Ghost Shards: The Stonesinger

[StrawberrySmiles]

@Jbrist - We've decided to take off the feathers, because Star didn't like them too much. XD He knows about the more contrast, but he says he can't get it to look right. o.o

@Zchin - Hmmm... I'll give that suggestion to Star and see if he'll do it. o.o And fan art? Yes, please! :D

This isn't really an update, but more for opinions. o.o

1. My fiance wants the player to climb Ashe's Core (which is a frozen, inactive volcano), and descend lower towards the base of the mountain to reach the shrine. Does this make sense to you?

2. I was thinking of slightly altering the default RTP sprites - mainly their eyes. Just to spice things up a bit, because it would take us AGES to do any custom graphics. >< So using the image below, which edit to the sprite is your favorite? Any other suggestions are welcomed!

Feedback is still appreciated! :D

 

[Daxis]

Better if you put it in the pixel code tags so we can observe it.



they all have their own look and eccentricities- most i like, although one has eyes too big and looks bug eyes.

 

[StrawberrySmiles]

But um, that's the size you'd see in the game, so I don't think it'd matter. I want to now which one you like not which ones you DON'T like. Because obviously I fail if no one picks them. Also, imgzoom doesn't work...

Also... What about 1?

 

[StrawberrySmiles]

Randomness. ^^

This is a fuller version of Gylwen's body - an important NPC. Keep in mind, we probably won't be fixing any of the artwork until after the demo is done, because we could be spending a lot of time on the portraits/scene_status pics when that time could be used for something else.

Whatever you tell me now, though - I will tell my fiance for later. :D

Also, this marks the end of the demo portraits (unless we decide to add the prologue) - which means we can continue on with mapping, eventing, the menu, and the battle system.

I would like it if someone would read over or watch the scenes we do for the demo and give us feedback. I'm afraid of having cheesy dialogue. :|

Thanks for reading!

 

[Cait]

\(^.^) I have a good suggestion about cheesy dialogue... o.o It really works, too. READ IT OUT LOUD and "IF" you can't say it without laughing, or mentally groaning, then you know you have to change it. There has been plenty of dialogue that sounded perfect when I wrote it, only to sound like the dumbest thing when I said it out loud.

 

[Vercetti]

This is just too good

 

[StrawberrySmiles]

Thanks for the advice, Cait!

Hello!

This project is still kicking. XD

We are recruiting Female Voice Actresses specifically for battles.

The following roles are available:

NARIE TEARWYN:
Voice type:Definately like Rita Mordio from Tales of Vesperia: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uomWFdckE7I [0]

Audition line 1: "If I were a Deity, I'd be the Goddess of Strength and Beauty!"
Audition line 2: "I can't heal stupidity, there's just no cure for it."

SARIE TEARWYN:
Voice type: The same voice as Narie, but more gentle and higher pitched. You can either attempt to do both, or we'll just have you record in Narie's voice and up the pitch in a program. ^^

Audition line 1: "Please, I mean you no harm."
Audition line 2:"Why, why must we keep fighting?"

RECORDING AND CONTACT INFORMATION:
-Save the lines as "charactername_yourname_linenumber.mp3" (ex: narie_strawberry_01.mp3)
-Send your auditions to cherri-blossom@hotmail.com

Thanks for reading! :3

 

[Zankoku no Yami]

I am late to the party... but loving the full body shots! I think they work better than merely the face shots, hehe.

Though the second one seems a bit STIFF. Outside that, looking great! cant wait to see more of where this goes~

 

[Echo Magnum]

I think the second last sprite on the bottom row is unique and sort of manga-like ( co-ordinates = bottom row, 2nd sprite going left ) but I'm a little used to rtp eyes with these sort of sprite proportions. I think you should have different eyes only for a few characters but the nobody NPCs can look normal.

Sweet torso shots their strawberry, I'm impressed :smile: you might want to avoid the infamous mug-shot i.e stiff torso shot with straight vertical hands and no emotion. Try making them so each character kind of has like a default pose e.g for a no-nonsense character they could cross their hands and look on slightly from the side, you know work their body language a little.

