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Miscellaneous

Updates and No Demo

Well continuing my yearly tradition of only posting journals every couple of months, rather than I say will, I'm back with some updates and important information I thought I should share with all of you.

First of all there was about a 3 month lapse between October and January where i wasn't working on AI the least bit, between real life money issues and lack of motivation it wasn't looking too good but since then I've been working steadily on AI and I can say progress is looking well. I'm in the process of laying down the base maps for the entirety of the game(just the floor tiles and the mandatory stuff). I expect to be on the next phase by the end of the month if everything goes well. After that I'm going to be decorating and eventing simultaneously. While doing that I'll be tweaking the little things that need to be well...tweaked. The battle system and battlers have BEEN finished and ready to go, as are the majority of skills, equipment and monsters. Setup and balancing is really all I have left for them that I can think of.

That leads me into an important piece of info that I've been meaning to share for a while if I haven't already.
Adela Isra isn't going to have a public demo released at any point in time. The only people who will be playing it before completion will be the beta testers I carefully pick, based on how carefully they can pick the game apart haha. This is the reason why I'm trying to keep hype down for the mean time. No point in teasing people for an entire year imo. So please don't ask when a demo will be released any longer, for both our sakes. Instead what I'll be doing as adding more to the game after it's initial release, as a sort of expansion to the game which you can plot your save file right into and have the access to the new areas.

I really wish I had more to add but for now you all can take a breather know that Adela Isra is still on track and the only thing I plan to work on until completion(because gosh knows there hasn't been any other event you'd need a breather for >_>.)

Miscellaneous

The Butterfly Paradox

Wow....6 months since my last update?! That's almost astounding actually...Well I least I have soooo much to show for it -_-. I suppose there's no time like the present to go over what's changed over the past few months.

1.The Story
2.The Characters.
3.The Systems.

1: The Story. The Story has changed vastly from the original Adela Isra. Not only does it have a theme and focus, I think it's genuinely an interesting plot, instead of one I came up with on the spot (that's unfortunately true...). Not only has the the shifted from a vague, almost Chrono Trigger like epic with the focus being on different worlds, to a character study taking place in once single vast continent(I don't think I got far enough in the original demo for it to matter, but still). The character's past lives are much better thought out and actually play a major part in who the characters are and the events that occur. (A quick synopsis on the front page)

2: The Characters. Speaking of the characters. There's been some major changes to characters and relationships, the focus only being 2 main characters(6 in the original) while having quite a large assortment of supporting characters. And the ones who did stay have undergone some changes themselves.

Dante-has went from being a rather silent and passive protagonist who was the butt of many of Sienna quips and insults, desperate just to have some sort of human contact, to a devoted man of a cause that often clashes with Sienna's. He thinks all human lives are equal to a fault, and puts others above himself in nearly every situation. He has a tendency not to think for himself and fall back on the religious teaching he's followed his whole life. His focus for the party is Defense and Essence.

Plus he has goatee now...you're welcome.

Sienna-has been through a few changes herself, for better or worse. For whatever reason, she is not nearly as mean to Dante(at least not in obvious way) as she was before, but she is faaar more manipulative and conniving than she's ever been before. It plays into her background and how the story unfolds in much bigger ways than her last iteration. I'm hoping her development throughout the game will make the first few hours with her worth it. Her focus is on Offense and Dexterity.

The rest of the characters will be revealed with time :) (This blog is more about the initial changes)

3: The Systems. Many of the system went through a major overhaul, being upgrade and/or simplified where need be.

The Main menu has been cleaned of any unnecessary glut and useless info, checking stats and changing characters has been streamlined.
You can also save anywhere at any time now, although I did remove the "Quit" feature from the menu, hope that won't be a problem.

The battle system is a far cry from what it once was. The obvious change was from Tankentai ATB to my Frankentai© CTB (props to Nessiah and Rhyme for the help along the way).
They expertly crafted 3 wonky systems into 1 pretty okay one and I'm still impressed how well if functions. Aside from a few changed aesthetics(Stuck with the spin system), States and Status effects have now been integrated more smoothly into the battles and will be a major key for surviving much of the game(sorry button mashers :( ). I've always been a fan of high risk/reward battle system, where the right moves can completely devastate an opponent, and the wrong moves can leave you scrambling for the run button(It's not like enemies are going to take off 1/4th of your life every hit, but the damage will add up quickly if your keep making dumb mistakes or spam attack).

