December Goals & Progress Thread

I plan to try to finish my XP game and make it my first completed one. I have to compose some music for it, so I'll see how much time that takes.

- Get one or two battle systems done


- Make the first animated cut scene


Both of which are going to take ridiculous amounts of time, especially since I need to do voice acting for all of it. The battle systems, even though I think I've figured out what I'm doing, that's going to be fun to try to event.  :distrust:  And I don't know enough of Ruby to script them either. As far as the cut scenes, I've never made a fully animated video before (only a video with a whole bunch of quick gifs in it. So, let's see how that goes. 

Have you checked to see if there are any scripts that can help you at least get closer to your goal for the battles?

Let's see... we got the preliminary work of the story concepts and class designs done last month.  We can be more ambitious in the coming month, as grad school classes will be effectively over on the 9th and won't resume until mid/late January.  

• Finish filling in the world map
  
• Refine our story concepts and finalize the sequence of job acquisition
  
• Connect sprites to classes
  
• Do as much as we can implementing the skills for each of the jobs available in the prologue of the game.
  

Ah, I'm still trying to finish my Halloween project  ;_;  So no festive stuff. Will be on the lookout for ones to play though! So get them out if you are working on one and face Vox's judgement!  :stare:


One goal this month I'm setting to complete. Finish my game! Actually, I'll have it done by the end of the week, or at least ready for playtesting; will be on the lookout for some testers later. After that, play some of the titles I got from the steam sale and maybe work on some tiles I started for when I move on to mv.

I won NaNoWriMo! Woo! Now gotta take some rest. :)


December goals:


-Participate in IbN 2


Optional goals:


-Make some cutscenes

Focus on the re-release of Chapter 1 for my RPG.


-Bug Squashing


-Boss Animation Spriting


-Cinematic Paintings (Need like 10 of these T_T)


-Cinematic Eventing and Renewed Story Dialogue


-Menu Image Paintings (Like 8 of these)


Others:


-Database Refinement


-Skill System


I essentially also decided not to use the Ancient Dungeons tilesets, at least not for my villages. I might just use it for cities in seperate chapters. I know I'll be mixing styles, but eh, it has the atmosphere I need for certain areas, but it is lacking in other areas, such as interior variation and I really don't feel like redoing my maps to fit this newer tileset. The game is more linear and seperated by chapters, so perhaps the tileset swaps will be less noticeable.

@mlogan I have, but the thing is, I can't really figure out how to manipulate them so that they're the way I want. See, I want it a bit like Galv's actor duel mini game, but a little more civilized. It looks a bit more like one of those mash-the-A-button-with-your-eyes-squeezed-shut-and-hope-that-you-get-more-hits-than-the-other-person type of game (or maybe it's just because I don't understand the controls.). I'm aiming for more of a medieval duel. Almost like, something where you pick your move set and then it tells you what buttons to mash.


For another, I've already started, but it was taking a really long time, plus it required me to have actual proper sprites. That one was a bit like a TB, but with little quick mini game type of things that build your MP. Actually not that hard, I just took a break from it because I needed to make some progress in my actual game, not just testing this thing out in my side project. 

December is going to be interesting for me. I *have* to finish the book I've been working on by the end of that month, so we can get it printed in time for next term. Earlier would be better (for obvious reasons). Plus, I rolled jury duty over the holidays. Fun fun.


So for that reason I'm not going to set goals this month, as December looks like a wash for me. I'll try to still work on the game a little each day and will post what I'm doing, but there will not be an official goal.

This December, I'm hoping to:
- Finish the male version of my face generator redesign (It's roughly 1/3 of the way done atm). 
- Finish the TileB recreation for my project. 

I decided to put off working on generator parts until I go on winter break, since I like being able to work on drawing projects all at once rather than sporadically. I just started working on my TileB sheet yesterday, but I think it's going okay so far:




Good luck with your goals, everyone! :)  

What with Christmas, and all the RL stuff that goes with it, I expect to be only sporadic.  So modest goals, that way I can still feel that I've achieved something.

• Complete mapping for the current section
  
• Do skills etc for the boss fight at the end.
  
• Do a couple of short cut scenes to round this section off.
  

And here come the goals. Since there will be a few vacation days at the end of the month, things should get smoother. Hence, my goals :


- Finish mission XVII.


- Add a new explorable area in the Death Realm.


- Start working on mission XVIII if possible.


Things are calming down on Wow and Pokemon, so I should have a bit more time now :) .

@MarsigneCongrats!


Well... I think I will have a long time fun(?) to animate a $Big_Monster Dragon2 biting...  I dunno if it will spill in January...  Maybe animate the tailwhip too!

Looks like I might focus on working on my project outside RPG Maker this month. 

• Write down the plot of the introduction and Chapter 1 of the game - Since I realized last month that I hadn't been thorough enough with my world-building and plotting, I will finally try to reserve some time for creative writing and jot down at least the main plot points (and possible branches) for chapter one. I am fairly satisfied with the introduction, but it might be good to write its contents down as well so I can mentally process the purpose of the events and characters' reactions.
  
