Legacy of Blades (working title)

Scythe · Post by **Scythe** » Sat Feb 24, 2007 19:03

Well, right now I'm playing Growlanser Generations to my heart's content... but...

I'm planning a demo of the start area, so you can get a feel for what it is I have in mind. The approach I have taken to design though, is to plot the game, map it, then start on the event trees. After that comes beta testing. I'm still in the midst of plotting, but have done initial area design.

Post by **Chroelle** » Sat Feb 24, 2007 20:57

Just to let you know. I have done a first draft of some music, but I am not entirely content with it... It is a short loop, and it didn't mix together the way I hoped. Tell me if you want to hear it, but otherwise I will try to look into some new pieces. I really do not think I can save the current piece, and make it good at the same time... It would seem repaired.

Scythe · Post by **Scythe** » Sat Feb 24, 2007 22:35

I would certainly prefer to hear something you're happy with yourself.

Maz · Post by **Maz** » Sat Feb 24, 2007 23:50

A demo sounds good Scyth

And if you need some help with C/C++ code, I assume I might be able to help... If my schedule allows. (And if it's not about displaying graphics or such..)

Scythe · Post by **Scythe** » Thu Mar 01, 2007 17:59

All right, I decided to spend that hour a day, I usually spend surfing porn, working on LoB instead.

This means it should be finished in months rather than years.

Just getting started on the mapping process. Will also hack up a playable demo once I get a few things sorted out.

Maz · Post by **Maz** » Thu Mar 01, 2007 18:20

Oh boy! Once again a great example of how great minds are devoted to their work! Even quitting something so precious as surfing porn... :worship:

Post by **Chroelle** » Thu Mar 01, 2007 19:54

Quitting surfing for porn...

Well ok then. I will also see if I can dedicate some time to working on the music again. Just to give you an idea of my idea

Scythe · Post by **Scythe** » Fri Mar 02, 2007 21:06

Design Diary 1

Today I picked out terrain tile sets. These will be used to make all the maps. I have a number of tile sets, so restraining myself to the right ones straight away should make my life easier.

The game cannot avoid being a mismatch of styles, unless I restrict myself to basic RPGMaker, which I don't particularly want to. At least RPGMaker doesn't put a limit on the number of tile sets, so I could theoretically use a different tile set for each location in the game.

A tile set is limited to a certain number of squares though, and in those cases where special tiles are needed, I should be able to create them by pasting from other tile sets to create for my own specific needs (this will be needed for castle in flames fx, as there is no castle with flames tile set that I know of). But that's the beauty of crafting a game using tiles. Below is an example of a tile set.

Scythe · Post by **Scythe** » Sat Mar 03, 2007 11:30

Design Diary 2

Worked on the demo today. The maps for some areas had been scrambled, so I had to check and update all the links. Same thing with character graphics.

I then decided that one area didn't have the graphic style I desired, so I remade that area with new graphics. This, of course, meant that the events in the area had to be redesigned to match the new look.

I took "clean backups" of all maps, meaning putting all the maps by themselves, without any events in them. That makes it a lot easier to update maps as the story progresses, since I can work from a clean map every time.

Let's see, what else? Oh, the demo will be near the beginning of the game, but will skip the intro (as I haven't designed that yet). It will have short, introductory text to explain what's going on, then have you guide the main character through her DarkBlade "exam." It's not going to be huge (maybe ½-1 hour gameplay), but will give you an idea of my intended style (lots of details...).

eMTe · Post by **eMTe** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 21:49

Check these links:

http://www.gamingw.net/resource/
http://www.gamingw.net/tutorials/rm2k

I stumbled upon them accidentally and there are probably better ones in web, but just in case...

Post by **Chroelle** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 23:52

Looks like a good site. I tried to get some music in there to get inspired and...well steal like a madman... but I couldn't. It seems I was lead in circles around the site. It might have had something to do with me not registrering, but I didn't have time...
I will maybe check it out tomorrow again.

Scythe · Post by **Scythe** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 0:56

I'm pretty sure I've already ripped that site for all it's worth, though it's some years ago, so there may be new stuff. I'll have a gander and rip it some more.

Some of the tutorials could come in handy, certainly.

Design Diary 3
Great joy! I discovered that you could walk through walls! Well, basically, walk through most anything, with some obscure exceptions. Apparently I'd somehow scrambled the properties of all tiles on the maps, so I had to change all of them. That took a good, long time... Hopefully now you're no longer able to walk through things you're not supposed to walk through... but I may have missed some tiles. We'll see.

