Sidequests are fun.

In a few spots in the game, there are more than one way to solve one particular obstacle, some involving sidequests, some not. One of the side quests that's nearly completed is a dungeon for the thief that will grant you access to a thief only item.

Rather than be a traditional dungeon with monsters, treasure, etc., it is filled with various skill games and timing events more akin to the deftness of a thief.


Stop the cursor in the circles, and Mr. Thief is safe. Stop the cursor on an X, and Mr. Thief becomes Mr. Splat!


Look out below!


Once this is complete, there are only a couple more locations to finish up before the next continent is completed. Next I will be putting together the resort island that houses all of the casino type minigames. This will mostly consist of mapping since all of the minigames are already coded. I figure at this point the game will be about half done, which is not where I had hoped to be when the project was started one year ago, but is great all things considered (job, school, girlfriend, hockey, etc. are all such selfish time sinks).

Steady progress.

You make a bunch of progress in your game, you've accomplished a lot, but there's not really much to update about other than to say you've made a bunch more maps and completed some areas...

That's how it's going with me and this project. I accomplish lots, but there's really not much to update in blog form that won't eventually get tiresome. You can only say you've completed another town, polished off another dungeon, or balanced the new set of encounters in the next area so many times before it gets really stale.

One thing that I can mention, however, is that I've got the party swapping system accessible from the ship completed! It's much nicer to be able to sail around and change your party than having to go back to the starter town, and I think it's always a nice touch when you can talk to your own party members when you feel like it. Or in this case, the ones that aren't currently in the party.




Yeah... that about sums it up!

Hard work is hard.

So, with the stability of a steady and decent job comes hard work and much less time for hobbies. The good news is that, in addition to being able to support myself comfortably, I have finally fallen into a routine with my new position and can start posting progress again. So with that, to the news!

BLACKJACK IS DONE! What a pain in the ass that was, too. It's finally done and working flawlessly, so the casino/minigame area in the game is that much closer to completion. More progress has been made on the main game itself as well. Below is a screen shot of the more calm area of bustling port town.


Sit on park benches... that's what all old people do, right?

Anyhow, it feels good to have progress to post again and for things to be finally settling back down to normal. I apologize for the delay between updates, but they should be reappearing with more regularity now!

PS. Dragon Quest 9 should be banned - what a production killer.

Doing it all and doing it well.

So I have decided to go all out and make all the minigames I was deciding whether or not to make. As I was thinking, and so many people have pointed out... if a game's focus is on game play, then minigames only add to it and it's a no brainer. So yes, it will delay the completed release considerably, but it will definitely add more to the finished product than it will hinder it by a delay of release.

So, the first of three minigames is nearly done! Drumroll please...



Yay blackjack! I've got the system to recognize when there's an ace in play and gives a display on what number you would have if you were to count it as an ace or a one.

In addition to this, there's a card counter at the bottom of the screen that if you are able to draw five cards without busting, you win 8 to 1 on your bet! The only thing left to finish is the dealer's programming (hitting and standing).

The system can already count the value of the cards to see who wins, and the real bitch to code was making sure that the same card won't show up on the table more than once. That took ridiculously long to get working properly.

So next up as far as minigames are concerned is the racing game. I have a plan in place and I think it will go pretty well, but before work starts on that I will be making some more maps on the third continent.

More updates later!

Are minigames worth the effort?

Just a quickie post here today:

I'm considering putting more minigames into Reminiscence, namely a blackjack game, racing/betting game and a one on one arena game. The opinions I've gathered thus far are people saying "why not just do all three?" The problem is that takes an awful lot of work and it would delay the final product considerably.

So I you, dear readers, do you think it's worth a fairly large delay in order to put in more minigames?

Over 150 downloads!

So, when observing the fact that I am not a big name studio with lots of money to spend on advertising, I would say over 150 downloads (153 to as of 5 minutes ago) across the couple sites where the game is available is a decent success.

Thank you to all who provided feedback and reported the (surpringly few!) bugs. Most of the reviews in general were pretty positive, with the only minor quirks being the aforementioned couple of bugs, and a groan or two from some of the goatse talk (haha).

As far as the game progress is concerned, I really haven't gotten much of a chance to work on it at all thanks to working midnights (which destroys any semblance of a life one may have), classes (which take up a lot of my free time with homework), and my (lack of) social life. Having a girlfriend is a full time job in itself some... times... oops, hi Alice! <3

In addition to all these things, I just upgraded to Windows 7, so now I get to reinstall all my apps and all that other wonderful stuff. Not having all my programs readily available when I did catch some free time was also a put off. I'll be a normal human being again here for at least a short while, however, so progress can begin again! Look for progress related updates soon!

PS. Which minigame would people like to see more? Some sort of racing/betting game, Blackjack, or a 1 on 1 arena style minigame? Let me know in the comments section!

New demo, and the winner of the title screen vote!

The winner!

Congratulations to Alice for winning the title screen contest! In second place was Alice, and finding last place in the votes was Alice. (Yes, she made all three.) The final tally across all sites polled including the blog was:

Sword: 16
Mimic: 31
Dragon/Knight: 52
Total Votes: 99

Almost 100 votes! But almost only counts in OVERUSED ANALOGIES.

So, along with the closing of the poll is the arrival of the new demo and a list of thanks:

Alice Kada - Various graphics, the title screen, testing, moral support.
Alex Dickerson - card graphics, testing.
Yanfly - Various scripts.
Aindra - A few graphics (faceset and dice, most notably).

Also, I would like to thank the folks at the rpgmakervx.net forums for their input and scripting help whenever I'm stuck with a particular bit of code.

There are a few graphics used from different resource compilations posted on sites and forums all over the place. If I forgot to mention you, let me know.