• Plan/revamp skills, items and states (and possibly enemies) - Currently, each character has 14 skills, but they lack in-game formulas and action sequences. Items and states shouldn't be too much trouble (because I might not make more than e.g. 2 or 3 HP potion equivalents and because states are strongly tied to skills anyway).
  
• Make a title screen - It will/would be awkward to ask people to test a game which doesn't even have a proper title screen. I have a couple of ideas; I just need to consider which one works best and then draw it.
  

As for festive game dev plans, uh... I might try to draw my main characters decorating a Christmas tree or something silly like that? Nothing too big, in any case: I don't trust in my skills to finish anything grander before the season is over, heh.

Finalizing the design of my battle UI....

None of the actors' HP/MP will be displayed on the bottom. That's where all the skills are and will be displayed at all times.
I'll have their bars located underneath or above them since I'm using sideview.
I'm simplifying MP as some sort of point system that's easy and quick to look at so you can focus on other aspects of the battle easily.
Kinda like - - - - -  mini bars! But more full looking. Either going with 5 or 10 and that's what you're gonna have for the entirety of the game.
But to use this system for HP too? Now that's gonna be a tough one.

Oh my! So many posts already...


@mlogan love the header.


How is it going to work?


You got a new spell last month?


Woooo congratulations!


@bgillisp Don't run away! I would miss your tips.


Now that sounds g@y, hope you're a girl '-'


If you're not... eh, I'll send flowers (joking [:)


@Amysaurus Your portrait is too cute to be true :x


What's that about?


My goals:

• Fix the danm bug in my hud plugin (it screws the save file when saving and there's a head bubble being shown)
  
• Finish testing/balancing
  
• Start a game topic
  
• Publish the demo
  
• Play the hell out of Final Fantasy XV \o/ (this is my gift for working... yeah, like a kid)
  

This. Though I admit I didn't buy Pokemon this time D: But yeah...


About my goals: Finish the BETA of the "short" modern horror/mystery project I've been working on for the past few months now. I really like the direction it's taking.

Ok, it's done.


Demo tested and ready to be published.


Guess I'll have the month free hahaha.


Time to start a topic :D

@Vox Novus In my experience, play testing usually reveals at least another month's work.  Because other people come at the game with strategies that perhaps you never thought of, or overlook what you think is dead obvious, or simply never catch on to the sneaky way of dealing with the Boss, they will discover bugs you didn't imagine in your worst nightmare.  But that's okay, that why we have testers.


@Marsigne Congratulations! I'm pleased that all your hard work paid off.  That event you're going to join looks interesting.  Good luck with it.


@EliteZeon Re-release?  It will be interesting to see the differences between that early version and this one.  Cities often look very different, and in the case of contrast with villages they need to look different, so I don't think there would be any problem with a different tile set.


@HexMozart88 I too found Galv's mini-dual a bit too button mashing.  Are you scripting your version or using events only?


@bgillisp Book completion and jury service - that could be a tough combination.  Hope it all works out well.


@Amysaurus For just one day's work that's a significant number of tiles done.  If you're going to be able to keep up that work rate you'll be finished well ahead of schedule.


@Schlangan So WoW and Pokemon out of the way - I take it then that you're not going to get sucked in to the FFXV time sink?  


@Marquise* What the RM world needs right now is a biting dragon, so get stuck in!


@Punamaagi I wouldn't worry too much about not having a title screen for your testers - that's not what they are testing!  And I think most testers are used to seeing placeholder graphics.  If you want to make it really explicit, why not have a very simple image with just the name and something like "final graphic not yet in place" in middling size font.  Your testers will see that and just move on.


@Rayhaku808 Can I just check because I'm not sure that I've understood your post properly.  Is that 5-10 MP for the whole game, or something else?


@Lantiz Congrats on getting the demo out.  We assume then that you managed to squash the HUD bug.  err, I wouldn't count on having December free - with luck you'll be getting feedback on the demo which you might want to work on.


My update.


Mapping and more mapping.  I think it's going to be that for some time.  Here's where I'm up to with the first map after our heroes get out of the tunnel/caves that they were in during November.  Not completed yet, but what the heck, I'll post it anyway.  It looks a bit dark because the mapshot has got the little bit of screen tint, but can't include the sun rays overlay which changes it a lot.




As you can see, I found another use for the water-cascading-into-a-hole graphic.  After all, the water in that waterfall in the cave has to come from somewhere, so there's the stream which feeds it.


As well as the exit marked with the dirt path, there are 2 other exits off this map leading to maps which in their turn have other maps.  I have to be very careful how I organize my map tree so that I can find things quickly and easily.


EDIT


In case you're wondering about the chest on an apparently inaccessible ledge, one character can get to it if you picked a particular class.