What are you working on? (Game Making Thread)

[Xilef]

Building tools. I think I decided to use C# for tools development: much quicker to write compared to a fresh C++ project and has a load of handy libraries. I find C# much easier for doing GUI stuff too, if the need arises.
I've done a load of tools before but I think it is best to build new ones specific to the needs here.

First up is an image converter that will take an input image and generate a GBA optimised compressed binary with stuff like palettes sorted out automatically. My test is to have GameBoy Player detection working from a given PNG screenshot of the GameBoy Player logo; which is what the real hardware uses to detect if it is in use; the GameCube accessory literally scans VRAM checking to see if that logo is displayed with the correct palette and then sends some bizarre controller pulses (stuff like having all dpad buttons pressed at the same time) to say "I'm a GameBoy Player in a GameCube".

I've got a bitbucket repo going for this project now. Still consider it early stages. If someone (such as maybe ZenVirZan) wants to check out the project code then I can add them (need a Bitbucket account and preferably Git installed - project files are all visual studio 2017).

It contains instructions for getting GBA development going for Windows so send me a PM if you want in on that.

 

[BizarreMonkey]

Spent most of today integrating the new portraits for Fyori.

Last one may be changed in the future, she's also lacking her wings currently, but that'll be fixed in due course.

I've also been working on the first of three animations I plan to make before disk 1's story is wrapped up.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXsuCiXmrsM
As you can hear, the audio is all done, with the exception of Svoli's voice actor lines and instead my placeholder lines, the visuals aren't done yet either, as it goes black for a while.

 

[BizarreMonkey]

Thanks to EVENTS and some hecka inspiration, I used a shit-ton of me and my artists assets to make an AMV. This will likely play from the title-screen after idling long enough.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VIiLHircFI

 

[Nathaniel3W]

Hey Biz, did you hire a different artist for Fyori? Have you been refining your skills? Whatever it was, she looks great.

 

[BizarreMonkey]

Hey Biz, did you hire a different artist for Fyori? Have you been refining your skills? Whatever it was, she looks great.

Same artist as the Lumi, Koko... everyone in Fantasia portrait artist (he hasn't gotten to some yet.) But yes he did seem to jump a couple of levels of quality with Fyori.

Currently dealing with composer struggles, might actually have to legit hire someone before long. Unfortunately Max's life is just being a dick to him and it's largely effecting his work.

HowEVER. While progress has been slow, I did finally finish Kara's fight in entirety.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6OOJTyqLJE
Had a lot of fun voicing all that. That said, there is WAY too much pre-battle dialogue. Some of the obscure references and factoids from I314 can be skipped, too.

Currently I'm finalizing the concept for Pexepe before my artists go forward. Or more, the concept is finalized. My artist Xiie gave him a lot more ideal and easier to draw form.

Looks a lot darn better than the previous split incarnation.

I myself between keeping my eyes peeled for a composer, have been rewriting a lot of Disk 1 dialogue to flow better, as well as giving Esperia and Fyori character introductions and then questions you can ask them.

Before long I'll be getting to work on the Rolly and Tristy boss fights. I just don't want to rush them. Much as I've not dared to rush the Pep, Svoli or Kara Boss fights. For people who played original installments in my franchises where these characters have become fond memories, I don't wish to do these characters a disservice. To disservice them is to disservice the hopes and dreams of my fans, and I'll not be doing that without merit or reason.

 

[BizarreMonkey]

Composer issue resolved, Jake "Moneymenace" Gamelin, the muse behind the Intelligence 314th Clash, Perseverance Full Clearance and Menagerie Remastered OSTs is back in action for Fantasia: Surreal Cosmic Progeny.

Want to witness what he has done so far? Very well~
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cy6JuT9X1IMhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puL-diuzPbE


Once again, the gears are all rolling back into place...

The pieces on my board of life are returning to the fold.

Demo 2 is fast approaching... you can not stop it.

