What are you working on? (Game Making Thread)

[coyotecraft]

I've been practicing an Active Imagination technique using a new understanding of how you feed or withhold something from your unconscious. It gets results. I think. But I'm partly just remembering stuff that I've already consciously imagined and I had just forgot about and never wrote down.

Writing it down is the challenge. Because it's like meditation. I'm not doing it with my hands on a keyboard. So when I get around to typing, it is a pale imitation. Actually, I was never really experiencing it as the written word in the first place. So I'm probably adapting a lot more than I want to believe. I picture gestures and vocal intonation. And with dialogue there's a train of thought you are entranced by. Building characterization and whatnot though a specific phrasing that wouldn't work in just any order.

 

[coyotecraft]

I sampled a lot of music today. And spent most of it debating if it's was me or them that don't know what they're doing.

Edit:
I've come to the conclusion that if you're searching for scene music you'll have more luck looking under Visual Novel. "RPG" will of course have battle and field music. But the scene/event music mostly comes in 2 flavors. Sinister and serene.

 

[coyotecraft]

The stars aligned or something yesterday because I was able to write dialogue. I wasn't even trying to write it at first.
I was working in the project file on a test map. Somehow I ended up in Microsoft Onenote rewriting a scene for the 10th time.

Fingers crossed I can do it again today. And without drinking 3 cans of coke.

 

[coyotecraft]

I need a better placeholder graphic to experiment with portrait systems. Blinking or animated mouths.
Of course with Sven, does he blink? His eyes are always closed. And if go with a detailed style...well I don't think I'll be doing animated mouths since the characters are all animals of different sizes and shapes.

I'm not final on this style. It has it's ups and down. It's my head cannon that Sven wears bandages over his whiskers for some reason. But it looks kind of weird with this smaller snout, and even weirder in color. It's just this tight package of detail that seems off balance in contrast to all the red fluff around it. Idk, I have to experiment with it more. And if might grow on me.
At times it feels like I'm channeling Dick Gumshoe from the Ace Attorney games. White bandage, Green coat, smokes. I regret not making it a detective game. But the other thing I wanted to do was have a mantle system, and have the portrait change with what you have equipped.

 

[BizarreMonkey]

Lel the reason i draw my animal characters with flat faces is for a couple easy reasons.

1. They look more cartoon-like and deviate from the furshit that can be found in the rancid milf-pit that is tumblr or deviantArt.
2. Easier to animate and give mouth-movements.

And yeah I never draw Sven with his eyes open, he's got em all covered so Esperia don't pluck em out like she did to Sped (which is why Sped has a blindfold). He like his father channels his energy outward to get an idea of the environment he's in. Similar to how a bat's sonar works.

As for me, been getting some good work done on Demo 3, I'm up to the Nola fight as far as main story content goes... and I've already got a bunch of ideas for it.

Loving these maps, the ancient dungeons tile-sets are a joy to work with.

Pjcr also got me the portraits for Remira. I haven't implemented them yet but i do have all eight expressions and all four poses.

There's a smol preview. You can see all of em on this tweet.

That's all for now.

 

[coyotecraft]

I had a few games I downloaded off itch.io to play this weekend while I'm away from home. Normally I don't have internet. But this weekend I do, and I feel obligated to utilize it. So I've been catching up on shows and comics. At least I did last night. I don't know if I can do it again tonight.

I always bring my drawing tablet with me on trips but more often then not I never end up using it. It's a different work environment and hard to get in the right mindset.
I'm currently on my "night hours". It's too hot to do anything in the middle of the day anyways, so might as well sleep through it. Plus I get lots of time to myself at night.

 

[coyotecraft]

First time in a long time that I've been home alone.
Initiate introvert recharging sequence.

 

[BizarreMonkey]

All of Akra Olna and Remira's portraits have been acquired and implemented, Remira doesn't have many lines yet, though.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQgLxnmq10w
Sorry the video isn't higher quality, but i gotta settle with what I can do quickly currently.

Jake also got me some more tracks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAKpI74-GFMhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBwf0x3sURk
I really like how Anathema's theme came out.