So what are you waiting for? Get over to the download page and give it a run! For those of you playing with a keyboard, use the main download. For those using a gamepad, the "gamepad" download has optimized controls with those in mind.

If you found the game to bring even the slightest smile, or add a small glimmer to a dull day, show some love by clicking an ad! It'll only take a moment, I promise, and it will help generate the small amount of revenue needed to convince beta testers to do their thing, bringing about a higher quality game!

New title screen, new minigame, new demo.

Working midnights sucks. I'm sure midnight shifts were invented by terrorists to make those of us who work them easier to explode. That, and the shift is a pretty effective life killer. However, I've still found time to work on the game some, so let's get to that!

First off, you will notice on the side bar there is a poll option. I'm going to be taking a poll on what the new title screen of the game should be. There are three options, and the first will be the main title screen while the second will be used in some other fashion. The title screens are as follows:

In the poll they will be listed in the order you see here, but just to avoid any confusion, the top one will be called Sword, the middle Mimic (which is that treasure chest monster you see in the middle, for those who may be unaware of what a mimic is), and Dragon/Knight. I will be running this poll here, in addition to a few forums and I'll take the total votes from each and tally them together to determine the winner. The poll will close on the 21st.

Onto the next subject - minigames!

I just can't seem to resist the temptation of making small minigames. While they are a lot of work, I think the life they add to games increases the overall value, setting some games apart from others. With that said, what's the new minigame?

Dice!

It's just a simple little minigame you can play against this shady character to earn that small amount of extra gold you may need for that one great weapon. The basic way it works is if your roll is higher than the man's, you can either take your 2 to 1 winnings, or use the value of that roll to play higher or lower. As it sounds, you guess whether or not the next roll will be higher or lower relative to your previous score. You win, you win big. You lose, you lose your previous winnings that round in addition to the gambling fee. A simple game, but fun enough. Even more so when you win and can afford that shiny new weapon!

Onto the final topic, a new demo.

Yes, that's right, a new demo. As much as I wish it were a full game release, there's still a long way to go for that. However, due to the amount of feedback I've gotten from the previous demo, in addition to the balancing issues, I feel that the game really could use a new demo to showcase the progress made, in addition to show what to expect from the final product in terms of balance, character personalities (quite often depending on who you're using in your party and when, they'll have 2 cents to add... sometimes 3), and the new soundtrack.

Your old saves will unfortunately be incompatible with the new demo, so you will have to start over. This is for the better, however, as there are new things to explore, updates to old content, and the game is just more fun now. The new demo will be out after the winner of the title screen battle is chosen, so look forward to more after the 21st! ... of April.

Puzzles are fun.

Puzzles.

Puzzles are great.

Puzzles are rewarding.

Puzzles bring life to a game that would otherwise seem monotonous.

Puzzles make me do TWO HOURS OF CODING FOR ABOUT 30 SECONDS OF GAMEPLAY... haha. At least... reaction based/collision detection puzzles do. It's all worth it however, since it's little touches like that which make one game more memorable and entertaining than another.

In other news, steady progress is being made aside from puzzles. Another boss has worked its way into the game and another small area has been completed as well. I'm starting to get to the point in the game where the player has a far greater range of travel, so I'm beginning to flesh out all the small explorable areas here and there which sometimes hold nice items, sometimes money, and sometimes monsters.

I've always been a fan of games that give you the option to explore with a balanced sense of risk versus reward as I feel games that extremely linear games really only reward a player for going down an extra hallway. There's something to be said about killing a monster far before you should be able to with that one lucky critical hit and raking in the EXP, or going way out of your way to find an awesome weapon. Just makes exploring that much more fun.

Comments/feedback appreciated as usual. One doesn't need to register to comment, by the way!

Systems and progress and soundtracks, oh my!

So, after quite a long while with no updates, quite a lot of news has been stored up, and quite a lot of writing will be done to cover all the topics. Quite? Quite!

Onto the first topic, the new soundtrack! I decided that the midi files that were packaged with the engine, while good, were not up to the level of quality I was looking for. Therefore I have gutted them and replaced them with a new soundtrack! Below is one of the themes of a bustling town. Quite an improvement, I must say... really makes me want to get back into composing, but alas! One only has so much time to spend on so many projects. Listen below!

On the theme of general progress, I completely reworked the old castle dungeon. Below is a shot of what it looks like now. You can compare it to the older, far more ugly screenshot in the post archives, and without a doubt the rehash is ten times better than the previous.

- - - - -

Now we get to the new systems part of the post! A day in the life of a thief is never easy, especially when that thief isn't using any enhancement items to increase his chances of not being caught!


I've introduced a very simple system into the game where the brave and noble thief (read: cowardly and sissy) can attempt to pickpocket individuals who find themselves sleeping in public areas. That's right, Dexan is a MAN'S MAN, picking on sleeping people.



Anyhow, a successful steal can land you some pretty nice items! However, an unsuccessful steal can land you...

... right here.

After he lands himself in the den of soap finding, you will have to post bail for your blundering buddy to get him back into your party. Simple, yet fun.

Progress is unfolding at a nice pace, overall. Another town as you can see below has been completed, and things are moving along smoothly.



Expect more news on the project as things progress, and I'll try to think of things more interesting to say than what maps have been created where. Build that turtle fence!

New Design!

The blog has been redesigned courtesy of my wonderful girlfriend, who will also be putting her talents to work for a new title screen for the game.

All the juicy updates to follow tomorrow after formatting of the new pages is complete. Things are looking up for Reminiscence!

Blog redesign coming soon!

The obligatory independent project developer "I'M NOT DEAD" post.

My lovely girlfriend is the artsy type, so she has promised to make a new design for the blog that will reflect the name change of the game, etc.

I have a whole list of new things to update about too, but I'll save that for the site redesign. Look forward to news soon!