Set Discrepancy

Two days ago I finally started using Rogaine, even though I'm about 15 years too late for it to make a difference!

Well we all know how it goes, I still want to shake the usual farts out of the bedsheets and say that sOmEdAy ThIs PrOjEcT wIlL bE dOnE i PrOmIsE but it looks to be something that I'll have to be toying with on and off for years and maybe finish it when I'm 50. Because I was visited by that terrible spectre of Another Idea For A Game That Seems Like It Will Be Less Work And More Likely To Pay Off Than The Current Idea (AIFAGTSLIWBLWAMLTPOTTCI). I've actually been working on the AIFAGTSLIWBLWAMLTPOTTCI for the last year. I don't want to be an idiot who strings along projects for years and then never finishes anything because of yet another AIFAGTSLIWBLWAMLTPOTTCI, with the old tune of i'Ll GeT bAcK tO tHiS pRoJeCt OnCe ThE nEw OtHeR iDeA iS dOnE. Every time I do this I lose more and more confidence in myself. But the AIFAGTSLIWBLWAMLTPOTTCI can be very seductive.

The latest AIFAGTSLIWBLWAMLTPOTTCI is a furry-themed building management sim made in Game Maker, and the building that you're managing is a public bathroom. You place facilities like toilets and sinks and make money by selling different types of septic effluent. It leans heavily on the vulgar subject matter, because furries like that sort of thing. But it's not really an RPG so I don't want to make a project page here. Does anyone know of another website where I might make a project page for that sort of game?

No road trips or beach parties for us. Gam mak forever.

http://rpgmaker.net/games/1378/downloads/6161/

This is not a "real" game in the slightest, just a slapped-together tech demo to prototype some design ideas. My aim was to make computer hacking a bit more computery and hacky by having the computer system look and work like a "real" computer network, instead of just being a menu command and a tech roll.

This demo was made using native GUI instead of a separate application window, and this is TERRIBLE. Why? Because I developed it in an Ubuntu Environment, and while it looks great in Ubuntu, as soon as you run it in Windows, all the GUI widgets work differently and most of the layouts are MONDAY-TO-FRIDAYED. Especially the layouts for the "computer screen" and "PDA" views, for which I used images and precise placement rules to try and make it look like a "real" computer monitor or PDA.

Since it's only a prototype I didn't want to put in the weeks of effort to improve it, but due to the ugly presentation it will probably be a bit of a strain to use. Hence, there's a full walkthrough if you just want to try it out to the end. BYE FOR NOW

It is true that I've pretty much dropped out of this website for half a year. It seems I'm not going to reach my goal of finishing Forkits before the end of this year, which means I'm going to be eaten by a wolf. But after much meditation I have decided that our company's next project will be to remake Set Discrepancy in a completely custom engine using original resources so it can be sold for cashs.

Pros:
- Cashs
- A chance to improve the story and mythology from the ground up
- None of RPG Maker's arbitrary limitations, such as only 2 channels for looping sounds

Cons:
- Daikatana
- Scrapping lots of work that incorporated stuff I don't have the rights for, such as Kobe Bryant
- Sound resources. I know people who would be able to provide graphics and even music (for reasonable fees), but atmospheric games rely 90% on sound design for atmosphere. I've enjoyed much success stealing sounds from Valve and EA and Microsoft Games, but I'm really doubtful about my ability to find someone who can create sounds of comparable quality, and even purchasing sound libraries doesn't guarantee that the samples will be just right for the project.

Summary of proposed changes:


Of course none of this will take place until Forkits is in good standing, which will probably be another six months. There will be a project page for Forkits soon to recruit playtesters and some other things.

I HAVUN'T FORGOTTEN YOU NICE PEOPLE *HUG*and Merry Christmases

Do not be fooled. Chapter six isn't REALLY done. Since it's horrible.

My old spaghetti-code days of yore have bogged this game down to the stopping point basically. The structure of tasks and events and battle cycles has to be completely destructed and remade from scratch. But I'm sick of sitting on this chapter, and it's time to put it aside again and get back to IMPORTANT THINGS IN LIFE for a while. You should only play the new version if you all ready know basically how the game works and/or are interested in giving feedback on the mouse interface.

NOTES ON THE MOUSE INTERFACE.

It's not even 100% done yet. There are a few rarely-used interfaces (such as the room-selection version of the map used for some computer tasks) that haven't even been programmed yet. If it does not seem to work, try using the old keyboard commands.

The main thing that I can't fix is that the in-game mouse "lags" behind the real mouse by a frame which tends to make it feel sluggish. Also some mouse events get dropped if you do them too quickly while the game is windowed, which is why you should play it fullscreen. It should always be fullscreen anyway since that's best.

