December Goals and Progress Thread

I released an improved version of Mrs.Santa's gift hunt to Itch.Io

https://tuomol.itch.io/mrssantas-gift-hunt

I might actually restart one of my old school final fantasy like games.
I always keep a half dozen half baked ones floating around.
No frills, just old fashioned four heroes go on adventure. Classic fantasy. I'm all horror-ed out for the moment, so no work on our horror game for a while.

Progress update:

• non-game-related: I managed to finish aforementioned painting (mostly thanks to @hiddenone cheering me on)! I was close to giving up at one point but pulled through and it's been a great boost to my confidence in getting things done
• wanted to just revise what I'd already done for Ned Can't Get A Break but ended up sketching and re-sketching the map layout instead. Also figured out easier ways to do things that I'd planned. While I'll probably forego some of the one map challenge restrictions just so I won't be driven mad by trying to fix things later down the line, I'm still trying to keep as many restrictions as possible to get it done at all. One example of simplified things: since everything happens in Ned's flat, I wanted to have it all on one map, like, all at once. Then I thought it'd be easier if the visibility was restricted so the player can only see the room they're in. I think my original plan was a ton of picture overlays blotting out all the other rooms and it was very complicated. Yesterday I realized I can achieve the same thing by just having a big map with the rooms spaced out without wasting any pictures or events

I just hope I can completely finish working on facesets and sprites this month. Nothing else.

Completed:
- Rolled out additional fixes for Stitched
- Made progress on writing stories for second project
- Brainstormed game mechanics
- Getting a team together

Todo:
- Wrapping up finalizing story for second project
- Start to look into artists and composers
- Bring in more team members
- Write up blogs regarding Stitched's art direction to share with everyone

Well, finally got my save/load system looking the way I want it to other then it's still requiring a lot of if conditions in the event. Still, it gives me the game chapter now as part of the title.
Didn't much feel like doing anything major today so played around with the change in sprite style. Need to tweak him somewhat but I liked the way Koi turned out. So 3 down and... a whole village to go. Although I'm mildly tempted to try drawing a bunch of them like my Astor battler but I don't know if I have the patience for that right now. Probably not going to work on anything major for the game in the next few weeks and more just things I think are fun.

Also probably going to put what I have of Starshard on itch.io and maybe Verloren but eh, feeling kinda lethargic today.

I wanted to take a short break from In League With The Devil (my IGMC submission), but I got bored of doing nothing and wanted to at least test things out since I added a bunch of stuff that I didn't have time to test before I submitted the game and... man am I embarrassed of my many many mistakes. I screwed up a couple of the enemy events I have wandering around so that they don't show up at all. XD I also messed up the level up common event for the fire skill, so it doesn't display the correct text or give the player the option to select a new skill. So I fixed those things. I also added some state effects to skills, including a thorns effect. I'm going to play around with Yanfly's plugin for states because I think there's probably a lot of weird things I could come up with to do with it. Oh I also made a burning state. So I guess I'm back to working on this game. I have so many games sitting around, waiting to be worked on. XD

@mobiusclimber : My life! I technically have 4 projects at the moment, though 2 of them are just proof of concept dabbles that I do when I need a break from the others. They don't even have a story yet though!

December Update so far:
-Added a few more weapons to the database for the next game. Hoping soon to get enough extended time that I can work on The Book of Shadows, but at least I can database the next one in those little 20 - 30 minute breaks as its all transfer from paper to game (just repetitive more than anything).

Wow, so many great goals everyone.

My goal is a tad bit different: I need to decide to release a game or not. In Belgium and the Netherlands, the Sinterklaas and Piet tradition is upon us. I've made a game about the characters, portrayed like the old days, when only happiness was involved. But because of a few minority protest groups who politisized Piet and want to completely remove him, I'm hesitant to even upload the game in fear of controversy and/or backlash. I've remade the game so many times and I still have that fear.:kaocry:

Progress Update:

• did the revision of what I had so far, took some notes and found a few more overcomplicated things that I subsequently simplified and/or cut. Surprisingly, the narrative didn't need much pruning (yet)
  
• had an idea for the menu: I'll be using the normal Inventory for physical things, and the Skill menu as a representation of Ned's phone. I'll use a simple Questlog to stand in for his mental notes (...only more organized than the real thing). Also, to give super busy players a chance to remember what they were doing
  
• made a flow chart of the whole narrative. While it's a mostly linear game, there's a few times when the player can choose not to do things right away, and having a visual overview of those times is pretty useful

What I want to do today: Finally update MV and start from a clean project, the old one had become a little cluttered.

