Point08

I've finally gotten some of these assets formatted for use with Yanfly's Grid Free Doodads plugin. The books aren't done yet, sorry, they're time consuming, but I'm getting there and will post them soon. I'll update the link when the books are ready. Updated. A zip file of the assets ready for use as doodads can be grabbed from here: Point's Doodads As always, the above link is also available on the OP of this thread. I hope you enjoy! And now back to moving things around in Photoshop...

I made a windowskin the other day, and a bunch of cursors today (for Tskihime's Message Pause Cursor plugin, get it here). As always, everything is also in the OP. @Cookie Ninja, I made the edit you suggested and posted the new version in the OP.

Just a small update today. I added an angled version of the tile roof. I only added the original color for now. The angled version has one more color per tile, so to color match any previous recolors, I will need to do the recoloring one color at a time. Because of this, it might be a while before I get around to it, but if you would like a specific color or colors, let me know. I will be making some corner transition tiles so you can combine this with the non-angled version I originally posted. Hopefully I'll have time to do that today or tomorrow. As always, this is in the OP as well.

It's interesting, especially when you consider the final paragraph you included. As I was reading the seven stages, I started thinking, "this sounds like something you tell someone who wants to be an artist, and who likes to read horoscopes." I think what is and isn't art can be so subjective, that thereby what/who is or isn't an artist is subjective as well.

It's funny, because even though people are saying they are for or against grinding/enemy levels, really everyone seems to want the same thing. No one wants to be forced to grind but pretty much everyone likes having the option. You don't want the game to be trivialized and completely lacking in challenge, but if you do grind you want to be able to have that feeling of being powerful. This is pretty much what I expected, and where the idea in the OP came from. Again, with a goal of giving the option to grind and the power to totally destroy some mobs, but keeping the game challenging, especially at important points (e.g. bosses). In other words, giving both options (to grind or not to), and keeping them both viable.

I know we usually talk on here about ways to eliminate the need for grinding. However, over the past couple weeks I've noticed that some people say they like to grind. I'll be honest, I generally hate being forced to grind, but if it's by choice, I sometimes enjoy it too. That got me to thinking... Balancing a game requires you to think about whether or not a player can grind, and if they can, can they do so for a finite mount of levels, or can they just keep going until they hit max level, in the starting area, if they really felt like it. Some people allow a player to grind as much as they want, but the enemies level up with the player's character, so it kind of defeats the purpose of grinding. Sure, having access to more skills can still make the fights easier, even if the enemies get stronger (assuming the enemies aren't also gaining skills), but you don't get that feeling of just destroying something that was kicking your butt earlier in the game. If the enemies don't level though, then all the fights, including bosses, become trivialized. Sure it might be fun to stomp a boss or two, but if every boss fight ends up being no challenge due to being over-leveled, the game will likely get boring. Of course, mechanics in the boss fight can help with this, but usually that can't completely solve the problem. So what if the enemies level with you, but at a much slower rate? This could help keep the game somewhat challenging, even if someone grinds a lot, but it will also still give them taste of that power that comes with grinding. You could have the bosses level stay closer to what the player's level is (maybe they level 2 levels for every 3 the player does or something...just throwing out a number for example) while normal enemies level a bit slower (maybe 1 level for every 2 levels the player does). To make sure a new area starts out as a challenge, you could check the player's average party level and set all the mobs to that, or close to it, in a new area, and then have them progress in level according to whatever formula you chose using the above paragraph as a method. This wouldn't completely eliminate the negative sides (for both developer and player) to grinding, but might help minimize them. Anyway, this is just an idea that popped into my head, not something I've given any real thought to implementing at this point. I just think it might be an interesting way to address a common issue. However, since I haven't thought about it much, it also might easily introduce more problems than it addresses and end up making things worse. I'm curious what all of you people's thoughts are.

