Tutorial 4: Painting Tiles

Part 4 of the tile-making tutorial is up:
Click Here

And just so this post has a bit more content than just 8 words and a link, here's a screenshot of a side-project:

Once it's gotten a bit further along, I'll share some more details.

Mushroom Town

Since I promised I'd make a mushroom town map, here it goes:

(click to see at full resolution)

It was fun to make, and I hope it helps!

Weekly Progress: Mapping

I've slowly started putting together a tileset for the inside of buildings in the starter town (Burgunda Port). It's still very much a work-in-progress, but it's getting there:

I've still got to change the floors (they're a bit too matchy) and the drawer handles on the cabinets.

I'm also finding it more difficult to reuse the old TUAH maps because the new sprite base is taller. Walking around on the old maps basically looks like walking around munchkin-land. It's not a huge change (a few pixels here, a few there), but it's enough to have me reconsider some of the maps I'd planned.

Other than that, I've made very little progress. It's been a busy week in other ways for me, and next update will also probably be somewhat brief as well. -_-

However, I hope to make it up with some extra resources soon. I've been working on a few fun things I think you'll like. :)

Weekly Progress - Details

As last week, the bulk of my work in TUAH has been on the database. I finally mostly finished the iconset - with the exception of the little NPC face icons that will be used for the quest interface.

Screenshot of the menu:

 As you can see, I have all kinds of fun little icons that make the standard VXAce menu seem more exciting.

Next week, I plan to get into spriting. I need to get started on making NPCs - as there's a giant variety of those in the game. I will post some NPC designs in the next update.

Title Woes

Working on the title screen, not sure which version I like best.

Version 1: Mostly bits and pieces from the RTP.

Version 2: Mostly custom with RTP sword and an "old page" textured background. Also, dragons. Not that there are any dragons in the game, really. They just look cool.

Version 3: Sparkles. 'cause sparkles...

  

At the moment, I'm leaning toward 3. But that might change in the morning. >_>

----
Edit:
After taking in all suggestions and opinions, I've come up with a final version:

Weekly Progress: Mapping and Expressions

Though I just updated on Wednesday, I'm trying to go back to my regular updating schedule.

Despite being busy, this week has been pretty productive for TUAH.

The first thing that was completed is Claudia's new faceset and expressions:

She is back to her quirky, sarcastic and flirty self. Yay!

The second thing that's been completed is yet another revamp of Burgunda Post:

I was not entirely happy with the previous version. In re-scaling for the taller custom sprites, I found that the town lost a lot of its charm and purpose. So, the town has been remapped to have more of a log-cabin look - which is much more true to the town's purpose than the previous map.

And the third thing that's been done is reworking and restructuring the town to actually include the gameplay features that the player should really see from the very beginning. So, the following changes have been made:
- You will be able to actually shop in various shops. This is a change from my original "you shall unlock special shops later on" sort of deal that TUAH's had thus far.
- Added a blacksmith shop where you can get quests for weapon upgrades. There will be one of those in most towns, as I don't want to make constant backtracking into an obligation.
- The magic shop will have a fortune teller that will tell you your relationship with various party members as well as your personality traits (which have also been revamped).
- You will actually be able to complete two side-quests in the town or immediate vicinity. I think it was too confusing to get quests that you can't even turn in until much later.

And that's the gist of my week!

Back to work

Now that the holidays are over, I'm slowly getting back into the development groove. Despite having a few very busy weeks, I managed to squeeze in a few free moments to do some work on TUAH.

What I've done:
- Created a concept map for one of the temples:

 Special thanks to PandaMaru for creating the awesome logo.

There's still things that need to be changed about it, such as the water flowing on the two towers. That part will have to be drawn from scratch, however, as I can't really edit it from the RTP. Or maybe I'm just going about it the wrong way. In any case, that temple should be pretty fun to explore.
- Changed the iconset.
It doesn't sound like much, but there were a good 40 places that needed to be reconfigured and re-updated. I've still got to reconfigure a couple more scripts that use icons. I will not be changing the iconset again, trust me.
- Started converting some RTP sprites to the new template:

They look much better in comparison, I think. And they make the RTP look that much more squished.
- Finalized the concepts for all the playable characters, readjusted their back story and started databasing the skills and weapons.
- Went through the game script again, just to make sure it's the final version that I will not deviate from. Also decided that even if an amazing new maker comes out that practically makes the game for me, I will not be switching engines again.
- I may have also spent a fair amount of time whining about how much work it is to port everything over to Ace and redo stuff like the database. I hate databasing with a passion.