Ok, I'm gonna have to chang my december goal to learning how to properly do a database!

I cleaned up the other animations a bit, and added some new ones :rswt

My goal this month : survive the holidays and get some art (cough) done and spend as much time as I can on the projects I am helping out with :)

Progress Update: (Dec 5th)

• as was my goal, I finally updated MV
• then, I wanted to start a new project in MV, which I did. And as it turned out, the cluttered project I remembered actually wasn't one for this game, but just a 'test things' map in another project, oops. Well. Now I have a clean game project, added the plugins I'll potentially be using and adjusted some parameters

I'd like to do some more prep work inside the project today, some basic setting up of the database, the like. Thankfully, as there is no combat, nor equipment, I'll be saving so much headach- I mean, time.

Edit: Was a quiet day, huh?
Progress Update: (Dec 6th)

• did some basic setting up of the database
• wanted to set up the menu with the help of Yanfly's plugins. While I love those for their utility, my inner art director was nearly driven mad by their visual inconsistency. I was very close to just starting to event everything

I have to look for something that gives me more control over what menus look like that is visually consistent, and that includes a questlog. If I don't find anything, I guess I do have to event everything. Thankfully, that's fun to me. And I have this old evented party selection menu lying around I can reference for how I did... everything.

Well, the most important thing for me this month has actually been getting back to my game and making progress again after a very long time of either being too busy or too caught up in other projects. But I have actually managed to get a decent chunk done:

* Replaced the movement restriction script I was using with one that's much better for my purposes, and worked out how to implement flying enemies exactly as I had them in mind;
* Finished building the first shop and databasing everything you can buy there;
* Built and tested the first dungon, including databasing and balancing five new monsters, replacing my damage formula with a completely different one, and designing the first boss.

I think that's a good place to leave things for a while and give some time for other projects before coming back to this :)

Since I finished my theater place in time, now I only need to do the sprites. As 64 pixel sprites that use the proportions of the battler, so that I can use battler Poses within a normal cut scene. Since zooming the sprites bigger doesn't work on several levels (blurring, Head to Body ratio etc.), I have to redraw them in style. As a bonus, this task has made me quicker and more comfortable; future sprites may thus have more elaborate clothing then the ones I have made before.

Also, I will try to finish writing a book for my niece. Hopefully. If people stop annoying me with work during my night shifts.

Got to go into work late today, so got some game dev done for a change!

-Managed to finish the weapons in the Database for the next game. We've got all our weapons and all our armors now. And we even have a new weapon type that wasn't in The Book of Shadows too!

Progress Update:

• started looking for the alternatives I mentioned on my last update but lost my patience like five minutes in
• decided to go for an evented menu after all and started planning and sketching
• went through several iterations of potential layouts, but nothing stuck so far. UI design is hard, how to combine visual consistency with decent UX and make it fit the game? x,x

Gonna need to do some research on that, probably. Unless I get sidetracked.

Ok. So I’m in the process of messing with the database and figuring stuff out. I’m going to make a little test game so I can make a few dungeons with various different enemies to try and make battles more interest and test out my database skills.

So far I’ve read yanflys comic on game making and have cleared my who database bar the states, attack and guard, so I can start completely from scratch and force myself to learn!

I’m also leaning heavily on my dungeons and dragons books, to help me figure out how I should work out enemy difficulty and actor info.

So hopefully this will work out for me. Lol

https://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/inde...ve-their-own-thread.84764/page-30#post-922750

So right now waffling between starting on making MonLife monsters and how I want to do the Map style. Or doing Protagonist High (the later one would be a lot less artistic work on my part (since most of the stuff is already available in RPG Maker), but don't know if it'd be as fun for others to play as MonLife).

Still it's great to be back.