Embark upon a journey like many others!

Progress resumes!

2011-02-03T21:25:00.000-08:00

Full update soon...

Sidequests are fun.

2010-09-18T14:32:00.001-07:00

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.

2010-08-15T19:02:00.000-07:00

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.

2010-07-25T20:55:00.000-07:00

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.

2010-06-14T18:33:00.000-07:00

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?

2010-06-09T10:13:00.000-07:00

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!

2010-05-12T03:55:00.000-07:00

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!

2010-04-22T01:08:00.000-07:00

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.

2010-04-14T22:46:00.000-07:00

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.

2010-03-30T15:17:00.001-07:00

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!

2010-03-23T11:59:00.000-07:00

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!

2010-03-23T00:28:00.000-07:00

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!

2010-03-15T14:31:00.001-07:00

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!

To make excuses...

2009-11-13T17:43:00.000-08:00

...or to just do an update?

I prefer the latter, as things are back on track and no one really concerns themselves with why they may have fallen off the track to begin with.

So, here are some updates!

The second continent is mostly done now, a few odd locations here and there have been taken care of, one of the towns is completed and all fleshed out, now work begins on the major dungeon of the area, which is a ruined castle type area. I have some neat puzzles in mind for this area that will hopefully liven the place up considering its ruined state.

As far as the minigames are concerned, the War card game has only a small amount of work left to be done on it. After it is completed, I will no longer be able to avoid working on the Blackjack minigame. Ugh, that will be a tough one!

Feels good to have momentum in the project again. At some point I'll put the new title up in fancy fashion and retitle the blog as well to match the new name of the game.

New Game Title!

2009-10-02T12:48:00.000-07:00

So out of all the submissions I got, I've decided to go with Reminiscence! However, as someone astutely pointed out, that makes the game sound very serious and doesn't quite allude to the sense of humor injected within the game. So, as a result, the title of the game will be Reminiscence: The WTF Saga! I feel that Reminiscence is really what the game is about, going back to how RPGs used to be and I feel it's a fitting title. And as for the WTF saga, well, use your imagination there (it's World That's Forgotten, you potty mouths...).

In other news, after about 5 days of feeling like one of those public restroom seat covers that was dropped on the ground near the toilet and stepped on by about 200 different people, I can finally get back on track with the game development. Stay tuned for more updates!

Easy Type demo released!

2009-09-28T00:02:00.000-07:00

Just a quickie.

I've uploaded an easy type version of the game for those of you having trouble staying alive in the normal version. Monsters will be much easier now, but you should still watch out for those guarding treasures! They will still be a challenge.

Easy type demo can be found on the links to the right or here:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=5SN8698Y

Easy Type version and more.

2009-09-25T11:15:00.000-07:00

So, while myself and quite a few others have played the game through and have only seen the above screen a couple times, I've had quite a bit of feedback regarding the difficulty level of the game. Some people say it's just right, others are saying it's way too hard. The game is difficult in the early going, but that's because your party are a bunch of brand new adventurers. One comment left by a person on RMN pretty much sums up what I think the issue is here:

"You should probably warn people that your game is hard though. I've been babied in so many games now, I've totally forgotten how to play properly. I died something like 10 times just because a bunch of slimes beat me up. Then I actually started using skillz and it all worked out."

Unfortunately, a lot of players don't seem to want to take it upon themselves to sharpen their gaming skills, instead just wanting an easier game. So, request and you shall receive! I'll be putting up a separate demo of the game labeled easy type. While I personally think that such a mode detracts from the game as a whole, I'm just the developer, not a player! So the more options people have, the more likely they are to play the game, and the more people that enjoy the game, the happier I'll be.

In other news, I'm currently creating a small minigame that can be played in one of the towns you can reach after gaining access to your rowboat.

War! (With a graphical twist.)

It works pretty much just like the real life card game of War, but rather than collect all the cards and add them to your deck, you just play in a best of 7 series. It also has a neat graphical overlay that real life War does not, and depending on how much you wager to play, you can win some pretty neat stuff!

Update - Naming Contest:

I've received some pretty good submissions for names, and so far the front runner is Reminiscence as not only does it sound like a good title for a game, it works to define the type of game this is as well. There's still 5 more days to submit entries, and I'll be taking them until then, so if you come up with something good (even if you've already submitted something), let me know!

Naming contest!

2009-09-23T10:48:00.000-07:00

Girlfriend: "You probably need a new title for your game. It's a really fun game, but the title is probably making people not want to try it. You should hold a naming contest!"

Well, it turns out after the Release Something! event, she was not the only one with this opinion. So now it's time for a help me name my game contest! I'm going to take suggestions via the topic comment function through the blog. Comments can be made anonymously, so there's no need to register. The winner will get an npc named after them in the game saying whatever lines of dialogue they wish (within reason, of course). The easiest thing to do is to choose a name for the game world as a whole, and make that the title (as the game world is still unnamed as well), but I'll leave it up to you to decide.

In progress related news, I've just started working on the third major dungeon in the game. Progress is coming along nicely, and it's always fun coming up with new puzzles. I should probably have it done within a week, so here's to hoping!

The contest will end at the end of the month (1 week!) on 09/30/09.

Demo Released!

2009-09-22T00:04:00.000-07:00

Well, in a rather exciting (and nerve wracking) time for me, a demo of my first public video game project is available for download!

You can get it at www.rpgmaker.net or here!

All comments, criticism, and feedback is greatly appreciated!

Quick news: A demo!

2009-09-18T12:08:00.000-07:00

I've decided to release a demo on 09/22/09, for www.rpgmaker.net's "Release Something!" event. The demo will be about an hour or two long, depending on your play style, and your saved games will transfer over to the full version.