And to kill two birds with one stone, here is Thursday's resource release:

I can't recall what I originally created this door for, but it looks a bit like it belongs in the Wild West or something. In any case .... Enjoy! And please don't forget to credit me.

Terms: Free for non-commercial use in any RPG Maker program.
Do not repost/redistribute! Link to this blog post instead.
Credits: Lunarea

Week 6

The holidays are slowly creeping up on us and the free time I have to work on my project(s) is going to be severely limited. I've also got a couple of resource sets I really ought to finish before too long, and they'll be taking priority in the weeks to come.

Still, there's a few things I can update with this week:

The first is that I've gone back to the RTP - with some modifications. Despite the fact that I love RMXP RTP, the style is just too different. I could have modified the XP RTP to work better with the rest of the painted tiles, but it was a lot of work. In the end, I just decided to edit the Ace RTP. It's still going to be unique, but much more cohesive - and the cohesion is a huge must.

Other than that map, I've done a little work on the database and customized a few monster graphic. I have a super cool ice spider and a couple of imps that should make interesting enemies.

Next week, I want to finish Claudia's portrait/faceset and get more of the sprites done. Ideally, I want the entire party done before the end of the month. Even with an otherwise busy schedule, I should be able to meet that goal.

Weekly Progress - Week 3

Despite a rather busy work week, I actually managed to get quite a bit of progress done on TUAH.

• I've modified the weapons two characters are using. It actually made a lot of sense, since their home locations have also been changed.
• I've started working on the database. It's going to be a huge undertaking, but I figure that if I take it slow and let LaMia do the bulk of the work (I'm not lazy, I promise!), I can get it done soon enough.
• I've messed around with the enemies in one of the early areas. There's a total of 7, including the area boss. Not too shabby for the first area you encounter.
• I had an awesome dream and it spurred an idea to start the game with a (hopefully) fun mini-game of sorts. I think you'll enjoy it, anyway. I just hope I don't have to spend multiple hours troubleshooting it.
• I've gone through the plot plan again and added a few more details. I'm going to aim for quality, rather than quantity. Some of the things I've taken out will probably appear in a sequel/prequel – should I decide to do one, anyway. If not, I'll definitely post a short story or two set in the same universe.
• I've started some light mapping:
  
  
  
   This is the revamped and redone version of Burgunda Port, the starting town.
  
   This is a screenshot of Neva Mountains, the first explorable area in the game.

I've also started restructuring the religion in Caeta. Even in its earliest incarnation, Caeta was a polytheistic universe. There were many gods and goddesses, and each town (and village, and some other random locations) had a patron god/goddess. It wasn't always an obvious one, either. For example, Ahmiran is located in the desert. Normally, you'd expect them to worship the god of the sun (or equivalent). However, the patron goddess of Ahmiran was the goddess of plenty – i.e. fertility. Unlike most desert towns where water is a rare and precious comodity, Ahmiran had plentiful water from a nearby mountain spring. (And there was a big long quest associated with this).

And while I absolutely love this idea, the gods and goddesses of other towns weren't as impressive. So, I started thinking about how to change the mythology to make all gods/goddesses more pertinent. And I think I've come up with a solution.

Caeta remains a polytheistic land, but they only worship female goddesses. And goddesses are born from mortals who have met tragic ends. The stars took pity on them and made them a place among them in the night sky, giving them the divine powers to perform miracles.

The tragedy element of the mythology will be very interesting to explore. Some people will use it as a model (becoming martyrs in some ways), and others will use it as a cautionary story of what to avoid. And because of this tragic element, it will be easier to explore the themes of fanaticism – though I'm not telling how fanaticism will play a role in the story, or whether it will play a role at all.

Regular Updates

Archeia's started a new thread (Game Making Drive - check it out!), and it's inspired me to go back to having regular updates in here. I confess, the blog's been looking pretty sad with just one or two teeny entries per month - most of which have me apologizing for not posting in forever.

So, I'm designating Thursdays and Sundays as my update days. This means that there will be at least one post every week that will talk about what I'm doing. I think I will save Sunday updates for my game updates and Thursdays will be a little of everything. If you readers are interested, I might post same samples of tileset work I'm doing.

I leave you with a screenshot of the updated NPC map I linked in this update.

