Megan Hunter's Worst Nightmare

Now I have a dangerous question to ask. Not in the sense that I think it's a big deal, but in the sense that other folks might. You can already feel the question, can't you? Trembling in your very bone marrow and you struggle against it's sheer inevitability. But I need to know, so here I go.

Enterbrain's finally selling VX again, but surprisingly they're also selling XP. Since almost everything I have for Nightmare is artwork and music, I'm early enough in the programming that I could easily switch engines and only lose a day or two. So that's the infernal question. Which program should I use?

I was thinking of XP and I'll tell you why, as I understand it. It's probably pretty obvious by this point that I don't know (or really care to know) much coding, and am content making a game that follows the RM engine rules pretty much verbatim. I do get really specific about the art, though, and from my reading there's several things that I need to do: things VX isn't supposed to but XP does automatically:

1.) Battlebacks. I got the script to work *sometimes* but this is crucial for me.

2.) Character menu graphics to appear during battle, at least when it's that person's turn. XP's approach would also work fine; not sure how complex this would be in VX. Ideally, the char's stats wouldn't cover up the portrait, or at least cover up all of it; I have seen different ones to different scales.

3.) Animations. I've found a couple of video or image sequence embeds for XP, haven't tried that code on VX.

So far, it sounds like in XP I'd just need the animation script, where in VX I'd need scripts for all three, which would all have to lively happily together, when I could barely manage to change my default font. That's my level of programming.

I also need to...

4.) Display images (portraits of characters) while dialogue text is up. Standard stuff, no need for battle. I'm hoping XP already does this like VX does? For Nightmare I don't need the little square box inside the text field, but if it was available I'd make use of it (showing what item was in a chest.) This is not something that's a dealbreaker.

5.) Maps using all the pictures I've drawn, basically functioning as paralaxes with invisible floor tiles on the spaces you're allowed to walk on. So in this sense I'm really bypassing any form of traditional spriting. VX can do this, but can XP?

In my mind RM makers are different enough to have their strengths and weaknesses; it's not like Photoshop where each new version is always better than the last. I don't hate VX and we're definitely using it for the other game (who's page is already up actually, but we're not making it public until there's a lot more to show and probably download, but that's where I've disappeared to lately.) But it turns out what VX does really well, the simplified coding for common functions? I've been doing it the long way anyway! I just noticed the button down there. I'm still too used to the 95 way of doing things, so I don't think XP would be too complicated from the dialogue and things like that.

What say you developers, for this particular project would switching to XP be the best thing for me? Or sticking with VX?

Hiyas hiyas, it's been a little bit since I last wrote an update. I asked folks what their thoughts on demo releases were, and I wanted to thank you for all your good advice, if I hadn't written much before. Between you guys and reading a lot of the RM gaming philosophy discussions in the forum, I do think the best thing is to release one demo and then eventually the final, and not make it episodic anymore. At 6 hours estimated, it's really not long enough to split into episodes anyway.

I've been cranking out the buildings for toon town -- my favorite so far would have to be "Inconspicuous Inc., Invisible Ink" -- because I wanted to release a demo today. I won't insult your intelligence by saying one of those requisite "life got in the way" lines. I'll simply leave it at my client is avoiding paying me for the art I did, and I sadly can't afford the extra cash to buy VX until she does. So I have a whole buncha art and an expired demo that won't open anymore. But thankfully this hasn't impaired the final release schedule, just the demo release. It will be a little later than the first episode, I suppose, but it's still on target to come out when that final episode was going to.

I also have some good news for the game that's really been fleshing out this week. There are a handful of very talented folks that I'm grateful enough to know, who will be helping out with Nightmare...some of you felt that vibe from the times I kept saying "we." The only one who seems to have a problem with this is me, because I'd hate to have them contribute to something that has my freaking name on it. It might be as an in-game joke, but it seems only right to collaborate on something that isn't meant to be so clearly self promotional. Something real. And that...thing is starting to coalesce into a lumpy, coagulated cheese product, or at the very least the first filmy top layer that forms on soup. While we're still figuring out the details it sounds like some of us will be bringing some of you a sort of fantabulous vista of orgiastic gameplay (ie, a "real game") while they help out on my Nightmare (ie, "look at me, nice tits right?")

The first awesome creative type person is the talented Ryan Graff. Formerly of Konami and now at Square, Ryan actually came up with and wrote Vandal Hearts: Flames of Judgement which you can get through your PSN or Xbox Live store. I will not embarrass him by showing you a photo of him in the seventh grade...unless he makes me draw bunches of things and then changes his mind. Then I'll airbrush that photo into compromising positions. With livestock.

I will let you guys know if any other jaded L.A. creative gets sucked into my black hole. That's, uh...that's not a sex thing.

I've got some animated zone titles, Kingdom Hearts style, that I'll upload soon but I want to figure out this CSS first. We're looking much too bland around here. I'm also not sure if it's right to show them with sound if I don't know how to do it that way in the engine.

PS: Play Real Alistair! You'll be glad you did.

(Sorry I'm new to the site. I think I can keep this one blog updated with the few of us working on the game, but I'm not sure yet if this is plain text or html or css or what! Also, apologies if the game's shpiel is...let's go with "intense." That was press releasey and written for companies, not for you guys. Mind the dust while I'm fleshing out this page with bios.)

Megan Hunter is the drawer...er...t of the game, though her spriting skills are abysmally badder. She's aulso gud et Inglish. She joined Mattel in 2001 as Lead Animator, later running the department, and did stints working on Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network properties before transferring into the Pixar and Disney groups. After developing a cartoon series that will probably never ever see the light of day, she left the company after a decade so she'd be free to own her work; her old contract was so strict, in fact, that she wasn't even allowed to make RPG Maker games. Like her digital counterpart real-life Megan also lives in Los Angeles, and also loves kangaroos with the same barely legal zeal.