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Progress Report

THE Captain's Log #24 - Still more updates and fixes

Hello! Long time not writing you people! Well, I've been a little busy, and mentally dispersed, presenting my game on different indie gaming sites, and college, and mental tiredness, and illnesses, and STUFF. Didn't even got to make a second edition to my videolog at time, but I'll still make it someday. The problem is maybe because the stuff I'm at right now aren't either flashy or things that I can show freely, so it was a miscalculation there ohoho!

Anyway, today I'm giving you people some updates, and there they go.

- I changed the default Input module to Glitchkey's one. I needed more keys, just one or two. Also I felt that things were a little too strange. I don't really like the default controls for any RPG Maker (ZXCASDQW, you put something in them and they start to feel a little bluttered in there).
The Party button is "P" for example. You don't need to switch parties that often so I moved it there, and it's better I think instead of a... W?

Anyway, I think it's a little better. Maybe I go too much into details.

- As I changed the Input module, I thought I was going to drop my "gamepad support". But no! Glitchkey also has a Gamepad Input module ahahaha! So I added it, and it's lovely! It gives me full support to everything, even vibration (which I'm not going to use because I hate... no no, I HATE IT, much better).

- Another thing I made just a minute ago, that was killing me from the inside. Modified the invetory layout. Just something that didn't seemed to work out properly. Just changed the position of the category icons. Now they're up and horizontally, left-to-right, instead of vertically up-to-down. You use L-Shift and R-Shift to switch between them so I felt it was wierddsd.


- And well... more fixes and stuff.

There's a little more of things I want to do, but after that, it's going to be an easy way just adding content C: (the thing that slows it down is the graphical part). But it's going to be fun 8D.

Ahahaah, anyway, thanks for reading,
Orochii Zouveleki

Progress Report

Drekirökr Videoblog #1 - Feb 20th 2013

There's no me speaking, but I didn't thought about it until now. Would you like to hear me? x'D.


Youtube's description:
Hello mighty viewers! This is the start of this, the vlog for Drekirökr - Dusk of the Dragon. It will be monthly released, or so is the intention.

This entry includes the following themes:
1. Battle tests. Counters, battle kinds, a small change in the battle interface (pretty much unnoticeable), and a new collapsing animation algorithm.
2. First introductory texts. A translation test (spanish to english), and some images that will accompany the text.

That's it for this entry. There's a lot of extra stuff done behind the scenes, but most of it is not very interesting for you to see.
Also you can follow the game's development in Twitter: https://twitter.com/z_orochii


Salut,
OZ

Progress Report

THE Captain's Log #23 - Dull changes

Okay... this is more like a plain progress report, nothing noticeable or interesting.

Or maybe there is something interesting, but it's not new in this RPG Maker world. I've been retouching some skill effects and stuff, making possible "all battlers" targetting, and special user effects (like, causing some state to the user after casting something and things like that). It works as a sepparate skill, just because it's way more flexible and easier to implement...

The other things are the custom editors again. I finished most of them, and so my constants size have been reduced drastically =D. Still, need to make the skill tree editor, but it's the greatest pain in the ass between all the editors, and I'll maybe make it from scratch instead of using my editor base code, since it needs a lot of custom behaviours and stuff and... oh well... it's really a pain.

And as always, bug fixing, they're always there bugging our lives from the shadows.

That's all for now, sorry, no images ='D,
Orochii Zouveleki

Progress Report

THE Captain's Log #22 - encyclopaedia & Diary

Hello mighty brothers! (?). And welcome to another one of these!

Well, today, since at last I did them, I wanted to explain what these are. The encyclopaedia and the diary.

Both are accessed from the "database", the alternate meny that you can access by pressing L or R (Q/W) at the menu.
At the Database, you can find four options. The first three are the encyclopaedia, and the last one the diary. The encyclopaedia can be used after getting it (as an item). The diary on the other hand can be accessed from start.

The encyclopaedia includes the enemy section (beastairy), character section (character bios, including PCs and important NPCs), and the topic section (information about relevant things). All of them gets an entry as you find them (or scan while in-battle, in case of it being an enemy).

The diary on the other hand is something similar to a quest log, but more inspired on something that I saw on Pokémon (one of them, I don't remember which one). Each time you do something meaningful, it gets a new entry. This way, by checking when the diary changes, you can either find what you were doing before, or even discover that you just made something that could derive on a "subquest". Any change to the diary will display and sound "at some way", so you don't need to be clairvoyant).

And that's all the news for now, I think, the other stuff is that I made stairs behaviour by using some terrain tags (I love to do things scripted instead of evented, sometimes it saves some resources). And also added a step sound... nothing special.