Starlight

A very brief post to note that I'm still working on Wish Upon: Starlight. I finally found some free time yesterday and worked on one of the NPC homes:

It looks like the kind of house I'd want to visit! 

The biggest mapping time-sink for Starlight is the main star city. It's the largest of areas you will get to visit, and thus has all kinds of homes, shops and other interesting areas. It's also the first area you visit at the beginning of the game, so it has to be finished before I can move onto other areas. Phew! It's going to be so much work!

I'm going to try the new thing of mapping non-puzzle/exploration areas first and making the events, cutscenes and puzzle areas as I progress with the game.

Back to development

I have been absolutely terrible about updating you guys on what I've been doing lately. Besides a resource-making spree (check out the tiles right here), I also had a lovely (and very busy!) visit from my parents. All together, it translates to no game development being done over the last 2 and a half weeks.

I'm hoping to be back on track next week. I've missed making a game and this super secret project has been poking my brain like crazy!

I leave you with a screenshot:

Yes, you do get to visit and eat at this lovely restaurant.

Weekly Screenshots

A couple of screenshots of areas that are now mostly complete (save for NPCs and events).

The first screenshot is of a forest that will be one of the areas you explore for various quests and to gather materials for alchemy, cooking and blacksmithing. I fixed that one spot in the waterfall since.

The second is a gypsy camp, filled with wonderful music and a lot of spirituality. This is the quest hub for the other side of the forest as well as a resting place between the forest and the caves.

I'm currently mapping a major town, which is the home base for your party. Look forward to more spiffy screenshots once I'm done! :)

Secret Project: Some info

In this entry, I'm going to talk a little bit about the Ace side-project I'm working on. I won't be sharing too much about the plot, mind you, as I'd like most of it to stay a surprise until I can give you guys a demo.

I will say that it's a fairly lighthearted and sweet game that will be relatively short. I want to complete it quickly, preferably before fall. I guess all will depend on timing and how much work I can do in a given day. To this end, I've settled on a total of 30 locations. This includes all dungeons/exploration areas, towns, and cut-scene places. The map count will probably be only slightly larger, and that's mainly due to having individual maps for inner town homes.

I haven't decided whether I will be including battles or not. On one hand, I think most players find them quite fun and they're pretty necessary. On the other hand, I seriously despise all the hair-pulling database work that comes with it. Maybe I will recruit someone to help me with that portion of the game.

The rest of the game will be focused on doing variously-themed quests. There will be a single item shop in the main city. A blacksmith, a cook and an alchemist will have equipment and items you can trade materials for. And, of course, doing quests will give great rewards.

There won't be any morality points, but there will be opportunities to build relationships with party members. Doing quests that fit into the party members' area of expertise will also raise your relationship with them. This will unlock possible endings (yes, multiple endings!) and quest trees.

I have to pace myself to not add too much stuff, so I want to aim for 6-8 hours of total gameplay.

I'm also archiving some ideas for possible sequels.

Lastly, a screenshot (which most of you have probably seen by now):

Non-commercial

I had been doing research on going commercial for a while now. Mostly it's been market research and general game theory. I figure that I have the best chance to make a profitable game if I know what kind of thing sells. Gamers can be a difficult bunch to please!

One thing that I had left for last was the personal business aspect of it. Things like establishing a business license, taxes and that sort of thing. In part because this info wasn't as easy to access, but also because I wanted to know enough about how the business works before investing time/money into personal business paperwork.

After chatting with a few developers, I've come to the conclusion that it's not something I want to do right now. I like the process of making games, drawing art etc, and I'm afraid that going commercial will result in me spending more time on the business part than the design. Not to mention that there is incredible pressure that comes with being paid to do any kind of work.

So, this little VX side game will be free.

And here's a little eye-candy screenshot.

I'll probably make a more elaborate post once this super-secret project is more underway.

Progress update

I'm still hard at work on finishing up the release. All the graphics are completed, as are the extra maps. The only part that's left is the much-hated database (I'm looking forward to having that all done), rebalancing the battles and test playing. I'm both looking forward to testing everything and dreading it. I'm almost tempted to take the "super lazy developer" route and have some poor beta-tester check the game instead of doing it myself. If I wasn't determined to give y'all a quality game, I would totally do that *insert crazy laugh here*.

I leave you with two gifts. One is another screenshot of revamp maps:

General Store. Don't you just want to shop there?

