with that in mind, I am recommencing work on Ascension, with the goal of creating a complete (not perfect, but complete) version for release in the not-too-distant future. I'm not going to set down a date, but I'd like to say that I should have it ready before the year is out. Certainly I don't intend for it to take longer than that. After all, I still have much work to put in on Dragonfaith (which I'll probably continue to work on off and on, as I have been all this time).
As a perfectionist, this is, unfortunately, a common problem that I have. But a wise man once told me that any project is a product of its moment, helping me to realize that it's better to make a statement with the possibility for improvement, than to withhold expression of one's talents until some hypothetical (and probably never-to-be-reached) point at which ultimate perfection will, hypothetically, be achieved.
Ascension is not the first project I started on RPG Maker, but it deserves to be the first project I finish, given the sheer scope of the RPG I am working on. I cannot even envision completing a project like Dragonfaith, until I have realized the completion of a smaller effort like Ascension. And I'd rather put out a complete project - imperfect and flawed though it may be - as an expression of what I am capable of at this point in time, even as an amateur game developer, than to withhold it until it satisfies some impossible rubric of professionality that exists as a vague, ideal form in my head, and that I cannot hope to reach at this time (indeed, if ever).
At the end of the day, I know I can't compete with the professionals out there. And I don't want to. I haven't dedicated my life to that path, and I'm not sure it isn't already too late if I even wanted to. But I don't. All I want to do is learn what I can - whatever bare essentials are necessary - in order to tell this story I have in my head that I want to share with the world. I don't need to make a flawless, groundbreaking game. It's just a delivery mechanism for my creativity.
So with that in mind, I am recommencing work on Ascension, with the goal of creating a complete (not perfect, but complete) version for release in the not-too-distant future. I'm not going to set down a date, but I'd like to say that I should have it ready before the year is out. Certainly I don't intend for it to take longer than that. After all, I still have much work to put in on Dragonfaith (which I'll probably continue to work on off and on, as I have been all this time).
Wednesday, January 18, 2017
Positive Progress
In keeping with the positive spirit of progress, here are a few more things I've accomplished on my RPG lately:
1) I think I've filled out one of my character's skill lists - with a full window of 16 skills - which is a big (albeit early) step toward conceptual completion (and it's pushing me toward completing the other characters' skill lists). I've also pulled off a neat little trick in the course of implementing some of those skills - using states, and a plugin to change the default Attack command that appears in battle. I'm aiming for some amount of variety across the seven playable characters in my game - I don't want them all to feel the same. I haven't worked out all the details yet - because they're narrative characters (like in FFIV) and not figureheads (like in FFI) - but I'm hoping to give the player some choice in the ultimate lineup of their final team.
This particular character is an archer, and I don't want to spoil all the surprises, but her fighting style is heavily influenced by the Ranger profession in Guild Wars. I've successfully implemented a couple of "stances", and a few "preparations" (e.g., poison arrow, fire arrow). Instead of one-off special attacks, these are technically states that can be applied to temporarily modify this character's regular attack for a limited number of turns. It's a fun way to fight, and it gives her a unique playing style that hasn't been duplicated by any other characters in my game so far.
2) As irreversibly enmeshed into the MV iteration of RPG Maker as I am now, I could still rant at length about the things that irritate me about it, mostly tied to its dedication to mobile gaming - which requires streaming resources, and often results in sloppy gameplay, with the tradeoff of having to live with either a lot of jerkiness or loading screens. Thankfully, the Preload Manager + WebAudioCache combination of plugins has solved (to an acceptable extent) the BGM Delay issue I was having; although there is still no (and will probably never be) a solution to the not-so-"instantaneous" map transfer delay problem that's been particularly hounding progress on my other game, Ascension.
But I was becoming frustrated with even the regular screen fade transitions, when I loaded up VX Ace, and having used MV exclusively for a long time, the consistency and reliability of the smooth transitions in the older program absolutely amazed me. After some testing, I discovered that out of the box, MV's post-transition screen fadeins are often jerky, while using the Preload Manager (which is mandatory for syncing the BGMs in your game) causes the transition to pause a little bit between maps while the game does its loady thing. But what's annoying is that the game doesn't actually pause, it just hangs for about half a second, and then, as if trying to catch up, completely skips the fadein more often than not.
Perhaps a casual player wouldn't even notice it, but as a developer and lead tester, it began to drive me crazy. Is it too much to ask for a program that doesn't look buggy when you play it? Anyway, I found a workaround, even if it meant redoing all the map transfers in my game. In case you're interested, all you have to do is give up on the fade that's built in to the Map Transfer event command. Use a manual Fadeout before the transfer, and a Fadein after, but stick a 30 frame Wait command between the transfer and the Fadein to give the game time to catch up, before it moves on to the fade. Give it a try. The result is consistent and reliable fades. As somebody with OCD, it makes me much happier.