Pretty brief post for me but ayy been a small week~!

 

[BizarreMonkey]

One of the big things I plan to do for Fantasia Demo 3 is improve on several cinematics.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOagQiCyGvE
Spent the last four hours making four seconds of animation, i'm using my thin lines style now, so as to keep in line with the game's art direction.

Now I'm working on another part.

Good god this animation turned out beautifully.

 

[coyotecraft]

I'm looking forward to next month. But at the same time I'm looking back at what happened last year.

Ideally I'd like to do some kind of game jam as soon as I get my hands on MZ. Or develop some resources that I'll determine after assessing everything.
But last year I was hardly ever home in August. This year I've been lucky since everything's been canceled due to the pandemic. But my Dad has started a remodel project of my grandparent's house. I assume I'm going to be involved in that and get as much done before winter. Plus any weddings and events that people have push off will likely be rescheduled. Ugh, I got a feeling I'll be swamped the rest of the year.

 

[coyotecraft]

So even though MZ is a month away I'm going to attempt to imitate the battler style. The lines and dimensions are the main thing. But I have a rough estimate based off previews.

I'm going out on a limb and guessing that there will be a lack of black characters. So that's a need to fulfill.

If anyone has a suggestion about a weapon type, I'm all ears. Swords, Spears, Hammers/Maces, Staffs, are all confirmed.
The main thing is that the weapons are all Gold-Blue. I imagine this is to give the characters some kind of Isekai Cheat Sacred Weapon story potential. I feel like Kadokawa is embracing that trope, especially with Rise of the Shield Hero.
If you're not familar with the anime, these Heroes are summoned from another world and they are given a special weapon to fight off waves of monsters. They could absorb materials and change appearances. I guess you could say it's Sora's Keyblade.
In the world of Shield Hero, there were also the Sword, Bow, and Spear. Later in the story you find out there are other worlds that have/had their own set of heroes with pretty unique weapons. Like The Hunting-Tool Hero (Fishing rod). And a Sewing Set Hero (Giant Scissors). These weapons acting as a plot device.
Something along those lines are the intent I see behind MZ's character designs.

I could recycle character designs I've already done. But I'm only really proud of my Double-Sword woman. I have a very old whip-user that was something of a cowboy. And with MV I had designs for a Mariner Sailor type character who's weapon was an anchor. But I wasn't that passionate about MV as I was with XP, so I never finished it or my merman battler.

Although...since MZ is sporting an Active time battle. Perhaps an Anchor weapon would be appropriate. You throw it at an enemy and it slows them down or STOPZA them.

 

[coyotecraft]

I suppose if an anchor has the effect of slowing something down then a whip could have a "hasting" effect. Maybe that was the intent or potential behind Quistis and Ward in FF8. Although technically Ward's weapon is a "harpoon" it's a big ass harpoon that looks more like an anchor to me. Beside the time bar, there what the whole time-compression business with the final boss.

Hmm, maybe I should think about a father-time boss enemy. Or a scythe weapon in the same vein.
I've seen that joke played out somewhere. "What to play a JRPG to kill time?" "Sure ok." 40 hours later they fighting anthropomorphic time itself.

Lets see, what other weapons or tools could be used to stop or start time? Maybe a taser? Cattle prod is like a whip. Shock paddles/ defibrillators can start a heart beat, but IDK if that would work as a weapon. A windup key starts a lot of mechanical devices, and I'm not above ripping off Kingdom Hearts.
I've seen a wicked cool character design for some mmo I never played (El Sword maybe) that had character with a pendulum. Like a clock pendulum. I came across it when I was digging up ideas to go with Hanged Man tarot imagery for my Sven fangame.
I would assume MZ would include time bar manipulation commands that could translate to skill and state effects. But I don't want to jump the gun.

Speaking of Guns. At a stretch I suppose that too could be use a "time-based" weapon. As in starting a race by firing a starting pistol. I'm reluctant to give a black character fire-arms because of unfortunate stereotypes with gang violence.
I suppose a flag can signal "start". Drums a la marching band might keep a pace or beat, but that wouldn't make a very good weapon, neither would a whistle.
Ah, but I suppose a whistle could be a helpful item icon. Maybe cure "Stop" or something, just spit balling things to make.