Nothing can.

I'll show you, we'll show them all.

What TERROR really means!

A game called Fantasia...

is drawing ever NEAR!

 

[BizarreMonkey]

Bumping this back up to the top since I did not intend for my agenda thread to be that much of a superimposition.

Thankfully, I have quite a bit to show.

Firstly, Kyoshi has a grand and awesome battle theme, courtesy of Jake "Moneymenace" Gamelin.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aw5OyUDL2IE

And a bunch of scenes I've been doing editorial voicing for.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8bVvTLFyAchttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Y_LJm-0-hA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaOU-lDZaiAhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkm6A6MSSXg
Demo 2 on 3/14 is unlikely, unfortunately.

 

[coyotecraft]

I started outlining a fan game idea. At first, it was a really loose idea. I tried not to get hung up on names so I just stuck with "The guy" and "the thing" for the first part of my draft. But by the second half it all started to flow. Names came to me. It was like, one metaphor lead to another symbol, to another pun. I was really on a roll. I thought about it all morning and figured out a comedic ending.
Idk. I guess it all came easily because it's half a joke game anyways and I don't need to be serious. I got to channel a lot of sexual innuendo with suggestive names like "The Morning Wood"
It also helps that I started off with a central theme and message. Normally I struggle for weeks debating what I want a story to be about or how to use a character and I never get anywhere.

I'm eager to start drawing art for it.

 

[BizarreMonkey]

Okay that sounds epic.

SPEAKING of sounds.

Yasondre's regular theme was composed recently. Check iiit~
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGpVhw2LUa4
For those who have played Intelligence 314th Clash, they may recognize the leitmotif used here, as Yasondre's theme Miracle of Life. Good thing about having Jake on board is that he already has several powerful and recognizable leitmotifs for a large variety of characters.

Xiie and Pjcr are also slowly but surely chipping away at their work. Pep now has a sprite, courtesy of Xiie.

Meanwhile, Pjcr has finished Fyori's wings, and they look truly spectacular.

As may be obvious, thats a cropped version, click the image to see its fullest glory.

 

[coyotecraft]

Perseverance "The Hanged Man" Interlude?
I just wanted to write a story that explored Pep's brother more and put into perspective his psychological underpinnings.
Of course it's fan fiction set in a dreamland. So needless to say, it's not canon and "didn't happen". It revolves around the "The Hanged Man" tarot card and means to paint Sven in a certain light. In Perseverance Full Clearance it doesn't seem like he contributes much, he is afraid of heights, and chooses to stay behind at one point which feel like the opposite of "perseverance".
So, I wanted to proved a story arc that does him justice.

I thought about putting a Dream Drop Distance spin on it since Bizmonkey has a lot of Kingdom Heart allusions in his games. Or maybe a Chain of Memories card mechanic, since Sven isn't really a fighter.
In keeping with "The Hanged Man" imagery I plan on filling it with hang-around-ish characters. Like a bat, and a chrysalis "dakimakura" type character that might be the closest Sven ever gets to having a girlfriend. Just thought of an opossum character I should add.
Esperia, naturally, will be there to torment Sven although her efforts will be rendered ineffective by a certain self-insert comic relief character. She'll be running The High Noon whorehouse that shares a building complex with Censors' Bar (get it?) which then turns into a gambling house.

 

[BizarreMonkey]

Oh gosh when you said fan game I did not expect it to be about characters from my universe! xD

Sven is given relentless nightmares by Esperia, and he's not very perseverant, which is exactly his gimmick. He's not a crazy feckless sort, he's probably the most human character because he doesn't feel he can do much against all these super-demons, undead liches and other nasty types.

That being said, he still does what he can, and his sacrifice so that Nola and Pep could live is such an example of this. He does get a moment in the spotlight after the first naxon Bossfight when he sets the Black Sacrement alight and destroys it, thereby severing the corruptive hold naxon had over the general populace, which allowed for Pep's revolution in Act 4.