3) In my game, I have two skills planned that are based on the Warp and Exit spells from the first Final Fantasy. The difference between them is that Warp will send you back one floor, while Exit will send you all the way to the start of the dungeon you're in. They're good "quick escape" skills, also useful as a way to transport the player out of a dungeon once it's completed, without having to backtrack all the way to the entrance, and in lieu of thematically-appropriate dungeon-end teleports (as encountered in some dungeons in Final Fantasy). And, in the spirit of Dragon Quest's inclusion of skills that are useful outside of battle, I also want them available as shortcuts for use in towns and potentially on the World Map as well.
The Exit skill was easy enough to implement, by storing map and location info in variables every time the player enters (or exits) a town or dungeon. The Warp skill was a little trickier, however, as it needs to trigger on each floor, and I also want the player to be able to "stack" warps to travel multiple floors (if they have the resource points) - so the game needs to remember where the player has been and in what order. And rather than allocating a specific number of variables, I figured it would be more versatile to resort to storing an array inside a game variable, like I did in the course of implementing my Wardrobe Manager - although it involves more trial and error since I have to access the contents of the variable using script calls. But it's working!
4) On the subject of clever implementations involving skills useful outside of battle (although these ones are directly related to battle), I've just completed another challenge. One of the foundational skills in my game is a skill called Hunt, which gives the player the ability to force a random encounter (provided one is possible on whatever tile the player is standing on). This may not sound like the funnest skill, but I intend for it to dovetail with my game's encounter system - I'm just not sure exactly how...yet. In any case, it can be used to save the ambitious player time and embarrassment walking around in circles, should they want to fight enemies to boost their characters' levels, or collect special item drops.
Anyway, I have a couple of other skills planned that are in that family, one of which is directly inspired by the Repel skill from Dragon Quest, which reduces the random encounter rate (in that game, primarily to avoid wasting time fighting enemies below your level). But the one I'm most excited about is the one I've just programmed, which is a "Bait" skill. In many Final Fantasys, there are certain rare enemy encounters - especially in late-game dungeons - that promise valuable rewards for the persistent adventurer. The prestige awarded by these encounters (going all the way back to WarMech, if not earlier) makes them alluring, but I've never been fond of having to play the odds.
To wit, the best player could walk up and down the bridge in Sky Castle, battle 60 troops of enemies, and not encounter WarMech once, all on account of bad luck. This might be justifiable in a multiplayer online game, where you have a sort of players' economy, but at a certain point you have to just throw your hands up and say, "come on, already!" That's why, although I think these encounters should still be earned (which is why the Bait skill will be a late-game acquisition), I think there should be a point where the game says, "ok, you've earned this." And that's where Bait comes in.
Bait works just like Hunt - by forcefully initiating a random encounter - but not before performing a tricky bit of code math. I already had to add in some new functions related to the game's back-end encounter variables for the Hunt skill, in order to determine when the Hunt skill should be able to be used. But for Bait, I went even further, by taking the list of applicable encounters on any given tile (as determined by the developer on the map properties) and reversing the probability "weights" of each troop, so that when you initiate the next encounter, the common enemies will become rare, and the rare enemies will become common. You'll have to excuse me if I think that's just brilliant! And it works! Hey, I'm pretty excited.
(Now, if I could just pick up the slack in the mapping department...)
1) I think I've filled out one of my character's skill lists - with a full window of 16 skills - which is a big (albeit early) step toward conceptual completion (and it's pushing me toward completing the other characters' skill lists). I've also pulled off a neat little trick in the course of implementing some of those skills - using states, and a plugin to change the default Attack command that appears in battle. I'm aiming for some amount of variety across the seven playable characters in my game - I don't want them all to feel the same. I haven't worked out all the details yet - because they're narrative characters (like in FFIV) and not figureheads (like in FFI) - but I'm hoping to give the player some choice in the ultimate lineup of their final team.
This particular character is an archer, and I don't want to spoil all the surprises, but her fighting style is heavily influenced by the Ranger profession in Guild Wars. I've successfully implemented a couple of "stances", and a few "preparations" (e.g., poison arrow, fire arrow). Instead of one-off special attacks, these are technically states that can be applied to temporarily modify this character's regular attack for a limited number of turns. It's a fun way to fight, and it gives her a unique playing style that hasn't been duplicated by any other characters in my game so far.
2) As irreversibly enmeshed into the MV iteration of RPG Maker as I am now, I could still rant at length about the things that irritate me about it, mostly tied to its dedication to mobile gaming - which requires streaming resources, and often results in sloppy gameplay, with the tradeoff of having to live with either a lot of jerkiness or loading screens. Thankfully, the Preload Manager + WebAudioCache combination of plugins has solved (to an acceptable extent) the BGM Delay issue I was having; although there is still no (and will probably never be) a solution to the not-so-"instantaneous" map transfer delay problem that's been particularly hounding progress on my other game, Ascension.
