What are you working on? (Game Making Thread)

[coyotecraft]

Third one is the female archer. I figured she'd have a crossbow. It's a very loose sketch, that only works for front view.
I can see why some of the actors would have missing battlers. Archers are kind of lame for turn based battle systems. Unless it's a tactical system or something like your game, Xhukari.
And healers, I mean, I've seen games that have enemy healers, but that kind of thing requires some world building to set up, like an enemy nation or army for context. I mean, bandits attack people on the highway, but not Priests. But could you imagine?
"Run away! It's casting Holy Matrimony"
"What's so bad about that?"
"I'm already engaged! If she finds out I'm married to you, she'll kill us both!"
"Oh Shit. It's a Doom Spell? Why didn't you say so?"
"I now pronounce you Gay Married~ :angel: "
"Nooooooooooo"

 

[Xhukari]

Oh yes, I can see that now!

You gave me my first chuckle for 2021, Coyote! :biggrin:

 

[BizarreMonkey]

Third one is the female archer. I figured she'd have a crossbow. It's a very loose sketch, that only works for front view.
I can see why some of the actors would have missing battlers. Archers are kind of lame for turn based battle systems. Unless it's a tactical system or something like your game, Xhukari.
And healers, I mean, I've seen games that have enemy healers, but that kind of thing requires some world building to set up, like an enemy nation or army for context. I mean, bandits attack people on the highway, but not Priests. But could you imagine?
"Run away! It's casting Holy Matrimony"
"What's so bad about that?"
"I'm already engaged! If she finds out I'm married to you, she'll kill us both!"
"Oh Shit. It's a Doom Spell? Why didn't you say so?"
"I now pronounce you Gay Married~ :angel: "
"Nooooooooooo"

God, this reminds me of the Penguin Army I had in menagerie, which consisted of two penguin footman, two penguin wizards and a penguin cleric. It was one of the regular encounters in Dyangar, using large fire damage attacks was the best way to deal with them beyond removing the healer ASAP.

Was taking a break over new years and Christmas, but before all that began i did finish up the tileset for the Starship YHWH.
West Wing

East Wing

You can click the images for large clearer versions.

I did in fact, personalize the bedrooms.

Now then, Pjcr has been busy, he got me Eisheth Zenunim's Portraits and began on Agrat Bat Mahlat's, as well.

Loa Eisheth Zenunim

I've gotta make her wings look a bit glassier yet, but that won't be difficult.

Agrat Bat Mahlat

She THICC!

That;s about it for now~!

 

[coyotecraft]

I started to give someone on Steam's RMMZ discussion boards advice on how to work around the lv99 limit.
But now I'm biting my lip, because I probably shouldn't make certain things common knowledge.

 

[BizarreMonkey]

I started to give someone on Steam's RMMZ discussion boards advice on how to work around the lv99 limit.
But now I'm biting my lip, because I probably shouldn't make certain things common knowledge.

Fittingly, the page number of this thread is 99.

I mean in several makers there's just been a flat uncapper script.

I ultimately usually set my level cap too low for it to matter, personally. In intelligence it goes to 99, but the cap is 50 as far as the game's endgame content is concerned, you just gain 49 bonus levels after the point of no return. The fight with Niirgo takes you up to 75, then defeating Sacreblu takes you up to 99, in preparation for The Aspect of Erasure.

Speaking of Sacreblu, she'll unlock a new form, but not until Disk 3, so it's a ways before I gotta worry.

That said, i decided to do concepting anyway.

UPDATE: Got the Starship YHWH fully integrated.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8Azzt9ameM

 

[coyotecraft]

I've been in a state of hyperfocus all week. I think I regularly experience it this time of year, but I don't know what's triggering it. Could be the weather, could be all the dark chocolate I've been eating. I've been watching a lot of TV lately too, so my brain is just, I dunno, forging all these connections. There's a depth of meaning to everything I could just Ș̷͕̻͆E̵̩̝̋̑̽E̶̝̪͉͑̕ ̶̙͐͠͝F̸͚͖̓O̶̰͓̓R̴̨̼͐E̸̛̪̼̘̅̂V̷͔͙͇̀͝Ë̶̪͚́͆́R̷̭̤̦̆̀
Could be the combination of all those things.

But it's like coming out of a trance. Like. Who am I again? What year is it? What what I doing before all this?

That state of consciousness is great for poetry. And typing phonically. I dunno how I was doing it the other day. et was like mi fengurs wur muving on their own. And I wus reeding it, and nue it was rong, but the censor en my head was tuned out and I dedn't kar. 'Ann the muscle memori wasn't thar. It was sum kind ov expressionism from being halv'a sleep.
'En outlying events wus kinduh fun. Ehy omost wnt to ce how faar eye kin tak et.
Es et siltl raedalbe ef I misplel evry fing on perpuhs?


A creative bliss. But I think it's the wrong state of mind to write dialogue in, or attempt indirect characterization. I want reason; not rhyme.
You'd think a conversation between 2 characters would be the simplest thing in the world to write but that's where I always over think things.

