Game Making Drive Feb 2014

What I do today:

- Installing WASD keys as movement direction

- Trying to get cursor scroll to work. .-.

Day 10
Made a cart for my lovely mine tracks!  I don't know enough about the program to test it out or set it up on a 8 direction sheet but the most important part, the artwork, is all done!
After that I totally gave in and made a bunch of mix and match scifi floor tiles. Those don't count.

Day 16

Didn't get too much time today as real life is trying to wrestle my time away, but it works out since I am taking a graphical break for the day and it's been a while since I've seen the person I'll be meeting. Anyway:

* Worked on the default scripts that come with Ace to change a few things:

- The title screen now allows the player to select "Tutorial" which allows them to learn about the inner workings of the gameplay in better depth than a quick rundown ingame would.

- Changed the way TP is gained + the amount from being damaged and such.

- Made the run/walk speed faster so running around actually looks like running. (will make running poses)

- Modified MaxTP/TP Bar.

I ended up having to overhaul TP since it's the way tech skills are used, and I didn't want it to be randomized like the default, or unable to use skills if it's always at 0/so easy to max out. I'll be continuing to brainstorm how I can make my battles more fun and dynamic for the player to experience.

What I learned today: I am getting slightly better at understanding scripting since I've been looking through the default scripts all day. Slightly.

Entry #7

For the first time, I have no pictures to show for my update. There are two rooms I'm working on that are slowly but surely killing me. I've been trying to map them out for a few days now but I just can't do it. I mentioned in a few of my posts that the character at the start of the game is going through the castle, traversing from one end to another. That gives me the dilemma of going from left to right across the screen since, ya know, that's where he's going. The other side of the castle is right to left, haha. I made a room go up to give a little more variety but I'm struggling with it hardcore. I have so many copies on the map in the maker trying to find the one I can work with the most. It's not really going too well so far.

I brain stormed on a battle system. I like basic ATB with a charge bar. Most people get and understand that. Easy to input, easy to teach. It's not very unique though and when I hear people talk about battle systems, the general consensus is the battle system should be understandable, engaging, interesting and creative. I thought about trying a Chrono Cross type battle system, not an exact carbon copy of course but I like their stamina theme and how even magic users run up and whack people with sticks, not just hand to hand people. Would be pretty difficult to implement though...Another problem I foresee myself having is there are few magic users in the party, at most 3. Balancing classes and enemies, something I've never touched as of yet, is going to be a bumpy road. But I need a battle system first!

That's all I got today.

Day #3(in my book, and I haven't been recording the days, whoops!)

Today has kind of..been all over the place, though in small portions. First I edited Actor 1-6's portrait, and also recolored her sprite(the clothing doesn't really match up much though). Then, I edited/recolored a few icons. And, lastly I worked(and still am)on my character's skill sets. These take awhile, since I don't want them to be simply attacks or anything; I want each character to be useful in various ways.

There're seven other characters that I have done, but..they're simply recolors, w/o edits, so there'd be not much of a reason to show 'em. While I say that, the only real thing I edited was removing her circlet, so.. :x

GMD Day 16 - February 19, 2014

Not a very productive day today since I had some IRL stuff come up, but I managed to flesh out some NPC dialogue and worked on writing and balancing some skills' formulas.

Day 16



No, I didn't miss a day. Our whole town had a power outage around 9pm (not long before I was to report) that lasted through the night, so I didn't get a chance to report. :/

Anyway, I played more games with the intent to judge. Some of them are pretty good so far while others... make me wince in pain. I've been writing out a list of notes, here's some bits that I don't mind sharing:

- Random encounters and on-map encounters on the same bloody map. Why?

- Sudden music spike out of no-where?

- Can CTRL my way through walls and cheat... but not playing in test???

- No tutorials so never really figured out what x system did...

- Boss music on some random enemies

- No skills!!! Especially for someone who, in-game, is supposed to be ex-military.

- Still no skills! Level 6... >.<

- Graphics that make me wanna go boom boom shakalaka boom-diggity~<3

I think you get the idea. XP

Also helped a friend with installing their version of Ace. Which didn't take long since it's pretty intuitive but hey, still helped~

I'll post today's some time tonight.