But I was becoming frustrated with even the regular screen fade transitions, when I loaded up VX Ace, and having used MV exclusively for a long time, the consistency and reliability of the smooth transitions in the older program absolutely amazed me. After some testing, I discovered that out of the box, MV's post-transition screen fadeins are often jerky, while using the Preload Manager (which is mandatory for syncing the BGMs in your game) causes the transition to pause a little bit between maps while the game does its loady thing. But what's annoying is that the game doesn't actually pause, it just hangs for about half a second, and then, as if trying to catch up, completely skips the fadein more often than not.
Perhaps a casual player wouldn't even notice it, but as a developer and lead tester, it began to drive me crazy. Is it too much to ask for a program that doesn't look buggy when you play it? Anyway, I found a workaround, even if it meant redoing all the map transfers in my game. In case you're interested, all you have to do is give up on the fade that's built in to the Map Transfer event command. Use a manual Fadeout before the transfer, and a Fadein after, but stick a 30 frame Wait command between the transfer and the Fadein to give the game time to catch up, before it moves on to the fade. Give it a try. The result is consistent and reliable fades. As somebody with OCD, it makes me much happier.
3) In my game, I have two skills planned that are based on the Warp and Exit spells from the first Final Fantasy. The difference between them is that Warp will send you back one floor, while Exit will send you all the way to the start of the dungeon you're in. They're good "quick escape" skills, also useful as a way to transport the player out of a dungeon once it's completed, without having to backtrack all the way to the entrance, and in lieu of thematically-appropriate dungeon-end teleports (as encountered in some dungeons in Final Fantasy). And, in the spirit of Dragon Quest's inclusion of skills that are useful outside of battle, I also want them available as shortcuts for use in towns and potentially on the World Map as well.
The Exit skill was easy enough to implement, by storing map and location info in variables every time the player enters (or exits) a town or dungeon. The Warp skill was a little trickier, however, as it needs to trigger on each floor, and I also want the player to be able to "stack" warps to travel multiple floors (if they have the resource points) - so the game needs to remember where the player has been and in what order. And rather than allocating a specific number of variables, I figured it would be more versatile to resort to storing an array inside a game variable, like I did in the course of implementing my Wardrobe Manager - although it involves more trial and error since I have to access the contents of the variable using script calls. But it's working!
4) On the subject of clever implementations involving skills useful outside of battle (although these ones are directly related to battle), I've just completed another challenge. One of the foundational skills in my game is a skill called Hunt, which gives the player the ability to force a random encounter (provided one is possible on whatever tile the player is standing on). This may not sound like the funnest skill, but I intend for it to dovetail with my game's encounter system - I'm just not sure exactly how...yet. In any case, it can be used to save the ambitious player time and embarrassment walking around in circles, should they want to fight enemies to boost their characters' levels, or collect special item drops.
Anyway, I have a couple of other skills planned that are in that family, one of which is directly inspired by the Repel skill from Dragon Quest, which reduces the random encounter rate (in that game, primarily to avoid wasting time fighting enemies below your level). But the one I'm most excited about is the one I've just programmed, which is a "Bait" skill. In many Final Fantasys, there are certain rare enemy encounters - especially in late-game dungeons - that promise valuable rewards for the persistent adventurer. The prestige awarded by these encounters (going all the way back to WarMech, if not earlier) makes them alluring, but I've never been fond of having to play the odds.
To wit, the best player could walk up and down the bridge in Sky Castle, battle 60 troops of enemies, and not encounter WarMech once, all on account of bad luck. This might be justifiable in a multiplayer online game, where you have a sort of players' economy, but at a certain point you have to just throw your hands up and say, "come on, already!" That's why, although I think these encounters should still be earned (which is why the Bait skill will be a late-game acquisition), I think there should be a point where the game says, "ok, you've earned this." And that's where Bait comes in.
Bait works just like Hunt - by forcefully initiating a random encounter - but not before performing a tricky bit of code math. I already had to add in some new functions related to the game's back-end encounter variables for the Hunt skill, in order to determine when the Hunt skill should be able to be used. But for Bait, I went even further, by taking the list of applicable encounters on any given tile (as determined by the developer on the map properties) and reversing the probability "weights" of each troop, so that when you initiate the next encounter, the common enemies will become rare, and the rare enemies will become common. You'll have to excuse me if I think that's just brilliant! And it works! Hey, I'm pretty excited.
(Now, if I could just pick up the slack in the mapping department...)