That's all I have for now, see you soon,
Orochii Zouveleki

Progress Report

THE Captain's Log #21 - Some cool stuff I think .-.

Hellowwww!! (?). And welcome to another issue of THE Captain's Log, with me, your captain, Orochii Zouveleki.
Today "we" (I, me and myself) have something special for you all. It's called, some random news.

First of all, Drekirökr advances as we speak (?). Yeah, I'm always on it, even if I don't notice. Eh, well. I've done little of mapping for now, but script-wise things are getting more mature C:. Game runs fine, most of things run neatly, and stuff.

The first thing I want to show is this:

As any RMXP user would know, RMXP tilesets tile tags values can be up to 7. With this neat lil' editor I made, inspired on PokeEssentials heh, I can make more than 8 terrain types. I needed just one extra for my swamps, but neh, actually wanted to do it anyway, so I did it for children's future (?).
I'll set it free later, with the rest of the customizable editor. I want first to finish some-more-stuff on it. Although everything on it is completely usable already.

The second and last (:'C) thing I wanted to talk about, was that now Drekirökr has multi-language support! (thanks to my friend NewOld) yay? how do you eat that, you said? If you've played a Multi-Language game on, let's say, GBA, you probably have seen a screen like this one:

That means I'll have to upload the game just one time! YAY FOR ME!! And you will have the opportunity to learn spanish by changing the lang-- okay, I think no one wants to learn a language like that. Or do you?

If someone is interested. NewOld's multi-language/translation tool script isn't available right now. He published a beta some time ago, but he put it down for bug fixing. I'm sorta-testing it for him (and will use it at the final release if nothing bad happens). Also, so you know, this script needs you to backup your entire game, because ANY string at texts, map names and DB (except image names, OF COURSE) bEcOmEs something like this: 
/lang[AutoID 2341]
(and you HAVE to make sure of using /N instead of /n to show character names, and also it needs a little work-around to work properly with Mode7 hahaha! and anything that uses the map name).
I will post here if the script gets released -again-. I think it's a nice script... so, why not?

And that's all, feel free to be free (?),
Orochii Zouveleki

Progress Report

THE Captain's Log #20 - Portraits! I love you so much!

Ahahahah! So, my happy friends, I'm back! On a new adventure from the deepest of world's entrails (? probably has a lot of grammar faults x'D, but anyway, I need to say wierd stuff).

Anyway, here's the screen that I've just added to the game page.

As you can see, it's all pixelly (?). Oww, isn't pixel art so damn cute? And I did it in less than 1 hour I think, so it's a win-win situation. That means, I'm dropping GIMP/PS/whatevah normal artworks, because I suck at it, and I'm the sluggish of slugs with that stuff. The artwork I uploaded just a days ago took me at least 5 hours! I really suck at it! Or is it because it was VERY and unnecesarily huge (the original size, of course, which was like 2k tall).

I'm sexy, and I know it, so I will do pixel artworks instead of regular digital ones, that's everything I have to say about it.

The other thing I was urging to death to get out from my chest last night while trying to sleep, is how the Fylgja works. Fylgja are the summons on this game, like espers/aeons/stuff from FF or djinn from GoldenSun (I think). Also, as in FF6/7/8, Fylgjas can be equipped by characters, giving stat boosts (the boosts will be fylgja-level dependant, and while the fylgja is equipped).
The other part is about how Fylgja work in-battle. We all love creatures being summoned on battle, don't we :3? Well, yesterday I was seeing this battle... (and that music is AWSOM!!)



Also was thinking about Talon (FinalFantasyLegends3) and The Invincible (Final Fantasy 3). Funny how the three games are numbered 3! Ahahaha.

So the thing is like this. When you summon a Fylgja, it will last until the end of the battle. The Fylgja haves it's own battle pattern, and attacks each time it's partner attacks. You can only summon a fylgja at a time, so if you summon another one, the first one will be "replaced". Summoning a fylgja costs some MP, but it will be useful as a triumph card.
Fylgjas don't die by the way, but their partner lose their stat boost while it is summoned.

Another thing I added are counters. Enemies can counter, like in FF6, and so will allies. Countering abilities are given by scrolls. I will show all these mechanics later 8D. There are still things to polish here and there... ohoho.

And that's all for now! salut,
Orochii Zouveleki

Announcement

THE Captain's Log #19 - We're on holidays!

Today is 24th so I hope you enjoy your meals C:!.

