Jump to content
Sign in to follow this  
Followers 0
  • entries
    6
  • comments
    12
  • views
    5,649

About this blog

More or less a blog to post things about progress on my game(s)

Entries in this blog

 

RPG Maker MV ate my day

I unintentionally spent 8hrs today just playing around with the base RPG Maker MV software. So much for getting any work on my current project done.   I won't be porting my current project to MV as it would simply be too much that would need to be thrown away in the process and I'm still very much interested in playing around with ruby scripting.   I am a little surprised at how limited the generator parts are compared to the amount of parts that came with the ACE generator. Color options are still limited (what happened to the dark brown hair color?) although probably more than we got with ACE. Some pieces I liked to use from ACE like the eye patches and tattoos are not included and for whatever reason they decided that females can't use the goggle accessory. Why do accessories need to be gender specific anyway? Not one gender neutral accessory to be had. It's also not as straight forward as it used to be in ACE to move parts around. Not hard, just a few more moving parts to be concerned with and I also found out that the moved pieces aren't picked up by the software until you exit the program and reopen it. I believe that in ACE, if you just closed the generator window and reopened it, it would pick up on any changes.   Anyway, those are just minor nitpicks I have. Overall, I do like the improvements like built in side view battle and animated battlers. We actually get damaged sprites, something I'm sorely in need of right now for my current ACE project. We can finally use the mouse to click on things (yeah). The more detailed sprites are just lovely. A lot of things are the same as they've ever been, like event creation. Mapping in the editor is for the most part nothing new. Region IDs are now a layer maybe some other things changed but I didn't mess around with the mapping too much.   I haven't added any plugins yet as I want to play with the base software and see what it does by default before I start changing it. I'm not a big believer in throwing in changes just because they're available. I like to add only what I need to make my game. Since I won't be making a game with MV in the near future I probably won't be too concerned with how the plugins work. On the up side, by the time I get around to it, maybe there will be a lot more useful plugins available and just more resources in general.   I've got a lot more to play around in but for the time being I shall return to my ACE project because I've got a ways to go before that puppy is done but new games will definitely get a turn in MV.
Blithe

Blithe

0
 

Soul Forge: Initial Mapping Attempts

I will not be attempting any parallax mapping for this first game I'm working on. Although I love the look of parallax maps, I feel that I don't have the skills necessary to do it justice and it would greatly lengthen the timeline I've set forth for completing this game. That being said, I think it's still possible to create interesting maps (albeit, not as cool looking as parallax maps) using just the map editor provided with RM VX Ace. Whether or not mine turn out to actually be interesting is going to be more a matter of how much time I'm going to have to put into each of them, not to mention getting past my learning curve for how to actually create maps.   I have a pretty good idea of what the majority of the towns and dungeons in the game should look like. The challenge is going to be collecting or creating the tile pieces I'll need to create the looks I have in my head. I've made some rough attempts at the maps for the first few locations the players will be introduced to and an initial attempt at an airship deck map that won't come into play until much later in the game.   I was really inspired by the vacation trip I had to Costa Rica earlier this year to incorporate a lush rain forest like environment. I'm going to refer to it in game as "The Cloud Forest". Below is a screenshot of just a small section of this forest dungeon.       Here's a small desert outpost I named "Gunn City". It's not much of a city and the population is very sparse. It borders a sprawling desert/canyon area that's fairly far removed from any real inhabitable area.     Another village that sits in a valley surrounded by mountains and forest. I named this one "Bristol Village". It used to be heavily populated by humans but has recently been abandoned by most of the people who used to live there and slowly being taken over by another humanoid species I call the Legioneers.     Lastly, here's that airship I mentioned earlier. I call it "The Outlander". This is just supposed to be the deck of the ship but I think I'll eventually end up creating some interior rooms that can be explored while the party is mounted on the airship. Not sure how happy I am with the current state of this one. I tried using some pirate ship tilesets I found online but I didn't really like how it turned out so I thought I'd try just making a ship-like map from scratch. This one's probably going to go through several overhauls before I'm satisfied with it but since I don't really need to worry about using it for a while I'm not in a rush to get it sorted out just yet.         Everything is a work in progress but I've been doing a lot of map/dungeon planning and I feel like I'm making acceptable progress. I want to have a solid 2hr playable demo for my brother and sister by the time they come visit for the holidays this year. I think I can hack that so long as RL work doesn't get too ridiculous between now and November. Yikes, the year's almost over!
Blithe