Monday, January 2, 2017
On The Bright Side
You'll be pleased to hear that one of my New Year's resolutions is to get back into working on my RPG in earnest. I've been thinking about it a lot. The details of the final dungeon are beginning to form more clearly in my head (which is not to say that everything leading up to it is finished :-p), and it's one of the many things about my game that I'm very excited about. I've been studying some of the more sinister dungeons from Final Fantasy IV - namely the Towers of Zot and Bab-il - for inspiration (I love that the Tower of Bab-il is so tall, that not only does it connect the Underworld to the Overworld, but it actually consists of two major dungeons in the game - one going up from the bottom, and another coming down from the top!). FFVI may be my favorite Final Fantasy, but I've been drawing a lot of inspiration for my RPG from the games that preceded it; especially the first one (because it's always good to start with the basics), and the fourth - which has an appealing balance of simple mechanics and a good, dramatic storyline.
You know, when I started working with RPG Maker, I had thought that more people would be using the program as I assume it was primarily intended - to create Dragon Quest/Final Fantasy-style classic RPGs. I love those old games, and I regret that technology has pushed us forward into the 3-D, polygonal, massively multiplayer paradigm of modern RPGs. I'd rather Square release another SNES-era Final Fantasy - with a new story and characters (not one of those lame-o 3-D portable sequels) - than give us more of the innovation we've been getting since FFVII and onward, that increasingly pushes us away from that classic gameplay style. Now, if Square won't do it, I'd take an amateur substitution. Enter RPG Maker. But it seems to me that most serious developers (i.e., the ones who actually complete their games, and are any good) are interested in using the engine to develop unique gaming experiences (often not even in the RPG format, and with an original graphical style). I mean, in terms of creating original content, and building your brand and reputation as a game designer, this is the way to go. But what I really want to see is a fan community like, say, the one Doom has, which spends its time creating new content entirely in the style of the classics, for all the fans who liked the game just the way it was way back when, but would love to have new things to experience within that realm.
Ah well. If I ever finish my RPG (and I do hope I will), I'll be contributing to that at least. It's easy to get daunted by the task of single-handedly putting together a classic 2-D RPG, not to mention surmounting the many obstacles RPG Maker MV insists on throwing one's way. But I was surprised to remind myself of some of the things I've already accomplished. The Wardrobe Manager is pretty much complete, and working entirely as intended. It's a mainly superficial mod to the game - the ability to give your characters alternate outfits - but one that is nevertheless very important to me, because I think dressing your character up in alternate outfits (and picking the one you like best) is a lot of fun. I was having problems implementing it in VX Ace, if you recall, but I found a plugin for MV that basically single-handedly makes it possible, by using "placeholder" graphics that are replaced on the fly. It's ingenious! Of course, I still had to do a lot of work to get the manager running - including the clever usage of an in-game variable as a multidimensional array (accessed exclusively via script calls). But it's running!
I've done a little coding, too. Nothing on the level of last spring's Peep skill (which was a landmark for me), but in lieu of waiting for a plugin to be ported from VX Ace to MV, I found a far more complex alternative and reverse-engineered it to do just the thing I wanted it to do (which is allow for a conditional check before using items - so that, for example, the game won't let you use a Tent when you're not on the overworld map, or other designated spaces). I've also just completed a new modification to the encounter system, partially inspired by the Repel skill in the original Dragon Quest, which causes the random encounter rate to gradually reduce to zero as your characters level up to a point beyond the local average (determined by my usage of Region ID) - so that you're not constantly being hounded by weaklings (e.g., level 1 Slimes) that aren't even worth spending the time to squash under your boot. I'm still not 100% decided on all the details of how I want the encounter system in my game to run, but having this capability puts me one step closer to figuring it all out. :-)
You know, when I started working with RPG Maker, I had thought that more people would be using the program as I assume it was primarily intended - to create Dragon Quest/Final Fantasy-style classic RPGs. I love those old games, and I regret that technology has pushed us forward into the 3-D, polygonal, massively multiplayer paradigm of modern RPGs. I'd rather Square release another SNES-era Final Fantasy - with a new story and characters (not one of those lame-o 3-D portable sequels) - than give us more of the innovation we've been getting since FFVII and onward, that increasingly pushes us away from that classic gameplay style. Now, if Square won't do it, I'd take an amateur substitution. Enter RPG Maker. But it seems to me that most serious developers (i.e., the ones who actually complete their games, and are any good) are interested in using the engine to develop unique gaming experiences (often not even in the RPG format, and with an original graphical style). I mean, in terms of creating original content, and building your brand and reputation as a game designer, this is the way to go. But what I really want to see is a fan community like, say, the one Doom has, which spends its time creating new content entirely in the style of the classics, for all the fans who liked the game just the way it was way back when, but would love to have new things to experience within that realm.