I have drawn him with his eyes open like... once, they look pretty much like Pep's.

Only time I'm pretty sure where his eyes have been open. back in his old get up. oh, actually, he opened them quite a bit in a prequel-esque non-canon comic thing I did a while ago, called Pigs and Perpetuity.

Now it's just sorta his gimmick that his eyes are closed all the time. It's likely he fears immensely Esperia repeating the trick on him that she so enjoyed pulling on his father... (removing his eyes from their sockets.)

Bizmonkey has a lot of Kingdom Heart allusions in his games.

Oh no! someone noticed! Dx

But yes, the card thing might be most effective, but depends how difficult it would be to implement. I'll support the idea from a distance, I never imagined people would think of making fan games or fanfiction of my work. :O

I do definitely have some inspiration from Kingdom hearts occasionally, possibly the best example being Corporation XVI, who have large parts in the optional content for Menagerie, as well as a large role throughout Intelligence 314th Clash. Fantasia they are completely absent, possibly murdered by Yi Hellrider for causing so much temporal damage. Impetuous Sussuration does get a little bit involved in PFC, but to an incredibly minor degree, not unsurprising he found Pep, given that he recruits Pep and his three friends into the Clash in late Intelligence. He's also alternate future me, which means he likely saw Pep in a dream and assumed at first Pep was a character he made, but then after discovering dimensional matrix theory, realized he didn't create somewhere, but went somewhere astrally and met the furball, if only briefly. Thus allowing him to use it in games that would prophecize and alter the future. Most of my alternate selves do seem to at least be heavily into game development, it's one of the variables that never really changes. But not all of the alternate Bizarre Monkey's get a fortunate ending, my twelfth dimensional self erased himself to avoid having to live or suffer an immortal death to wait out the inevitable truth he'd learned, ironically, Universe XII is actually saved from the Bizarre Monkey from Dimension IV, but he arrives too late to know of, let alone save his other self.

I sometimes get called the Infinite Biz, the reason being is that a version of me exists in all dimensions. Many die, some live, some few become heroes. it's become pretty clear I am not the Bizarre Monkey of Dimension IV, despite the immense amount of similarities. I did want to be him, but it wasn't to be. It's impossible as of the current timeline, it was prophecized that on Pi Day 2018 I would discover the fourth wall, and via use of its manipulation, be able to bring my friends into my same physical space. Then we'd go on to save the world via the use of some extra-dimensional help from a duplicate of Universe XII, that later me and the corporation would escape too and call the Equation Unsolved. From here we'd begin meddling in the affairs of the Twelfth Universe, throughout various periods of time, we'd recruit many who wanted to join our cause. And eventually the 314th Clash would become, and we'd help it succeed in our various ways. Though thinking i might get erased by Yi after the fact, I'm kinda glad I'm not that member XII.

Anyway, talk about getting off topic!

Here's a screenshot from perseverance Full Clearance, in regards to the upcoming widescreen patch.

Also a bit of old news, but here's the 22 Main characters and their tarots from Fantasia.

 

[coyotecraft]

:v
I did my research. I figured that was just an early prototype Sven from a different continuity. I think in your earliest version he's only 10. And it's set in a completely different year than whats stated in another thread.

I haven't played your other games in so long. Maybe it's explained in them. But like, what happened to the humans? They "left" and there was a war of "indifference". Wolves didn't sign the treaty, and I guess they're still feral? Idk. Wasn't sure how I was going to
implement a Coyote character. If it should blend of "coyote" legends.

Actually before I settled on Sven, I briefly thought about doing a story about Kara's Brother. He's nonexistant as far as I can tell but he got the Etheral Blade from somewhere, right? There must be a story there. The Angular-sight reminds me of a myth about Coyote, and how he was once "the moon" at one point. But he was able to spy on everyone and tattle-tail whenever someone did something bad. Everyone got together and decided that's something the Moon should be able to do. He can't be "The Moon" and "Justice". I figure the etheral blade could be related to "Justice".
It's interesting you correspond Kara with "The Moon". When talking about archetypes you'll find synchronicities everywhere.