Future Updates: Right now, you may have noticed I'm knee deep into the mapping phase of the project, and I finally have more and more to show for it. So here's something I thought of doing to fill in time before I actually have something to release.

For the most part I'm going in a straight line, meaning I'm mapping from the first area you play forward, and it's been working out marvelously so far. So perhaps for each area I complete, I can post a journal not only for updates, but also detailed information about each place that may not make it to game. Most NPC's talk about current events rather than history....and let's face it, in game, players in general don't tend to give a crap when books tell the history in game. But, for some reason, players tend to show more interest when the information is outside of the game, as a view into the world.

I'll also be doing some character pieces when the time arrives and adding back a few tabs once I complete more artwork where necessary.

Oh and I'd like to thank the people for the support over the past few months.
Ness, Rhyme, Feld, SF, Kars, Rixis, and Chaos(because I never would have made it to this point without an unhelpful troll :D). Welp, back to work...

Btw, if the name "The Butterfly Paradox" sounds gay to you, it is.


Miscellaneous

Adela Isra is...

..NOT DEAD

Far from it actually. Sorry for the maaaaajor lack of updates and sudden disappearance!
Here's the skinny on what's been going on over the past 2 months or so. AI has been getting a
major make over from this original form. By that I mean new more custom graphics, characters, skills and main menu.A completely different battle system and a larger resolution.

Normally this could be considered bad news that maybe the project may never get done, but trust me when i say Adela Isra now has a better chance of being completed than when I first started on it. This was originally intended to be a practice side project with RMVX that grew into something much more and I'm only gaining more inspiration to work on it more and more each day. I wish i had something good to show you guys on what I've done so far but many things are still in the rough.

So please be patient with me I continue working.
(Although I'm still not sure what to do with the original project...it's still in good condition but maybe not good enough to release. That will be up to you guys I guess )

Miscellaneous

Long time no see...I guess

So much for updating at least once a month BS but hey you know how it goes yadda yadda weeabo.

Anyway on to the updates. All the mapping for chapter 1 and some of chapter two is done, so don't Ive been sitting here twiddling my thumbs for the past month and a half. I still have a load of eventing to do but that stuff to me at least is waaay easier than mapping this summamabich. After I'm done eventing and drawing some cutscene images I'm going to be looking around for some test players here. This looks to be the best site for that kind of thing since I'm not looking for the feedback to be sugar coated, just straight and to the point.

This is more of a "hey I'm not dead" update more than anything else really. I just keep finding new things to inspire me to keep working so progress is coming along faster than ever.

Miscellaneous

Hype and Battle Tuning

Hey that was quicker than usual wasn't it.
This is just a short blog about a few things on my mind while I went back to work on my game.

I keep hearing people tell my that they are hyped to play it which is really good to hear, but really worrying as well. The type of game that Adela Isra is not the type of RPG that tends to fare well here, or should I say is the preferred taste? It's hard to explain. The beginning of the is going to be relatively easy. It's something that's been making me fret a little bit. I'm focusing on having a kind of learning curve that may scare some people away when starting out because the first handful of battles are kind of focus, attack, attack, attack, focus, attack etc.

From what I've seen from most of the big name games here is that they like to start the player out with a plethora of skill and status changers, and have the very first battle requiring the use and knowledge of these skills before hand. Both that way and my way seem to be on the extreme opposites of each other. I'm still in the process of trying to find some middle ground between monotonous battles, and ones with no learning curve whatsoever.

The way I had the skills set up were too straight forward and uninteresting. Even after what I said about there being no learning curve on a lot of the community games, I love the amount of strategy that had to go into battles and bosses, handling every enemy in a different way(I wish it wasn't right off that bat in the games but oh well). I'm now working on more buff and debuff techniques, different skill learning processes, and more strategical enemies while still keeping a slower learning curve than most games here.

