What are you working on? (Game Making Thread)

[Nathaniel3W]

I can't do anything on a phone. I pretty much only use my phone for things that can't be done on a computer, like making phone calls while out of the house, or checking GPS, or signing up for WhatsApp. (I don't know why people use WhatsApp. What does it do that a dozen other programs don't already do?)

I hope you can get some sleep. And that you can get rid of those people soon, hopefully without resorting to murder.

 

[Xhukari]

I got a friend who absolutely hates Facebook, and has left it over privacy concerns... anyway, the only way to contact him is through WhatsApp (y'know, that Facebook-owned app).

I'm working on my game still, but I feel I got to solve how the systems will operate before I dive forward with more of the game itself.

 

[Xilef]

Taking a break from my FF5 Advance ROM hack whilst Christmas is happening and sucking away all my time. Turned to refactoring my GBA development tools, got something going that's pretty rad: https://github.com/felixjones/gba-toolchain

So if anyone knows CMake (C/C++ programmers should) this is an improvement to my CMake toolchain script so everything is handled by functions that it defines.

Means you can make a GBA compile for your CMake project without too much cruft:

if(GBA_TOOLCHAIN)

    # GBA specific options

elseif(OTHER_PLATFORM_OR_ARCHITECUTRE)

    # Some other platform

endif()

CMake functions defined are described on the wiki page: https://github.com/felixjones/gba-toolc ... ons-(2.0.0)

Also comes with a GBA optimised ABI, with a division implementation that's faster than the BIOS division and a context-switching implementation (co-routines are possible). https://github.com/felixjones/gba-toolc ... abi-(2.0.0)

 

[BizarreMonkey]

Got quite some stuff done. Another optional event or two... but also!

Got the old galaxion tilesets by megatronX implemented and began reconstructing City 17 and even adding some new stuff to it!

And here's a couple videos.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KV8toXERWUhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFrHJk176dU
One very long but well written optional event where a lot happens, and a short one where next-to-nothing happens~!

 

[Xhukari]

Did some stress testing on the sprite stacking for my game project... it gets slow real quick. I'll have to scale back the kind of projects I can do with it! Could work for something inspired by early RE games or something similar to Binding of Isaac -- singular rooms at a time! I'll have to put this project on hold and go back to the drawing board.

It's looking like the only feasible way I could do a Poké-esque game and be happy with it, was using Adobe Animate for the graphics. So I'm now thinking I'll just step back and make a much smaller game for now, something with traditional 2D pixel work.

 

[coyotecraft]

Trying to work away from home.
I listened to an interesting writing podcast about character flaws, and how it needs to be really specific to the character that invokes an action or behavior.
It sounds kind of obvious. But people tend to generalize.
So you can know a flaw, but not recognize the scene implications. Like a character might be antisocial. But to get that across you need to show the character in a social setting, being an asshole and resistant to any form of cooperation. And cooperation might be what they need.

Then theres flaws that are specific to the characters career or situation. Like being trusting and nice is bad for a Spy, because the enemy isn't your friend. And that's a source of conflict.

Now, I'm trying to think of ways to apply this to the mental/dream world settings that I'm fond of. In the Ar Tonelico series, the main character dives into their concious realms of other people and work through their flaws. But the mc doesn't exhibit flaws themselves.
Same thing with Psychonauts. They're just good guys acting selflessly. And there's not a lot of risk involved in being an observer in these virtual worlds.

I think that's what I want to develop. Making observation a dangerous act.

 

[BizarreMonkey]

Trying to work away from home.
I listened to an interesting writing podcast about character flaws, and how it needs to be really specific to the character that invokes an action or behavior.
It sounds kind of obvious. But people tend to generalize.
So you can know a flaw, but not recognize the scene implications. Like a character might be antisocial. But to get that across you need to show the character in a social setting, being an asshole and resistant to any form of cooperation. And cooperation might be what they need.

Then theres flaws that are specific to the characters career or situation. Like being trusting and nice is bad for a Spy, because the enemy isn't your friend. And that's a source of conflict.

