Sunday, July 31, 2016

Fixing typos, and doing some dungeoneering

This week was kind of slow, all things considered, I am still in the middle of figuring a few things out in my RPG maker game, so sometimes I spend more time staring at my ceiling than doing any writing or coding. Still, I did some progress (the dungeon I am working on is about 50% done), I figured out some interesting stuff, and I got to fix some typos in TOTDC. Since I can't really make an interesting post about typos, and I can't talk about the RPG maker quests for now (they wouldn't make much sense without showing you the game first), this leaves me with talking about some of the mechanics for the dungeon I am working on.



Specifically, I worked on some moving platform puzzles. As I mentioned, there was some figuring out to do, because the game doesn't support moving floors, actually, so I had to cheat a little to make things work. You won't notice anything during play, but what I do is actually change the player graphic to include the platform, and then have the player move along the path I want him to, making the original platform teleport around, appear and disappear as convenient. The puzzle is a little easy, but I figure the first dungeon will have to introduce these new mechanics, so it's fine to make it accessible. This map so far sports a varied number of puzzles and traps, the usual levers and buttons, as well as moving spikes, jumping puzzles, and a few twists on the magic system I use (I think I mentioned this before, but you'll have several spells to use OUTSIDE of combat, to solve puzzles, find secret rooms, etc.). I am still debating whether the map is a little too big or not, if I want a fight in the dungeon or if I should leave it as a "challenge of wits" more than anything else. I am also going to use this to dole out some exposition, so you can learn a bit more while playing the game about the setting. I did some minor work on the combat engine, I removed the materia script (it's a really well done reconstruction of the system in FF7, but after some debating, I figured out it wasn't going to fit with the rest of the mechanics), and a few things here and there that wouldn't mean anything to you without context. I do have the soundtrack for the demo ready too, although that might change when I get some feedback (I still plan to have one closed testing session for this, before going live with a public demo, Patreon, and everything else).

By the way, I can't remember if I shared this or not, but I have what's most likely going to be the official name for the game: Caliross, the shapeshifter legacy.

In other news, G.G. Donated 15$, and I am starting to be really surprised at how long after the release this is still going, so once again, thanks to everyone who has donated so far, it means a lot to me.

This is pretty much it, nothing too exciting, but I can only speak in very general terms for now, I don't like spoiling things at this stage of development. I still want to wait a bit more for the post-mortem on TOTDC, so I guess that's it for now, see ya next week! ^_^

8 comments:

  1. There are some RPGMkr games where there are too many moveable parts/scripts or whatnot on a map (even off the screen) where it just cripples my computer rendering the game virtually, or more often, flat-out unplayable. Though, I am guessing it's because of some RNG scripts to make NPCs move how they want as the main culprit that burns through all my computer's processing power--breaking the game and sometimes my system. (I know, I know, get new hardware--I would if I could.) I love your games; I just fear that these things might make it so that I won't be able to enjoy your creations any more...

    (By the way, I dig your labels on your blog posts.)

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    1. My PC is crap, so I assume that's a decent start to test for performance issues. XD

      I also don't use random movement for characters (it's just annoying, and adds nothing to the game), and I have tried to make the maps more compact, because I don't like large empty maps like I often see in RPG Maker games (even professional or semi-professional games seem to have problems with making maps reasonably sized).

      There are still less important NPCs to populate the world, of course, but the idea is to use them to either do some universe building (talk about politics, mythology, factions, important people, etc.) or for comedy scenes.

      I still have some margin to improve performance, should I need it. Right now, I often group rooms together in the same map (I space them out so you can't see each other room when you are walking inside them), to reduce the number of maps I use, but once I have a firmer grasp on the number of maps I need, I might just give a different map to each room, which would reduce the number of events for each map, further improving performance.

      I also don't use scripts that have a significant impact on performance, as a general rule.

      There might still be problems, of course, so when the demo is released to the public, I invite everyone to let me know about any issues there might be. ^_^

      I like my silly tags as well! :D

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    2. I toyed with RPG Maker too (VX Ace) and it seems that the approach of more maps with less events is better.
      Though I think I read somewhere that without modifying the scripts the events that are off-screen get halted. So maybe it is not an issue, only those that are visible?

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    3. The more events you have, the worse the performance gets, that's because the game still has to check constantly if the event is in range and should move, I think. Having static events, and mostly ones that activate if you input a button instead of activating on contact is the best approach, together with having small maps with not as many events.

      Small maps also help with navigation, so it's actually not just a limiting factor, I feel.

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  2. So now that Chapter 1 of TotDC is out (by the way, you should really update the "About Game" tab within the game itself), what was the projected date of the the live-action or anime version of Chapter One supposed to be due out? Have you decided which way you wanted to go--whether animated or live-action? Did you secure contract deals with the models featured or were you going to just get different actors? I have SO MANY questions about your budding film career, Mdqp! Don't leave us in the dark, man!

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    1. Live-action film of Chapter 1? This is the first I've heard of this. Tell us more!

      Also, post a poll over on the TF Games Site asking how many users there would want to be TF'd into Celeste and act in this film (and in which version of the film they'd want to act).

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    2. I am sure this would end up being directed by Uwe Boll, so I am not too keen on going down this path... :p

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    3. So short 5-7 minute "minisodes"? Perhaps going with the CG storyboard art path with voiceovers then? ;P

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