What are you working on? (Game Making Thread)

[coyotecraft]

A lot is changing with the seasons. I wouldn't say I'm busy, but I've been using my free time to recuperate.
I have completely lost my enthusiasm for MZ. On my to-do list was battlers. But I'm falling into the same pattern as when MV came out. I wanted to make a battler for Reid like I wanted to make a battler for Harold. The sketch work is done. But it's never a good time to do the rest. Bad scheduling, or re-scheduling. My sister got a puppy, and history is repeating itself. I'm taking care of it when I could be doing my own thing. And then the weekend rolls around and I go with my Dad to help him with his Fall projects.
It's an annual thing, and soon it'll be family get-togethers. Birthdays, Reunions, Holidays.
And before I know it, it's March of next year and I'm resolving to pick up where I left off in September.

The other day, MZ updated a bunch of corescripts to 1.0.2. It fixed a few bugs and they've also replaced Kadokawa with Gotcha Gotcha Games, on the splash page and EULAs. It's their new subsidiary in charge of their user-generated-content platform.

I've updated my test project with these new files. And that's about all I've done this week. The week is almost over
Right now I'm trying to summon the spirit to work on battlers.

 

[BizarreMonkey]

A lot is changing with the seasons. I wouldn't say I'm busy, but I've been using my free time to recuperate.
I have completely lost my enthusiasm for MZ. On my to-do list was battlers. But I'm falling into the same pattern as when MV came out. I wanted to make a battler for Reid like I wanted to make a battler for Harold. The sketch work is done. But it's never a good time to do the rest. Bad scheduling, or re-scheduling. My sister got a puppy, and history is repeating itself. I'm taking care of it when I could be doing my own thing. And then the weekend rolls around and I go with my Dad to help him with his Fall projects.
It's an annual thing, and soon it'll be family get-togethers. Birthdays, Reunions, Holidays.
And before I know it, it's March of next year and I'm resolving to pick up where I left off in September.

The other day, MZ updated a bunch of corescripts to 1.0.2. It fixed a few bugs and they've also replaced Kadokawa with Gotcha Gotcha Games, on the splash page and EULAs. It's their new subsidiary in charge of their user-generated-content platform.

I've updated my test project with these new files. And that's about all I've done this week. The week is almost over
Right now I'm trying to summon the spirit to work on battlers.

I mean I never had enthusiasm for MZ. I was interested in what backgrounds it had, and thats it.

If you want i could give you some stuff to do, there's quite a bunch of upsides.
1. I'll actually use it and mega appreciate it.
2. My designs are pretty unusual so they can be fun to work with.
3. My usual source of 'make me certain art' is netless and surrounded by plague so for some album art I'm looking for other avenues.

I also love being able to have a variety of styles in the album art, as art consistency matters not at all for that. I do my best to use fanart in place of personal art because I know I'll make someone's day with that.

Anyway if you're down you let me know~!

As for the topic of this thread. I have the next Devlog coming up, boy am I glad i got some decent work done or I'd feel really embarrassed!

Speaking of work, i got a bit for done since i made this post so I'll keep it in one.

Apotropaism
Learned at Character Lv. 314, this trait is designed to ward off evil.

Svoli is the first character we see use it- and she totals Xali with it, and would have been able to kill her if Xali hadn't played a dirty trick. I decided to make some placeholder for it using Pjcr's pre-exisintg assets and then edit the cool eye in myself. It was a smashing success.

Only thing missing is the updated dress design, see in spoilers below.

Spoiler

I also spent some time updating the eyes on Pexepe to show an angel eye and a devil eye, both with pitch black sclera. made them more in line with Pep's big ovals, as well.

Now it looks like Pep while still retaining the Cherubim stuff. Him, Esperia and Svoli are going to have a big 3 on 1 so I'm getting all the resources ready.

 

[Nathaniel3W]

Watching that gif:

 

[coyotecraft]

Having a sense of purpose is a good motivator. However currently I'm experiencing Analysis Paralysis, heh.
Evaluating. Prospecting. There's things I could do, but I see other people developing/editing it already.

I want to do small things. But it's tempting to take on bigger projects.

