Kayzee

Just about everyone has a Stardew Valley living inside of them, very few people are meant to see it through alone.

The weight of indie deving as a solo endeavor is crushing. I feel it every day. The sheer size of it drawfs my very efforts because I'm not a game developer.  I want to be, but I lack the proper avenues of approach and training. It kills me every day. But I refuse to quit.

I keep trying to find a "simple project" that will "Just give me some experience with completing a whole game." Sounds easy. Sounds doable. Until I get started, and remember that nothing I do story-wise will ever be simple. XD It happens without me even realizing it. It can go from an arcade cabinet with some Ace mini games, to a full blown Triple Triad RP with player properties/decorating, vehicles like bikes and cars, etc.

Anything I touch will mutate into something more than I found it.

It's rough, but don't give up. 20'ish years of RM tinkering has taught me the errors of these ways. The main thing that prevents steady progress for tinkerers who get seduced by the editor prior to having an actual game to make, is without having a script and plot outline to guide and inform the process, it becomes a case of butterfly chasing. Constantly jogging in place, developing fragmented aspects of the plot, world, characters, skills, concepts, etc. Making small breakthroughs in any given area from resources, to edits, scripts, animations, items, whatever it may be.

This kills projects, which is why I have grown so jaded toward the soloist approach to game development. Everyone wants to be the next Eric Barone now. And because Stardew Valley exists, they will never be able to see the fact that it is an enigma. Games like that are 1 in 10 trillion. "It's possible, you just need a good idea (oof!) and the time (organizational skills and discipline)."

It's a tough road on our own. I suggest making something not featured on your bucket list, but still strong enough to showcase your merits and value as a developer, in the hopes that when you sit down and say publicly, "Okay, I'm working on one of my bucket list projects," people will come to you with their ducks in a row, asking where you could use some assistance, and if they can be of any to you. Depending o your leadership//directing skills, and given how much more difficult that becomes online, you could end up doing something great.

My game project isn't really a 'bucket list' game, it's much more of an experimental tech demo or prototype that I have gradually taken ever so slightly more seriously and has become more of an actual game as time has passed. And that honestly is probably more how games like Stardew Valley come about then them being planned and scripted. It's a fundamentally different way to develop a game, one that takes a long time and yes involves a ton of 'butterfly chasing' as you put it. But it can work... eventually. Problem is keeping motivated enough to see it through.

It's funny though, because you know what also kills projects? Having big elaborate plans you can't actually follow through with. It's actually tricky to know sometimes if you can or can't do a thing until you go to do it and often it's easy to get stuck up on a bad plan. Here's the rub: No matter what you do you are going to find out any good game is a 1 in 10 trillion game. Doesn't matter if it's something like Stardew Valley or something like Final Fantasy or SaGa. Doesn't matter if you are one single person or have a team of 100+ people backing you up (though if you can convince 100+ people to help you in the first place you probably are in a good spot). Most people's game ideas just aren't going to work.

In any case 99% of my problem is just my own laziness.

Even IMVU was like that, lolz

 

Neither are really like what I'm thinking. I played IMVU very briefly in '12 for the RP community, and although users can create content like clothing and 3D "chat room" environments, it's a very non-mmo style of game based on social interaction, and broken down into micro-spaces.

My concept is closer to what Minecraft offers. Every new server world that is released is a fresh canvas. There are dev-made key cities spread few and far between that host some of the vital locations and functions and quests, but the majority of the game world is ancient ruins and the wilderness that has reclaimed them. Any player at any given time can purchase a lot of tiles, anywhere in that wilderness, and begin to build whatever they want. It's not an instanced, custom map, it's directly on the game world. So you can buy a lot of land 40x40, just down the road from the starting city on Game World 1, and build your own house. Buy npc livestock to graze, even "break down" for resources. And every time someone logs into World 1, and walks down that road, they will pass by your house. When inspected, that lot will say:

Owned by: Kayzee

Built by: Kayzee, 17/1/21 (Project completion date)

Last Modified by: Kayzee, 18/1/21

Or, you could find a big field not too far from the starting city, on World 3, and start building roads. Add  some small houses. Fences, trees, a town square. Plant some npcs including town guards. Maybe now you buy another lot directly north and build a little palace. Now you can work on setting up shops, designing quests, etc.

An actual MMO, with actual world building elements that empower the player. Again you will get giant phallic symbols appearing in fields overnight like crop circles, but again, it's an issue of problem solving vs loading up the cannon to shoot ideas down in flames.

That's pretty much how Second Life works. Unlike IMVU or VR Chat everything is connected on one giant grid. Even more so then Minecraft actually because the grid actual spans multible servers. The down side of doing things that way is basically all of Second Life is owned by one corporation that charges for virtual land/serverspace and there is basically no way to make private servers or local servers (Though there is OpenSim, which is an attempt and making an open source version of second life). It still isn't really a game though, more a virtual environment.

