What are you working on? (Game Making Thread)

[BizarreMonkey]

That's beginning to look really nice and polished Nathan.

So I've decided the first public demo of Fantasia will contain disk 0 and only a small part of disk 1, i can see us getting that ready in time for 3/14, but not a complete disk 1, this means i can focus on really polishing up disk 0 to it's maximum.

I've also started on the huge epic scale video for 3/14, this will be our fifth, our big five, and thankfully, we have a lot of highlihgts for this year.

Hellcat: Born Again was released as a Demo on April 24th (Easter Sunday because Satan said I should.)

Perseverance: Full Clearance: Released in full.

Fantasia Demo: Released. (or will be on time for the highlights)

more too probably

 

[coyotecraft]

Don't forget to ask for help if you need it.

 

[Jason]

That's beginning to look really nice and polished Nathan.

So I've decided the first public demo of Fantasia will contain disk 0 and only a small part of disk 1, i can see us getting that ready in time for 3/14, but not a complete disk 1, this means i can focus on really polishing up disk 0 to it's maximum.

I've also started on the huge epic scale video for 3/14, this will be our fifth, our big five, and thankfully, we have a lot of highlihgts for this year.

Hellcat: Born Again was released as a Demo on April 24th (Easter Sunday because Satan said I should.)

Perseverance: Full Clearance: Released in full.

Fantasia Demo: Released. (or will be on time for the highlights)

more too probably

Just curious, and I don't mean this in a bad way or anything, but how many people actually play your games? Just seems like so many RPG Maker games are dead on arrival with no audience, yet you seem to put a LOT of effort into your games... is the audience worth it, or it just something you do for yourself anyway?

 

[coyotecraft]

I think the question of worth is a dangerous one. It's a matter of perspective. Turning that awareness in on yourself can trip you up. Impair you. Or rather, not you but the mind. It's called hyper-reflection.
Ever hear poem of the Centipede's Dilemma?

A centipede was happy – quite!
Until a toad in fun
Said, "Pray, which leg moves after which?"
This raised her doubts to such a pitch,
She fell exhausted in the ditch
Not knowing how to run.

The mind is a powerful thing, but the sense of self is a kind of limiter. It's like when you dream, you aren't anyone. You're not any one. Until you remember or realize it's a dream - and then you wake up, usually, because of questioning the dream "How did I get here? and other sensible thoughts. If you go looking for the point - "the point" will poke you in the eye. Burst your bubble ect...
I think that applies to the waking world as well. Questioning you motivations is disruptive and damaging. You hit a bump and get knocked out of your flow; lose your groove. Doubting yourself for not knowing where you're going. Objectify everything. So then you have to suffer a hard reality that everything is pointless. You suffer, searching for something to have meaning or purpose in your life again. Until you breakdown and all that you want is to be back in the flow of things and not think about it anymore.
I think there's wisdom in "Don't think about it". But it's easier said than done.

 

[Jason]

Makes sense I suppose, probably helps explain why I've never finished a game, because I've always thought to myself, why bother making this game if nobody is gonna' play it anyway? No point putting tens or hundreds of my own hours into making a game for like a dozen people to play, especially with how OCD I am with designing things too. There is of course an exception which comes in the form of Project GRID, but that basically had a guaranteed audience and was a rather unique experience compared to anything I'd worked with before.

I've still been deciding for YEARS if I want to actually make and finish a small project, something I've had in the back of my mind since I first discovered RPG Maker (So back before I even made my account here, lol), but then I think... even for a small project it's taking so many hours of my very limited time that I won't feel will be appreciated in the way I'd want it to, which is why I tried my hand at a mobile game, since I at least know there's enough people in the world that it'd at least get some plays, RPG Maker games are a little more niche than games on the app store I reckon, lol.

 

[Xilef]

I play Bizarre's games. I've even used them to test my pixel-movement Plugin to see how it fairs in games that weren't designed to use it (and it fairs very well).

What am I working on? Doing some 3D modelling and Unity shader writing.

Supposed to be a Sony BVM-20F1U (CRT monitor). I'm thinking of making a VRChat world (hence that red mic icon at the lower left).

Need to adjust the UV map somewhat and then I will texture it. That's an actual video playing in the TV with a CRT shader. Looks really good in VR, even with the moire effect (which I expected to look shit in VR).

 

[BizarreMonkey]

Just curious, and I don't mean this in a bad way or anything, but how many people actually play your games? Just seems like so many RPG Maker games are dead on arrival with no audience, yet you seem to put a LOT of effort into your games... is the audience worth it, or it just something you do for yourself anyway?

