VXA Pantomime: FFVI

Just a quicky post:

Have finished the Pantomime project I mentioned in my last post!

It’s mostly reading/watching as the dress-up characters run around acting out their lines in an only token effort to really convince you, and the set pieces are all cardboard cutouts (based on FFVI maps), but with ripped MIDIs from FFVI playing constantly (and relevantly) in the background and at least one audience-themed interactive section, the project really is intended to feel like it’s a real Pantomime, like you’re a part of the audience.

Whole performance clocks around half an hour with minimal action required on your part.  Just try to sit back and have fun with it!

Also, since the filesize is so small (<3MB) due to short runtime and few resources being used (and each MIDI being like only 3kb each) I made a duplicate version of the project that contains all relevant RTP files, so you don’t need to have the VXA RTP installed to run it!

Links regarding the project, complete with screenies and downloads:

http://rpgmaker.net/games/4937/

http://rmrk.net/index.php/topic,47775.msg543381.html#msg543381

Pixel Brady: Scima Invasion

Some screenies to go with this blether?

Scima Invasion, lazily titled by breeding Sci-Fi and fantasy magic into the system, is a short repeatable game based around a small crew of specialists who invade a rebel base to save the world or some such. Truthfully there’s not really much of a story!

Features, you ask?

• Sci-Fi & Magic! Handguns, grenades, combat specialists and magicians all wrapped up together in a mission to punch through an evil base!
• Simple maps, simple graphics, simple story. It’s a simple game with simple mechanics. Sounds boring maybe, but that’s part of the point; to just be able to dive right in and play with class combinations!
• No free recovery points or Inns to stay at. You need to rely entirely on your crew and any supplies you find. You begin with plenty of supplies but they start running out as the enemies get stronger! Conservation is key!
• No levels! Your crew is always stronger and better than any baddies you find (except bosses!) so your only worry is supply attrition; can you save all your best stuff for the bosses?
• Ten available classes to mix, match and combine into your crew. With eight common skills between everyone and four unique skills per class, there’s plenty of tactical differences between using each class.
• All skills have unique and varied damage calculations which are shown in the descriptions for you to accurately and tactically decide which skills are best used at any given time.
• Permanent death! Losing someone hurts your chances of completing the mission, but airlocks across the base allow you a chance to request backup from four other crew members waiting to aid you!
• Three different paths leading to the bases inexplicable core. Each path can be backtracked and taken (if you want) to give you different bosses and paths to take when trying different class combos.
• Unlockable Boss Rush Mode!  Fight every boss in the game in direct succession with no ammo refills, no backup calls and no breathing time between!

Oh, it was Details you wanted?
It’s a simple game based off a simple concept I wanted to try implementing. There’s literally more tutorial textboxes than there are dialogue/story, as that was never really a part of it. I liked the idea of seeing sci-fi and fantasy magic put together (which is something I rarely see) but wasn’t as interested in story as the concept itself.
It also helped with the skills, as I mixed together “tech points” (a victor script) and mp use. Between the ten classes who have their own skilltrees, everyone has a various mix of skills utilising both of them to different degrees. By then putting unique damage calcs to each skill that involved a mixture of stats, and then limiting ammo boxes and mp tonics, it forces you to tactically decide which skills to use when, so you always have some left over for the boss.

These classes include a Marine who uses firearms to attack. These weapons do very strict damage that’s modified only by an enemies defence. They target single enemies, while Grenadiers will use explosives that target everyone.
There’s also a Healer who uses magic that heals based both on their magic attack, but the targets own magic stats as well. Healers use magic to heal whole groups at once, while Medics use single target heal and buffs that (non-magically) deal strict amounts rather than stat based.

The rest of the game? The mapping is uninspired visually, although the game as a whole is mapped out in such a way that there are three separate routes to the boss (with backtracking possible) so I just spent more time actually planning routes than trying to prettify it. I kept one tileset throughout the whole game, but made an effort to change the basic visual look after every couple of bosses.