Day 12
(at least for me since I only do workdays)
 

 
Go, Team Red!

Today I worked on the river again. *sigh* But at least I managed to complete frame 2 and hopefully I can finish this tomorrow with frame 3. I also started to edit some water plants to decorate the river. Mostly water lilies and reed.

@Ksi - I only have one question - is boom boom shakalaka boom-diggity a good thing or a bad thing?!

@Pern - I know that no-screenshot feel, bro ;n;

@Sharm - Can you send me maybe one thousandth of your pixel-art skills? One ten-thousandth even. 

February 20, 2014





Been experimenting more on how to do the maps for my new project. You can view the pictures here: http://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/index.php?/topic/20006-game-map-screenshots-4/page-59#entry228847

Wednesday - Entry 3:

Today I played dodge ball with bean bag chairs (it was supposed to be a big game of tic-tac-toe). In game making news I wrote a lot of stuff, none of which I can share (because spoilers you know?). I also set up tilesets and mapped.

Day 15: Slight eventing. day mostly occupied by technician installing optic fiber cable for net and family stuff.

Game Making Drive, Day 14, February 19th

Went back and revised a lot of dialogue for one of the main characters in game to be a little less sexist (said character is a sexist, but I realized while playtesting that I was going to far with it when said character infuriated me, his creator, with every statement he made in that vein of thought. So I made it less offensive without losing the fact that he is, actually sexist.)

   Other than that it's just been a lot of mapping (dreaded enemy of progress for me) and trying my hardest to remember everything that Ksi, Luchino, Indrah and various others have ever shared on the subject as I go along. 

Boom boom shakalaka boom-diggity is a very good thing~<3

Today I've been working on another piano based commission (I've been doing alot of Piano pieces, recently :D ) 

Also started on a battle track for another commission. :)  

Day #7 ~For Rainy Days~

Hardly any work done today, was out at work for a good chunk of today.
◆ Writing
* The games story and setting are loosely designed in a similar fashion to SaGa Frontier, with each of the characters journeying for their own reasons.

* There is no super villain or evil chaotic god that's being resurrected that the game focuses on, instead the story revolves around whatever the player chooses to focus on.

** On a side note, while there isn't a focus on them, they do indeed exist in the game.

* With that said, the player can forgo their selected characters scenario altogether.

* I'll probably try to have at least 22 Scenarios/Quest (outside of the unique ones for main characters) for the finished project. Of course this doesn't include junk quest like fetching items and stuff.

◆ Gameplay/Planning
* Much of the gameplay mechanics will resemble the SaGa series to an extent.

** The BP Mechanics from Minstrels Song has already been implemented.

** Weapons will eventually have durability associated with them.

** LP is still pretty far down there from being implemented

** Trying to code the skill glimmering mechanic as I type this.

** Trying to create a less annoying stat growth mechanic.

* The game world for the most part, will be completely open, limited only by the players own choices.

* There will be eight selectable main characters, with numerous allies that can be recruited. (This obviously requires a lot of work on my end.)
◆ Other

* From here on out I plan on adding a profile for one of the characters with each update as well as some descriptive details about the area they're in. (wish me luck... OTL)

Day 16

I feel like I'm lagging here, unfortunately.

*Edited some maps, worked on a new one.

*Wrote some more for the prologue, and then rewrote, ugh.

Alright, the dialogue for the sidequest has been put into the game, and I like It so far.


Tomorrow I need to fix errors, some of I have no idea how to, but I'll figure out a way


Really not much to write home about

While touching up the first town and starting on the nearby dungeon, l realized there are some questions regarding the background story of the world and certain key figures that I should answer.  If not actually in the game itself, just for myself so I know where to take things or write up some later parts of the dialogue.  With an approaching storm, I did more jotting down of notes which I will have to transfer later, so I don't risk losing them if the power goes out suddenly.  Made some definite progress which should help me in the long run!

Today I did some events I edited a map and started working on a forest map. Then I got caught up in looking at Victor battle engine a little for the first time and started getting it ready to use in my current project. Have some adjustments to make but so far so good on the battlers.