Now, I'm trying to think of ways to apply this to the mental/dream world settings that I'm fond of. In the Ar Tonelico series, the main character dives into their concious realms of other people and work through their flaws. But the mc doesn't exhibit flaws themselves.
Same thing with Psychonauts. They're just good guys acting selflessly. And there's not a lot of risk involved in being an observer in these virtual worlds.

I think that's what I want to develop. Making observation a dangerous act.

Interestingly, this might be at the heart of the existential meta Fantasia has, my games have always seen the player as an observer with no real control over the world, simply leading them to the illusion they are interacting via their console's key prompts, but Fantasia takes things in a slightly more interesting direction.

From the very first cinematic of the game, M.F. Lazarus, one of the few beings who is truly aware of the player- introduces himself, both to the girls, and to the player.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_usSdLeEWbU
Shortly before this scene, a "console reset" is brought about after Yi's laughing is cut off by a Blue Screen of Death, the player is then shown to reboot and relaunch the application. Upon doing so, a shady TOS agreement scrolls by, with harrowing conditions such as "Your consciousness belongs to us." and importantly... "Do not infer with the Man of a Thousand Names", one of Lazarus' many nicknames.

In the story trailer called "The Story So Far..." Yi refers to the observer as Delta_Tester_X333, a name that is used later on by Lazarus.

In the meta it is supposed that the Delta_Tester in question is able to guide the angles, and give them hope. This ability finally manifests as an actual interaction after beaming back up from Zen Aneia after completing the main story objectives therein.

The player is given an option to inquire, and Lazarus explains the mechanic in a very loose fashion, vague and cryptic as is his general aesthetic.

This is the first time Lazarus calls the "Observer" by the entity they truly are. It should be noted that on Zen Aneia, both Renae and Cathy detect the lingering presence of M.F. Lazarus, and through him, the player- who they immediately are cautious off.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyxLUbpFVAg
Jump to 2:14 of the above video if you're curious. Cathy stresses the need for caution in the face of a presence of such a person. This is the meta, while Cathy is nervous about them, M.F. Lazarus has prepared for their inclusion into the story, and has accordingly ensured to restrict their commands to the point they can only help rather than hinder. So far, beyond very vague allusions to their "existence", M.F. Lazarus is the only one who can interact with the player... this may be because he took administrative hold of their session early into the adventure, so as to avoid having to shut down rogue timelines from being created. The reason he has become so partial and scattered is due to him maintaining a chokehold on at least 333 different players testing their luck with being the immutable guides for the three girls.

After explaining their purpose to them, M.F. Lazarus encourages the player to proceed. The player speaks their first line to all four of the girls, as naught but a reverberating echo that only Lilac feels is weird, perhaps her detection is higher than most, but she quickly snaps out of it and reminds her sisters and Sacreblu of what they are fighting for. Suffice it to say, the end of Zen Aneia's story puts our poor angels through a bit of a crisis of faith.

The plan is that once the player has lead the girls to gather all the icons and given the angels hope one last time, lazarus let's them have their session back, knowing that their choice is now between welcoming oblivion or "playing the game to it's end." Lazarus returns hale and whole once he has found this tester a successful bearer of the session, and begins putting the final part of his plan into motion.

Yi also seems to become aware of an observer's interference after Lazarus lets them take back their session.

The Enma, if answered poorly, will essentially wipe out the entire party, leading to one of the games few 'bad ends', which M.F. Lazarus is able to reverse via the players penchant for saving to disk. Every gameover, every time you reload, that's all facilitated by M.F. Lazarus. He's the player's lifeline and most players will go through the game unaware of this. But some who are experimentative and dig a little deeper will uncover as much easy enough.

