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.