Damnatio Memoriae

Greetings!

The bug fixing continues, slowly but surely. One of the bugs was that I forgot to finish a few maps, so I have been creating those over the last couple of days. One of them includes a library that I have spent entirely too much time on, but it should be a welcome addition to those who enjoy examining all the little extras in RPGs.

Speaking of enjoyment, I wanted to share an approach of mine that may prove helpful to fellow RPG makers. As this is a one-man project, it is easy to become overwhelmed by the numerous tasks required to produce an RPG. My solution to combat feelings of impossibility is to let my amusement and interest direct my creation. For instance, minor bug fixing is a bore and monotonous to me so I often get discouraged when faced with pages of slight alterations to make. This obviously inhibits my motivation to create and it follows that production decreases.

In retaliation, I step back and consider all the tasks to accomplish and ask myself what would be most pleasant to work on. Today the answer was map building and charset creation, so I devoted my time and energy toward these avenues. Because I was interested in these aspects of development, I thoroughly enjoyed my "work" and feel the results were better because of it. Sure the irritating minor bug fixes remain to be done, but progress has been made in a pleasing way elsewhere (consisting of things that must be done eventually as well) rather than begrudgingly grinding through a source of uncomfortableness. Oftentimes I find that working in a pleasant environment toward an interesting goal inspires one to confront the tasks that are less desirable.

Progress does not have to signal spirit-crushing; whenever work can be transformed into play, wonderful things happen.

Thanks for reading,

~Dylan

Greetings,

I finished a complete playthrough yesterday and came out with two hand-written pages of bugs and issues. These will go into the master working list and become my priority after I finish creating the rest of the maps required for the first release.

Some goofy glitches:

- Player trespasses on sacred ground and the guard who is aware of him stands motionless.
- 1st boss talks in a happy pink color. Intimidating!
- During storyline event, screen fades out to conceal teleport and next event begins completely in the dark.
- Attempts to walk to north or northeast of a castle are squashed, because these maps are not made yet...

I really, REALLY need to get to coding the custom menu system since right now you cannot heal or use any items outside of battle. I am guessing players would like using the nice equipment they collect, let alone being able to heal themselves outside of combat where they are not being ruthlessly pummeled.

Continuamos!

~Dylan

Greetings,

Not a lot of production has taken place since I posted the initial information on RMN, mostly because other obligations have been ransacking my creative time. In the last month I have had two large work-related projects, numerous forms to submit to graduate school, the loss and memorial of a friend, my graduation and honors ceremony, and the graduation ceremonies of both my brother (AA) and mother (MSW) to tend to. Now that all those things are out of the way and I have only a week of employment left, I am ready to get back to actualizing this labor of love!

I originally planned to implement a caterpillar system in Damnatio Memoriae, but I decided to scrap it due to the immense and tedious event creation it requires. Furthermore, I don't think it really adds to the gameplay that much and in some instances damages the encounter system by either blocking enemies from colliding with the hero or making it too difficult to avoid aggressive encounters (if a battle triggers upon any team member being run into). In exchange, I am scheming a team leader system that would not only allow players to choose which avatar symbolizes the party on-screen, but could also add perks to the party in and out of battle.

Looking at my working list of issues and absences, I have a lot of fine-tuning and playtesting to do before a first release will be ready:

Enemy sight radius scripting needs to be added to a lot of aggressive enemies in the first area and The Field. I also need to create some new enemies for The Field (which consists of multiple event scripting, creation in the database, creation of an enemy group in the database, and creation of a charset for each) and balance them.

The custom menu system needs to be at least half usable before first launch to enable players to camp. Additionally, the camp system script is not completed yet, so that is another priority.

There are plenty of minor bugs popping up in the first town-type area, so I'll have to delve into some coding that is two years old (!) and figure out what is funny.

A couple of maps of The Field are just placeholders right now, devoid of decoration and NPCs.

The second town needs to be created and the story events need to be added, although the dialogue has been written and even some NPC banter is scripted already.


It's obviously too early to tell when a release will be ready, but as soon as I have some idea I will be posting a tentative date. Throughout production I will be blogging to keep those interested aware of the developments.

Thanks for reading! Stay tuned!

~Dylan