 

[BizarreMonkey]

Alrighty it's about time for an update. I personally am choosing to leave Simian Scandal #5 until after an event which will be finished on Saturday, and probably work on it the whole Sunday after.

But I've done plenty else.

Remi-chan
I haven't got to the obstacle course where you run from Xali yet, so currently it starts it off then you can just walk to the next area no hassles, the next area I'm currently working on a very big evented cutscene, only the very lattermost part of which will be in cinematic. The rest will look a fair bit like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5Td4ofGX-o
Got a lot to do in regards to that one.

I've also made some new optional events with more on the way.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnfLVrv6Xx0
Planning to do Svoli's second one, and one for Esperia, as well.

Speaking of Svoli, another animation done for the FS10 remaster.

She spooked.

Xali's sprite has gotten a decent placeholder until Xiie can send me files, made using the Lumi base and Xali's Scythe from Pjcr's portrait art.

Speaking of whom...

Pjcr
Has gotten me all of the portraits for Ashe, the Enma who is encountered shortly after leaving Zen Aneia.

He's near completed the proper portraits for Svoli as a Serazen but i have yet to receive any of those, but he has another week to send them before his deadline.

Jake
Finished the OST completely. His work for Fantasia is done.

YHWH Boss Themes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5l8qdpwZ_ohttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ws_-L6DZiKE

Ending Themes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LeP8N0GeYMhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-ZiMyMk9BY


You can listen to any and every single track on a playlist I've been maintaining and have now finished with on our youtube channel. Just click the image below.

That's all for now~!

 

[coyotecraft]

Expected surprise scheduled changes. I get time to myself, it's just sitting in a truck all day.

I can't get any done like this. At the very least I can type uncomfortably.
I'm hoping to finish an illustration I was making for bizmonkey, tonight.

 

[coyotecraft]

It's going to be another touch and go weekend. Can't go 10-15minutes without being interrupted.

I fixed 1 MZ animation file in Effekseer for someone. Go me. :toot:
Actually, my idea of fixing it would be to make the planes of the magic circles match the plane of the battle floor.
But all I did was change a few checkboxes that were hiding part of the animation that should have been visible. I have to wonder how many other animations are like that too.

Yesterday I was listening to videos on screenwriting. And all it did was convince me that my introduction for my fan game still isn't structurally sound. I thought the problem was character motivations. But my new diagnosis is that I'm not showing Sven's Character Flaw, which is the key to making everything that happens feel significant.
So that's what I'm trying to reverse engineer in my head while I'm not in front of my computer.

 

[BizarreMonkey]

Just a small update, so I wrote up the script for Simian Scandal #5 friday night and then I had this just AWESOME idea to make a demo 3 teaser trailer included in the advertisements area, this ofcourse, meant needing to ask one of my VA's to help me out so now it'll be delayed even further. I've taken care of the rest. Most of the lines already existed or were voiced by me, or were new characters with no canon voice yet (such as Ashe), the only exception being Svoli but I can't imagine getting my mum to do a round of VA for her in the timely manner I hope for and i have a pretty solid Svoli voice anyway that a lot of people have admitted to liking.

I did make a pretty cool animation for the trailer (and for the FS10 remaster as well, too birds with one stone!)

Looks much better when processed in the cinematics / trailers.

I'll share the trailer, just know that Yi nor Lilac's Voice acting is final, and i intend to make what pep says in the beginning more legible.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXz2WjCWa80
I'm hoping that Pjcr may get me the Svoli Serazen so I can then have her in the canon outfit for when she's in her serazen and apotropaic forms.

 

[Nathaniel3W]

Latest enemy in Himeko Sutori:

I'm going to rework the older ogre sprite to match this guy's hands so that they can share weapon sprites. I didn't like the ogre's hand positioning as much. I think I might adjust the side-view shoulder movement to give it more bounce.

 

[coyotecraft]

The head in the side view is a little stiff in my opinion, just going up an down. Add a circular motion to it.
If you can. I assume its a 1234 frame cycle and not 1232. That's what I hate about being limited to 3 frames.
Just a quick edit I did over lunch.

 

[BizarreMonkey]

Just a quick update, my voice actors got their tasks done, so now this is ready in its full glory.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1Uqtu5_i68
Sorry i ain't got more been catching up on my game backlog somewhat.