 

[BizarreMonkey]

et was like mi fengurs wur muving on their own. And I wus reeding it, and nue it was rong, but the censor en my head was tuned out and I dedn't kar. 'Ann the muscle memori wasn't thar. It was sum kind ov expressionism from being halv'a sleep.
'En outlying events wus kinduh fun. Ehy omost wnt to ce how faar eye kin tak et.
Es et siltl raedalbe ef I misplel evry fing on perpuhs?

Not gonna lie i just read you in a glaswedgian accent with these mispellings, lmao.

I have done next to nothing on game dev due to moving house and junk, which is a bit of a shame. Just haven't felt up to it, lately.

 

[coyotecraft]

Ahhhhhh! I can't believe January is almost over. I've been in poet mode for about 2 weeks but it doesn't leave a satisfying aftertaste when there's nothing to show for it. I'd rather be in Playwright mode. But the meaningful character interactions that I want are still evading me. I think there may be some structural thing that could tell me - dunno, "You can't squeeze blood from a rock". But it's like, "Why is it a rock?"

The pool of human knowledge that is the internet has failed to give me guidance. Every once'n a while I'll find a blog or website with lots of information. I'll bookmark it to skim though later looking for new insights. I've probably said this before, but the closest to writing help to video games comes from screen writers. It's really frustrating to search for topics on dialogue, for example, only to find the same unhelpful stuff about speech tags and how readers read. Not how writers write. I keep coming back to the same questions of scene tension, character flaws and motivations. But what works in an episodic story doesn't work for a short-fiction video game with a limited cast with limited knowledge or prehistory.

I've come to a new understanding of why Noire is called "black". It's not just a theme of grim gloomy grit. It's that the structure itself is "dark matter". And the narrative compensates for the unknown with internal monologues. So that even when 2 characters are in a room together, their relationships are distant and empty like Detective-Client or Doctor-Patient.
I don't want to do internal speeches. It's a style choice a lot of people choose to avoid.
I want to build meaningful relationships out of character interactions. But I don't want to go full Film Blanc either; writing a feel good Hallmark Christmas movie script.

While internal dialogue is a useful characterization tool, my fear and feeling is that I only need it as a crutch at the beginning of a story, and I'll be forcing myself to sprinkle internal dialogue through out the rest of the story just for consistency.

 

[BizarreMonkey]

Well, I got myself invited to an interview on a podcast and they're gonna ask me a bunch of questions about game dev, hoohoo!

Wait till I tell 'em I haven't worked on my game at all this week. My current objectives are one of three.

1. Remaster any of the following cinematics.
-FS04 (basically just draw a prettier thin lines Lumi, the rest can basically stay as it is. Though I could do lipsyncing I suppose.)
-FS06 (Full blown remaster that'll cut a lot of useless filler and drop it down to about 40 seconds of run time, meanwhile ensuring it is epic, all updated art will be used now that we have it / I can make it!)
-FS08 (Gonna be redesigned basically so i can have the zoom through space visible from the bridge.)
-FS09 (Will be redoing all the frame by frame animations in my thin-lines style. As well as replacing Xiie's art with Pjcr's. Like FS04 and Fs06, Lipsyncing will be properly added to all of the characters who speak.)
-FS10 (In progress already, lots of frame by frame to be done here, although thankfully working on Fs15 helps a LOT in regards to Svoli's proportions.)
-FS11 (Boy golly lots of cutting, redrawing tristy's art to use thin lines, replacing assets of my own that aren't consistent with pjcr's. Probably be able to cut the whole thing down to 3 minutes.)
-FS12 (Most of the characters showing up previously used my own art, which is inconsistent, now I'll use Pjcr's, otherwise not much will really change.)

2. Work on and finish the boss fight with Spooky Schema (This is proving difficult currently due to not having a solid idea of mechanics down for him, obviously I want him to do time shit but I have to think how. To finish this fight also means I need to consider beginning work on FS16 Bloodrage, which is basically Lilac's ascension cinematic.)

3. Go back to Zen Aneia and work on that one event I never finished where you run from Xali while she's doing all kinds of hectic stuff. (Trees falling down, large mounds of earth to avoid and obstacles that block the way that Koko has to use her books to destruct. So it's gonna be an undertaking and a half!)

I'll likely go with option 1 or 3, Pjcr's art submissions have been a tad lacking, lately.

You may notice now my avatar looks a slight bit more happy, well I decided to go and give my brand character a 16-set of emotes.

Been doing art in place of gamedev, lately.

 

[coyotecraft]

@biz: while you're at it. Koko's portrait has this floating dot next to her portrait. I don't think I ever brought it up before because I didn't want to be a perfectionist. It's probably the most noticeable in FS04 because of the dark background.