Ah well. If I ever finish my RPG (and I do hope I will), I'll be contributing to that at least. It's easy to get daunted by the task of single-handedly putting together a classic 2-D RPG, not to mention surmounting the many obstacles RPG Maker MV insists on throwing one's way. But I was surprised to remind myself of some of the things I've already accomplished. The Wardrobe Manager is pretty much complete, and working entirely as intended. It's a mainly superficial mod to the game - the ability to give your characters alternate outfits - but one that is nevertheless very important to me, because I think dressing your character up in alternate outfits (and picking the one you like best) is a lot of fun. I was having problems implementing it in VX Ace, if you recall, but I found a plugin for MV that basically single-handedly makes it possible, by using "placeholder" graphics that are replaced on the fly. It's ingenious! Of course, I still had to do a lot of work to get the manager running - including the clever usage of an in-game variable as a multidimensional array (accessed exclusively via script calls). But it's running!
I've done a little coding, too. Nothing on the level of last spring's Peep skill (which was a landmark for me), but in lieu of waiting for a plugin to be ported from VX Ace to MV, I found a far more complex alternative and reverse-engineered it to do just the thing I wanted it to do (which is allow for a conditional check before using items - so that, for example, the game won't let you use a Tent when you're not on the overworld map, or other designated spaces). I've also just completed a new modification to the encounter system, partially inspired by the Repel skill in the original Dragon Quest, which causes the random encounter rate to gradually reduce to zero as your characters level up to a point beyond the local average (determined by my usage of Region ID) - so that you're not constantly being hounded by weaklings (e.g., level 1 Slimes) that aren't even worth spending the time to squash under your boot. I'm still not 100% decided on all the details of how I want the encounter system in my game to run, but having this capability puts me one step closer to figuring it all out. :-)
Sunday, August 9, 2015
Good News and Bad News
The bad news: After receiving some considerable (and long-anticipated) feedback, I've halted progress on polishing up Ascension, to take some time to consider what kind of significant changes I may want to make to it in the future. As such, I'm not going to have another release ready by the end of the summer like I had planned.
The good news: I've just got word that a new version of RPG Maker is due out later this year. Normally, I wouldn't be in a hurry to upgrade from a program I'm already familiar with, but this new version has some tantalizing features. In addition to a larger screen (and corresponding graphical resolution), it's designed to be multiplatform (so you can make games for both PC and Mac, in addition to mobile platforms). But most of all, it supports a sideview battle system, which has been one of the largest sticking points of the current RPG Maker program I've been using. Plus, it retains square character sprites (and not the tall, lanky ones of some previous versions of RPG Maker), which I prefer (because they remind me of the classic RPGs I love so much). So I might just have to switch to this newer program once it's released. Read more about it here: RPG Maker MV.
The good news: I've just got word that a new version of RPG Maker is due out later this year. Normally, I wouldn't be in a hurry to upgrade from a program I'm already familiar with, but this new version has some tantalizing features. In addition to a larger screen (and corresponding graphical resolution), it's designed to be multiplatform (so you can make games for both PC and Mac, in addition to mobile platforms). But most of all, it supports a sideview battle system, which has been one of the largest sticking points of the current RPG Maker program I've been using. Plus, it retains square character sprites (and not the tall, lanky ones of some previous versions of RPG Maker), which I prefer (because they remind me of the classic RPGs I love so much). So I might just have to switch to this newer program once it's released. Read more about it here: RPG Maker MV.
Friday, July 10, 2015
Summer Update
Lest anyone think I've given up on game developing (I haven't), here is an illuminating post to read (click me). Go ahead, I'll wait. The
moral? Game development is long and hard, and RPGs are a pretty complex
genre. And did I mention I'm working entirely alone, with a nonexistent
budget? But I'm really dedicated to bringing this game to life - it's my
baby - so sit tight. Until the game is finished (and I can't say how long that'll take, but I imagine it'll be measured in years), there'll always be something exciting waiting just on the next horizon.
If you've been following my progress at least as far back as last year, then the following account might sound familiar to you. As happened last year, the summer has got me spending more time outdoors away from my computer, so I've been working on my game less. And, like last year, I decided to take a break from the RPG and work on another project. I've returned my focus to Ascension, now available in beta form. There were some bits of it that I'd had it in the back of my mind to polish up after getting some feedback (mainly on the Labyrinth maze), so I'm going to take some time and do that this summer, and try to have it finished up for another release before Halloween. And unless I get some major feedback after that, I might consider that pretty much the final release, at least for the time being, so I can focus on other things (e.g., working on my RPG throughout next summer instead of taking another break from it).
So look forward to that. I also intend to play some more RPGs for inspiration, but I have a busy schedule, and developing ought to take precedence, so I can't say when I'm going to be able to find the time to do that. It's on my list, though.
