Fairy Set

I've made some progress on other tiles, but nothing entirely worth blogging about. Next week should be less busy for me, so hopefully there will be brand new shiny screenshots to show.

I am, however, going to talk a little bit about the fairy set I will be making.

The participants of the Be my Muse contest all received this image (larger size and no sample text):

This cute little mushroom house is an example of what you can expect in the new set.

Here are some details I'm planning:
- A few types of houses/buildings: mushroom, pinecone/acorn, fruit and gourds.
- Some very large flowers and blades of grass.
- Town decorations: gazebos, lamps, benches
- Magic portal
- Bathing spring
- Cute furniture (maybe some common items used as furniture - like a bed made out of a matchbox, etc.)

More to come as I start making these tiles!~

Weekly Progress: Week 2

Despite a pretty busy schedule, this week was very productive for Twice Upon a Hero:
- Reworked the game intro and first town.
The beginning of TUAH is supposed to teach you about the basics of the game, and yet it doesn't have any exploration, battles or puzzles until you get to the second location. So, that's been changed. The tasks of Burgunda Port will no longer be to just talk to a bunch of NPCs. It will be more exciting (and hopefully more fun).
- Made an amazing concept for one of the final locations.
I can't share what it is, but it's immensely cool. It will take a while to paint the tiles, but I think it will be worth the effort.
- Collected all the scripts I'll be using and started configuring them.
Redoing chapters 1 and 2 took forever because I had decided to upgrade some scripts. I love modern algebra's quest script, so I updated to a newer version mid-production. While it made the game much better, it was also a huge pain to update every script call, quest and switch. Definitely not doing that again!
- Started on the Database.
Another one of those "lessons you learn". I had to redo the database in the last revamp and just thinking about it now gives me a headache. This time around, the database is getting done first.
- Made final versions of the party and started on some NPCs.
 A few of the essential NPCs are complete (Diana, Flora, names-I-can't-mention-yet) and I've started on random villagers.

So cute! Loving this style, now.

And that's my week in a nutshell! There was also quite a bit of planning and discussion done about battles, puzzles, etc, but I'm leaving that for the next update.

Tiles: Roman/Temple

A brief sneak-peek at the new tiles I'm developing right now:

They're roman/temple tiles with tons of statues, stonework and pillars. There will also be some pieces of classic roman furniture.  I'm also thinking about including some devious traps, but there's much pondering to be done there first.

Other tiles I'm working on are the Education/Culture add-on for the Modern Day set. I just may post some screenshots of that set next Thursday. Besides that, I've got 2 other super secret projects that are a little bit different (but just as fun!).

And then there's the winning tiles from Be My Muse contest (still a chance to vote for your favorite!).

Am I busy, or what?

Weekly Progress: Week 1

Now that I've made the decision to port TUAH over to Ace, it feels like starting over - though not quite as daunting.

I spent a little time going through my original notes, and I have to admit that they were way too ambitious. Originally, Caeta featured 250+ locations. I had enough of a plot to span over 30 hours of play, and featuring a staggering 18 chapters. Sometime after finishing chapter 1, I realized that this goal is completely unrealistic for me to achieve - not without sacrificing all the customization I was planning - from graphics to battles and more.

So, I adjusted my original plan a little: cut down to 10 chapters, cut the locations in half and started aiming for 20 hours of play. I stayed pretty true to the story and it seems that people enjoyed playing the first two chapters.

But going through the plan again, it struck me that it's still way too ambitious - especially when it comes to the story and the pacing. You didn't even get to meet some of your party members until chapter 9 - giving you just a chapter and a half to get to know them. Back when the game had 18 chapters, it wasn't a big deal to add the extra party members in chapter 9. You still had half the game to go.