I've always loved doing a bit of Meta mechanics in my games, Intelligence you had the alternate future Wizard optional boss, in menagerie the 'Time Ever After' was planned as a 'here's what happens when the player is given too much power' optional content tier but it never got close to being finished. Fantasia will definitely be the most story-inclusive iteration though, and not just a small optional binge. Thank you for coming to my ted-talk LMAO

 

[coyotecraft]

If I recall correctly, Ar Tonelico 3 had the planet's consciousness as being this high frequency relative to human consciousness. They can't normally interact without special means. I want to say they used analogies like waves, and the danger of coming in contact with these "Raw" energy were like the tide washing away sand castles. The scene that I'm remembering was just a white space and energy pulses and the characters describing the sensation as unimaginable, unbearable, as he's trying to communicate to the wills of the planet.
I also detected a few references to The Little Mermaid, that I don't think the English Localization picked up on. She gave up her voice, and tragically turned into sea foam in the end.

There's a fairly common literary motif in Japanese media about "waves" erasing/eroding things. In Kingdom Hearts, the character names are all things like Sky, ocean, land, wind ect...Namine meant waves. So her ability to erase memories makes sense. But waves also carry messages in bottles from shore to shore, apparently even between realms of light and dark.

In Xenosaga, there's this "God Consciousness" in higher dimension. They don't call it "God" but UDO. They use a lot of scientific terms. Coming in contact with it's "waves" is dangerous. There's also some low-key nautical and biblical terms. Shining souls as lighthouses and a compass to navigate destiny. Some key scenes that take place on beaches.

I want to say all these characters did have flaws. But it was something lost in translation.

 

[coyotecraft]

Spoiler: some more xenosaga analysis

I'll sound like a crazy person making connections with red sting, haha.
Xenosaga has so much going on, it's hard to follow in places. The character Jr. was created to be the anti-UDO. His Number 666 and other nicknames implicate him as a sort of Anti-Christ. He was immune to UDO waves basically, and through a telepathic link he could share his immunity with others.
So calling UDO a god or "will of the universe" is suppose to be the player's understanding. But from the character's perspective, UDO was downplayed as an A.I. Operating System behind the Zohars. Without UDO, the Zohars are nothing, which is why Jr. and his brothers were created to neutralize it. But they realized, then, it was something more.

But here's the aggravating part of the story. It's like how Sven in Perseverance has inexplicable knowledge out of nowhere and doesn't give a rational explanation for his actions. Junior, during their mission, has a vision, Suggesting something bad would happen if they continue and he severs the telepathic link. Something bad still happens, but it's not the planet destroying catastrophe that he saw.
But the question is: Where did this vision come from? What all did he see? What did he know? We're only given hints and slices.
Regardless, letting go was what he needed to do.
And I see the same thing in Sven. Removing himself was necessary, but there's got to be more to the story.

With Junior, and his brothers, we learn more of their backstory and training in Xenosaga II. They go into the mind of a girl who with neurological issues. She can't speak normally. (There's some little mermaid tropes popping up again).
Her ailment is connected to UDO waves, so the idea is that Junior could negate the waves as part of her treatment and she could recover. However the flashback is used as a framing device, so as it reaches it's climax, it shifts back to the present. Again we don't really know how the treatment ended. But according to datafiles, the girl committed suicide.
what did she see?


Edit: I woke up this morning with an answer. Momo was designed to be Sakura's (the girl who killed herself) proxy. They couldn't fixed Sakura's illness but they could connect her senses to another body. Thing was, she was already kind of using Junior as a proxy to talk to her mom. The flashbacks that reveal all this were used as a framing device. I believe the subtext is that she saw herself as, or maybe becoming, something like Albedo. Albedo being overly attached to Junior. "If I'm a monster, you're a monster too."
I think she anticipated "her sister" would never be allowed to be herself as long as she was around.

 

[BizarreMonkey]

So I'd been putting this off not because i haven't gotten work done... on the contrary! I have so much to share that i knew this was going to be a big write up!

My artist Pjcr is back in the game, too. He's been doing well. So overall a very VERY productive month so far, which contrasts nicely with the two weeks of burnout I had when last month began.

Remi-Chan
Haha, oh man... WHERE DO I EVEN BEGIN??