In other progress related news, I've gotten more maps fleshed out that belong to the main quest, and a couple maps of side content completed. Mapping is a very long, very tedious process in general so there's not much to update that won't spoil parts of the game. I can tell you, however, that I've gotten the teleport shrines that transport the player between continents working (these are needed to get around before the player has access to a ship).

Slot machine is finally finished.

2009-09-17T09:14:00.000-07:00

FINALLY. It's done, and I'm relatively pleased with the result. Everything works correctly, the display, the animations, and the payouts. One of the biggest challenges, believe it or not, was to get a window displaying the player's coins in the upper right hand corner of the screen and have it update while the player uses the slot machine. That was the last hurdle I had to overcome in order to get it set up to my liking, and now it's done!

As I said before, the player will exchange their gold for coins which can be used in the slot machine. They can bet a maximum of 10 coins per pull, with the jackpot paying out at a *2000 multiplier. It's highly unlikely that a player will hit the jackpot, but if they do at a full bet, they can expect to land themselves some rather nice gear!

Screenshots of the slot machine in action:

The other casino minigames will be worked on later, as I'm waiting on the remainder of a set of playing card resources.

Next up is working on the next set of towns and explorable areas the player can access after getting the rowboat (which can only travel in shallow water). Look for more updates soon!

I hate slot machines!

2009-09-14T22:26:00.000-07:00

So the slot machine is coming along. Background graphics are done, slot machine overlay is done, the slots are animated, now it's just time to piece it all together and make it work. I've got the coin system done, though!

Explanation needed:

I've decided that rather than bet the player's actual gold for winnings, the player will purchase coins to use in all of the casino games, and exchange those coins for prizes. This prevents the player from getting insane amounts of gold which would trivialize the game for quite awhile because the player would be able to purchase all of the best equipment much sooner than I would like them to. I've settled on the exchange rate being 1 coin per 10 gold when purchased from the coin vendor in casino areas.

Screenshot time!

In non-minigame related news, I've finally figured out a way to work in a skill for the thief upon reaching level 10 that allows him to find bonus gold after a battle! It took some script (ruby) writing which I am totally noobish at, but I got it done and the results are great! The party is awarded the normal amount of gold, then the thief will notify the party of the extra gold he has found, which finally gets added to the player's gold total. Very happy with the result!

Hopefully the slot machine will be completed by the next post.

World Map!

2009-09-12T21:59:00.000-07:00

Ladies and gentlemen, I have, for the first time in my life, actually completed an entire world map! Most people may be thinking, "What's the big deal? That's probably easy!" They may be right, but it's not as easy as most would think. It's a challenge making a world map that doesn't feel completely bland. I've gotten the whole thing fleshed out, and all locations marked (but not nearly complete with maps), but only one island is fully complete with all location maps done.

Now it's time for a screenshot! Note that this view of the map is very zoomed out so it's very difficult (impossible) to see all of the smaller locations:

Now that the world map is out of the way, I think I'm going to start on something I've been putting off for awhile now, which is making the slot machine minigame. I'm going to include a casino type area in the game with slots, blackjack, slime races, and an arena event where the player will choose a party member to fight in a series of battles.

The slot machine is going to be a nightmare, along with blackjack. I've been putting the slot machine off because it will be hard to do, and I'm putting the blackjack minigame off because I don't have the graphics for the playing cards yet. Look for slot machine progress in the next update.

Party selection window, fast travel option.

2009-09-08T19:17:00.000-07:00

The party selection subscreen is now complete! MILES better than the original placeholder I had. It makes the game look much more professional, and makes party selection less confusing in general. The old ones are above, the new look is below!

It took a lot of eventing, around 30 variables, and a decent amount of switches as well, but was it ever worth it! With this setup, the player can choose any characters and the party can have between one and four members. If the player chooses to bring four party members, the EXP from monsters will be split accordingly. Conversely, if the player decides to brave the wilds with a solo character, that character will get ALL the EXP!

Now, onto the warp ring. I've decided that having to walk everywhere would be really annoying, so I incorporated a Warp Ring into the game. This ring is accessible via the menu, and will let you instantly warp back to any town you've previously visited (gotta love Yanfly, huh?). This of course is disabled in any maps that are not towns or the world map (which is currently very very small... I think I know what I'm working on next). Screenshots of the warp ring below.

Next up, world map!

Steal command complete!

2009-09-04T20:58:00.000-07:00

After quite a bit of work, I have a complete (and very well functioning) steal command for the thief in combat!

Each monster has a chance for one of two items that a player can steal from them, normal steal and a rare steal. The standard formula is a little over 20% chance at a normal item steal and a 3% chance at a rare steal. Rare items are usually pretty high caliber and make the game a bit easier if you can net one, hence the 3% chance.

Now for the coolest part. I've created the system to check if the thief is wearing a special accessory that can be upgraded during the game (by up to three levels) that will improve his chance to steal! The final upgrade will ultimately put the thief's normal steal chance at 50% and the rare item at 20%! It was a lot of work, but it was worth it! Hopefully this work won't go to waste, and people will actually want to put the thief in their party.

I currently have a party selection system in place that is clunky where the player chooses what party members they want to use via a string of choices from the normal message window. It's ugly, but functional. I think this will be worked on next.

First post!

2009-09-01T20:52:00.000-07:00

First post on my first blog! Yay!

So, I've finally got enough of the project done to where it will be worthwhile to track via blog now. This is my third time making a game with the RPG Maker series, but the first time a project actually seems feasible to complete. Just about all of the core components are taken care of. The characters are all set with all stats, classes made, skills assigned and animated, damage formula perfected (going for a low number format... damage in the thousands eventually gets unmanageable), and scripts imported and modified to suit my needs.

Next up, working out a steal system for a thief class in combat. Fun!