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Progress Report

belated bi-annual update first blood part 2

Hi.

I've been (and is still) super busy. But I've been working on this game sporadically and was meaning to update this last year with what I had back then. Instead work and school got in the way. But I kept working sporadically.

I am currently working on stringing together a very rough intro + dungeon with the first hub and 2-3 dungeons of the game. Since writing isn't my strong suit, I'm keeping most dialogues short and to the point, and if I manage to be clever in the process, then yay!

I've been making alot of maps (which is good I guess, considering my ridiculous scope) So I might as well show off a few progress screens:
I hid them cause they turned out crazy big! :C
Show





Anyhow. A few things that I haven't planned for but might need: a minimap.

This is an old version the first big hub of the game that I think I posted way back. Some of the areas in the game are kind of big and finding the stores in each area could get kind of tedious (especially since a lot of the sectors tend to look similar), unless I make the NPCs super good at giving directions.

Which, by the way is another issue. How many NPCs are enough? I mean, from the perspective of the setting, these slums don't neccesarily have to be super-crowded, but at the same time most of them tend to feel really empty. This area for instance, has three shops, about 15 NPCS (7 of those are connected to the plot, shop owners or potential sidequests).

Feel free to ask any questions about the game. Or even better, feedback!
That's it for now, I guess.

EDIT: The namechange. Yes. Uh, I "borrowed" perdition city from an album by the same name. Also, this game is kind of prototype.

Progress Report

Basically a bunch of screenshots

So I was reminded to update this with something and even though I've been completely occupied for these past two weeks, knowing me, I would probably still neglect to update even the slightest. so to make up for it (also I'm completely free for the next couple of days), I've decided to share with you a couple of screenshots and also give a link at the bottom for those morbidly curious explorers of the unknown (aka old solar tear demo)

So I guess you want some screens, right? Well, I feel that some of these really needs somekind of context to be explained.

Arbiter is designed around hub-based gameplay, or rather, most of the city is experienced through a number of bigger blocks which you are free to explore (not very different from towns in a regular jrpg, except they're more like npc-hubs with the occasional store... or nothing but stores as in some cases). These sectors also contain sub-areas (aside from regular interiors) and access to dungeons. Navigating between these hubs are kind of like regular world map.

so going with the theme of expansive, explorable hubs, rather than say, the narrow, linear and made-no-sense gutter that was Solar Tear, most maps are pretty big. Not big as in barren, but big enough to say, have actual gameplay elements (in dungeons anyhow):


(from two different dungeons, they haven't been populated by enemies yet)

The plot (which, I might add, is well under way!) is not too surprisingly, very linear and not incredibly long but I'd like to make up for that by letting the player explore and experience the city in all it's 16-bit glory. Aka, a bunch of sidequests that span over the sectors.

So, exactly how far am I into this thing? Well, the plot is less of a swiss cheese than usual (there are a couple of details that I'm working on but right now it holds together pretty well actually), there's a couple of half-done dungeons, about 8 blocks in varying degrees of completion (these are in general 80x80 each), half of the cast has most of their animations in-combat done, menu graphics (icons and stuff like that) are done as are most database stuff but balancing and combat is still very much in the sheets and statistics (hence I have no actual combat screenshots. also, they look like regular dbs shots so it's pretty boring). Oh and there's the original score which, uh, will hopefully be composed by a friend of mine.

It's a pretty wild progress. That takes breaks constantly.

Will it reach completion within this millenium? Yes. Before Line's End? Hopefully. This year? Something, I promise you that.

This was a bad idea, I'm too tired to make any sense, I'll just post some screenshots instead of rambling on

I also would like to make the following announcement

hey space noir why did you never show up

....AND HERE IS A REALLY SHITTY GAME (seriously, don't play this. I included it because someone wanted it but this is actually horrible) Three words: slow walk speed. Yeah.

http://rpgmaker.net/users/Mr.Nemo/locker/Solar_Tear_REBORN.rar

Game Design

Combat, stats & dynamics

Sounds way too fancy for this

but since I have some really important school stuff coming up, combined with the fact that most progress on this game still revolves around spriting or plot writing (which, by the way, is actually making progress again), I thought I'd share the very minor details of combat-related stuff that actually deviates somewhat from the default battle system of rm2k3.

All characters have the regular five slots of equipment which may or may not affect the regular four stats (firepower, protection, offense and velocity). the first is FIREARM, which is pretty straight-forward; any ranged weapon goes into this slot. The second slot is for SIDEARMs, which are melee weapons of various sorts. the third and fourth slot are TORSO and HEAD respectively and does pretty much what you'd think they do. The last slot if for cybernetic AUGMENTation, the equipment that goes in here must be installed or removed at clinics or ripperdocs.

All weapons grant new actions and in the case of FIREARMS and some SIDEARMs, these action will drain the characters energy. Bigger weapons will drain more energy, so equpping, say, a rocket launcher on a character with a low energy maximum seems pretty inefficient (if the character can even fire it at all) but it is up to the player to decide. Additionally, SIDEARMs naturally come in handy if a character is completely drained or needs to find a more effective weapon against the enemy.

As characters become more skilled with the weapons, they will learn new skills to use whenever a weapon of the appropriate kind is equipped. Since I am trying to avoid acquiring skills by just leveling, or at least give players an influence over what their characters will be proficient in, the exact workings of this are pretty unclear right now.

All characters also have a unique command to use in combat.

As is standard for most rpgs, there are a number of elements attached to different weapons and skills that affect the effectiveness of one's attack. It's a bit... special and I don't have it on this computer (i think); it needs some revamping anyway.
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