As for development stuff, the demo release will be postponed, a month or two. I made a beta release in spanish some days ago, but unfortunately it had some performance-wise problems, which I already fixed (some dumb early code here and there), so I'm going to re-release in a month or two.

The reasons for that long lapse are that I'm going to take the time and make the demo way longer. The spanish beta demo lasted around 15min, only featuring a dungeon. The next demo will feature the full prologue.

By now there's nothing fancy to show. I'll not post captures from all dungeons, maybe one or two, but I'll reserve all of them for now =P. I'll upload something later though.

Thanks for reading, and happy holidays,
Orochii Zouveleki

Progress Report

THE Captain's Log #18 - This is probably going to be uninteresting, but this is a dev blog

So, here I am again, I'm the captain! So, me and my mateys (me, me and me too) have been doing some stuff as always, and that's why this blog comes to life.

The first thing, is a little update to the status screen. Before it was like this:

Now... well, I was thinking about "this" before, where to put it in the menu. I decided to change it and do it like this then, incorporating them...

Scrolls and fylgja equipment!

So, what are these?
  • Scrolls are items that you can equip. By equipping them, you gain a new action (skill). You can use them in battle. It's like equiping extra skills.
    There are 26 scrolls in the entire game, and they're not mandatory story-wise. Not a single one of them. One of those collecting items kind.
  • The fylgjas on the other hand are like FF6 espers. You can equip them to your characters, and they give boosts. They give an extra skill too, like scrolls, and the option to summon them in-battle (another action/skill).
    The fylgja also can level up, so their boosts get higher. This leveling is not character-dependant, so you don't need to grind each fylgja for each character. Also it can help you while training low-level characters.


Now some extra information. Fylgja means "someone that accompanies" in norse. So, they're guardian creatures. They will be found in the game, you'll fight them, and defeating them will give you their companionship.
As it is now, they are more or less 16.
-----
Hoooff... and the story still continues. You can see that I've made the visual part of the equipment right? Well, it is in halt by now, maybe two or three days more. Why is it? Because I'm doing editors. I'm tired of doing this shit: 
module ExtraRates

  ELEMENTS = [

  [0, 200,  150,  100,  50, 0,  -100], #0 --NEVER!--

  [0, 175,  137,  100,  67, 25, 0], #1 Cut

  [0, 250,  200,  150, 100, 50, 0], #2 Drill

  [0, 200,  150,  100,  25, 3,  0], #3 Hit

  [0, 350,  250,  150,  40, 5,  0], #4 Projectile

  

  [0, 500,  300,  150,  0, -100,  -100], #5 Fire

  [0, 500,  300,  150,  0, -100,  -100], #6 Ice

  [0, 500,  300,  150,  0, -100,  -100], #7 Thunder

  [0, 500,  300,  150,  0, -100,  -100], #8 Aqua

  [0, 500,  300,  150,  0, -100,  -100], #9 Earth

  [0, 500,  300,  150,  0, -100,  -100], #10 Wind

  

  [0, 700,  550,  400,  250, 0,  -100], #11 Lite

  [0, 700,  550,  400,  250, 0,  -100], #12 Gloom

  

  [0, 200,  150,  100,  50, 0,  -100], #13 Attack

  [0, 200,  150,  100,  50, 0,  -100], #14 Defense

  [0, 200,  150,  100,  50, 0,  -100], #15 Magic

  [0, 200,  150,  100,  50, 0,  -100], #16 Agility

  

  [0,1000,1000,1000,1000,1000,1000], #17 White

  [0,1000,1000,1000,1000,1000,1000], #18 Black

  [0,1000,1000,1000,1000,1000,1000], #19 SwordTech

  [0,1000,1000,1000,1000,1000,1000], #20 DrunkenMaster

  [0,1000,1000,1000,1000,1000,1000], #21 Snipe

  [0,1000,1000,1000,1000,1000,1000], #22 Summon

  [0,1000,1000,1000,1000,1000,1000], #23 Ranged

  

  [0, 125,  100,  75,  50, -25,  -100], #24 Drain

  

  [0, 320,  200,  120,  55, -20,  -100], #25 Crystal

  [0, 200,  150,  100,  60,  -5,  -100], #26 Magi

  [0, 250,  200,  130,  100, 75,  50], #27 S-Crystal

  

  [0, 600,  400,  200,   0, -200,  -100], #28 Fire+

  [0, 600,  400,  200,   0, -200,  -100], #29 Ice+

  [0, 600,  400,  200,   0, -200,  -100], #30 Thunder+

  [0, 600,  400,  200,   0, -200,  -100], #31 Aqua+

  [0, 800,  500,  400, 100, 0,  -100], #32 Earth+

  [0, 600,  400,  200,   0, -200,  -100], #33 Wind+

  