Like, The Hanged Man is always affiliated in someway with ice. Understandable, being "stuck" and "frozen" are basically the same thing. You've got Sven and Icy Esperia, and Sven is part of a resistance hiding from a spying eye .
Luke, in Star Wars The Empire Strikes Back, is representative of the hanged man. The first time you see him, he's hanging upside down, captured by a snow beast, On the planet Hoth, the rebels new base. He's got to take out a search probe. I get a little scared when I see synchronicities like these. I mean you didn't intend for Sven to be "the hanged man". But I see it as validation. Some kind of common denominator that symbols have. Or conformation bias.

 

[coyotecraft]

Oneiroi are these bat like dream spirits in the sleeping world. Still exploring their look, I think I'm going to lean more towards black.

I figured a bat would make a good foil character for Sven. I learned that bat's aren't that strong to lift off the ground. They got to drop from branches and such to get in the air. So this foil character has a fear of being on the ground, crawling and exposed like he might never get back up, which is a mirror version of Sven's fear of heights and thinking he might never get back down.

Tentatively, the idea is that Esperia has captured the other Oneiroi. Or at least any she comes across, that allows her to shape dreams. Sven's got this "Dream Nail" aka "heart thorn" sticking out of his chest. It's his metaphorical attachment to the dream world and allows him to connect with Oneiroi. Maybe just the one character in particular, who I've currently dubbed Sonar. But I'm thinking maybe all the bats will have fruity names. I'm not sure how this "connection" with oneiroi will manifest as gameplay. Maybe just skins for Sven to wear, or navigation tools if I want an adventure mechanic. I have echolocation in mind. Or echos might be memories.
Anyways, Sven can't wake up with the nail so he's got to head to Censor's Bar to get "hammered". It will be a very pun-y game, yes.

 

[coyotecraft]

I got distracted watching videos of bats eating fruit.
"Research"

 

[BizarreMonkey]

:v
I did my research. I figured that was just an early prototype Sven from a different continuity. I think in your earliest version he's only 10. And it's set in a completely different year than whats stated in another thread.

If there's any version where he's that young, I've severely screwed up somewhere, in Canon during the time of PFC Sven is 14-15, Pep is 12-13 and Nola is 13-14. A year passed during the window of the game. ROLLY however, is 10 Years old when Intelligence starts.

I haven't played your other games in so long. Maybe it's explained in them. But like, what happened to the humans? They "left" and there was a war of "indifference". Wolves didn't sign the treaty, and I guess they're still feral? Idk. Wasn't sure how I was going to
implement a Coyote character. If it should blend of "coyote" legends.

Intelligence 314th Clash covers that, in PFC it's not very important to the story, as humans only show up when they are Heldathian- like Esperia and her soulcatchers. To tell you the basics though, the humans left on an exodus to escape the frostlord Maw's wrath, that was in 2032, shortly after the animals, mostly the domesticated ones, grew the intelligence courtsy of Blu the Spellweaver to become the dominant species of the planet. Since cats eat birds, dogs ate chickens and carnivores were a THING, fear was spread and further fueled by the instigators of the Great War, Naxon and Esperia. The war went from 2040 until 2070, during this time Tristy was born, and brought the war to a standstill all the while also containing Maw, the Insurrection of Great Britain starts around 2064 (if I'm remembering right) but yeah after the war a grand union was brought about, ambassadors of the mammalian races signed a treaty that would forbid the eating of other creatures, Saxxis Bufudyne had found a means to make mock meats using scientific research from his earlier years to give the same sort of boost and chemical reaction to eating meat as one would typically get, so yeah basically tofu is the thing that is meat for everyone now. HOWEVER, Wolves were like 'nah dawg that shits fuckin stupid we outie' so they all went and curled up in the woods and sometimes go for live prey, I guess.