Personally? I rather have a mix of instanced and connected areas rather then just one or another. Why not let players own land and also create personal pocket dimensions? I think it would be nice to have a big grid of land while also having a private place to play with things or do other stuff.Maybe that's just my personal antisocal nature, but having a free small place to build and experiment without needing to buy land would be neat.

This is the type of thing I expect to find on Twitter, lmfao

The internet is wonderful sometimes, don't ya think?

It is, and sometimes, just sometimes. lolz

Happy Yule, mon amour.

If Covid-19 could ruin your holidays, you're just not a Christmas person. Not being able to see people due to restrictions might have been a bit of a downer, but it's not too much to ask, and nothing to get down about when it's all part of fighting a pandemic...

Happy Holidays, I guess?

Woah, Hi Onesy!

Yeah; I had thought about doing the same.

I decided to go with the blog format instead.

It's really a different type of thing I think, blogs being better for updates and side information and a thread being better for getting people interested in the game.

Also, might release an official demo thing soon. Maybe. I think enough features are done where it's probably worth it, but I still have lots of stuff I wanna change and features I wanna add. Though I am at the point where most of what I want to do in the future is increasingly more difficult.

Yeah, but...I just didn't have all the promo stuff I needed.
Or, what they require for it.

So, yeah. Bonne chance with your demo, mon amour.

Here, try this.

I think I fixed it!

Yay!

Hugs

Kayzee, you can do it. I believe in you. You're stronger than you think.

Awww... *snuggles @PhoenixSoul back*

@RavenBlueIndigo Thanks ravie!

♫She was shakin'...snappin' her fingers...♫

When is the new Kayzee rap single coming out?

RIGHT NOW!

Pissha-wisha wack wack!

Pissha-wisha wack wack!

Yo Check it... Gonna lay this one on ya...

Yo, I'm a fairy,

can be quite contrary,

Gotta be honest,

in this sonate,

sometimes it get's hairy!

Don't mean to be bad, but you better beweary!

If your cute I abduct,

don't give a fuck,

'bout your human mores,

Find your 'right' and 'wrong' to be total bores!

In fairyland you'll be,

and you better see,

just a little nibble and you'll never flee!

Give you my dust,

your brain it will rust

you'll be addled by my raddle

got the magic touch!

And and... uh... That's all I got for now bruh. Rapping is hard!

Yeah, something like that. I was actually coming up with nothing, but music was playing in my head, so...notes. Clefs, sharps, flats, ya know...

But, how can you have mushrooms in your game if mushrooms are a political lie created by a band of knights in the 1500s to control the populace?

You fool! Don't you see? Mushrooms being a political lie created by a band of knights in the 1500s to control the populace is a political lie created by the government to control the populace! They would have you believe that just about everything is a political lie created by a band of knights in the 1500s to control the populace, when in fact they control the populace though political lies about political lies made to to control the populace! It's all a double bluff! A distraction! They want you to think they are more powerful then they really are by confusing you with conspiracy theories!

VX Ace was always in style. lolz

Hueueueueueueue...

Okay okay I admit it... It was just a video I liked that I wanted to share. :P

It was kyuute, and funny, and made me think of half-sleepy trippy shit.

Especially if you use anything with ZALGO, lolz

Pretty sure ZALGO text doesn't show up right in RPG Maker. I think I attempted a script once to overlay text on top of other text to try and reproduce the effect, but it didn't turn out how I wanted. So the closest thing I have like that in my game is I sometimes use this font.

... I do have a face in my faceset inspired by ZALGO though. :3

Yeah; it just shows a bunch of [] boxes instead, lmfao
(tried it just now)

I've mostly finished the base character art bits; still have a few to do that I had started, and a few more I have no art bits of at all made. Also ran into a glitch with a scriptlet (one of yours actually) that affects graphic layers that are not attached to equipment, that I'm not sure I can do anything about, nor is it that big a deal (yet).

There's one character I'm working on a bulging abdomen bit for, but I'm not sure if I have the proportions right...

Heck yeah! Do the devving of the game~

Same here; haven't heard from them in some time, here or on Discord...

I would say most of the dumb jokes in mystery dungeon type games aren't that well hidden. It seems to me the real thing that's often hidden away is a surprisingly emotionally poignant plot. Don't think I can pull that off myself though. One problem is my game just doesn't have any truly sympathetic characters (even the player character's characterization is up to the player) and I am not sure if it ever will. Well sympathetic by human standards anyway, but values dissonance aside even I am pretty antagonistic in my own game. :3

Speaking of values dissonance... You sure it's not that you are hearing rather then cognitive dissonance? I mean, if you just don't agree with it it's values dissonance. Cognitive dissonance is more like, ya know, advocating the anarchistic overthrow of governments while also wanting to hold people accountable for being too selfish and greedy.

Okay, okay, that's not quite fair and I know it. It's more complex then that. Anarcho-socialism is a thing, and we could have a whole debate over the concepts of centralized and decentralized power and the way such a society would or wouldn't work. But this is why politics is so messed up in general you know, because it's all a matter of debate and the subtler aspects of political theory is easy to get lost in the noise born from emotional outbursts and gut reactions.