Found that monster graphics had gone the way of the dodo as well (along with pretty much all other graphics in the game), so had to dig out monsters, faces, all that stuff from my archives. Plus, I had to find all the sound effect and music files and put them into my project. Otherwise you won't hear a thing. Only problem with that was I had to look through every single event to see which ones I'd used. Time to get organized!

In other news, the demo is about ready to launch, but I want to read through everything one extra time. There's some dialogue I'm not happy with yet, and some things I've changed for plot reasons and need to update, so I have to go through the whole damn thing with a comb. A demo is forthcoming next week, I hope. Don't be taking it for more than it is - an indication of what I'm trying to do. This is very basic stuff so far.

Scythe · Post by **Scythe** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 23:58

I took a complete site rip of the Resources at gamingw-net (thanks to WinHTTrack Copier!) and found a couple hundred pics I didn't already have. Thanks, eMTe!

Not so much design done today, just a couple fixes. Found a couple more walls you could walk through and changed some dialogue. Also rigged up a temporary title screen for the demo.

Scythe · Post by **Scythe** » Tue Mar 06, 2007 21:53

Design Diary 4

Today most of my time was spent making the cutest, tiny little Katrina sprite to use on the world map. It looked very wrong to have a giant walking around the map. She's still large compared to the buildings, but the effect is just right, I think. It took quite a bit of trial and error to create the butt ugly tiny sprite, but I think it works very well. After creating it, I had to program it into the game, so it was used at the right time, and was changed back again when entering a location. Hope I fixed that all right, otherwise it's going to look really funny!

Other than that, spiffed up some more dialogue. I think the demo will be ready tomorrow, then I need to test it myself (boring testing your own stuff!) before it will be up for public abuse.

eMTe · Post by **eMTe** » Tue Mar 06, 2007 22:20

I want to volunteer as beta tester of your demo if you'll need one. But I'll be harsh beta tester.

Seriously, I dont care if there will be some minor bugs or a bit of ugliness. If youll avoid certain cliches youll be, as a beginner, miles ahead of majority of rpgmaker community.

Post by **Chroelle** » Tue Mar 06, 2007 23:50

Signing up to be second betatester.

But that is of course if I get the time

I am still trying to find some time to look into some music.

Scythe · Post by **Scythe** » Wed Mar 07, 2007 1:01

I'll be needing beta testers for the real thing eventually, the demo is just for those interested/curious.

Which is not to say that I don't want feedback - I do! (Harsh feedback too if such is warranted.) Otherwise I wouldn't put up a demo. Ok, wanting to convince myself that I can actually go through with it too.

Enough foreshadowing. I hope to have it up within a day or two along with a bunch of longwinded speeches.

Scythe · Post by **Scythe** » Thu Mar 08, 2007 0:11

Design Diary 5

I think I finished up the demo. There was some very spiffy programming near the end that may or may not have worked out the way I wanted it to... and it's going to be a bitch to test. There are two different endings to the demo and testing if both work will be a small job. I may use a shortcut, but then I won't know for absolutely sure if they both work.

I'll test the sucker tomorrow, and, if all is well, provide a d/l link for those interested parties.

Post by **Chroelle** » Thu Mar 08, 2007 10:06

If you could give us a hint we could deliberately try out both endings. Meaning if you tell us where to choose what.

Scythe · Post by **Scythe** » Thu Mar 08, 2007 16:15

Design Diary 6

Tried out the demo, found both endings to be working properly (thanks for the offer, Chroelle, but I decided to be thorough myself

). Made 8 small fixes and 3 major ones. One fix took an hour to make. *grumble*

McAfee updated my Firewall a week ago or so, and now my FTP proggie isn't working any longer, even after giving it all allowances possible. Damn you McAgnee! Had to disable the firewall for the time it took to upload.

Uploaded the demo to our ftp, links to Rapidshare and MegaUpload in first post. It's around 14 MB for the now hopefully complete demo.

Now, for the nitty gritty:

It's a demo, people. It represents a tiny part of the finished game (hopefully). It'll be over in ½-1 hour depending on how thorough you are. It doesn't tell a complete story, only an introduction.

It's ugly in places, I know that. Particularly, the font is terrible. Changing it is possible, but not simple AFAIK. I have a tutorial somewhere. I intend to change the font if I can though. Katrina's face graphics are blurry; I know that, I want to fix them up a bit in Paint Shop, but I'm not very good at it, so we'll see.

Specific things I'd like to know if you played through the demo (SPOILER WARNING):
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SPOILER WARNING
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-Did you get the bad ending? (You'll know if you did.)
-Did you fight Sirena?
-Did you fight the Queen Bat?
-Did you find the scroll Behold the Sun?
-Did you run into any bugs? Especially: Walking through walls, respawning items, repeating events, game freezing during involuntary movement.