Actually before I settled on Sven, I briefly thought about doing a story about Kara's Brother. He's nonexistant as far as I can tell but he got the Etheral Blade from somewhere, right? There must be a story there.

Kara's unnamed bro is elusive as they get, I don't know their name myself, but if I had to guess it'd probably be Raka. As for the Ethereal Blade, I'm sure it came from somewhere that isn't in earth, most of the crazy bullshit swords are, although it's possible Lazarus was behind it, as he's made similar swords for varying warriors in the past, such as Zardari's sword. The swords he makes have matter manipulating edges, meaning what the sword cuts doesn't damage the sword, as its being cut right before it makes contact. Kara's sword does not seem to have this property, though. I'd have to go astrally travel around and discover it for myself.

The Angular-sight reminds me of a myth about Coyote, and how he was once "the moon" at one point. But he was able to spy on everyone and tattle-tail whenever someone did something bad. Everyone got together and decided that's something the Moon should be able to do. He can't be "The Moon" and "Justice". I figure the etheral blade could be related to "Justice".
It's interesting you correspond Kara with "The Moon". When talking about archetypes you'll find synchronicities everywhere.

Like, The Hanged Man is always affiliated in someway with ice. Understandable, being "stuck" and "frozen" are basically the same thing. You've got Sven and Icy Esperia, and Sven is part of a resistance hiding from a spying eye .
Luke, in Star Wars The Empire Strikes Back, is representative of the hanged man. The first time you see him, he's hanging upside down, captured by a snow beast, On the planet Hoth, the rebels new base. He's got to take out a search probe. I get a little scared when I see synchronicities like these. I mean you didn't intend for Sven to be "the hanged man". But I see it as validation. Some kind of common denominator that symbols have. Or conformation bias.

Oh, I just based Kara off the moon seeing as she's got a lot of lunar stuff going on, she's got moon runes on her sword, just about everytime you fight her it's in the presence of a full moon. I'm tieing the characters to tarots based on what complete beginners would expect, rather than anything directly tieing into the tarot themselves. Also I tink if not Sven it would have been Sped, but for me i always associated the 'hanged man' with characters who are totally fucking screwed. In that- they're gonna be hung metaphorically. So Sped makes a fit since he dies in act 2, but Sven works even better in a way due to that his death wasn't all that surprising. Sped also fits the Magician much better, given that one of his famous quotes is "Because I'm magical!" Pep also gets a spell in late Intelligence named after his fathers tarot, it also tends to be his best single target damage ability in that game.

Also, Esperia can already enter peoples dreams, it's kind of a natural skill of Soulcatchers, BUTT I'll pretend that isn't the case, you've already stated the fangame isn't canon so that's fine, lel. While I've only quoted your first post I've read the second one too, it feels weird having more attention to concepts being put into a fan game than I put into the full game itself. xD

This may help with timeline stuff. It certainly helps me out.
Timeline Pre-2012
Timeline Post-2012

 

[BizarreMonkey]

Progress is going well, I'm up to the End of Disk 1 Cinematic, this epic will be 6-7 minutes long from my calculations. It will also, like FS09-- have lip-syncing.

Here's my 30 seconds of progress so far.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4tEIv-6070
Tristy's and Pep's portraits aren't done yet, when they are, they'll be used in place of what you see here. Fyori nor Tristy's voices are official. I've already got a VA for Fyori and I've contacted her post-haste. Tristy may pose a challenge but if my friend comes through then she'll have a mighty good voice.

Other characters being introduced without a voice actor yet: Lyza. That's it. She's an alien, so any exotic girl with an accent will do just fine.

