Timing and a character idea

Timing is a BIG deal. It's the difference between a scene having emotion and being thrown together with bad pacing. Over the past week I have done NOTHING but fix the timing on a single scene. Am I completely happy about it? Kind of...but I feel like I've stared at it enough that I can't even tell if the timing is good or not, haha. I'll probably go back over it a few more times in the coming weeks. With the closing of this scene, however, I am now free to begin knocking out the other bullets on my todo list for getting this game demo out. First thing is first, skills. Wish me luck. I think I am making a female version of Cyan from FF3/FF6 without that annoying timing bar, which is making her surprisingly overpowered haha we'll see how things turn out.

In other news, I listened to this earlier and now I want to make an archer character. I have a pretty good idea on how I'd want them to be. I even see them taking on Raven, my badass one-eyed fencer. Before I start thinking "long going series" I guess I should actually finish this one haha Seeing as this post is rather short I will reward you with screenshots of some of the bad guys doing their thing ;)

Combining maps

I guess it's about time I show some screenshots seeing as I should be finishing up on the demo soon.

These two screenshots are from the same map...sorta. Let me explain. Sometimes I will create multiple maps to transfer between that look exactly the same for the purpose of being less cluttered and less laggy. While playing the map, if the transfers are placed and timed correctly, the player will typically not even notice that they have been hopping between several different versions of the same map. It's all an ILLUSION!

Anyway, this particular map that I have taken screenshots of used to have three copies of itself due to the high number of events that take place in it as well as npcs that also take up a lot of space. I was having issues with the game engine and the transitions between battles and transferring between maps. I could go into greater detail and lose most of you or I could just say that it didn't look fluid/professional. So, I am currently trying to combine it all onto one map.

Sad part is that I am starting to feel the lag creep up. I have a few ideas on how to cut down on the lag but we'll see during the testing phase. Worst case scenario....I split up the maps again and perform some "illusions" that don't involve the battle transitions. Watch out, David Copperfield! ;)

How time flies!

Just got settled back into my old job as a cell phone repair/random other gadget guru. Had to pay the bills and boy is it tough with a mortgage, haha. Anywho, in relevant news, I am closing in on finishing the demo. Since we last "spoke", I have all but completed the storyline aspect of the game. I just have one and a half more scenes to time and dialogue. I have the gist of what I'm shooting for which helps. I did do the ending of the demo yesterday. I hope the movement, music, and dialogue does the scene justice...and I hope I don't get stoned for ending at a literal cliff hanger, haha. Working on this game has been fun and I hope the players will be able to feel my passion and love of storytelling in it. You know what they say though, "Your first game will suck 'insert term' balls." So I'm trying not to get my hopes too high. I should finish up with the half scene tonight, leaving the last scene for tomorrow....unless I power up with a five hour energy shot again and push through!! We'll see. I am at work now with about 3-4 hours of sleep in me....hoping I can make it to 7pm and starbucks before collapsing. The battle starts now. Once the story is complete it is on to gameplay balancing and tweeking(which some would consider is the hardest part since it is after all....what makes your game fun ;) hehe) I will try my best in getting this blog on some kind of set schedule. I need to set alarms or something on a weekly basis...I will not go the way of my favorite podcasters! Thanks for the support and I will show you all something really cool in a few more weeks ;)

Still alive and coding!

Title says it all. Had a pretty big personal loss recently and though I haven't been very active on this blog as of late out of mourning and taking care of business...it's time that I turn the engines back to full throttle and get fired up as sanji about pushing through and finishing up Journey to Westshire! Taking the time away from development has opened my eyes to several game play features and issues that I will be implementing and resolving, so I guess it was kind of a good thing. Upon reading an article that for some reason I can't find now to link to you..... I am actually going to cap the game off at about a third of the way into the story and release it as a demo. The article championed the use of demos to build an audience for the game and get people excited to play it, as well as have those people point out things that maybe you want to change or edit in the full title. My full title will be for sale by the way. I'm still debating on a price though. Gotta pay for all that ramen and coffee I've been consuming to make this happen lol Thanks for following the blog, if you have been, and I promise to make weekly updates from here on out. Back to doing the dev thing!

Things I've done since my last blog?
-Finished up the mapping of the entire game
-Finished up the eventing(or placement of events) for the demo
-Started balancing item/gold placement, skills, enemies, and bosses.

Disappointment

I gave it my all but in the end I missed the deadline. Truth be told, I need another 4-5 hours more to get to a point where I'd be content with it. Sucks....I really pushed hard to make this happen. My entire table is full of coffee cups and tiny bottles of five hour energy lol though I am disappointed in myself I will push on and finish up the game anyway. I may not get the attention I was shooting for or whatever secret prizes the contest had(one of which was some love on a popular podcast!! =_( oh well...) I will be posting up a link for download and I'm sure some of the community will throw in some reviews when I post it up on their normal finished project threads. What did I ultimately take away from this experience? 1. With more practice I can design pretty good maps in minutes 2. It's good to stay organized throughout a project, because in those moments when you've had too much coffee and you lose most higher brain functions due to lack of sleep you can still get stuff done without creating too many bugs. 3. I need to work on managing my time better.

The Contest and The Deadline

So I am down to the last 25 hours before the project, Journey to Westshire, is due. I'm starting to see what all the books I've read up to this point have been talking about when they say that they have to make a lot of sacrifices in the game just to get it out on time. I always thought that that was stupid and that they should always take their time on games, it's done when it's done n' all. Though when important opportunities like contests that'll get your name out in the spotlight appear and you have to finish by a certain time otherwise it won't matter, things change. I started out with this project to test gameplay elements that would come straight out of Blue Grimoire to see what people thought of them. In the end, I took them out because I felt that it made the game too complicated and wasn't going with it's flow. I'm still not finished and I haven't even begun testing for bugs yet. My hope is to finish by midnight tonight, get a few hours of sleep, and debug until the deadline 6pm Sunday. I hope people will see my skills with this and I also hope to get criticized where I need to be criticized so I can grow as a developer. Well, I'm off to go get more coffee. I'll link everything up tomorrow evening ;)

Journey to Westshire

Once upon a time I went to college for game programming and I was forced to write a text based game in python(that's a programming language :P). For those who can run such a project can find my old .py here. Would you believe that the project was actually supposed to be rock, paper, scissors? lol I was kind of an overachiever back in the day. Anywho, my point, is that the community that I am apart of is having a "Release Something Weekend" and since Blue Grimoire is quite a ways from becoming a playable demo I was thinking that I'd reboot my old python project via rpg maker vx ace and try out a few gameplay elements in it that I plan on using in Blue Grimoire just to test things out. I'm giving myself a week break from Blue Grimoire to get this thing out there and I think my mind could do without witches for a bit after all the research and conditional branches I've been working with lately lol Look forward to the release of "Journey to Westshire", the story of three adventurers Zeke, Erik, and Raven who are taking a mysterious package through a dangerous forest full of thieves, beastmen, and magical creatures all for the almighty gold piece.