If you've been following my progress at least as far back as last year, then the following account might sound familiar to you. As happened last year, the summer has got me spending more time outdoors away from my computer, so I've been working on my game less. And, like last year, I decided to take a break from the RPG and work on another project. I've returned my focus to Ascension, now available in beta form. There were some bits of it that I'd had it in the back of my mind to polish up after getting some feedback (mainly on the Labyrinth maze), so I'm going to take some time and do that this summer, and try to have it finished up for another release before Halloween. And unless I get some major feedback after that, I might consider that pretty much the final release, at least for the time being, so I can focus on other things (e.g., working on my RPG throughout next summer instead of taking another break from it).
So look forward to that. I also intend to play some more RPGs for inspiration, but I have a busy schedule, and developing ought to take precedence, so I can't say when I'm going to be able to find the time to do that. It's on my list, though.
Thursday, March 5, 2015
Progress Report
A quick update on some of the progress I've been making since we last spoke. I've been working on the game a ton - it almost feels like a new golden age, which is good, because there's still a lot of work to be done before it even nears completion.
Apart from the major scripting breakthrough I recently experienced, I've also been working on a mountain town this past month, after finishing up the snow town I mentioned last time. I'm really proud of the maps I've been coming up with for this project, so I hope people will like them. I'll tell you one thing, though, I am about sick to death of making mountain/hill maps, because the geological architecture is a real pain in the ass - getting all the levels to line up and look decent. I've gotta start working on some caves for a change, especially considering that I only have one cave dungeon so far in the game (don't worry, there are more coming). But the mountain area attached to this town has a pretty neat atmospheric effect that I'm really excited about (no spoilers!).
The other thing I just had to tell you about is that the other day, I discovered the extent to which you can customize animations (which are mainly used for battle skills, but can also be exploited in other ways). This is one of those "duh" moments, and you're probably going to tell me it was obvious from the start, because I did know there was an animation editor, but the significance of it didn't really dawn on me until I was looking at it recently. Maybe I was avoiding it because I don't feel that animation is my strong suit. But I dug into it a little bit, and, tedious though it is, I'm not totally helpless.
This is great, because it gives me more customization over my skills, which is important, since the magic spells I have planned are a really important aspect of my game, and the default animations that come with the game - while good - had a few holes that needed filling in. So I've been spending obscene amounts of time over the past several days modifying and adjusting animations to my needs. It's kind of mind-numbing at times, but the potential is honestly a bit thrilling. That's one more thing that's going to take a lot of work before my game is finished, but one more aspect that needed to be figured out that is beginning to fall into place!
Apart from the major scripting breakthrough I recently experienced, I've also been working on a mountain town this past month, after finishing up the snow town I mentioned last time. I'm really proud of the maps I've been coming up with for this project, so I hope people will like them. I'll tell you one thing, though, I am about sick to death of making mountain/hill maps, because the geological architecture is a real pain in the ass - getting all the levels to line up and look decent. I've gotta start working on some caves for a change, especially considering that I only have one cave dungeon so far in the game (don't worry, there are more coming). But the mountain area attached to this town has a pretty neat atmospheric effect that I'm really excited about (no spoilers!).
The other thing I just had to tell you about is that the other day, I discovered the extent to which you can customize animations (which are mainly used for battle skills, but can also be exploited in other ways). This is one of those "duh" moments, and you're probably going to tell me it was obvious from the start, because I did know there was an animation editor, but the significance of it didn't really dawn on me until I was looking at it recently. Maybe I was avoiding it because I don't feel that animation is my strong suit. But I dug into it a little bit, and, tedious though it is, I'm not totally helpless.
This is great, because it gives me more customization over my skills, which is important, since the magic spells I have planned are a really important aspect of my game, and the default animations that come with the game - while good - had a few holes that needed filling in. So I've been spending obscene amounts of time over the past several days modifying and adjusting animations to my needs. It's kind of mind-numbing at times, but the potential is honestly a bit thrilling. That's one more thing that's going to take a lot of work before my game is finished, but one more aspect that needed to be figured out that is beginning to fall into place!
Monday, February 2, 2015
Progress Report
Contrary to appearances, I've actually been working on my game a lot, especially in the last month or so. It's been about a year now since I started working on it, off and on. It'll probably take at least another year to complete, depending on how much I work on it. But I've gotten over the hump of where I was stumped before, when I took a break to create Ascension, and have a much better idea of how I want to fill in the details of the game between the major developments now.
I haven't been very vocal about the game, either here or elsewhere, and that's mostly due to the fact that I think people have gotten over the whole "how's the game coming along?" stage, and haven't been asking about it much. (In fact, I'm having trouble getting them to even play the game I finished, which isn't real encouraging...). I myself have gotten over the "I have to show you what I'm working on!" stage which I was totally feeling when I first started working on the game, and was so excited about what I was creating, and just wanted to share it with anyone and everyone.