And the second is a portrait and faceset I did:

Adding Content

As I was organizing the database last night, I realized that there wasn't a whole lot of "playable" content in TUAH so far. Chapter 1 has the player exploring Bogden forest, which is all of 3 maps in size. And outside the main-quest related fights, you don't even get to fight anything! Chapter 2 is not much better. Gullad mountains is supposed to have a huge mine, yet it only had 2 types of enemies. Worse yet, the tower had absolutely nothing outside the boss fight -which, let's face it, was a pretty sad one at that.

So, I will be adding more stuff. More maps, more fights and more treasure chests.Thanks to Thalzon's fantastic battlers, I've got a ton of fun enemies for you to encounter. I've already mapped out the enemy types. I'm moving onto their abilities and testing after that. Then it will be a matter of adding more maps.

Is this going to delay the release? Well, no. I'm still planning on releasing the updated graphic version sometime this week. The extra content will be added and released with chapter 3.

In the meantime, here's an extra screenshot for you guys:

~Spiffy Ahmiran~

Old and New

One of the things I did while away from the computer was to take a good, hard look at the features I wanted to include. While they're all really fun and interesting, I've found that some of them are unnecessary. The "lose gold when you run away from battle" is a good example of such a feature.Sure, it's fun and I got it to work with the simple use of a common event, but it's one extra thing to worry about when eventing. Not to mention that it could be a source of a lot of frustration for the player.


Other changes that have been made:
- There are more opportunities to gain/lose relationship points via cutscenes as well as character-based side quests.
- Addition of a "gift shop" where you can buy special gifts for your party members.
- More instances of where interacting with the environment (checking a bookcase, for example) will result in party chatter or relationship-altering cutscene. I'm on the fence about whether there should be an indicator (small arrow, for example) or whether the mystery would be more fun to the players.


Lastly, I'm working on revamping Sparrowight Academy, as it was the only area that still had the "old" maps. This is how Sparrowight used to look:

While the mapping isn't horrendous and I really like the layout, it's very different from the more recent maps. So, here is an updated version of the map and an extra screenshot for fun:

 Much better!

Over the next week, I'm planning on focusing on eventing rather than just art. As pretty and fun as mapping gets, I do want the player to actually play the game rather than just look around.

Week 13: Home Stretch

The past couple of days have been spent packing and mountains upon mountains of paperwork. I had originally planned to pack up my computer early as a way to avoid distraction, but it feels really nice to sit down at the end of the day and just relax with a game or some other creative endeavor.

So, let's start the update with a screenshot:

This is the new and improved Sparrowight Academy entrance. Still a bit of a WIP, thus possibly subject to a few cosmetic changes.

I love Inquisitor's tileset, but it's radically different from the VX RTP style. So, Flora's architectural masterpiece has been redesigned to look a bit more magical and charming (hopefully, anyway!). A new "outside" section was also added.

The last of the maps to revamp will be the inside of the academy. The change here will probably be the most radical, as I will be adding new areas that will be accessible during chapter 3 and onward. There are a few very fun side quests that take place at the academy. I hope you'll enjoy them!

Week 12: Screenshots Galore!

This past week was mostly occupied with more boring databasing and some light eventing. Or, rather, fixing up the events and script calls that changed now that I've upgraded to a new version of the quest log script. It's a lot of work, but it's pretty boring to blog about.

So, this week's update will be a screenshot galore, and by that, I mean a series of screenshots of the revamped chapter 1 and pure eye-candy.

We'll begin with a random screenshot of the shop in Burgunda Port:

Chuckle and laugh, but the titles are suspiciously close to actual titles of romance books my college roommate used to read.

Here are two outside areas in Summervale (which is completely revamped now, btw!):

Insert some witty comment here. The only thing that comes to my mind when I look at these is "Yay, nature!".

Next up is a screenshot of the restaurant in Summervale:

I wouldn't mind eating in a place like this. I still need to put some delicious food on a few tables, however. I notice now that some of them look suspiciously bare.

Last, but not least, a home in Summervale:

Now this should give a much better idea of the kind of profession the owner of the home has. It was a little ambiguous before, but I hope it's coming across more clearly now.

And that's the gist of it, folks! I'm probably going to be moving a week from now (fingers crossed!), so I may miss a weekly update. However, the good news is - once my move is done, you can look forward to the updated release of chapters 1 and 2 as well as some new content. I've picked a tentative date for a release and I'm working on building a schedule around that.