Though despite that, I am often just glad debates happen at all! Hurray for western democracy! It's definitely not the best system, but it's far far from the worst!

I guess a far more fair adjective would be 'vicarious', because the garbage and lies is a bunch of vicarious crap that people lap up like curs...

Yeah, most of the silly jokes are right there in front of the player, but the best ones are Ostara eggs for certain...lolz

I think you mean 'vacuous'? I mean I always saw 'vicarious' as more an adverb not an adjective... I guess if you use 'vicarious' to describe things that people can use to live vicariously, it sort of makes sense? I mean something like (so-called) 'reality' tv might be described that way? But then people might also say video games are 'vicarious', and I like video games. XD

Don't think the word is really used that way, but whatever. If calling a game/tv show/whatever 'pretentious' is perfectly acceptable even though it's sort of silly to think of a game/tv show/whatever as actively pretending to be something it's not instead of the author/audience/whoever else surrounding it, then I guess calling them 'vicarious' is perfectly fair.

Yeah I knoooooow! I distract myself enough without other people doing it too. XD

Yep, same here.

Or, there's other distractions that come about which I have no control over.

You know the first step of getting control over things is telling yourself you have control over things.

... Far from the last step though.

||=

Hehe, I for one love ||= a lot! Though I am talking about something a little more universal then any one bit of syntgax. Try taking a look at the classic nonsense poem Jabberwocky. Some people might read it without actually taking it in and just see it as complete gibberish. But it's not. There is a structure to it and even if you don't know what the individual words mean, you can infer a lot about them from their context. It's a puzzle where language is a clue. Understanding that and finding ways to solve the puzzle is a skill unto it's self.

Being 'fair' doesn't really have that much to do with it. It was my money and my choice, and I could always have have chosen to send you some or all of that money. But I didn't. And I'm sorry about that. Honestly I didn't really think about it at the time.

That said... I don't know if I would feel that comfortable doing it anyway. I often feel like just giving you a bit of money wouldn't actually solve that much in the long term.

...

#CircularLogic

Enjoy your new tech.

Remember I said I was only felt kinda guilty. I really am still enjoying it. :P

I don't think my logic here is really that circular. I think it's more #SpiralLogic. Yeah, it goes round and round but eventually it settles in one place. Of course it also might be #StrangeAttractorLogic. Yes it goes round and round and never settles anywhere, but it doesn't ever quite follow the same exact path so it still looks like it's going somewhere.

Pretty sure one of those two things also describes human history pretty well. XD

Verotai! Day of the warm rain! It's primarily an observed event, in premise of Litara.
(Summer's Song)

Dreamweavers, unite!

Having never played any of the Mana series...the graphics are impressive from looking at the screenies...

I mean don't get me wrong the remake's 3D look is fine, just not as impressive. The original pixel art on the other hand possibly rivals Chrono Trigger as some of the best pixel art on the SNES. The remake on the other hand looks a lot like a higher resolution PS2 game. Which is not really much of a complaint mind, because the PS2 cast a looong shadow on the state of game graphics. I mean, I still think games like Dark Cloud 2 or Ico running on the PS2 hold up pretty well, as blury as they are. Not too many years ago I might have even said that graphics technology really still haven't progressed that much since the PS2.

Still, if I compare the Trials of Mana remake to, say, Animal Crossing there is no doubt Animal Crossing is a more impressive looking game in my eyes. There is a heck of a lot of detail in the animation and texture work.

The majority of what I've experienced for the PS2 still holds up well, graphics-wise. Gran Turismo 4/Tourist Trophy* is one of the best looking games for the console.
* Tourist Trophy is a motorcycle racing game that uses the same engine as GT4.

Yeah; the SFC had a lot going for it graphics wise, no doubt.

Hime's Scene Interpreter makes running events in the menus possible...


Anyway, Animal Crossing sounds interesting and maybe I'll get to try it out at some point...

@Rikifive Well the whole reason I did it by stacking scenes is so I wouldn't need to recode a bunch of crap. And the reason I wanted to make the menu run on the map in the first place is because my battle system is seamlessly integrated into map exploration already, and I would like to seamlessly integrate at least some of the menus as well. Switching the scene introduces a notable delay and the background becomes just a static image, so it's hardly seemless.

Honestly I might end up having to recode/refactor a ton of stuff anyway, because I kind of think that my item and skill menus and maybe some others probobly should be somewhat simplified and made easier to navigate. What I have now is pretty neat, but might be a bit slow and annoying to use for some things.

@PhoenixSoul Oh I could make it so you could run events in a menu if I wanted, I just don't see the point right now.

Also: Animal Crossing isn't actually very much of a game at all really (more of a game in the new one then it was before though), but it's cute and allows you at least some creative expression. All the previous animal crossing games got boring after not to long, but that's kinda true with everything to me. :3

Mhm yeah, I see what you mean.