And it's just as well, I guess. At this point, and since people aren't even really asking about it anymore, I figure I can just hunker down and work on it longterm by myself, with an eye to pushing forward and not wasting time trying to "polish" parts of it for public release (because if there's anything I'm obsessive about, it's image). I re-adapted all the beginning parts that were absent in my latest release, and pared down the playable characters, like I think I mentioned somewhere along the line, and have, excitingly, moved beyond into new and un-previously-charted territories.
I thought about putting out a release of the updated first act of the game, but the one thing that I stumbled on was the combat. Too many decisions about mechanics are still left undecided, and I don't want to start plugging in stats and shit when I don't know yet what the curve of the game is going to be, in terms of character, skill, and equipment growth, from beginning, to middle, to end. Honestly, I feel like I'd rather lay the game out first, and then go through and work out the combat bits. Of course maybe that hesitancy is also a symptom of me not feeling as confident (or enthusiastic) about making the action work as I am about designing maps and telling a story.
Anyway, I'm currently working on a snow town that fits in perfectly with the mood of the wintery weather we've been having lately. I can glance out my window as I'm sitting in front of my computer and see the snow swirling around through the sky. It's a perfect symbiosis. After that, I have a castle town to design, and some more dungeons leading up to your first big encounter with a dragon in the game. After that point, things quickly (but not too quickly) race forward toward the exciting climax to the game. That description undersells the amount of work that has to be done yet, but I like to keep the ultimate goal in mind!
I haven't been very vocal about the game, either here or elsewhere, and that's mostly due to the fact that I think people have gotten over the whole "how's the game coming along?" stage, and haven't been asking about it much. (In fact, I'm having trouble getting them to even play the game I finished, which isn't real encouraging...). I myself have gotten over the "I have to show you what I'm working on!" stage which I was totally feeling when I first started working on the game, and was so excited about what I was creating, and just wanted to share it with anyone and everyone.
And it's just as well, I guess. At this point, and since people aren't even really asking about it anymore, I figure I can just hunker down and work on it longterm by myself, with an eye to pushing forward and not wasting time trying to "polish" parts of it for public release (because if there's anything I'm obsessive about, it's image). I re-adapted all the beginning parts that were absent in my latest release, and pared down the playable characters, like I think I mentioned somewhere along the line, and have, excitingly, moved beyond into new and un-previously-charted territories.
I thought about putting out a release of the updated first act of the game, but the one thing that I stumbled on was the combat. Too many decisions about mechanics are still left undecided, and I don't want to start plugging in stats and shit when I don't know yet what the curve of the game is going to be, in terms of character, skill, and equipment growth, from beginning, to middle, to end. Honestly, I feel like I'd rather lay the game out first, and then go through and work out the combat bits. Of course maybe that hesitancy is also a symptom of me not feeling as confident (or enthusiastic) about making the action work as I am about designing maps and telling a story.
Anyway, I'm currently working on a snow town that fits in perfectly with the mood of the wintery weather we've been having lately. I can glance out my window as I'm sitting in front of my computer and see the snow swirling around through the sky. It's a perfect symbiosis. After that, I have a castle town to design, and some more dungeons leading up to your first big encounter with a dragon in the game. After that point, things quickly (but not too quickly) race forward toward the exciting climax to the game. That description undersells the amount of work that has to be done yet, but I like to keep the ultimate goal in mind!
Friday, October 3, 2014
Progress Report
I'm still awaiting feedback from my testers on the "final" version of Ascension, but in the meantime, I've had an opportunity to take a little break from developing. Even so, I've already started turning my mind back towards my Dragonfaith project, and resumed working on it with a renewed vigor. However, I've decided to kind of start back from sort-of-scratch, and rebuild the project up from the beginning, while scaling back a few things. I just feel like maybe there's too much complexity right in the beginning of the game, and it's gotten to a level where it can intimidate me way too early in the development process.
Some of the things I'm working on changing is tightening up some of the maps, to get rid of empty space, in an effort to maintain focus; rethinking the approach in dialogue; and opting for more player freedom rather than a rigidly plot-driven vehicle. I've also decided that maybe controlling a party of three characters right at the start of the game is maybe too much too soon - starting with a single character and then building up later on will make it easier both for the player to adapt to the combat in the game, as well as for me to start configuring the battle specs early on. (This approach was partly inspired by the simplicity of the first Dragon Quest/Warrior game, with which the front-view RPG Maker combat system resembles more closely than the side-view Final Fantasy system).