Main story seems logical, it's the thing i actually got the least amount of work done on, lmao!

Thankfully I can some up most of it via a single video, which is great-- because this progress is essentially an aside.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSff3EE6z4A
Although now i finally got to use the Portraits for the Wizard, you'll notice Mayeena had a part in there, as well... all in good time~! We'll get to Pjcr soon!

The only other main story thing i did was do a few changes to this animation to make it even cooler.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8WgolhUtEY
-Subtitles added.
-Sound effects added for the eye coloration switches and sparking.
-Impact sound added when her eyes close, as well as a sound effect for when she cis in the process of closing them.
-Made a growl that goes onto a full blown roar at the expense of my throat that I added as another audio layer to give it some build up to the bloodcurdling roar.
-During said roar, when her eyes flare with that brilliant pink werble, the werble's blending has been updated to look nicer and sound effects have been added to give it more intensity.
-During the first blast wave the background now transitions into a more desaturated version of itself with rocks and earth brought loose from where svoli is standing, giving the weight of what she's done even more impact.
-She now summons a mass of spears during the ascension process, with added sound effects to give it an audible cue.
-Three new lines are now spoken by Svoli to help characterize her and let the player know where her mind is right now. The subtitles for her Apotropaism use a unique grungy font to express that she is broken, the cracks through her spears are also key in showing this.
-The spears which dive into Xali from all directions after the first heavenstorm (the continuous blast attack) actually pierce Xali's head now, not just her nose or some off center thing. All I had to do was reposition Xali, lmao.

So, there's the kind of work that got!

Now, onto optional stuff!

Let's begin with all these optional events, as well as another Flavortasia-- the sequence for Flavortasia was done ages ago, I just hadn't recorded yet.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFlr3shKM3khttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DatlIMoA71k
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFHtaqWlNaYhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wj8VyK6zWV0
And believe it or not, this is far from all!

Let's get to the big Kahuna!

You Have Won Hearts
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIeVYwtGSrI
Basically boys Starship YHWH redesign is well underway, as said in the video, the bedroom tiles aren't done yet and I have to implement all the events from the old map and re-calibrate tons of stuff but its still MASSIVE PROGRESS!! Two days of work and I'm so happy with it all.

I've also been making concepts for some characters who are planned to appear in the game at some point, such as Kyu the dragon boi who you can find in the sketch thread, or Lucifrael, who I did a solid concept for on Thursday.

You may recognize the symbol on her forehead... maybe you don't? Ah~ That one is a bit too causal a spoiler to give away, I suppose~

Her name is... pretty obviously, just a feminine form of Lucifer. Much like many of the Archangels in the game are feminized, such as Michaella (Michael), Gabrielle (Gabriel), Jopheline (Jophiel) comes in much later, but is another good example).

Well, I think at last that's everything from me (that's big news, anyway) so I'll let you see what crazy stuff Pjcr has made for me during his absence. Keeping in mind he was having constant power outages so the fact he got ANYTHING done is kind of mind-blowing.

Pjcr
if you watched the first video in this post, you already know Mayeena has been done, one of four Galaxions Pjcr did a brilliant job in bringing to life!

Mayeena is such a cute! I love them all, though!

But that's not all! He also got me Patricia.

Now! Now I think that is actually everything.. well, save a little update on a certain somebody's progress.

Xiie
She recently updated her list of stuff she has finished.

Here's the list to track it down:
-Sprites:
- Limbo
- Cathy and Renae
- Lily
- Akra Olna
- Zephyrra
- Remira
- Nanianne
- Xali
- Wizard
- Queen of Shadows
- Limbo idle
- Cathy & Renae idle
- Lily idle
- Akra Olna idle
- Zephyrra idle
- Remira idle
- Nanianne idle
- Tristy idle
- Lyza idle
- Sacreblu hood down
-Renders
- Cathy and Renae being wholesome
- Various Logos for new planets and locations.
- Queen of Shadows portrait animation
- Other stuff I shouldn't talk about

To note, the queen of shadows portrait animation has brought Xiie also to the high tier rung of artists who have similarly told me they want me dead for so thoroughly stretching the extents of their abilities and patience and me completely understanding why. Pjcr did it long ago.