Don't forget to sometimes ask people whose opinion you think is valid, but don't always agree with. I don't mean to point fingers (and actually, this is meant as a compliment, not an insult) but both KilloZapit and Chaosian are people I have occasionally...clashed...with in threads. Never anything I would call rude, just that we strongly disagree. Sometimes we do agree 100% though. Regardless, I have had intelligent discussion with both of them, and even the times we've disagreed, I've never felt like what they said was ignorant or uniformed. We mostly differed on matters of opinion. Knowing that, I don't regularly ask either of them for feedback on my ideas. However, you can bet that when it comes time to see whether an idea, in practice (e.g. in a demo) is as good as I thought, I'll definitely be reaching out to them to request feedback. Why? Precisely because they often see things from a different viewpoint from me. They're intelligent, so if they think something doesn't work, they will certainly tell me, but they'll also tell me why. Whereas some of the people I consult think so much like me, they would probably be just as likely to miss some problems as I would myself. So find friends to be your advisers, your encouragement, your, well, friends...but also find people you respect, but who think differently than you do (who may also be your friends. It's good to have friends who don't always agree with you). Both have their place, and both are equally valuable.

The top beam is pretty wide, as it is the center of the roof. They way it was shown on the edges was because you could also see the top of the (side) beam that heads down the back of the roof (the rest of which is not visible due to the perspective). I think I see what you're saying though. The way I have it, if you viewed the house from the side, would look like the top style in the image below. The way you're saying, if I'm understanding correctly, it would look like the bottom one, yes?

I figured you would dig that, even if he does take it to a level most of us will never go to for the worlds we build. It's definitely some interesting stuff, at least to me. On an unrelated note: you just hit 666 posts with that one.

Most of what I would have said, has already been said by others. I do want to add my support to the idea of having an adviser (or two, or three). I have two, Cookie Ninja and CVincent, that I run things by. They also sometimes ask me about things relating to their projects. As for how that happened, it's simple, we talked. Essentially I noticed over time that responses they left to various threads were similar to my own thoughts. With both, we ended up talking about specific game aspects in PM, and it just went from there. It's gotten to the point now, I likely wouldn't consider including any major game mechanic without discussing it with Cookie Ninja first, because I value his input that much. For me, having a friend as an adviser, and then hiring/recruiting people to fill a specific need (e.g. create some graphical resource for me) is the best approach. I retain creative control, but get outside input on my ideas. If I need something that I can't do myself, or simply don't have the time to do, I reach out to someone in the community to fill just that specific need. The only way I think I would work on a project as a team would be a joint project with one other person, or if it was a large project that was going to be commercial. In the latter case though, things would be much more formalized in regards to roles, and how decisions were made and who had final authority if a conflict arose. That's a bit too job-like for me. Fine for large commercial projects I suppose, but for me, this is a hobby. I already have a career I'm happy with, and I'm certainly not looking to turn my hobbies into jobs. That has a tendency to kill the fun. That's just my humble opinion on the matter.

Finals? Yuck! I remember when I had ambitions to go back to school and further my education. I have since decided two degrees is enough. Maybe someday I'll go back, but not anytime soon... It's been 5 years since I finished my second degree, and I think I'm still burned out from it Of course, I was taking 18 credits a semester... Either way, I can empathize with you! Good luck on your finals! On a different note, I decided to the shingle wall as a roof that can be used in the editor as well. Of course with multiple colors. Edit: added a weapon for the side view battlers here and to OP. It very closely matches the RTP as I used that as a guide.

@Chaosian, check out this video. I know you don't plan on spending too much time on the language, so the series of videos is, I'm sure overkill for you. However, if nothing else, what he talks about near he start of this video, the IPA (not the beer), could be very useful. The IPA, or International Phonetic Alphabet, might be a good place to start switching sounds (and thus letters). If you're interested in going a bit more in depth the videos that follow the one below have some interesting info (like whether living in the mountains impacts the way people speak...and actually, it does). They might give you some ideas on how English might change over the years.