As much as I'd love to make a complex and character-driven story like Final Fantasys IV-VI, the fact is, RPGs are tough to design, and this is my very first one. So I don't want to burden myself with too many expectations right from the start. One of the tips I'd read in a guide on creating your first RPG is not to start with your dream project - to save it for when you actually know what you're doing. I didn't agree with it then, and I still don't agree with it completely, as I think the motivation to bring your dream project to life could be just the thing you need to actually push yourself through to the end instead of giving up halfway through (which is where I'd wager 95% of projects wind up - I've never wanted to be that guy). But there is some wisdom in that view, and certainly I've looked at my Ascension project partly as an opportunity to gain more experience before tackling Dragonfaith again.
Of course, Ascension wasn't just a detour - it was yet another dream project that I'd been wanting to bring to life, and I am immensely satisfied with what I've managed to come up with. Turning back towards Dragonfaith now, I think it's more important that I can piece this together into an actual, complete game that acts as a vehicle to tell the story I want to tell, than to get too bogged down with making comparisons to professional games I couldn't hope to equal (even if I did have the talent/experience, those games still require collaboration with many people to create). In the long-run, if this becomes something I enjoy and have the talent to do, I don't expect there will be any shortage of creative ideas bubbling around in my head, and it's not like primitive games haven't ever been redone to fulfill their true potential with later experience/technology (see: Metal Gear Solid).
Some of the things I'm working on changing is tightening up some of the maps, to get rid of empty space, in an effort to maintain focus; rethinking the approach in dialogue; and opting for more player freedom rather than a rigidly plot-driven vehicle. I've also decided that maybe controlling a party of three characters right at the start of the game is maybe too much too soon - starting with a single character and then building up later on will make it easier both for the player to adapt to the combat in the game, as well as for me to start configuring the battle specs early on. (This approach was partly inspired by the simplicity of the first Dragon Quest/Warrior game, with which the front-view RPG Maker combat system resembles more closely than the side-view Final Fantasy system).
As much as I'd love to make a complex and character-driven story like Final Fantasys IV-VI, the fact is, RPGs are tough to design, and this is my very first one. So I don't want to burden myself with too many expectations right from the start. One of the tips I'd read in a guide on creating your first RPG is not to start with your dream project - to save it for when you actually know what you're doing. I didn't agree with it then, and I still don't agree with it completely, as I think the motivation to bring your dream project to life could be just the thing you need to actually push yourself through to the end instead of giving up halfway through (which is where I'd wager 95% of projects wind up - I've never wanted to be that guy). But there is some wisdom in that view, and certainly I've looked at my Ascension project partly as an opportunity to gain more experience before tackling Dragonfaith again.
Of course, Ascension wasn't just a detour - it was yet another dream project that I'd been wanting to bring to life, and I am immensely satisfied with what I've managed to come up with. Turning back towards Dragonfaith now, I think it's more important that I can piece this together into an actual, complete game that acts as a vehicle to tell the story I want to tell, than to get too bogged down with making comparisons to professional games I couldn't hope to equal (even if I did have the talent/experience, those games still require collaboration with many people to create). In the long-run, if this becomes something I enjoy and have the talent to do, I don't expect there will be any shortage of creative ideas bubbling around in my head, and it's not like primitive games haven't ever been redone to fulfill their true potential with later experience/technology (see: Metal Gear Solid).
Friday, September 5, 2014
Progress Report
I have to apologize. I really wanted to get the next release out before this weekend (I'm going away, and won't be able to work on the game for several days), but it's just not going to happen. So you'll have to be a little bit more patient. Everything is pretty much finished (although I still need to go through the game and make sure everything works and there are no last minute tweaks), except the Labyrinth stage which I am still working on.
I swear, this stage is turning out to be the bane of this project. It's not to a point where I just want to give up yet - I think there is potential here for a really great stage. But there are just so many options, and wrapping my head around these mazes (to a sufficient degree of mastery as to predict how the player will experience them), while also trying to design unique challenges to disorient the player and ramp up the difficulty of solving the maze, while introducing a certain level of randomness...it boggles the mind. And every time I think I've got a good maze design to work on, I have to spend several hours building it in the map editor - so far only to ultimately decide that it's not good enough. :-\
It's pretty frustrating. But I'm still plugging away at it. Give me another week, and I'll see what I can come up with.
I swear, this stage is turning out to be the bane of this project. It's not to a point where I just want to give up yet - I think there is potential here for a really great stage. But there are just so many options, and wrapping my head around these mazes (to a sufficient degree of mastery as to predict how the player will experience them), while also trying to design unique challenges to disorient the player and ramp up the difficulty of solving the maze, while introducing a certain level of randomness...it boggles the mind. And every time I think I've got a good maze design to work on, I have to spend several hours building it in the map editor - so far only to ultimately decide that it's not good enough. :-\
(maze analysis)
It's pretty frustrating. But I'm still plugging away at it. Give me another week, and I'll see what I can come up with.
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