Jake has been quite productive! He's done three tracks of music.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdL0jZLgtv0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzOv4sUrdTUhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnSFVmRyihI

 

[BizarreMonkey]

Finished one cutscene that I was procrastinating on for a variety of reasons, mostly the level of frame-by-frame animation I'd have to pull off. Finally i bit the bullet and did it all. Now you can see Svoli get all PTSD about things and lashing out, then regretting it. :0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44-fKubjzqA

In other news, Xiie finished Pexepe. Pep's Cherubim form. She started by getting a concept done that didn't have that obnoxious split shit that i had going on, which is over done as heck but i just couldn't thinkm of a better concept, thankfully- Xiie did so.

Once I gave her full clearance, she got to work on the sprite. They were finished, too!

 

[Xilef]

I'm currently rewriting libgba in C++ (currently called libgba++). libgba has some licensing concerns that makes it a small legal headache if I wanted to make a commercial game with it, so this work is unfortunately needed.
Means I can make GBA development a little bit more modern and cool, though. I've already got a good abstraction over the 16-bit button input register.

<div class="c" id="{CB}" style="font-family: monospace;"><ol>// Keys can be configurable

gba::<span style="color: #202020;">key_mask action { gba::<span style="color: #202020;">keys.<span style="color: #202020;">button.<span style="color: #202020;">A };

<span style="color: #b1b100;">if ( gba::<span style="color: #202020;">keys.<span style="color: #202020;">pressed( action ) ) {

    // Action is down

}

 

// Keys can be read and cached (recommended)

gba::<span style="color: #202020;">key_state cached = gba::<span style="color: #202020;">keys.<span style="color: #202020;">read_keys();

<span style="color: #b1b100;">if ( cached.<span style="color: #202020;">pressed( action ) ) {

    // Action is down

}

 

// Classic bit mask checks also work

<span style="color: #b1b100;">if ( cached & action ) {

    // Action is down

}

There's also pressed_any and pressed_only functions, returning true for any button in the mask or only the buttons in the mask.
What I'm most proud of here is that the data sizes are still 16bit. The first implementation bloated them to 40 bytes, which destroys the GBA's performance if you're copying data that large, so getting them back down to 16bit was important.

There's all sorts of fancy C++ crap you can do with this too; the mask can be initialised with a list of keys, or it can be bitwise modified to add/remove keys from it. All this compiles into code equivalent to the original libgba, so no run-time performance lost compared to C.

libgba has some complex additions related to storing button inputs of the previous frame for detecting key raises and held events, I am unsure if I want to implement this as I feel some parts of libgba do too much - at the same time there's an opportunity here to write a cool C++ event system for the GBA using IRQs or similar.

 

[Nathaniel3W]

I can't remember where I saw this. Xilef, did you point it out to me? It seems that video games tend to sell very well when you put them on a physical medium for an outdated console. Are you able to manufacture an actual GBA cartridge?

 

[Xilef]

I can't remember where I saw this. Xilef, did you point it out to me? It seems that video games tend to sell very well when you put them on a physical medium for an outdated console. Are you able to manufacture an actual GBA cartridge?

I did a feasibility study: viewtopic.php?f=23&t=79764
Put it all on hold whilst I interviewed for a job at Google - which required so much time, effort and energy that I still feel burned out somewhat...But I'm trying to get back into the swing of things.

The conclusion my study came to was to attack the retro/collectable gaming market with a physical game that has high production quality inside and out. Actually have a read of that thread in general if you didn't see it the first time round, I had a quick re-read just now and I don't think the situation has changed. I wrote about the cartridge situation, even this morning my brother sent me a video that actually featured a reflashed GBA cartridge from an Etsy seller so it's surprisingly accessible.

I've had great success with building out a modern GBA C++ library so I'm definitely going to commit myself to this once more, but I'll make more formal posts when I've got something more visual for people to inspect. I'll eventually have a YouTube video of me making a map in TileD, exporting to MV, adding events, then running it on an actual GBA console.