Rigging hair like hers to a 2d animatic skeleton would be hell, there's a reason i got Xiie to do it and not me myself.

That's finally it! Please enjoy my gratuitously generous gifts~!

 

[coyotecraft]

*whistle* big update, Biz.
I wish I could say I've made big strides as well. But I haven't. In fact, things are turning out like I predicted they would back in...back in September! I was only half joking when I said it would be March by the time I'm back into the full swing of things.

I've been looking to sliding picture puzzles again. Devising an algorithm to scramble an image with valid transformations.
But I fell down a rabbit hole about the origins of Arabic numerals and magic square talismans.

 

[Xhukari]

I'm toying with making a simple, sidescroller shoot 'em up for mobile. Where picking up different weapon powerups will stack their behaviours and properties. And maybe have it so you can choose which path to go...

Been watching some videos on All Your Base, and it has inspired me!

I've been looking to sliding picture puzzles again. Devising an algorithm to scramble an image with valid transformations.
But I fell down a rabbit hole about the origins of Arabic numerals and magic square talismans.

Ah man, you gave me flashbacks to when I made lite RPG using the moving blocks of a sliding picture puzzle... Did it for a gamejam.

 

[coyotecraft]

So today I learned about using "metadata" in Rpg Maker. That is, tagging stuff in the note box of the database.

Of course I've seen plug-ins using the notebox for things. But I just assumed the note box was just like, a text string. And anything that you put in it would have to be parsed and processed by a script or plugin if you wanted to use it that way.
But I was wrong. Also, it's not like this is documented anywhere!
I knew that you could reference the note box of actors, enemies, weapons ect...
$dataEnemies[1].note
That would yield a text string with everything inside it.
But what I didn't know is that if you're putting items in <> and naming it something like <extra: "Blah blah blah">
Then all you have to do is reference it as
$dataEnemies[1].meta.extra
and that would yield the value or text without needing plugin to parse and look for it.
More importantly you can even reference metadata in the damage formula field.

It was surprisingly simple. And now I'm exploring new uses for it.

 

[coyotecraft]

I made a simple "bump" action combat, similar to Ys 1 and 2 games. And a rudimentary hp bar, I just want to build the system and see how lightweight I can make it.
The Ys games have pixel movement though. It's not exactly the same with a grid. I'd like a half-step bounce movements. And circular, spiraling, orbiting patterns.
Thinking about how I might do projectiles with animations. I'm wondering if animations can track the mouse.

Speaking of mouse related things, I think most people turn off mouse/touch navigation. And when you have a interactive picture on the wall that's a tile high, most people would just have an invisible event on the floor because with keyboard navigation it's no different. But if someone were to have mouse/touch, that requires the player to touch the floor and not the picture. The solution is to use a tile with a counter attribute. Like how you talk with npcs across a counter. Only you put it on the wall.
I got that tip from a Japanese maker article, posted as part of an advent calendar. I had never thought about it. Also I never knew events could also touch you from across a table/counter as well.

A lot of the advent calendar articles are basic knowledge, but there were a few new insights in them.

 

[coyotecraft]

I played around some more with orbiting movements for both events and pictures.
Watch Out! I got a fairy and I'm not afraid to use it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5sP6Rhnag0

The movement is using cosine and sine wave formulas, naturally. But for timing, MZ events have a stopcount that counts the number of frames an event has been stopped. IMO it's convenient because it's free framerate counter I don't have to code. I couldn't use the System's Playtime clock, because it just goes by seconds rather than frames. There's got to be real framerate count somewhere, but I didn't look that hard for it.

