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.

Starlight: NPC faces

Making faces for NPCs is incredibly fun. Not only do I get to practice my art (and goodness knows I could use practice when it comes to character portraits), but I get to give them all kind of wacky emotions. I can go for a subtly smug look, or a look of utter boredom. Or maybe even insane grin or two.

It also helps quite a bit with dialogue. As I'm drawing a character with dialogue that's ready, I can really play up the emotions. Or if I'm drawing the character first, their look gives me ideas about what kind of personality they may have. It's a pretty fun process.

I'm definitely glad I decided to make NPC faces, too. :)

Starlight: Update

If you've been following my progress on Wish Upon: Starlight, you probably know that I did a whole lot of going back and forth about facesets (particularly style) and the font. I think I have finally made a decision about what to do for both.

First, the facesets:

 You can see all the faces in my project thread.

I added some slight shading, definition and better-looking eyes. I think it's the perfect happy medium between having a resource that looks good and still being able to create them relatively quickly. I will be able to create the faces for all NPCs - or at the very least, the most important ones.

I will be working on some more maps/events when I get some free time. Between making resources and doing other work-related things, I've found myself with very very little free time left. And because I often feel brain-dead by the time all the work is done, I end up playing a game to wind down instead.

However, I will definitely make a very big effort to go back on track with the game production. I think it will just take some organizing and making sure I've set time aside for game progress.

Starlight: Weekly Update 1

In between fancy tile making, I've found a bit of time to make some faces. As I've mentioned already, I'm using Jalen's chibi base and making faces with that base is almost ridiculously fun. Each face takes very little time and I know that using them will give those characters so much more personality!

And since pictures speak more than words, here is a sample of some of the NPC faces I've finished:

They will be a little less fuzzy in game.

Other than the fun artsy thing, I've also got most of the gameplay planned out. I'm actually very excited about it because it sounds both fun to make and fun to play. I'm going to try finish making the database soon, so I can be better organized through the development process.

Things to do next week:
- Finish more NPC faces for the main town hub
- Get started on skill and item icons
- Finish up items database (for stuff that's planned so far, anyway)

Dun dun dun dun ... Ta da!

Since a few of you have seen glimpses of the super secret project, I've decided to create a thread for it and share quite a bit of information about the game. You can read about Wish Upon: Starlight right here.

Expect more art, screenshots and info soon! ~

Art = decided, Livestream

I'm so happy right now! I've finally decided what I was going to do with the art for faces/portrait in the super secret project. I kept going back and forth on the decision. I really wanted to do original art, since it's fun and a great practice for my own artistic skill. But even with the flat colors and sketchy lines, I still hesitated that it would take too long.

I've solved the issue, however, by switching to Jalen's super adorable chibi base. It's super cute, it allows for a lot of detail and it's just fun to work with.

So, here is one of the portraits/faces you will be seeing:

 So cute! :3

In other news, I've done a livestream video of my tile-making the past couple of nights. If you're ever interested in how I make tiles, or if you want to chat while I'm making tiles, you can head over to my livestream channel. I usually post a profile feed on the official RM forums before opening the stream.

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.

Faces

Art is therapy. Therefore, after feeling a bit tired and drained today, I decided to just doodle a bit for Super Secret Project (I swear, I need to give you guys a name!). I just drew the main character's faces in a very quick 5 minutes. And then, surprisingly, I loved the result so much that I started to think about using that instead.

Here is the original face (style 1):

Cute, right? It's straight from the pre-order Ace bonus.

Here is the face I drew (style 2):

This is actually closer to how the character looks in my head.


 
Two things to keep in mind ... If I went with style 2, it would stay as you see it now. So, slightly messy lines and a flat color. However, because it's so quick to create, it means I could make faces for all NPCs as well as the characters.

So, which one do you prefer?

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! :)

S. Project: Decisions

Well, I've had a chance to spend a bit more time working on this secret side project, and I have a few more things to share.

1) I'm not going to do battles.
After thinking about it long and hard, I've decided against a battle system. It's something that makes sense story-wise. It also allows me to focus on what I want to achieve with this project - which is to have emphasis on gameplay and exploration.

In that sense, this will be more likely closer to the adventure genre then a classic rpg.

2) There are 4 separate elements I'm going to focus on.
- Various quests, most of which will be chosen by the player instead of being introduced in a completely linear fashion. There will still be a degree of linearity, as I don't want to tackle a completely open world. But I want to give you more to do than just follow a straight path from A to B.
- Synthesis system, primarily cooking and alchemy. This will involve gathering resources, so it should encourage exploration.
- Puzzles. I'm not going to go with complex puzzles, mind you. Mostly it will be using one or two simple concepts and making use of field skills/items.
- Classic adventure play. Things like fetch item X to advance through area, or use Y skill to open up the path.

3) I have waaaay too many ideas and way too many ways to add features. I want the project to be simple, but what I've planned is already more complex than what I'd imagined. So, I'm going to have to cut out some things.

One of the things I really wanted to do was art scenes for the intro and the endings. But there's a total of 10 endings, each of which would require at least one picture. And the intro would require at least 3. While 13 pictures isn't a gigantic amount, it's still way more than I'd be comfortable requesting from any one artist.

Thankfully, pictures are easy to add, so I can always change my mind and add them in at a later time. Completing this game will still take some time, so maybe the art bug will bite me and I'll have a bout of motivation.

--
That's all for now, folks. I will try to update again soon and let you all know how I'm doing.

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.