More than I think but less than I'd hope.

For me I just love, LOVE making games, I'll do it until the day i die, even if no one plays them. I get the feeling we'll explode pretty soon anyway.

I don't have a marketing team or such, but what I am blessed with is an array of helpful, free and talented artists, composers and such to help me out in developing these games. My passion is theirs, too.

That said, we have been getting a lot more players lately, since our games began being consistent.

This release went really well, attracting 1000 views, 28 follows, 102 plays and two top scores in its first day. It far overshot any prior release and topped all my other games on gamejolt with its numbers the first day despite those ones being up and around a long time.

Drifty did a First Impressions video too which also got it some good attention.

Seeing what you've said, it's clear you were in game making for fame, not for the enjoyment of making a game itself, in which case it's probably for your best interests that you steer clear, making anything stand out takes a lot of effort, regardless of medium. I'm a hobbyist artists, too- if I were trying to be noticed as an artist, I'd have already quit.

@Xilef: See this is what I meant by I have more players than I know, lmao.

Pixel movement tests, hm? Interesting... did you try PFC with it? If it actually works well with the combat I may want to nab that from you after you're done, lel.

Only genuine complaint that game has gotten has been that the combat is a little clunky. Some believe pixel-collision and movement would fix this but I've been skeptical.

Alright, as for what I'm working on... well, I mentioned it earlier in my last post.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YK9kf-jIrU
Wew... Just some more content, cutting the end down a little, and adding sfx before it's ready.

 

[Xilef]

Pixel movement tests, hm? Interesting... did you try PFC with it?

PFC was the first game I tried it with. It worked very well, besides some issues with event triggers (where you used player-touch, which triggers early in my pixel movement Plugin - switching to event touch would fix these cases easy).

 

[Jason]

Seeing what you've said, it's clear you were in game making for fame, not for the enjoyment of making a game itself, in which case it's probably for your best interests that you steer clear, making anything stand out takes a lot of effort, regardless of medium. I'm a hobbyist artists, too- if I were trying to be noticed as an artist, I'd have already quit.

Nah, when I first started game making, it was a hobby, I didn't really care if people played my games or not, but I always aimed too high, and the amount of work I'd need to do became overwhelming so I'd stop working on a game, and start a new one... and the cycle would repeat. These days I don't even have close to half the time I did back then, and since I tend to put so much work into presentation when working on things (Non-game related too), I just feel like if I DID eventually release something, it'd be a waste for nobody to actually play/appreciate it. I'm still debating on whether I want to give it another try, not for the fame, that was never the goal, I just need to get into the right mindset and not set my goals so incredibly high to the point where I discourage myself from doing it.

I still do pixel art and a bit of sketching as hobbies, but I'm not exactly looking to be famous for my work, it's just something I do for myself and if people ask, lol.

 

[BizarreMonkey]

Okay, was just guessing.

Also, I always did aim fairly high with my games, like Intelligence was more casual, but it requires a lot of custom art. Menagerie I did aim high, and while it did take 3 years for me to finally be happy with the gaes state, it's definitely a strong runner in my series. Then Perseverance was exceptionally ambitious, it also took about three years to take somewhere.

I'm hoping I can make Fantasia a little quicker, the good signs are that I've already gotten a bunch of Fan art for it and it does not yet have a single public release, from what I've been told the writing and character dynamic is incredibly solid, enough so that it can excuse a lack of gameplay, but I'm adding some more of that, regardless.

Once I get back, I'll be spending today fixing up a bug in which players can't fire when framesing, and adding a battle for Lilac.

Don't forget to ask for help if you need it.

I do, just in a round-about way that then means you need to offer, I'm weird like that, but it seems I won't need these until after the demo's complete now, anyway.

If you're a girl and would like to do VA feel free to hit me up, because while outside of Fuseguno, all those VA's are girls, you cannot fathom just how many important characters in this game are female.

In the future I'll need voices for:
Wi Hellrider
YHWH / Jehovah (though I may just combine Yi and Wi voice acting. I think that'd be pretty cool.)
Lyza
Tristy Heals
And probably others. Might be able to find a Tristy Heals locally.

PFC was the first game I tried it with. It worked very well, besides some issues with event triggers (where you used player-touch, which triggers early in my pixel movement Plugin - switching to event touch would fix these cases easy).

Wew, I will have to grab that off of you once you're finished.