But besides that; you can save anywhere, death is a permanent feature so you have to conserve even peoples lives, but every so often you’ll find an airlock where you can request up to four more people to come and help you.
Most importantly is just the cute, chibi battle appearance! So harmless looking, but I think it goes well

Anyhoo, blether over.

The game was made in a couple of days so is the main reason it appears so simplistic or even sparse, but again; t’was more about putting the concept into practice than making a pretty game.  These types of games can always be remade if they work after this stage!

Will be out soon; just wanna finish playtesting it and polishing it up.

Database Makeover: Changes

As described here, Wee Hero needed a revamp of the database.  Mostly it was just messy and would have benefited from a better organisation, but there were some nagging issues beneath it all that are the kind of thing you’d rather start from scratch now than wait till the end and find you just don’t like it anymore.

So to that end, materials for crafting has been reorganised completely, and gear to suit.  Materials are split into three tiers now with multiple weapon and armour choices available to craft with each tier of material.
The pickup events for materials have also been redone, so instead of being predetermined mats, now they give a random mat based on chance, and give a random amount based on your luck.  The events are separated into their respective categories (armour, weapons, herbs) so you should never find yourself completely incapable of crafting armour with a surplus of weapon mats, for example.  Although, the mats do also crossover with each other, so there shuold be a good margin of error no matter what you do.

Also fixed a few bugs and issues here and there, mostly small event related things, but everything seems to be running smoother now.  There’s also now an option to toggle the in game clock so it doesn’t sit rudely behind message windows unless you ask it to.

Stealing is now involved!  This is a method to cherry-pick specific mats you need or are running short on from monsters.  The steal rates are fairly high (so should only cost 1~2 tuns to get your mat) however you can only take one at a time.  It’s there to assist mor ethan be your primary method for material collection.  However, bosses will have access to rarer or later tier mats.

Speaking of bosses: they now have shiny Boss Cards before the encounter, which give basic details about them, including their attack and defensive elements, hp and what the penalty for letting them defeat you will be.
We’ve gone with a “no game over” style in an effort to just let the game perpetually advance and progress without that burning feeling that you just lost an hour of running around collecting stuff.  Of course, this means that bosses just teleport you back five minutes in time to before you challenged them at full health…not very threatening now, is it?
So they have various penalties attached now, such as loss of gold or permanent stat decreases to keep the intensity up.  You have the choice to reset to your last save however long before that, or just take a hit on the chin and try again!

Finally, we have the new “Enemies Levelling” script from Yanfly.  This seems like the perfect type of script for a game such as this, by helping maintain a steady difficulty curve.  On the first country area, there are three different methods to get across to the other side of the island (of varying difficulty and reward) but it was hard to balance it out so it wasn’t just railroading you based on how much you had grinded.  With enemies levelling as you do, we have a more dynamic playstyle where you are a lot more free to explore whichever direction you wish first.
As well as that, going back to find respawned materials won’t be quite so “trawling through  the noob cave”, since the monsters will be capable of fighting each time you visit!

Anyhoo:
All I have to do now is twiddle-dee with the monster/boss stats so they feel appropriate, and it’s more or less ready for some basic alpha testing to check the balance of monsters and material pickup.  Unfortunately, NPCs and flavour text are still at a bare minimum, and probably will be until I’ve had a few reports about the game’s core issues first.

Coursework Videos

So!  I’ve decided to expand the scope of this blog, figuring that I needn’t have more than two.  Now, Circle of Tangents is my original blog, made primarly for blethers, rambles, rants and general shite-talking about anything I might want to discuss or rant about.  Pixel Brady was made to cover my gamess, side projects and such, so I’m extending that to cover my coursework as well, since it’s all about animation, games, art etc.  I figure that Pixel Brady can become my unofficial “portfolio” site, as it were, and just give a general cover of everything I’m up to, should anyone ever be interested in my works and how I spend some of my spare time.

Badly, of course.  I waste time.  Lots of time.  By playing and making games and animations.  S’fun, but certainly not productive.  At least not until college starts back again, then I can say I’m doing serious work with a (semi)straight face.