 

[Nathaniel3W]

The head in the side view is a little stiff in my opinion, just going up an down. Add a circular motion to it.
If you can. I assume its a 1234 frame cycle and not 1232. That's what I hate about being limited to 3 frames.
Just a quick edit I did over lunch.

Yours looks better. Unfortunately, all the sprite sheets in my game are 1232, and variation isn't really an option. But I can try moving the head some more. Thanks for the suggestion!

 

[Nathaniel3W]

Just a quick update, my voice actors got their tasks done, so now this is ready in its full glory.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1Uqtu5_i68
Sorry i ain't got more been catching up on my game backlog somewhat.

Trippy as always, Biz. How long you been working on Fantasia?

 

[BizarreMonkey]

Just a quick update, my voice actors got their tasks done, so now this is ready in its full glory.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1Uqtu5_i68
Sorry i ain't got more been catching up on my game backlog somewhat.

Trippy as always, Biz. How long you been working on Fantasia?

That's a tough question to answer, as it depends on if you mean when the idea came into being, when i started making concepts and rough drafts and documents, and when i started building the game itself, as is my usual fair, it came to me while working on a different big game, in 2016 I had the initial idea, in 2017 when i moved out on my own it began to be concepted, and attract basically pre-release attention, then once I finished Perseverance Full Clearance in 2018 i began actually working on it, as PFC was an incredibly ambitious workload, and i can safely say Fantasia has now topped it in that regard.

I didn't HAVE to go and endavour to fill it with animations, planetary exploration, deep enriching character interactions and so much flavor text it puts point and clicks to SHAME.

But

I wanted to.

As for the answer, the idea came 4 years ago, the concepting / drafting began 3 years ago and the actual project was created and began being worked on in 2018 (albeit, very late 2018.)

Most games I produce take about one-to-three years to complete. But this one might go into 2022 due to the immensity of resources needed, my artists will mostly decide on if this project is released any time in the next year. Though i am glad to say that we are getting close to the halfway point, and from that halfway point its not much incredibly new that remains for me to do. Building the battle systems, mechanics, gear progression, abilities and such, the only real big mechanics I'll have to deal with is very late game and new mechanics for boss encounters. Space exploration has basically had its core functionality built, now its just down to seeding life and creating copies of what already exists and editing them to fit the locations available.

So in short, about 2 years: and I foresee another 2 or possibly more before it is done. This games standard of quality is utterly ridiculous, and there is a LOT of content. Optional events, some of which are bosses, and space exploration, is a large part of that focus.

As for the what I am working on, I'm currently writing out more optional events for Disk 2, and preparing myself mentally for the tasks I have ahead, such as finishing the FS10 remaster, getting back to an animating for other remasters, eventing the grand conflict between Xali and bad time trio (Esperia, Pep and Svoli) and then the monstrous task of a new animated cutscene in that fight where Svoli goes full Apotropaism and near kills Xali, but once that's done things will be chill for a while. The Ashe fight will mostly be about atmosphere, and the next boss fight is Spooky, however another cutscene will be required for that, in the form of Lilac's ascension.

Another 6 main story cinematics, bringing us up to 18, two of which are done already.
FS13: She brings Shadow (Done)
FS14: The Cosmos' Enemy (Done)
FS15: Apotropaism (Svoli unlocks a great form of power and near kills Xali)
FS16: Disciple of Mahlat (Lilac unlocks her ENNUI empowerment.)
FS17: Prophet of Zenunim (Koko unlocks her ENNUI empowerment.)
FS18: True Power (Wi Hellrider takes the stage.)

Zen Aneia is the majority of content (given that half of the disk's cinematics take place there), I really wanted to take a moment to enjoy the world of the Kitsune and it's inhabitants, but beyond it, most of the other worlds will have a much smaller story segment, and then let the player indulge in optional stuff for more story on each world. Zen Aneia had to be expanded on as it was when Xali was going to be introduced, and a lot of intended events lead their presentation there, such as Kyoshi being a cool guy, Esperia and Svoli being united with thanks to their cherubim friend/son Pep, as well as some exposition into what Yi being the First Guardian means.

