I guess I'll share my story. Might not be as exciting, but if it offers any insight into how I've thought when making the game...


Out of the makers, I started with 2k3 since it was the one I was most familiar with (I had brief experience with RPG Maker 2k years before I started this game, and I worked with RPG Maker on Playstation. That was terrible working 1 1/2 years on a rather piss-poor game but anyways...). After choosing to go with that, I decided on the number of characters I was going to have. I originally had roughly 12-15 characters, which is if you think about it, how many were in FFVI. After setting up the characters, I took a look at skills and decided what skills each character would have, and what they would do. I tried to balance it out where each character would be unique from one another, though this didn't exactly work out as planned (this was using the Level Up system for learning skills). This I'll get into later.


After setting up skills, I decided on inventory and what was going to be used. I had a set inventory set up, for items, statuses that I (originally) had, equipment, etc. Once I got that done, I attempted my first world map (which you can see in my latest blog link in my playlist) and my first few maps, which were terrible but I didn't change them much until later on, since I just wanted a base foundation. Once I set up EACH specific map, I put in the events that I was going to have playing (so for the world map, after making it I set up the starting game event, then with the first map I made after that, the next event, and so on and so forth). I continued this pretty much up through beta2 (changing graphics for the system menus and such, figuring out which ATB bar I wanted to use, portraits, etc.). This was all while I didn't know that much about making abilities and such.


Once beta2 rolled around, I started dabbling into battle animations more since I wasn't happy with the tiny sizes of the default battle sprites, so I learned how to handle that, and then started giving animations to my various skills and such (some of which still need fixed up, but 2k3 can only do so much of course). I also changed various portraits and rebalanced skills and enemies a bit, continued on with everything else, and I think around this time is where I started learning how to do things such as set up Gravity spells and new statuses and other neato things.


Once beta3 rolled around, I started reanalyzing my skill system, and finding it too bland and dull, I decided to go with learning skills via skill books. That took a couple months to implement, but I got that done and was pleased with how it worked. This was also around the time I started to implement more characters into the story than I originally had, as I had events that couldn't be told with the current party members (hence the huge huge cast of characters now. Going from roughly 15-20 characters to 50 characters is a huge jump, but it's all necessary to tell the story). I rebalanced skills and characters to make them even more unique (which I believe I've done a good job on so far), added new animations and equipment and items, as well as a few new statuses to keep the gameplay fresh and add some more strategy. Around this time I learned how to code special abilities such as Steal and Scan, which I was happy to learn as it gave more flavor to the game rather than Attack/Spam Skills/Item, and gave each character more of a uniqueness in battle. Around this time I think my mapping skills started to really start getting better (not to say that they weren't getting better from beta2. Still think Youkai Mountain is the pinnacle of my work so far).


Beta4, which originally was released LAST APRIL, after many bug fixes due to new abilities such as a Sprint Shoes type ability, enemy rebalancing, character rebalancing, completely removing the inventory and starting fresh, rebalancing equipment, character stats, etc., I learned even MORE about some coding such as +% equipment, looping maps (believe it or not, I never messed with looping maps until then), and just overall balancing the game more.


In September, I started doing a fleshed out patch for beta4, dubbed Beta4 version 2.0, in which I was going to add in a crafting system and crafting items (several crafting items could actually be used as spell items in battle, or equipped, so they weren't all useless as they tend to be in games) which took a couple months to set up, and iron out even more bugs, with more rebalancing. However, throughout all of these betas, I never really went back to fix any mapping in earlier betas (the only map I ever tried to fix was Scarlet Devil Mansion, and that was attempted 4 separate times. None of them I liked, and I may be revamping it a 5th time...). This continued until December.


As of February, the current Beta4 version 3.0, I have been working primarily in the database to iron out more bugs, set up even more abilities for characters to diversify them more and give more strategic value to battles, added a couple new elements, and have been adding a crapton of new animations for abilities (several of which will need to be redone since they're not that good admittedly). The current plans are to also fix up the physical damage formula since I did not know all of the formulas for a long time (I read about it a few months ago actually), so that the Attack command is actually viable, fixing up EXP somehow to be useful which has been really hard to do, as well as remapping the problematic beta1 maps which most people have been having issues with.


Also, lots of music added in throughout all of the betas. This was to give each battle and area a sense of individuality without reusing the same theme (though several themes are reused quite often). This also extended to each of the full-time playable and optional characters having a different battle theme (originally, there were specific points in the game where the battle theme would change, akin to Tales of the Abyss).


All of this started due to me wanting to share a story I had in mind. Yes, I intended to show the story through the game, but I never wanted to forsake the gameplay to make it unfun or whatnot. I have been trying to balance it for the 3 1/2 years I have been working on it to be enjoyable and playable. It's just the starting part of the game probably gives the wrong impression because it's so outdated compared to the rest of the game in terms of mapping. That, and I may need to reanalyze balancing enemies again or something...