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2010 Wrap-Up

  • Pasty
  • 12/29/2010 10:40 AM
  • 328 views
2010 at a glance!


I'd say the main theme in 2010 was heavy polishing of what was already there. A few features present in the demo got dropped as more intuitive ways to handle the problems those features originally solved emerged.

Below is an approximate timeline of features.

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51% of all main story cutscenes are implemented.
315 maps are implemented.
145 NPCs are written but not implemented.

January: most of the battle system logic was implemented, including character damage algorithms and hit/miss probability.

February: hotkeys

March: bridge mechanisms were implemented so that the player can go over and under bridges.

April: the HUD notice system was implemented. April was also a big map month.

May saw the design of the crux of this game: the Sociability system. In the first version of the Sociability system, the player gets points for experiencing cutscenes and talking to NPCs they can use to increase their stats. In the second version (designed in October), the player's Sociability level increases as they experience more of the story. Each character can still gain Sociability points, and once they pass a certain point threshold, they can directly apply points to their character like in the demo (until they run out of all points in excess of the threshold). May also saw the design of a location database: it feeds the engine location description, whether the place is in a town, and weather data.

In June, the PAX 2010 RC1 demo was released in time for the PAX 10 competition. I'd like to personally thank everyone who played the RC1 demo, as the problems people found as well as more general issues allowed us to make the final game better. After the demo, our emphasis was on making combat faster, easier, more manageable and more fun. To this end, a few systems were incompatible with this goal, so they got dropped.

In July, joypad and analog mapping was implemented. Analog control in Alcarys Complex allows a greater degree of control over the direction of your character, but I consider the fact that joypad mapping exists at all to be the bigger feature. Also, all configuration variables were removed from save files and placed in a separate file called alcarys.cfg.

In August, the Journey Support Project system was implemented. The system utilizes a number of maroon treasure chests where you get the item in the treasure chest and place an item in the chest for the next traveler, which results in concrete benefits and rewards for giving away expensive items. This also allows me to place traditional treasure chests 'off the beaten path' where they are less likely to be found.

September and October focused almost solely on map and NPC design. 53 maps were completed in this period, resulting in a total of 315 maps. 145 NPCs were written (but not implemented) in this period as well.

In November, the Skill Meter system in the present demo was replaced with the Node system. In this new system, each character in your party has a number of nodes they can place items, skills, and special attacks in by using the Nodes menu in the main menu or by pressing keys 1-6 for empty nodes. Each node has a charge time depending on the complexity of whatever occupies it, as well as a couple of other factors. This change means you can go from field to skill/item use in as little as two button presses, while the old system took a minimum of four button presses.

As a result, the Command Menu was greatly scaled back and overhauled to accept the new system, and the Assault Pack was completely removed. I determined the Pack in particular to be too full-featured for the kind of combat speed I was trying to accomplish. It also complicated treasure and key item pickup.

In December, the Special Controller was overhauled to use less of the player's time per skill. The changes made allow combat to be quicker and more fluid.

Note: if a month seems slim on content, please remember that debugging accounts for the vast majority of the time investment into programming this game. There isn't really any month in the year where I just sat on my hands and did nothing.

- - - - - - -


The vast majority of programming, design, environment, and character design is complete, along with a respectable portion of music and sound effects. So, what now?

Our 2011 will focus on finishing the game in a satisfactory manner. I'll have an announcement about the circumstances of the release when I'm confident that we can meet any determined release date. Note that the last time I posted anything to this game profile was in July, and I don't generally put out information unless I know I can back it up, so it might be a while!

Thanks for watching!