Four worlds will be visited in the main story for Disk 2.
Zen Aneia (Where you acquire the help of the Queen Spade: Nola Worthington)
Galaxia (Where you acquire the help of the Wayward Turncoat: Spooky Schema aka Wizard)
Zen Nekoma (Where you acquire the help of the Fivepoint Star: Limbo Bingo)
Byteopia (Where you acquire the help of the Frozen Tear: Tiramisa Cookiedoe)

Six worlds will be visited in the main story for Disk 3.

Spriteopia (Where you acquire the help of the Sparkling Dish: Mad E. Lin)
Terra (Where you acquire the help of the Bladed Star: Zardari)
Land of Ghosts (Leads you to Shale)
Shale (Where you acquire the help of the Crow Skull: Mira Crowspeaker)
The Blue Sun (Where you acquire the help of the Dark Eclipse: Esperia Frostwhisper)
The Pink Sun (Where you acquire the help of the Sylph Sun: Fyori Felicee)

Then for Disk Δ there will be only three locations, as this is the endgame- the finale if you will.
Arcticlash (The venerable battlefield where you will have the final showdown with Yi Hellrider)
Afterworld (A place removed from the rules of the cosmos where you will have possibly your first (if you missed the optional event on Vahnus) and ultimate fight with Wi Hellrider.
Throne of Paragon (Where you fight YHWH as Satanifa --or Sata-N in technical terms, note that Satanifa is an anagram of the games title.--)

I'm looking forward to all of this, Disk 1 was centered around Dimension XII's earth, so it will be fun to jump around more- as well as giving all these worlds -main story or no- the life and love they deserve! As you may guess I've already written out the main story for the entire game and am patching stuff up now and then. For instance, both Fyori and Esperia used to be fought in the Starship-- but now it's clear if those two fought in such a place with their power levels it would shred the ship to pieces, so the surface of a couple very special stars is a good alteration and fittingly epic. We already have a fight in the Starship as is, it's the final fight of Disk 2.

It's funny, in prior ideas for the game, Fyori and Esperia were going to be the antagonists- which is why so much of the early days promotional material featured the two of them.

Anywho, that's quite enough from this ol' windbag~!

 

[Nathaniel3W]

That's a lot of work, Biz. About how many hours per week are you able to spend on it?

Today I drew this new portrait to go along with the new enemy:

I think it's not awful, but it's nowhere near as good as those Korean dudes on Artstation. Maybe one day I'll just focus on one aspect of gamedev--like digital painting--until I become really good at it.

Edit: I also moved the head forward one pixel on every other frame for the side-view walking animation. I think it looks a lot better now. Thanks Coyote.

 

[BizarreMonkey]

That's a lot of work, Biz. About how many hours per week are you able to spend on it?

Impossible to say for certain, as some weeks I burn out and get barely anything done, and some weeks I get a decent amount done, and then some weeks, it's a vast majority of the hours.

If you want to appreciate how much time I put into this game, then here's a really solid idea of how much time I've spent just in the engine.

Now granted, not all of that is Fantasia, there is the last bit of PFC's development as well as my work on Junked and a couple other projects. But I can guarantee it will be the vast majority.

Let's appreciate for a moment that there are only 8,670 hours in a year! That means over half a year has been put into this engine's workings. keeping in mind not all of fantasia's progress even after I begin building it in the engine is done in engine, between the animations, cinematics and resource development that I do-- not to mention writing in google docs that still happens to this day.

In 2 years, that means I've had the engine open on average 6 hours of every day, or a quarter. Weekends, vacation and all. now granted-- that is an average but it just goes to show that this is my life's work. it's what I wake up in the morning to do, and it's what I look forward to doing more of in the morning and think about while I'm going to sleep, and often I dream about it, too.

Speaking of said life's work... I! Didn't get much done at all lately. I'm procrastinating because I have BIG things to do and all of them are a lot of effort and I wanna be in the right headspace. THANKFULLY, not all was bad- after I made my post last night I re-calibrated the main story to include the travel to the pink and blue suns and add more to the reasons for going to those places. I also made some tearjerky moments that payoff in Disk Δ.

But ah~ I'm not the only one who has gotten work done!

Pjcr
He got me Svoli's Serazen outfit, and like I asked him to- made the hood able to be toggled on and off. This way I could use it for her Apotropaism form.