The harpy monster is following a diagonal diamond path using the normal move route commands. Which is the closet you can get to a circle path.
The white square is a Picture (It's the fairy's HP bar but it's not going down in this video). The fairy orbiting the player is an Event. The hit detection between the fairy and the monster is .5, I believe that translates to about half a tilesize, a 24x24 area. This allows the corners of the sprites to overlap some. But I can change it for larger sprites as well. It's hard to explain the difference between "X & Y" and "realX & realY". What RPG Maker calls "real" is just the sprite's image coordinates, so I'm transforming the event's realx&y (the character sprite) around the player. But the fairy's event tile with the touch-trigger is up in the corner of the map. If I were to stop the orbiting movement the fairy sprite would slide back to it's "not real" event position. It's confusing to put into words.
For Action mechanics, it's necessary to have hit detection based on the "real" image. Because if you had a slow moving target, the event trigger could be in front or behind it, and you'd have to hit it where it's not.

Fortunately MZ battle animations play on top of the "real" character sprite and not the event tile. Unfortunately, events are the only viable "target" for animations. So I can't specify them to play on an empty point in space or at "show picture" coordinates.
Ideally it would be nice to create a bullet hell game in RM without mapping projectiles to events or even pictures.
But I haven't figured out how to retrieve data about animation or weather effect particles, to manipulate them or do anything with them.

Edit: I figured out were weather particles are stored. But it requires rewriting a Spriteset_Map method to make the x&y coordinates of the flakes retrievable. I can now have a picture or event trace a snow flake's path, or even give it a hit box. Hail Stone Hazards!
Idk. I don't really like rewriting the default methods but I guess it's unavoidable. But I'll consider doing a proper Weather Effect extention plug-in in the future.

 

[coyotecraft]

I did find the weather particle data was available without needing to rewriting anything. Although it was kinda deep, and a rewrite makes it a lot easier to reference.
I stared all day at my computer trying to decipher the Effekseer Animation system, and I didn't make a dent in it at all.

 

[coyotecraft]

 

Merry Christmas! I know it's been a shit year. I still expect MZ will fix it's tiles eventually, but I did a half asses fixed myself that I didn't even spend 5 minutes on.
I added snow to the base of the trees that were missing it. I also replace the solid white "snow" tiles with something that's less of an eyesore. I didn't bother with the roads because I figure -no, I hope - that'll all become obsolete in a future update. It feels like a pretty worthless gift since MVs tiles are just as adequate if you have them.
If anyone really wants this, just PM me.

Also my orbiting movement looks really satisfying with snowballs.

 

[BizarreMonkey]

I'll just, drop this here and let myself out. :3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRseybsvfdw
You will discover what all this is about before long, I'd imagine.

 

[coyotecraft]

 
Been thinking about how I want to draw these battlers. I'm not satisfied with a straight forward (or sideways) pose. The fullbody art that came with MZ is adequate for front view battlers.

The idea popped into my head the other day. "Oh I know, I could do variations with elemental swords. Firesword, Electicity, ect..."
MZ has elemental slash animation, and I figured this way if anyone wanted to fight Reid aka Actor1_1, they could do a gimmick with it.
But then I remembered that MZ already has "Magic Knights" and that would spoil job class distinctions.

I dunno, maybe I should just do "battle damage" variations? I'm getting into the same pickle that I did with MV Harold's battler, that I never finalized. I couldn't decided what weapon he should have.

 

[Xhukari]

They're looking good Coyote! What's the third one doing?

I went on a tangent from my previous idea, so I've been working on a 1-bit platforming archery game. The main USP is you can teleport to your arrow, and you can get more types of arrows that lets you do more things, allowing you to explore more. They'll be enemies to kill, but it won't be chaotic. Time stops when you're aiming / arrow flies. Being made for mobile primarily.

So arrows can stick into walls / enemies, and until you move, the game tracks the last place you aimed (the crosshairs). The camera smoothly follows the arrow too, with the guy animated from having the bow at his side to fully drawn as shown here. I've done some backend work too, so the amount of arrows or crosshairs left can be customised.

Still early though, I've only just implemented the arrow teleport, but it has no animations or anything for it yet.