But that being said, the quality of the torso shots alone are still impressive, with character they would be ace like the ones you made for Aelina!

 

[StrawberrySmiles]

Thank you both!

Also, Echo, I had that same idea! I told Star (my fiance) about it, but he kind of just shrugged it off. I hope I can convince him to give the characters decent poses when they're not expressing anything! ><

For the next bit (which isn't really spoiler-heavy), I'm kind of conflicted with something.

Here it is.

Which is better?:

1) Aelina's father is a fearful and powerful Frostsidhe Necromancer inflicted with Vamprism. He treats her horribly and abandoned her as a child in order to continue with his studies of the dead. He lives in the forbidden Northlands with his female assistants, away from civilians and hates to be bothered. He has undead "pets" guarding his laboratory from adventurers. He's scary.

2) Aelina's father is a goofy and comic relief Frostsidhe Necromancer inflicted Vamprism. He merely ignored her as a child and had his current mistress take care of her instead. When she left at the age 16 to travel, something came up and they left for the forbidden Northlands. He talks like a cliche vampire (Count Chocula anyone?).

 

[LiquidMetal91]

Depends on what your going for with the story...
1) will make her the fully abandoned child whilst 2) will make her a semi-abandoned child
1) is harder on the psyche and would result in her having a serious form of hatred focused on her father
2) is less hard on the psyche for the fact that he's still there with her, only ignoring her. As this can be hard on a child as well, its less hard than having an evil Vampire as a father, which you've been tossed aside like the corpses he drains..

But if i have to choose, i'd go for 2). Its less common to find this in the backstory from a main char. As 1) would give a "I have to get revenge on my father the evildoer" theme

 

[StrawberrySmiles]

I've decided to use number 2, but NOT making him talk like Count Chocula. That's just... too silly for my tastes.

Now I have -another- question.... Gah...

How would you prefer to upgrade your equipment?

1. You go from one town to the other and buy new gear for each party member like any old J-RPG.

2. You go from one town to the other and buy new gear for each party member like any old J-RPG OR you can synthesis a piece of an equipment with a special effect (like a weapon that inflicts Poison or a piece of armor that guards against Poison).

3. You go from one town to the other and buy new gear for each party member like any old J-RPG OR you can further upgrade that gear into +1 equipment and give it special effects exclusive to that piece of gear (like a +1 Trident inflicts Water damage now, as oppose to a normal Trident).

 

[Jason]

I'd say 3 to be honest, because then each weapon gets progressively stronger without giving the player an option they may fuck up on, like me for example, when I'm given too much of a choice, I always pick the wrong thing and my characters/equipment end up really weak, whereas if I had a weapon, and it said I can ONLY upgrade it with certain stats, I'd be more than happy, because I can't go wrong and my characters/equipment will be stronger...

However, there's the downfall that some people love TONS of customisation, and would like the option to add whatever they liked to it, so I guess that's where you hit another wall, trying to please everyone...

 

[StrawberrySmiles]

We took out crafting because it was too hard to implement... But I would've picked what you said, Jay-Jay!

Hello, all!

We have an update to show we are alive.

First a quick sketch of one of the playable characters that will show up right after the demo: Demi Carinae.

Spoiler

Now we have several videos showing what we've done so far.

The WIP of the battle system:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r870led0wls

Beginning scenes:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lt2e1P5bdI4

 

[Daxis]

wow i was totally typing about this and never submitted it.


er

anyways key things:

the battle system is underwhelming. A bit more special effects and junk would be cool. Sometimes, the dialogue is corny and sort odd, such as some of the death ones (might have been what you were going for). Basically, it needs some polish. The framerate is a bit low, but that might have been the whole recording thing.


the beginning scene needs some refinement: the first person speaking i had no clue where she was due to the wall. solved 5 secs later, but whatevers.
there's no particular build up in the game.
some pauses took a tad moment too long.

I'm pleasantly surprised that the art wasn't that bad.

I personally thnk you shoudl center/take off the edge for the text box. the whole going off screen thing is a tad annoying when npc's are talking.

the title scene had requiem in writing that didn't fit.

 

[StrawberrySmiles]

YAY! Another "Daxis Critique!" Lols.