 

[BizarreMonkey]

@biz: while you're at it. Koko's portrait has this floating dot next to her portrait. I don't think I ever brought it up before because I didn't want to be a perfectionist. It's probably the most noticeable in FS04 because of the dark background.

There it is.

Found it after some investigating, it's only in her dynamic scenes (those where her eyes move around, the eye backs is where it comes from.. thanks! i may never have noticed that myself. Thankfully because i used the same eyebacks because nothing has to change in regards to them for every animation where she has dynamic eyes, this will fix everything once they are re-rendered.

Update: Got some work done, completely finished the Remaster of FS08 I'd planned to do, all that remains is for Sacreblu's voice actor to get me the couple lines she now has.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYA-rHwJ0bc

 

[coyotecraft]

I swear some writing sites just like to do a strip tease. They come out with articles that perfectly frame the things I struggle with. Like
"Exposition can be challenging. Sometimes the main character is in the dark and you don't have the luxury of another character to explain things."
and I'll be like "Yes! This is what I've been searching for. Unravel the mysteries! Take it all off!"
but then it takes a step backwards; covering basic terminology instead of writing strategies.
And I'm like "Noooooo"

 

[BizarreMonkey]

I think us talking about this might help us both coyote, I'm far from an accomplished writer but i do like to think of character writing as my strongest field, it's what I specialize in. So just bug me on steam whenever if you're down for some mad writer talk, Im not sure I can solve your exact dilemma but I may be more useful there in an interactive means of communication than say, on this forum.

I'm no longer on the HBG discord because Hybrida and Megaflare are the only other active members and it's just not going to work out. You don't use discord that much, anyway.

 

[Ellie]

 

[coyotecraft]

neat water effect. I think it would look better if it didn't have the horizon at the top.

 

[coyotecraft]

I think us talking about this might help us both coyote

I don't think it's something I could talk about in real-time though. I can barely articulate the problem to begin with, I just take shots in the dark and ask lots of questions hoping it leads me somewhere. I could spend all day formulating a theory on what I could do differently.

There are methods and techniques I'm avoiding because I want to write short-fiction. And the fact that it is a game. The practical Act 1: Save the Cat routine where you're suppose to show a character in their native environment and establish who the characters are first - I want to cut all that out.
The beginning exposition is suppose to provide context for the narrative action in the first place. But maybe that's where Screenwriting and Video Game Scripts diverge because what is "narrative action" in a video game?

 

[BizarreMonkey]

Yeah we have very different writing style, but that adversity was what I imagined may help.

But it could be counter-productive too, mind.

I am very much a long-form writer, although i spend most of my writing resources on characterization and interaction, rather than focusing on cosmetic details, as one look at the cover art of my occasional 'books' will reveal the characters appearance. I also in some pooks have a grayscale faded image in the background behind the text to depict certain scenes.

I did such with my first book, which was 26 pages long.
Trusting Hardships

My second book was much longer, at 88 pages.
Tome with No Name

My next one was much shorter, and wasn't really written with book format in mind, unlike Queen of Shadows and Trusting Hardships which definitely were.
The Last

As for game, I've made a bunch of progress but I'll wait until a bit later to unpack all of that.

 

[Nathaniel3W]

I'm finally moving Himeko Sutori from Early Access to full release tomorrow. I'm kind of nervous about it. I know the game still has bugs and there's more content I would like to add. But I think I can say that what I have right now is a complete game, and less buggy than other full releases I've seen. I have one more building interior I want to make for one more NPC named after a Kickstarter backer, who will sell one more kind of item I want to put in the game, for which I need to make one more sprite sheet (maybe with some recolors) and a crafting recipe... or maybe I should just make this item available for purchase with gold instead and save myself a step. Anyway, I think I can do all that by tomorrow.

And I'm afraid I'm going to have to cut a little content too to make tomorrow's deadline. There's one town late in the game that I made that I think I'm just going to erase from the map. It doesn't have any NPCs in it, and it doesn't serve any story purpose. It was mostly there just to show the player that this region has people living in it. Making a town's populace, with shops, night/day variations, dialogs, and maybe a quest or two is probably at least a week of additional work. Maybe I'll add it in a future patch.

After this, I'm going to force myself to focus less on adding content. I'm going to fix bugs, improve QoL, balance the game, build for other operating systems and distribution platforms, and maybe start some more localizations.

I've been working on this full-time for four years. And I started working part-time about two years before that. I'm not planning on this making me rich. I'm not even planning on this making as much money as I might have made had I kept my old job. I did this as an escape from that job, and a chance to start over doing something new. So tomorrow it'll be done, besides support and maybe some future content updates, but like emotionally and symbolically, I'll be done. This chapter will have closed. I'll transition from working on Himeko Sutori to looking for my next thing. I have no idea what that's going to be.

 

[Xhukari]

Oh wow, that's brilliant Nathaniel! I imagine it is part relief after all this time, eh? Such a long project!

 

[Nathaniel3W]

Thanks Xhukari! Yes, I think relief will be a part of it. I hope so, anyway.