Just worried you guys will be disappointed and happen to blow through the game with ease because you all are used to much more difficult games.

Well that's all for me, I'll be getting back to work now. I'll stop saying "learning curve" now...

Miscellaneous

Better than Nothing!

Hey, just wanted to apologize for the serious lack of updates on the game. The way my mind works is like "if I have time to make a post about the game...I may as well just use that time to work on the game". But seriously it's been over a month and I left it on a pretty low note. I think part of the reason is that I was still adjusting to the community and how things go here. I'll be honest, I'm really starting to dig it here.

Just to let you know I'm working on the game like crazy, and the play time for better or worse is a LOT longer than I anticipated it would be (which I'm seriously glad about seeing as I'm trying to keep out as much mandatory filler I as can, and still have stuff for the player to always do).

Since my last update I finished about three full sections of game(save a few events). Heavily reworked the battle system because I was trying to work with low numbers but it's pretty hard with the default measure system. The game has loads and loads of dialogue trees and alternative event too, which I find very fun to do and I love writing character dialogue but it's very time consuming, but I'm sure you guys all know about that already.

I also went in as people suggested and edit the lighting on the trees to make them blend a tad bit better with the smaller trees, added some lighting, and completely finished the intro. I don't want to release a demo until I reach another pivotal point in the plot and I'm closing in on it very fast. I still have loads more eventing to do for earlier parts in the game, but it's still going quite smoothly If I do say so myself.

I wish there was more to show right now other than a bunch of screenshots, but I don't want to rush a demo or game videos out there either until I worked out most of the kinks (first impressions ya know).
I'll try to update a little more often...at least more than once a month (I say that a lot and never come through, I'll try to make good on it this time >.<).

Miscellaneous

Game Progress and Lack of Sleep.

Hey ya'll...I just wanted to give a quick update on how things are going for anyone who's interested...Right now I'm in the midst of a getting a few cutscenes done, progressing the story, yadda yadda yadda. Since posting here progress on the game has really slowed down because I was trying to go back and fix every problem everybody with almost every map I've posted so far. I dread to think what would happen if I posted any new ones now.

Don't get me wrong, I do appreciate every one trying to help me so far...but it looks like for the most part that the negatives of my mapping always out weigh the positives...I can't help but think I would have been better off just sticking with the RTP. I mean between making the maps, importing them into photo shop, placing every single detail there, then doing the lighting for every map, trying to get the events to work and look right, having the scripts and layers in order, test playing, and test playing, and test playing, and test playing, and test playing, and test playing...I'm growing a bit weary faster than I normally do...

To be honest I'm not so sure what people actually do find so "interesting" about what I've posted, but that's what I seem to hear the most. I am a one man team, and I'd like to keep it that way, but I'm just not sure what people expect from me...If this game and story could be perfect, or a masterpiece, then I'm certainly not going to be the one the pull it off. Thought I should let you know. I've never been able to really meet expectations...and I'd be surprised if this game managed to change that(great advertisement, I know!)

Anyway, I'm usually just more down when I don't get very much sleep, but if I get any slower than this game won't be finished for decades =_=....goodnight...or afternoon.

Miscellaneous

Mapping Errors and More!

Hey everyone, just a quick first update for the game. Most everyone so far has had a problem or pointed out a mistake in the mapping department, and I'm not the type to just brush them off and move on. I've so far gone back and taken the suggestions to adjust the contrast in photoshop, but it still seems people think the large trees clash too much with the regular maps. Please do me a favor and reload the page because I think that's the only way to see the updated versions of the images.

If you still think it's too bright or too pale let me know, but if you think that the trees just don't match because they're too big or something then there's not much I can do to change that. The thumbnail cache hasn't been updated at all so I'm guessing that the normal one wouldn't automatically either huh? I'm think that maybe I should just delete and reload the images after I get them as good as I can (I don't want to delete everyone's comments but I would like the game to look as good as I can make it.

This is really the best I can do for the time being. I can't really afford to go back perfect every one of my maps to a tee or the game will never be finished (I promise this won't be going under the "canceled" category as long as I can help it ^^;).

I'd like to thank all of for showing such an interest and I'll try not to dissapoint!
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