Actually, Star is supposed to respond to you, since he's taking care of all the coding and spicing up the scenes. I'm just... here.

I'm not sure what you mean the death dialogue, though. No one died in that video. o.o

Of course the art wasn't bad, Star drew it. :P He's pretty darn good at that stuff. XD J/K I mean, we try to have original art instead of stealing it. That counts for something, right?

Also, I wanted to say that's not the real title screen. I'd be ashamed if it was.


Some minor, but fun updates! :D

First a side-view portrait of Aelina, which will be used in menus and such; only.

Such as this wordless mockup of our main menu! Hehe.

Then we added a mini-map to battles, so you can tell where your allies are and where the monsters are:

And finally a question. YAY! Anyhoo. I want to change the way dialogue is played out in scenes and when talking to NPC's. The way we have it now is sort of bad, because it looks silly when an non-important character is talking.

So I found some examples on the internet on how we might be able to remedy this. If you have your own idea, please share! ^^

Example 1:

Example 2:

Thanks for reading!

 

[Star]

the battle system is underwhelming. A bit more special effects and junk would be cool. Sometimes, the dialogue is corny and sort odd, such as some of the death ones (might have been what you were going for). Basically, it needs some polish. The framerate is a bit low, but that might have been the whole recording thing.

I'm pleasantly surprised that the art wasn't that bad.

the title scene had requiem in writing that didn't fit.

Don't you remember who I am, you silly man you :P

Of course the art isn't that bad, I'm the one you find it hard to find flaws in the art when you look at it. :box:

Yeah, the battle system is underwhelming cause it's not anywhere near done, infact it wasn't even my idea to want to post this gameplay video, I wanted to wait til it was actually ready for your awesome critiques. But hey, you'll see it polished soon enough. Yes, the framerate was the recording thing, they don't ever work right.

 

[StrawberrySmiles]

Hey all, it feels like I haven't updated this in forever. D=

We've decided to use number 1 for dialogue with portraits, and number 2 for non-portrait NPCs.

How is progress going?

To be honest - slow. Maybe we're just worn out working on this thing, but we do aim to at least put out a demo to see what everyone thinks. I keep changing the equipment for the characters. Now, they have a chance to wear something heavy, or something light. o.o Of course, boys and girls get separate equipment - because the equipment may give augments that only benefit a certain gender. Sadly, I've been procrastinating getting the females heavy gear done. ;_; I'm a horrible hobbyist. XD

We did do a lot planning for the story, however. Most of it holds spoilers, so I won't discuss them here.

It's not much, but at least you know how Ghost Shards has been coming along. o.o

Here's a picture of the heroine, Aelina with her scythe - drawn by my fiance. <3

 

[StrawberrySmiles]

A couple of minor updates...

Battle Notes:
*Players now cannot attack non-stop, but instead only attack about three times in a row

Art Notes:
New Logo!

Why? Well, one logo got heavy complaints and the other had a subtitle I've gotten rid of ages ago. So I opted to get a new one. Credits go to Radethdart. ^^

Some portraits of important NPCs: (Ashe and Aera)

Ghost Shards is getting new graphics! Not really, but I was bored and sprited some stuff of Aelina with inspirations from handheld games. XD

 

[Daxis]

Ha, nice logo. Radeth always does have good design style.
question: do the logos and their respective pictures have much to do with the actual story? Like, I can't recall the other logos off the top of my head, but I think not all of them had the droplet thing. Or they might have. I don't know.

Does it seem like the portraits have shoulders that are a bit, idk, rounded? I know it's part of the style (like the small necks) and overall they're done fine, but the first portrait seems to have shoulders that are a bit more rounded than I'd agree with. (it's also a bit short, but that's part of the anime style again - the shortness/small width of the shoulder might contribute to this a bit, as such roundness might go well with a normal anatomy pic but seems a bit, idk, here)

The sprites look very nice, as they look exactly from that ff6 era and whatnot.(The first one a little bit more, the second one looks a bit from a decent rm2k3 game from the style of contrast) She/they/it would prolly look better animated, as the contrast between clothing (the two shades of green and brown and whatnot) are a bit blurred in there right now.