  [0, 400,  400,  350,  300, 200,  -100], #34 Longinus

  [0, 350,  275,  200,  80, -10,  -100], #35 Artema

  

  [0, 350,  275,  200,  125, 50,  0], #36 Cut

  [0, 500,  400,  300,  200, 100,  0], #37 Drill

  [0, 400,  300,  200,  50, 5,  0], #38 Hit

  [0, 700,  500,  300,  80, 10,  0], #39 Projectile

  [0, 200,  150,  100,  50, 0,  -100], #40 --

  

  [0,1000,1000,1000,1000,1000,1000], #41 --One/All

  [0,1000,1000,1000,1000,1000,1000], #42 --Scope

  [0, 200,  150,  100,  50, 0,  -100], #43 --PercentCost

  [0, 200,  150,  100,  50, 0,  -100], #44 --MPDamage

  [0, 200,  150,  100,  50, 0,  -100], #45 --DrainDamage

  [0, 200,  150,  100,  50, 0,  -100], #46 --Exhaust HP

  [0, 200,  150,  100,  50, 0,  -100], #47 --Exhaust MP

  [0, 200,  150,  100,  50, 0,  -100], #48 --HP to DMG

  [0, 200,  150,  100,  50, 0,  -100], #49 --MP to DMG

  [0, 200,  150,  100,  50, 0,  -100], #50 --Percentual DMG

  [0, 200,  150,  100,  50, 0,  -100], #51 --Reverse Exhaust

  [0, 200,  150,  100,  50, 0,  -100], #52 --Move:Jump

  [0, 200,  150,  100,  50, 0,  -100], #53 --Move:HighJump

  [0, 200,  150,  100,  50, 0,  -100], #54 --Move:Charge

  [0, 200,  150,  100,  50, 0,  -100], #55 --Move:FastMove

  ]

  EXCEPTIONS = [17,18,19,20,21,22,23,41,42,43,44,45,46,47,48,49,50,51,52,53,54,55]

end

Yeah, scripted information. I'm growing hate against it C:. So, I'm doing things like this one:

With these editors, I can generate compiled data to be directly used with RMXP. They are made with an extra RMXP project. It's cleaner, and better than doing some arrays. Probably I'm NOT going to remake the things that I already made, not by now at least, but after some time I will convert all of that into that format.

So, that's all, hope you didn't get that bored with this ranting, I'll be making visually attracting things. Everyone need breaks from everything xD.

Salut,
Orochii Zouveleki

Progress Report

THE Captain's Log #16.99 - Did I messed up with the numbers?

Anyway, a new blog issue! Thanks for your preference!

This two days I've been working on a new artwork style (or something like that). And well, the result is going to be something like this:

Obviously I need a better way of digitalizing. The scanner is not as big as the new illustration, and my camera is pure horrible coloured (ultraviolet color, that's why you can't see it, but I do).
The new artwork is made using watercolor and a black 0.4mm pen. I loved watercolor, tried doing that with it, and now I love it much more!

So, well, that's it for now regarding that.

Another issue, as you have (probably) noticed, this week I made shop and naming screens. I'm still working on the shop concept, what to add, what to not add... haha.

Lastly, I'm now working on cutscenes and story related events. Finally! I have almost all things necessary done, so there is a change to have a demo this month C:.

So, thanks for everything, see you later alligators,
Orochii Zouveleki

Progress Report

THE Captain's Log #16 - Here, there and there too

Long time! Well, I've been either busy, or with low batteries... but I've been anyway doing something!
The first thing is that I've been tweaking the controls. Just by mere casuality, I thought about playing the game with my X360 controller. The thing is that the button layout wasn't prepared for that! Yeah, I know that RMXP has a horrendous default button config, but aside from that, it wasn't possible to, for example, jump and run at the same time, while having the interaction, menu and "extra" button near. I needed 5 buttons! So, now interaction and running are the same, and jump button is the one that was running before (the same as cancel/back button).
So, anyway, now the layout is more suited for controllers I think C:. I will include a recommended configuration for the controller, since I can't change values at the default RGSS config window ahaha!

The other stuff, is about bugs, bugs, bugs, and some visual details here and there. Nothing too fancy but still...
And the game now has 8-directional movement. While playing with the controller (using the analog BTW), I thought of adding it. Playing with analog is strange though (too much sensibility!), but we'll see how does it behave...

That's it for now, thanks for reading,
Orochii Zouveleki
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