Svoli the Serazen

Svoli when affected by Apotropaism

I should note that Pjcr forgot to add the bow attached to her sash, not unlike how Tiramisa's is, but he'll be getting that fix to me in 12 hours or less, then I'll add the glyphs to the sash to complete the look.

Xiie
While she hasn't been able to submit any work due to her internet providers all being closed down and the cases for Covid in the philippines getting worse, she has been able to get me a list of the work she's finished.

That brings my list to:
- Limbo Sprite
- Cathy and Renae wholesome (functions as the true album art for track 41)
- Cathy and Renae sprites
- Logos (of the new planets introduced, Vahnus, Zen Aneia, etc.)
- Lily
- Akra Olna
- Zephyrra
- Remira
- Nanianne
- Xali
- Wizard
- Queen of Shadows portrait animation (for a small cutscene on Byteopia after defeating Tiramisa)
- Queen of Shadows sprite
- Limbo idle
- Cathy & Renae idle
- Lily idle
- Akra Olna idle
- Zephyrra idle
- Remira idle
- Nanianne idle
- Tristy idle
- Lyza idle

So she has been working hard. When she gets net back I'm gonna be like a kid at Christmas, and so will she because she can see all the work I've gotten done.

As stated previously, our composer Jake has finished the OST, so he won't be getting anything except paid for the rest of the year while I work that debt off 100 Australian dollars at a time. I'm not worried as it is going to take longer to fully release Fantasia than it is to get him paid back. So by the time I'm working on Crowfeast he'll be riled and ready to go and I won't have any debt to get in the way.

 

[Nathaniel3W]

I wasn't satisfied with that portrait. I worked on it for a few more hours today. I think this is better.

 

[coyotecraft]

Spoiler: me going through October

 

[coyotecraft]

I managed to get a weekend to myself. Woohoo!
Just as soon as I catch up watching some shows, I'm going to finish this thing for Biz that I said I was going to finish like 2 weeks ago. And after that...after that...I have no idea.

 

[coyotecraft]

I've got a list, a text file, of tileset ideas. Some of them were ideas from before mz was released. I'm not sure how well it would compliment it now. I almost don't want to support mz. My aspirations of making new matching characters is on hold until I have more time to myself. Like a good 2-3 hours of uninterrupted focus.
I usually get that at night, but I have to maintain a good sleep schedule.
I feel like there's no escaping these annual routines. It's inconceivable that this week every year my family is heading to a funeral. The only person who shares my recognition of this pattern is my aunt who has a birthday this time of year.
The worst part is being on the road with wandering thoughts about what I'd rather be doing, and the uncertainty of when or if I'll ever get to do it.
And then a sense of guilt in retrospect about wasted opportunities.

(I'm on the road now)

Anyways. I think what mz's tilesets need besides color correction is a shaded gradient for the walls. Some have a small shadow along the bottom but it's not distinguishing enough.
The ugliest tiles, outside of the scifi set, is the crystal cave in my opinion. I have an idea of a cut in geode resess.
I think all the waterfalls could be replaced with a transparent, one tile fits all version. I've shared this idea on rpgmakerweb but I doubt anyone is taking notes or is interested in rethinking the title palette arrangement. It also solves the problem of the waterfall shadow issue.
If you look closely you can see how the crystal cave waterfall has a different wall to it.

I'd like to experiment with effekseer more when I get the chance. I wonder if a plugin could add hit detection with particles. Or if node graphics can be substituted.

The sample maps are terrible. they try to do archways but you can't actually walk under them. Maybe I'll design something. I'd like to do a draw bridge, but it's not something you can do smoothly in 4 frames. Perhaps as a effekseer animation?

I'll need to modify my mv plugin for mz, to have custom sprite frames. Mz is lacking birds I think. And with only 3 frames, you can't really do spider legs. The sliding steps only kind of work for slow moving 4 legged animals. But ideally I want to see horses trot. And wolves/big cats run.

You know mz has sample maps for hospitals and factories. Military bases. But it doesn't have any nurses/doctors in scrubs. Or soldiers in uniform. It's got prisons. But no orange or b&w striped prison outfits. I guess that's a character generator idea.
I should stop rambling now.