Anyhoo, I haven’t put much up for it yet, as there’s a *lot* of images from concept etc that I could be piling on, but that can wait for now.  For the time being, I’ve just added a new page for my completed and concept works that I’ve handed in to someone at some point or another.  These are just videos, but get across what I’ve spent the past year doing.

Have fun!

Coursework Videos!

Dog Days – Curing The

So, the Dog Days competition is going down the shitter, as basically my whole guild has given up.  And I didn’t get notice as such until the first Challenge was due.  So, working on my own, I changed the game to a simpler, more do-able idea (and unfortunately just couldn’t get the first challenge completed myself before the deadline, for which we scored a 0).  One of them (Pacman) has kindly finished off the script he was doing which I’m using now, giving a nice, succinct menu for the game.

Anyhoo, the game is now “Curing The” (left blank, as the exact disease is never stated), which is about a wealthy businessman who was struck with a lethal disease that drives one insane before killing them.  His final option is to go to a top notch research facility and be cryogenically frozen until such time as the disease can be cured once and for all.

HOWEVER, he wakes up suddenly with the facility looking destitute and barren, somethin’ went horribly wrong.  And to make matters worse, the disease is still ravaging his mind!

The cryo facility looks far worse for ware than when you went in!

The game continues along the horror-survival theme (although with only myself working on it, and zero experience working on horror games, it’ll probably wind up less horror, more survival) and a race against time, as both your mind and body deteriorate slowly unless you find medicines to help keep you in shape.  The exciting feature (which is what Challenge Two is all about: making a demo of the coolest feature in the game) is that after a certain amount of sanity being lost, you will go insane; the entire map around you will twist and contort into an even darker, more horrific version of the world and the very objects and landscape around you will become evil and try to kill you!  Simple safety features such as fire extinguishers will become twisted and try to assassinate you in your insane, paranoid mind!

Dog Days – Dementia

http://rmrk.net/index.php/topic,46509.0.html

RMRKs “Dog Days of August” contest has begun, with three guilds competing, one of which I am involved in.  We have decided to make a survival horror game as our month-long project entry -named ‘Dementia’- and have a video teaser created by one of our people.  Although I usually take up a heavy interest in story/writing and creating the progression in my projects, I’ve taken a more laid back role this time and just letting the story be written by those who have created it, giving me time to just focus on creating art.  The game will be set mostly in a hospital; not only have I yet to make horror graphics, but modern/hospital horror is especially new to me, so I’m excited about making and finding stuff for this!

So, have been working on blood and dirt stains mostly for now, as well as various walls and floors, but have plans for more stuff later on.  I would post up some images about it, but I think right now I’d get into bother if I made any of our resources/plans findable, especially by the other guilds!  I don’t know what else I’ll be getting into yet, but will be getting as much done as possible over the month, especially with the three secret “Challenges” we have ahead of us, so I’ll keep posting; it’s great fun so far!  Looking forward to getting more created!

Quest Journals Script – Demo

http://rmrk.net/index.php/topic,45127.new.html#new

The Quest Journal is a fantastic script written by modern algebra, and I’ve been using it in most of my projects so far, including DotI.  It catalogues your quests and allows you to reveal and complete objectives individually, as well as add your own categories and even change the appearance of the menu.  It’s easy to run, with simple script calls and extensive instruction within the script to explain every last option available, and is one of the first scripts I used after getting VXA.

However, a lot of folk have been asking for a demo (and truth to be told, I wouldn’t have minded one myself) but as modern has been too busy to get a demo made (since, as I said, there’re quite a lot of options) I offered to make a short demo to cover the basics of it.  It’s a quick, non-combat, five minute run through covering the simpler things such as receiving quests, revealing and completing objectives, finishing quests off and repeating quests and objectives.  It only covers a small flower-picking mission in a tiny wooded area, but should explain well enough how to get started with the script until modern manages to make up a full demo with the more complex aspects.

http://pixelbrady.wordpress.com/demo-list/

Colonist Alpha Success!