 

[AceOfAces]

I made a way to compress the backups! Yay!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdKId2QCapg

 

[BizarreMonkey]

-Added Battle for Lilac
-Began implementing new map system for the sister's house.
-Fixed framesing bugs.
-Updated and enhanced animations largely.
-Battle voices have been implemented.
-New sound effects were added.
-Lilac's Skedaddle mechanic was overhauled.

Probably more, there's an odd bug where Koko cant fire books in the tutorial, will be looking into it.

 

[Nathaniel3W]

I thought the loss of a character would be more painful if the player gets used to seeing that character regularly. So I decided to implement a follower system.

At first, I made the follower move toward its leader, wherever the leader is. But then if the leader goes around a corner, the follower gets stuck. So I had to implement a movement history and make the follower follow that. And I had to disable collision so you don't get stuck in a corner with your followers behind you. And I had to fix teleports to keep followers together. And I had to mess with physics if you're on the second floor of a building going downstairs, and the second floor vanishes with your followers still on it. And what if your followers die in combat? And what if you go to the squad menu and back again? And how do you save and load who from your army is in your personal retinue? And now I am running into all of these situations where having followers around was more complicated than I thought at first.

 

[Fayte]

Honestly I don’t think having followers is worth it. It’s like an aesthetic that’s cool to have but definitely not necessary. Final Fantasy did it in 8 and then scratched it for all further final fantasies lol

 

[coyotecraft]

huh. I never noticed that before. FF8 is the only one with a follower system.
Now that I think about it, I can't name that many other game that use it.

 

[BizarreMonkey]

There's a few... but they're usually pretty niche titles.

So, what I been working on??

FINAL STRETCH, BOYO!

Basically I'm making the final dev leap towards Fantasia's demo release on the 14th, among the list is fixing a bug which is forbidding Koko from throwing books in the tutorial, updating the Vahnus Estate with the new map formula it's recently been given.

This is a rough example of what the maps will look like.

I've complete the work order for all 17 of those, so now it's just up to my lead artist Xiie to finish the sprites that remain (one or two now) and then begin making those.

Now that I know what will exist in rooms and what won't, I intend to go around and polish all the flavor text items to hell and back. I've also gotta animated Kyoshi, Yasondre and Yi's expressions that exist in a properform insofar, then get the rest out of Pjcr and do those.

Everything has alread been prepared for otherwise, using placeholders. I've also gotten in touch with Kate Holden and Adoxographist, the original voice actors for Fyori and Esperia, to do just a few lines in regards to the sixth cinematic.

Once I've gotten done all I can, I'm gonna update what I can of the 3/14 video, shorten some clips to make room for some other clips, add in sound effects, voice acting where called for, and so on.

3 days of utter craziness. This is it.

Also if I find time I MIGHT make a final release day trailer for Fantasia, which will be very different to the one I released recently, and show all the updated maps, sprites, and such.

Here's a sprite my artist Xiie recently finished of Wi Hellrider.

"Face your sentence with whatever dignity you have left." <Outstretches hand.> "Shōkyo."

Shōkyo is Japanese for Erase.

 

[Nathaniel3W]

Final Fantasy didn't embrace followers shown during the exploration part of the game. But Dragon Warrior did. (Did Dragon Quest also? I never played those.)

Like Fayte said, it's an aesthetic decision rather than a functional one. I wouldn't have put it in just for the sake of having followers. Depending on your choices, there could be a character death at the end of chapter 1, and I want it to hurt. I figured the best way to do that would be to give that character more screen time.

 

[BizarreMonkey]

I found what was causing that abnormal bug in the tutorial fight, I had two iframe events, and no friend switcher, took me a bit to sleuth that one but now it works great!

Also outside of a couple single frame dead bodies my pixel artist is done with sprites, and so she'll be moving onto maps.

After some less than satisfactory results, I took her off maps, and let the very capable hands of Apoc handle it instead. As for me, I'm currently swapping out a few maps for easy parallax ones.

Virtually all of the sprites are done now, only a few dead boddies are left.

I just played through the whole game, fixed all the transfer, and sprite missin bugs. I've also updated a lot of maps with a single still background.

 

[Jason]

I think if I were to ever get MV I'd go with parallax mapping, maybe multi layered too, I know VX Ace had a script to anchor pictures to the map, so you could have a parallax map where you can go under things too... I'd imagine MV has a plugin similar to that, or if not, I could find someone to do it, lol.

 

[Nathaniel3W]

Hey Biz, where do you get your backgrounds from?