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Miscellaneous

Sidquests 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. I've uploaded one of the examples into the screenshots section. Yes, it's simple, but it throws in some variety.

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).

Miscellaneous

Fun facts!

Along with the usual finished x amount of areas, fleshed out y more of the database, with this update I bring some fun facts:

- The minigames present in this game if played casually inflate play time by about 20%!
- I have spent 4+ hours eventing/coding a gimmick that lasts a whole 20 seconds in game. (I'm sure many of you sympathize with this one.)
- I have spent over ten minutes looking for an event command in the list that I've used previously and for whatever reason, kept glancing over the section that it was sitting in staring at my from and waving, not seeing it and wondering why. (Embarrassing, right?)
- Many minutes of work time have been lost by sitting in the database playing animations, songs or sounds and going, "Whoa, neat."
- I have spent less time creating a balanced boss encounter with events than I have creating a SINGLE conversation with a story NPC!
- The blackjack minigame had a bug that had a less than 1% chance of occurring (based on variables) that when found, turned out to be an idiotic oversight that took 2 1/2 hours straight of changing a single variable in many many conditional branches.
- The erase event command does not erase an event permanently! Only until you next visit that map... something I wish I knew in my infant RM* days.
- The very first "game" I ever made which lasted a whole 30 minutes was made with RM95 which saw the hero of the game betrayed by someone he had only met 10 minutes earlier and being completely distraught over it. It also had treasures that you could open repeatedly, three whole maps, and Final Fantasy music. Awesome.

I'm sure some of you can relate to at least one of these things!

All of that aside, after shaking off a bad case of death I had, I'm back on track. Currently working on an optional small dungeon for the thief. It's coming along nicely.

Back to work!

Miscellaneous

Progress is a nice thing.

Does anyone else have this problem:

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.

That's all from here, wee!

Miscellaneous

Stupid lack of ship tiles in RMVX.

So now that I’ve finished all but one of the major minigames I have planned, I’ve been back to work on the main quest of the game. I’m just getting to the point of where the player gains access to the majority of the world, and in true DQ/old school RPG faire, there is no one absolute clear direction. Sure, there are objectives that all need to eventually be met, but the order in which you go about them is up to you (and the strength of your party, depending on the area).

I note this because RPGs that have this game mechanic in them usually tend to be my favorite. I really like the open exploration areas and trying to get through dungeons and other places before you’re actually supposed to, finding some pretty good treasures compared to your level, etc. So hopefully those of you who are following along find this idea appealing as well.

The lack of ship tiles in RMVX is annoying me right now as well, since I will allow players to go below decks while traveling on the ship in order to talk with/change party members, and I’d really like to allow the players to walk on the deck, but currently it’s just a below deck affair.

Anyhow, that’s the progress updates for this round! Let me know what you guys think.

Miscellaneous

I've decided to go all out.

Sure, it may take awhile longer to release the game as a whole now, but judging by my own opinion, and others whom I have spoken with, I think it's worth it for an overall delay to have a much higher quality game as a whole.

So all minigames are going in! Blackjack is nearly complete (what a bitch to create that was), and I have the basics of the racing/betting game done. The arena will have to wait until longer so I can add some end game content to it as well.

So with that announcement out of the way, I would like to address people's attention to this as I specifically feel that this pertains to the rpgmaker.net community:

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/welp

It's not a word, people.

Miscellaneous

Is less more?

So I thought I would ask here since I'm gathering opinions...

What I originally was considering was adding one of three minigames: a racing/betting game, a one on one arena with challenges/prizes, or blackjack to put in a casino. Each one would likely take a significant amount of time, the arena one probably being the least time consuming. But when putting these options forward to others, most people say, "Why not just do all three?"

So my question is... in general, do you think is it worth it to delay a project by a considerable amount to add more minigames, or do they usually not add enough to the overall game to be worth it?

I'd appreciate some input either here or on the game's blog as I check both with regularity.

Miscellaneous

New demo has arrived!

Edit: There are two different downloads, one for people who prefer to use the keyboard to play and one optimized for those of you who use gamepads (cancel and dash are the same button, menu is A).

Hey folks, the new demo is out now. The balance people were asking for is now present in the game without a need for a normal and easy type, the characters/dialogue has quite a bit more life to it, a new soundtrack, and in addition to that, it adds around another 2 hours of game play.

Unfortunately too many changes have been made to the game as a whole, so saves from the previous demo will no longer work. This is for the best, however, as the game is far more enjoyable from the get go this time around.

Until the files are approved here, you can find the new demo at my blog at http://clicherpg.blogspot.com/

Any and all feedback is appreciated, though I would prefer it be constructive!

Miscellaneous

Name Change!

I felt the old name was giving the wrong impression of the game, so I've decided to change it. Got a new blog design up and running as well! The lovely girlfriend helped out with that, being as artsy as she is.

In other news, I'm going to estimate that the total completion of the game stands at about 25% right now. Things are moving along nicely and so far there's about 5 hours of gameplay before you run out of areas to explore.

PS. It's not dead!

Miscellaneous

Easy Type demo is out.

An easy type demo has been released for those finding the normal demo too difficult. Battles are much less difficult in this version, but you should still be wary of treasure guarding monsters as they will provide some challenge.

Miscellaneous

Naming contest!

So I've been told by more than one person now that the title for my game sucks, and doesn't accurately represent the quality of game that it is, and that it puts people off from trying it at all. So I've decided to hold a naming contest. I'm going to take suggestions via the topic comment function through my game's official blog. Comments can be made anonymously, so there's no need for anyone to register, which I'm hoping will prompt all the lazy people into submitting an idea as well. The winner will get an NPC named after them in the game with whatever lines of dialogue they wish (within reason, of course).

http://clicherpg.blogspot.com Let's hear the suggestions!
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