 

[coyotecraft]

The other day I played a few of the visual novel segments in Ar NoSurge. The stories aren't as good as in Ar Tonelico but they're easier to replay and it has a convenient "log" feature that even lists the number of textboxes in a scene. For Science I guess.
I think my writing is influenced by whatever I've been read recently, and it's been long enough I think I fell out of touch of my main inspiration for these mental meta worlds.

Ar NoSurge is bad in that it's easy to forget who's "soulscape" you're in. Plus I think they dropped the ball with some of the translations.

Spoiler: some story analysis

For example there's a character, Nay. She's got the nickname "the gale" that's not really explained. In her soulscape she's the manager of a theme park with an execution gimmick: Electric chair, Guillotine. So I'm thinking "the gale" might have meant "divine wind" or "Kamikaze", inferring she has a death wish. But it's easy to miss because she's mostly a side-character in her own world. Towards the end of that episode, it's like, "we gotta destroy this world by launching the rocket that's holding everything up as the world's pillar"
I suppose it's possible they wanted to down play acts of terrorism. Rather than crashing into a pillar, maybe they could have done a Thelma & Louise moment, flying off the world.

In a different soulscape, the story is like a teacher who has banned "play" and confiscated her students toys and "Installs" them into her "Toy Installer" monster. I think the word they were looking for is "Assimilate". They make it sound so innocent too except the background art is like a Japanese Sex Scroll, and the teacher wants the male character to "summon an heir" with her. I mean this game is supposed to be rated M, but I can't tell if I'm reading too much into it or not. If "Toy Installer" is a metaphor or what? Like they pull the toys out of it with a *pop* and then they go off to play video games.
So it's like, reading between the lines here, the "play" she banned was assplay. And they're were just playing an RPG they were "grinding". But its like the translators missed all the suggestive innuendo.

Looking at my Perseverance Fan game, it has everything it needs. The beginning is a beginning. But I think I'm unsatisfied because I want it to be more of an episode than a scene. And I just haven't found the right narrative spin.

 

[Xilef]

Toying with the idea of reviving my FFV RPGe -> GBA translation hack from about 3 years ago. I got really close, but bailed when I had to deal with character widths in text boxes (SNES vs GBA resolution) and seeing that for automatic cut-scenes some new timing needs to be implemented (might be that just the intro is automatic?).

Would be a quicker one to complete and throw out into the wild. Might even be worth fixing some of the errors in the RPGe script whilst I'm at it (create my ideal FFV English translation).

 

[BizarreMonkey]

Oh crap I forgot to post for a while, huh?

Let's just say... It's been a productive time.

One of the things I'm doing in Demo 3 is remastering some cutscenes-- you know this already, Fantasia Scene 10: Amychophobia needed some work, and boy... is it getting it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ti75mJsFcYs
Be careful who you call ugly in middle school.

Beyond that I've been doing some beeg progress on Zen Aneia, now the Nola fight is basically done I just need to give her a supermove, a cinematic for said supermove and to fix a certain issue that is how OP Lumi's Ennui Empowerment is. I'll probably just make it cut iFrames in half (15 frames of invulnerability) instead of the usual 30. (so half a second to quarter of a second.) or I might just drop the iframes thing and just give quad damage or something. The iframes thing can glitch to shit and still does it in re-write. It was a cool idea but is 1. broken 2. easy to glitch

Anyway here's the fight where I cream Nola by god-charming Lumi and then Popping her EE which not only makes iFrames from 30 to 3 but my only issue with such a build (mana consumption) is utterly gone because it also does that. Nola's grand cross ability also needs work. Not that you see much of it in the video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6molMyUhkQ

Jake Gamelin
I just wanna share the immense amount of song our composer jake has been doin!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYtaebbRwmMhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsRlFKlnjtEhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKAn8cJCg38
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kiZcDMaHVchttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yid01j5eSughttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oC1UveX_nD8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYZb3uVZ7uI

Pjcr
We got the complete fluffy fox trio. Akra Olna, her left hand Nanianne and her right hand Remira. Beyond some fixes for Lily, the kitsune are done.

