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Journey's Rest Update (March 1st)
9 years ago
General
Alright, one of my biggest failings with this kind of thing is my withheld personality. I don't like to branch out, and I know that's not necessarily uncommon, but it's gotten to the point of hurting me, so this is a little step to try and stop that.
Monthly updates!
I might try to go bi-monthly, if I'm feeling extra spicy, but honestly, working full time doesn't leave me with much time to program and write, so I might not have enough relevant information to post that often.
That said, let's start! I mentioned before that these past few months have been pretty much about rewriting the code and getting everything transitioned over to the new system. I feel confident in the story system and parser at this point, so I've been switching gears to trying to get combat ironed out.
I've posted a few images outlining some of the changes so far, and I'll go over them here.
Alpha title screen:
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/22764051/
This image gives some idea of how I want things to look moving forward. Somewhat minimalistic. The backgrounds on two of these images are stock images, by the way. Something to use for now, maybe? Something longer term? I'm not sure yet. They look nice, though. And I know, it needs the name of the game on there. I didn't wanna slap some crappy comic-sans text up there, even for a teaser, so for now it's just bare. I'm not really even brainstorming that yet. Something for the future, I feel.
Alpha storytelling screen:
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/22764088/
It's similar to the last image, but also gives an idea of how text communication will be formatted. Quite a bit different from the block o' text style from before, and I want to hope that increases readability. A bit more like a visual novel in style. Maybe I'll go more that route, as it seems to be a popular thing lately, and isn't too hard to develop.
Early-alpha combat screen:
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/22764111/
Ok, now this is a bit bare-bones. I'm still in the midst of figuring out the details, but I wanted to post this to give some notion of what the new combat will be. I said tactical RPG, but that can mean a bit too much, so hopefully this narrows it down. Let me know thoughts, I suppose? I have quite a bit to work on with this one still, and all of the images involved were pretty much made in 20 minutes a piece. Like I've said, don't judge the art. It's a placeholder for the future while I get things working.
That's what development's been so far. I guess I've put about 180 hours into the thing, so I'm not too displeased with the results at this point. It won't always be this fast, but it's nice to see it all come together so quickly.
Next step is getting combat working as a stable entity. I was hoping to set a goal of having a new demo out by the beginning of April, but it's looking iffy. So I'll shoot for the beginning of May instead.
Until next month, be good. <3
Monthly updates!
I might try to go bi-monthly, if I'm feeling extra spicy, but honestly, working full time doesn't leave me with much time to program and write, so I might not have enough relevant information to post that often.
That said, let's start! I mentioned before that these past few months have been pretty much about rewriting the code and getting everything transitioned over to the new system. I feel confident in the story system and parser at this point, so I've been switching gears to trying to get combat ironed out.
I've posted a few images outlining some of the changes so far, and I'll go over them here.
Alpha title screen:
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/22764051/
This image gives some idea of how I want things to look moving forward. Somewhat minimalistic. The backgrounds on two of these images are stock images, by the way. Something to use for now, maybe? Something longer term? I'm not sure yet. They look nice, though. And I know, it needs the name of the game on there. I didn't wanna slap some crappy comic-sans text up there, even for a teaser, so for now it's just bare. I'm not really even brainstorming that yet. Something for the future, I feel.
Alpha storytelling screen:
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/22764088/
It's similar to the last image, but also gives an idea of how text communication will be formatted. Quite a bit different from the block o' text style from before, and I want to hope that increases readability. A bit more like a visual novel in style. Maybe I'll go more that route, as it seems to be a popular thing lately, and isn't too hard to develop.
Early-alpha combat screen:
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/22764111/
Ok, now this is a bit bare-bones. I'm still in the midst of figuring out the details, but I wanted to post this to give some notion of what the new combat will be. I said tactical RPG, but that can mean a bit too much, so hopefully this narrows it down. Let me know thoughts, I suppose? I have quite a bit to work on with this one still, and all of the images involved were pretty much made in 20 minutes a piece. Like I've said, don't judge the art. It's a placeholder for the future while I get things working.
That's what development's been so far. I guess I've put about 180 hours into the thing, so I'm not too displeased with the results at this point. It won't always be this fast, but it's nice to see it all come together so quickly.
Next step is getting combat working as a stable entity. I was hoping to set a goal of having a new demo out by the beginning of April, but it's looking iffy. So I'll shoot for the beginning of May instead.
Until next month, be good. <3
Of all the screens, I like the combat screen the best. It's been awhile since I've looked at the game, but it looks like you are going have turn-based combat, and the figures shown look good for that style of combat. If you haven't thought about it, the map at the this point seems a little open. That is, assuming that an enemy cannot move too many spaces at one time, you will see the enemies several turns ahead of the time you will have to fight them. This is not a bad thing. Having a little time to think about your next action is, in my opinion, a good thing in a game. Now if the players pieces or the enemy pieces can move from one end of the map to the other in a single turn, than I submit that you are doing little more than giving a warning about what is going to happen in the next turn. If that is the case, then the graphics screen is unnecessary, you'd just tell the players that next turn there will be 2-3 more units which will engage. So, my suggestion would be that both the players and enemies cannot more more than 3-4 hexes in a single turn max, and then add cover into the field so that enemies can be hard to spot because of cover. Cover can be trees, bushes, structures like barns or houses, ditches, sunken roads, etc. Something where the player can see that there is a possibility that an enemy could pop out, but not know from where.
But if there is no cover, e.g. a prairie in the winter, then the enemy may be visible as much as 5-10 minutes (maybe 4-5 turns) before being in fighting range.
But you have probably already thought through all this already.
From what I see, you should be happy with the results.
Cheers!
As you said, there are several aspects missing from the combat screenshot, and I kind of intended that. It's a pretty early work in progress, so a lot still has to be finished. Like ground clutter and basic movement. Rest assured that I've spent a lot of time on games like Final Fantasy Tactics and Fire Emblem. I'll be implementing combat rules that reflect the format, and adding nuances here and there.