(just realised how daft some of this all might sound, but I’ve taken a double dose of my painkillers today and I’m a bit spacey, so forgive this post for sounding totally stupid, if it does)

So, putting the Colonist Alpha out nice and early turned out to be a smashing success, despite its many flaws.  A lot of people have given substantial feedback, both covering known issues and things that I’ve utterly just overlooked with the ole’ tunnel vision.  Some of these problems will be tricky to fix or have some fundamental problems (such as a problem with getting the ABS to refresh upon stamina depletion) but fortunately most of the problems so far will be easy to fix and should lead to a far improved game.  By the time the game is polished up enough to have a “proper” demo released it should be a much sharper and more flowing game.

One thing that will be getting largely improved is the dialogue, as right now it’s dead basic (as we punched it in just so we could get all the eventing done) and with that, the instructions and story to the game suffered greatly, leaving a large tutorial gap for players, with much of it expecting the player to already know what to do.  The instructions, at least, will be redone completely to allow players to know completely how to play; the game itself is quite simple, but at a first glance it’s a bit complicated and requires some better tutorials.  Hopefully the caves will be improved with this as well.

Also, on top of this we have a new team member, Levi W, who is drawing up some music for us (damn good music at that) and is firing down the right path very fast, so the demo should also sound vastly improved as well, with getting rid of the RTP in favour of some pretty ideal new soundtracks!

Colonist Alpha Demo

Colonist Alpha Demo!

Right, so after switching between playing TSW and working on Dance and Colonist, we’ve finally got an Alpha Demo put together for testing to see how people find it, so we know what to do to improve it before we go too far.

The demo isn’t that long, probably a half hour if you just get straight to everything.  It will end after you’ve built the forge, but you’ll be able to still run around if you want, you just won’t be able to craft anything yet or build anything else.

The demo includes the new Fog of War script as it’s final version, although not all the features of it are shown within the demo; there’s more to come!

Not much to say about it, hopefully all the instructions are clear enough and the game is understood enough for me to not need to explain much, but I’ll be checking to see if anyone reports any problems.

Have fun

Some screenies!

Build your village from scratch!

Fog of war obscures your dungeon crawling, but lets you always know where you’ve been!

Open exploration where you can fish, hunt, collect materials or just go for a wander

Equip all the best tools you can get as well as modifications for your tools and ammo charges. All stats are used within the game!

TDS’ Scriptmakin’ Skills – Fog of War

Small update before the main post: have come up with a newer look for the dungeons.  It keeps the 3/4 cross-section view, but now far better allows for deeper dungeon appearances, to prevent it just looking like some really long, weird shaped cave.

Anyhoo:

http://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/index.php?/topic/2687-scripting-services/

So we realised that a key problem with the style of gameplay we’re going for with Colonist is that the entire dungeon can be viewed easily, without making it worthlessly massive, which kind of kills much of the exploration aspect of the game; you can already see which path has the good ore, so why even bother going down the other?

What we needed was Fog of War (a term well known to fans of Age of Empires, Dungeon Keeper etc) so that the dungeon is “blacked out” when you first enter; you’ve no idea what or where anything is, but as you explore you clear the fog (which will remain permanently cleared thereafter) and you can see.  This allows dungeons to be quite small (which is needed for Colonist) without just revealing all the secrets straight away; it also means that coming back for repeat runs (as will be expected of many caves) you’ll also immediately know where hasn’t been explored.

So, since there’s no such VXA script that I’ve ever seen or heard of, I got TDS involved, who promptly turned a problem into an interesting game gimmick.  For anyone needing scripting works, my recommendation falls to TDS, who is not only professional in his work, but to the point and even explains the script both before it’s written and commented on the script itself.  Fantastic stuff!

So now the game has back that dungeon cave excitement for exploration and in the doing so, have a nice unique feature for the game that not many others have.  Looking good so far, am excited to get the demo out!   Screenies will be up soon!