Faces

Xiie is still internetless on mobile data because ow covids.

 

[coyotecraft]

I talked to Biz for like 4 hours and learned a lot about his universe.
After talking about his battle system, I went to bed with this Legend of Zelda Sandpit Worm boss on my mind.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7zQhC_56UE

It got me thinking I should develop #1, animated sand pits, and #2 an easy to implement caterpillar movement.

The sand hazards should be easy to develop, I think. Event wise it just pushes the player in a certain direction. It might be a little more complicated to push other events too. But mainly, the thing that everyone is missing are the graphics. Either an animated tile or parallax should do the trick. I'm pretty sure I can do that. The only doubt in my mind is: why hasn't anyone else done it?

I've put a lot of thought into caterpillar movement in the past. I had a "pet" system in RMXP with a few custom movement behaviors for like, dogs, bees, birds. Wil'o'wisps that orbit the player, things like that.
One of the earliest battler/sprite requests I did was a mecha centipede too. But it was pretty obvious a single event with only a 32x32 hitbox doesn't really do it justice. Ultimately you need a daisy chain of sprites and some method, script plugin or otherwise, of expanding it's hitbox.
At first you think of chaining events together, like a Chinese Parade dragon, simply following the leader. But it's not like Terraria's worm bosses and Stardust dragon. They just need a head, body, and tail segments which can rotate and move in 360 degrees.
As you know, rm sprites are 4 directional facing. With help they can move diagonally, but still..

For now I'm just re-inventing fire, and get a simple follow-the-leader system going while I think about how else I might do this with just 1 event, so that it's as simple as possible and can be easily copy & pasted into other projects.

 

[coyotecraft]

Oh WHAT!
So in rpg maker you can have events move/turn toward/away from the player. It would be so nice to direct them to other events too without needing to know their location.
Turns out YOU CAN! The "move to player" command uses the method .moveTowardCharacter(), it's hard coded as .moveTowardCharacter($gamePlayer) but using the script line you can substitute $gamePlayer with any event. Even simply drawing another event towards itself using (this).
I can't believe I never knew this before!

There is some quirkiness you should be aware of:
you can use .moveTowardCharacter(this) in the event's own custom route settings and draw another event to itself. However outside of it, say using the event process's Script command, "this" will be interpreted as something else so you have to specify $gameMap.event(whatever#)

Also, in the event's custom move route, "Wait for completion" is locked. One event steps forward and then another event follows. It kinda works for a literal Caterpillar movement, inch by inch. But if you want 2 event-character-segments to move in unison you have to use a script block with parallel process. And let me tell you, it moves fast! Like a split second after loading the map, they're already at their destination. So doing it that way requires some care.

 

[coyotecraft]

I played around with a lot of different techniques to make this. I think it came out pretty well, but i think it could use a little more tweaking.
I started out with this size. I'm not sure if anyone would want it bigger than this. Making it smaller is a simple task.
The center is about 3 tiles above where you place the event. Make sure you set the event graphic to "Below Character"

Spoiler: test out the character sheet yourself

 

[BizarreMonkey]

Good news, Pixel Game Maker MV just went on sale at 60% off, from 114 AUD to less then 50 AUD. I snapped it up and will now be able to begin on Crowfeast proper.
https://www.crazychimps.biz/crowfeast
Whenever I feel like getting around to it, anywho~!

Jake got me yet more compositions. Fyori's hero mode / battle theme, and Wi's first battle / hero mode theme. Pro-tip, it will be far from the only one. Each Twin has three main battle tracks, and Yi has a bit of an extra in the calmer-starting 13 Insidious Architect.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IjWYJ1bVz0http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2vmidDq2_k

And Pjcr got me the fixes for Lily's portraits, her ears are now like a Fennec fox and her angry/alert poses have both arms up.

And so work proceeds apace.

 

[coyotecraft]

Another 3 day weekend away from home. But I'll have internet.
I feel pretty accomplished this week. Did some graphics. Did some scripts.

I think it's time to go back to scene writing and dialogue [/dread]