So, I've made some major changes:
- I re-wrote the story.
Chapters 1 and 2 (which is what you can play with the current demo) aren't affected too much, but the later chapters are. I cut out a lot of filler bits and just focused on what's crucial to the story - particularly the ending.
- I cut out a staggering 100 locations.
Some of those locations were places that the player never got to visit - basically only there to show the vastness of the world. And thinking about it, I realized that it might be frustrating to see all these places and never explore them. Other locations were completely side-quest material - meaning that some players wouldn't get to see them either.
- I cut out a ton of features, ideas and quests.
I want to complete Twice Upon a Hero, and I really need to focus on that. I can always add more content via sequels, prequels or even something like DLC.
- I switched to a different sprite style.
TUAH is a bit more serious and dramatic than the cute chibi RTP can potray. So, I've switched to a taller sprite size. It's basically a happy mash of XP and VX/Ace. I think it looks pretty good.
- I am remaking the maps to be different.
This one was a tough decision to make. But taller sprites call for different mapping, and I want to get away from Parallax mapping. I only really used parallax mapping to avoid the VX tileset limitation. Since Ace has no such limitation, I'm going back to tiles.
- I am going to get some help for battles and the database.
As nice as it would be to say "I did this alone", getting help means I get everything done sooner. And that's much more valuable at this point. So, I have LaMia helping, and I might make a recruitment thread at some point for extra bits of help.

And there we have it. My super productive week in a nutshell.

TUAH - Port

Whats this? Two entries in a row?!?

I have a news tidbit I'm excited to share and I just couldn't wait.

After much deliberation, I will be porting Twice Upon a Hero to Ace! I've been going back and forth about this decision since Ace came out, pretty much. I much much much prefer Ace over VX, and switching back to VX to work on TUAH was a bit demotivating.

I also have help from the very talented LaMia, who will be helping me set up the database and transfer events/dialogue/etc over. She's a jack-of-all-trades, so she will also help with graphical transitions.

Speaking of graphics ... Since this new direction is basically like starting over, I've been playing with the idea of maybe going non-RTP with the character style.

This is how the party (well, the party members you've met, anyway) looks like right now:

They look very cute and tiny.

And this is how they could look:

Taller and more detailed.

 Possible armors for Alistair.

I haven't decided which direction to go in, quite yet. LaMia can help redo the NPCs and faces (though most of the faces won't need any adjustment), so it wouldn't be a huge undertaking.

Which version do you prefer?

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.

A quote

“When ego is siphoned off creativity, when creativity becomes one more thing we do, like the laundry, then it takes far less time to do it. Much of our desire for creative time has to do with our trying to coax ourselves into being in the right mood to create. We want to “feel like it,” and when we don’t, or don’t quickly, we think the solution is more time. Actually, the solution is less attention to the vagaries of mood. In short, creativity needs to become something daily, doable, and nonnegotiable, something as quotidian as breathing.
When we make a special occasion out of our art, we rob ourselves of the time we actually have. When we make a ceremony out of the right paper, the right noise level, the right pen and precise circumstance, we are actually creating many false conditions that make our art not more possible but more impossible. “I can’t think when it’s noisy” or “when the kids are home” or “when the phone’s going off.” We may not like thinking under those conditions, but we can think under them and we owe it to ourselves to learn that we can. By making our creativity nonnegotiable, we do it a little every day no matter what our mood and no matter what our judgement of our work. What we are after is the gut-level knowledge that our creativity is both doable and portable.
… The less precious we are about how and when we do our work, the more precious it can be to us. We are like parents who take their infant everywhere. The child learns to thrive in many environments, and so, too, can our brainchild, art.”

- Julia Cameron, The Sound of Paper

A very inspiring quote sent to me by a dear friend. I think this is something I need to reflect on.

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.

Work and more work

I haven't posted in over a month, and it's mainly due to the fact that I've been pretty hard at work on these. Yes, they're finally on sale. I can now sit back and enjoy a breather while I ponder what I'm going to be working on next.

I have a lengthy list of themes/ideas/concepts and it's so difficult to choose just one! I've also got to make more progress on the Modern tiles. I know of quite a few folks who are waiting on those!

I may also make a character pack first. It'll likely be a base pack with heroes, villains and NPCs. Then I'll move to other themes I've tackled (or am about to tackle) with the tiles. Phew, so much work!

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. :)