Blithe

2
 

Soul Forge: Character Designs and Side Quests

Reworking some of the character designs for my Soul Forge game. Some of these characters have gone through multiple redesigns others I have a pretty good grasp on what I want them to look like and they haven't changed since I first sketched them out.   One particular character I've been unsatisfied with is a young girl named Dori. She's 14yrs old with long blonde hair, brown eyes, and wears a green dress. She's generally a happy-go-lucky person with an outspoken attitude. I've redrawn this girl like 3 times already. I'm the most satisfied with her latest reincarnation. Now I just need to make a sprite that generally reflects the picture of her that I've drawn out. Previous drawings of her did not reflect the personality I had imagined for her in my head. She looked unhappy and her clothing was too formal/stuffy. She's supposed to be a priestess in training so she has an advanced grasp on using "Light" magic but she's also surprisingly strong and prefers to attack using over sized hammers and clubs.         The other thing I've been working on is a Mushroom Hunting side quest. The objective of the side quest is to collect a rare species of mushroom that happens to be sentient and return it to a guy who calls himself "The Mushroom Sage". He gives up rare items in return for the mushrooms collected. The trick to collecting the mushrooms is that you have to beat them in battle but doing so isn't so easy because they're really quick and immediately put up defensive barriers to protect against fire elemental attacks, which they are weak against. Furthermore, when their HP gets below 50% they will prioritize running away from the battle which does not count as a defeat for collecting the mushroom.   It's a simple enough premise and the player will have multiple opportunities throughout the game to except quests from the Mushroom Sage. The more mushrooms you collect for the sage the rarer the items you receive for completing the quest. Certain rare armors and weapons will only be obtainable by completing these quests.   My next order of business is to complete a cut scene I've been working on for almost a month. RL work/responsibilities keeps getting in the way but what can you do - bills must be paid.
Blithe

Blithe

2
 

Artistic Ups and Downs

Taking a small break from scripting to go back to something I really need practice in, which is my crappy drawing/coloring skills.   My goodness if there was ever one thing I wish I was better at it would have to be art. Quite frustrating considering I've always loved drawing. Ever since I can remember I've loved drawing so why do I suck at it so badly? Probably because at a very young age my attention wandered away from it as I tend to do with most things I take an interest in.   I just can't grasp drawing basic human anatomy or how to properly visualize how shadows fall on objects given a light source. Don't even get me started on drawing hands and feet (bane of my existence).   If I actually had the time to spare irl I'd consider signing up for an art course at one of the local community colleges but there's fat chance of that happening given work is sucking up almost every available bit of free time I have lately. I barely have time to work on my game and I started that almost 4 months ago.   I shall just have to keep at it and hopefully I will see small improvements over time. Considering what I was capable of drawing when I first started doodling for this effort I think it actually has improved (which isn't saying much). Below is a drawing I did of one of the minor characters in my game who makes recurring appearances to mess with my main characters. There are lots of obvious problems with both the line-art and the coloring but I think I'm actually a tiny bit pleased with how this one turned out. I'm too embarrassed of some of my earlier character sketches to even post those but I'll maybe redraw those at a later date.         I might also be tempted to replace all of the RTP art in the game with my own hand drawn stuff eventually. I think I'll try drawing some battler sprites first then maybe some portraits. I actually did make an attempt to produce my own battler sprite for one of my main characters but I've since changed the plot of the story so the need for that particular battler sprite has become OBE.   I am curious though. About how other game makers feel about using their own art work in their games, even if your art skills aren't exactly perfect. Does that influence your decision to use your own original character drawings or ask someone else with more artistic aptitude to draw for you? Do you not care if it's professional looking? This probably isn't a source of concern for those who actually can draw decently. I'm more looking to see how others (like myself) who aren't that great in the art department feel, but all opinions on the matter are welcomed
Blithe