The "quick attack" done by clicking and dragging on the characters THE THING IS YOU DON'T SEE THE WINDOW WITH IMPORTANT INFORMATION SUCH AS AMMO AND OVERHEATING. So THAT WILL MAYBE HAVE TO BE ADDED TO THE SCREEN

NOTES ON THE HORRIBLE GAME

The main thing that has become apparent is the fact that as your characters get more powerful and gain more action points, the game SLOWS DOWN TO A BLESSED CRAWL. This is because you might have about sixteen action points and PERFORMING ATTACKS SIXTEEN TIMES IN A ROW IS SO DULL AND INCIPID. Perhaps using the "quick-attack" should automatically commit all your remaining action points into one big series of attacks but you know what? The task system is all ready so explodey that this was the final explosion and the whole thing has completely exploded in one big explosion and it has to be remade from scratch in order to put this in.

There are so many bugs that will be cast away in a big grand 3:28 am sweep when the whole thing is redone from scratch but that won't be now since it's 3:29.

If you fail a Hack task and choose "cancel" on the retry window you win the hack. Lols

And failing a Wield roll when firing a gun you simply don't shoot it at all instead of shooting and wasting the bullet. HA HA

NOTES ON THE DECOMPRESSED AREAS

This chapter is a grand debut of ATMOSPHERELESS AREAS. Too bad it's still so buggy. Some items are not supposed to be useable in vacuum areas and would be destroyed if dropped in such areas. THIS BEHAVIOUR HAS NOT BEEN ADDED YET TO MOST ITEMS SO YOU CAN DO ALMOST WHATEVER YOU WANT STILL EVERYWHERE

Also the behaviour of EV suits has been changed such that you take them off and on at will instead of it being done automatically in cutscenes. This means you can WEAR THEM INAPPROPRIATELY IN SCENES WHERE IT IS NOT APPROPRIATE TO BE WEARING A VISAGE-COVERING EV SUIT FOR LAUGHS

NOTES ON HOW AWFUL THIS CHAPTER IS

The grand climax of this chapter is the most brutally buggy and messed up thing in the world and the reason for it is that it requires the use of TWO TURN TIMERS AT ONCE which I didn't anticipate and such there is no support for two turn timers. So one of them is basically an "invisible timer" which is not really okay IN SPITE OF VARIOUS MESSAGES AND ANNOUNCEMENTS THAT ARE SUPPOSED TO EXPLAIN WHEN YOU HAVE TO MAKE THE APPROPRIATE ACTIONS but that will have to be implemented LATER

NOTES ON THE NEW MAPS

You might notice that the "fluidic tunnel" maps are basically the only "dormitory" maps which the beds taken out and replaced with pipes. GOES TO SHOW HOW FAR THE MAPPING HAS COME since the original "dormitory" map was in fact the first map scheme that I ever made for this project! Funny how it is more appropriate as an industrial tunnel than as a place where humans are supposed to live.

PREPARE FOR OBSOLETION

The same old gameplay freatures are getting tired. Like, oh, this new broken door requires a level 5 repair to get past it! That's more than before! WHAT PROBLEM SOLVIN I feel like there must be entirely new innovations around each corner.

Do I need a fictional excuse to "level up" the enemies or will people settle for just MAGICALLY STRONGER VERSIONS OF THE SAME ENEMIES like in Borderlands? It seems each area now needs a new idiosyncratic set of enemies instead of just rehashing the same ones over and over BUT THIS IS NOT A GAME WHERE YOU CAN JUST PULL NEW ENEMIES OUT OF A HAT SINCE THERE IS SUPPOSED TO BE AN EXPLANATION FOR EVERYTHING. Perhaps it makes sense to phase out the standard "bandage-covered colonist" type since by now we might be running out of colonists! But what to replace with?

Security cameras are also getting tired. "Shielded versions"? Or with attached turrets?

After killing enemies you sometimes have to press S to "skip" the rest of the turn for the combat to actually end. BECAUSE IT'S SO BROKEN AND FLITCHY AND BUGGY AND 3:42.

I AM SO DONE WITH THIS

So yeah don't play the new version unless you understand that you're getting into a world of buggy and unfinished and beta and needs-to-be-redone

It is hard to justify drawn-out, multi-step objectives to accomplish some technical task for the story when in other places you can just roll Operate 3 and do anything. I hate sci-fi.

Does anyone know any good stock RPG puzzles along the lines of "guess-the-right-combination-of-switches"? Ones that are maybe less done-to-death than "each switch adds a particular number and you have to add it up to the correct sum."