Blithe

4
 

Escape Penalty

So, I've been debating the pros/cons of whether I want to get into writing some small script snippets for my "Soul Forge" game. I develop software for a living so you'd think I'd be gun ho for writing my own ruby scripts for this project but I'm just not. I'm sick of looking at code by the time I get home from work to be quite honest but for whatever reason today I sat down and opened the script editor and started playing around.   I wanted to try making a small modification to the battle management module's Escape_Processing routine. I ended up writing a little routine that penalizes the overuse of the escape command. It was quick and dirty, just to get myself familiar with ruby syntax. Nothing elegant or too thought out and I'm sure someone else has already done similar things but the point of me doing it was so that I can start learning the language for myself. It's actually nice to write code without the pressure of deadlines and restrictions fouling up the whole process.   The little script snippet, as it currently stands only determines a percent chance of incurring a monetary penalty each time the party executes a successful escape (basically what FF4 had). I wrote it such that the percent chance of a penalty is adjustable in configuration and the amount of money lost is randomized from 1% up to a user specified max % loss of the party's current available funds.   I'm thinking about expanding it to include loss of non-key items, and unequipped armor/weapons in inventory, maybe even loss of experience but that might be going too far for what I want to accomplish in this particular game. The only thing I know for sure is that I will want to create an item (maybe even a skill) that can counteract the penalty. It would be a rare/hard to get item or skill of course. I might also try to make this whole thing work with tags that can be used in enemy note boxes such that I can specify which enemies I'm penalized for running from as opposed to just penalizing for running from everything.   I don't know. I'm just thinking out loud here. Doing any or all of the above would be a good learning experience in any case. I've been super focused on doing concept art so far so it's a nice break from doing that too.
Blithe

Blithe

4
 

The First Ramblings for "Soul Forge"

I think I'm basically going to try to use this blog to help me track progress on my current game. My first attempt at making an RPG using this software will be named "Soul Forge". It will center around 3 main characters, Trillian, Liam, and Mina. I'm planning on there being 8 playable characters and a host of supporting characters who may be able to join the main party but only in auto battle mode when the story calls for such a thing.   I've already got around 4hrs worth of game play/Story evented out but what I'm slowly realizing is that I'm really enjoying the process of visualizing my characters. I've started drawing concept art for each of my main characters, supporting characters, and villains. I'm not by any means a good artist, in fact I'm rather bad at it. This whole endeavor has prompted me to dust off my old drawing tablet and start scribbling around on it. It's been years since I've seriously tried to draw anything so first attempts have been miserably bad but I think it's slowly (very slowly) improving. In any case, I find myself constantly looking forward to coming home from work to do more eventing or just sketch out a character.   My game isn't going to be published for the general public. It's just for my brother, sister and dad to play and laugh at as we all used to enjoy gathering around the TV on some nights to watch me or my brother play old school RPGs like Dragon Quest, Ultima, and many of the FF games. It's going to be super cheesy that's for sure   I promised a reasonable demo by the time the holiday's rolled around this year so I'm frantically trying to get things ready for that. I've been thinking lately that I might want to start adding some of my own hand-drawn graphics into the game but not sure I'll go that route or not. Like I said before, my drawing isn't much to look at but putting it in there would add to the laughs I'm sure I'll get from the family when they play it.   In any case, this ends the first ramblings about this particular game. I might be including screenshots of some of my progress along the way or posting pics for the characters as part of my post updates but I guess I'll see what kind of rhythm I fall into with this as I go along.
Blithe

Blithe

0
Sign in to follow this  
Followers 0
×
Top ArrowTop Arrow Highlighted