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As kingdoms reeling from a brutal war recover, the world and its denizens try to continue through gripping fear of more conflict. Lands teem with wild monsters that grew rampant with nations too focused on preserving their peace and waging their battles. Mercenaries have grown into their own place of power amongst the once great kingdoms, restoring safety to the people of the world one mission at a time. In the midst of all the betrayals and tragedies that took place during the Presean War, it was a single atrocity that caused the opposing blades to be stayed. Under the command of a heretic general, a nation was infected with a crippling plague. Women and children, the old and the weak, soldiers and kings... All fell victim as it spread. The guilty and the innocent no longer mattered, but in the presence of such suffering the world once again regained peace with its wrath being focused on the man who caused the calamity.

Ark: Of Light and Darkness aims to both be a traditional RPG with an emphasis on familiar features with unique mechanics, and tell an immersing story which focuses on the duality of events as they unfold. War to some is justice for others, as a man who is King to his people can be seen as a monster by the world. Focusing on the morality of your actions will undoubtedly shape the experience, while recognizing even subtler things may actually massively alter the storyline. As paths diverge the people of the world and their motivations, as well as those of your allies, become clearer while others become sullied.

Latest Blog

Blog 6: Happy New Year!

Hey y'all. I haven't done one of these for a while so I thought I'd go ahead and talk briefly about some things that are going on, and a few small (I think neat) changes to the game which I thought were neat and add a teensy bit of depth.

Anyways, I'd like to wish y'all a happy new year and I hope you had a lovely holiday. Great news, my liver made it through.

With that aside now I'll talk about some thing that are being implemented or changed! First big change is that I re-mapped the world map. By re-map I sort of mean tree-map (note: that was a pun.) Basically while initially I tacked the trees on the thing and was like "Yeah that works" I recently came out of my delusional state of believing giant-ass world trees to be all right. With that being said, I took the opportunity to remove a ton of events off the world map and improve lag immensely while traversing it. I know, most of you may not have noticed the performance as I'm sure you're all running super computers, but it was a tad laggy for some machines and there was good reason for that. You see, in my infinite wisdom when I initially mapped it I pretty much lazily used the wrong sort of tileset and ended up with like 500 events running on it, not to mention the parallel processes for variable checking and things of that nature. You're probably thinking to yourself that I'm an idiot, and if so I'm going to let it slide this time. Was hella' dumb. So, yeah, went from like 500 to 13. That's a 97% decrease. It's astounding how dumb you have to be if you can reduce the size of something by 97% and have the same effect. It'd be like if the original iPod was the size of a car and then they came out with the Nano right after. Ok, I'm done talking about that now ha ha.

Second thing I'd like to chat about briefly are some things regarding the battle system and gameplay. The change to the battle system is the implementation of "GUTS." For those of you unfamiliar with said system, it was an intangible number in Breath of Fire which could be randomly activated when a character's HP dropped to zero, ultimately reviving them with a small amount of health and reducing the GUTS number by a certain amount whenever activated. Think of it like an auto life without having to cast auto life. Which is also in the game to a small extent, but that's besides the point as like one person has an ability that applies it and it's not readily available. The reason for this is that I like to give second chances. Nah I'm kidding, I think it just adds to the drama a small bit. Like you think you're going to get mopped up and then *ZING* you've got a chance! I know what you're thinking, "But what if the enemy is faster than you and they just kill you again?" Excellent question, two part answer. Firstly, whenever GUTS activates I'm putting a one turn buff onto a character that will allow them to act first. Secondly, any time a recovery item is used the system prioritizes that anyway. Basically gets like a huge CT bonus. So unless you're just mashing the enter button like a stooge the general idea of strategy comes into play here. If you see the enemy has like one hit left and you want to go balls-to-the-wall you can totally do so. Or you can play it safe and heal. Is it new? Not especially. Have I seen it that often in RPGs? Nah.

Onto the other change to general gameplay, will be a challenge system of sorts. I was mulling over the idea of achievements initially, unsure of whether I wanted to implement them. I may still do it as the script is all ready wired in and it would just be a matter of implementation, but with that in mind I started to think about Tales of Vesperia. The 'Battle Trophies' in that game gave me an idea. Why not put those in? While I strive to give my boss fights unique mechanics that make them more difficult, why not make it a challenge to out-smart or out-muscle me? Ha ha basically I'll give you an example. The first boss, for instance. Oh, you know, I should put this in spoilers just in case.

The boss of Liet Forest, The Alpha, has two wolves with it when the battle initially begins. With the use of the 'Bait' item you can distract the boss's minions normally. However, if the boss is not distracted he will use a self buff and then summon another wolf! This can happen once for each wolf, with him summoning a replacement and applying a buff to himself. A 'Battle Trophy' would be earned by defeating all of the wolves and never using the 'Bait' item. It adds a small amount more challenge to the battle, much like it did in Vesperia (I'd clearly like to state that I am not attempting to make a game nearly as excellent as that, unless Namco wants to give me large amount of cash and a Japanese staff.)


So, yeah. That's the plan at the moment. I'm always looking for input/comments/suggestions so feel free to drop me a message if you are feeling chatty. And as a final note which I will probably (eventually) create a second blog post for is that I'm looking for more beta testers.

TL;DR - Re-mapped world map, GUTS, Battle Trophies (Challenges).

Hope y'all collectively have a lovely weekend!

~JedahXII
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  • 05/30/2013 05:22 AM
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I love the "decent into madness" at the end of your blog. It is actually that which drew me into this project. I like the screen shots. subbed this one.
author=Bladezuez
I love the "decent into madness" at the end of your blog. It is actually that which drew me into this project. I like the screen shots. subbed this one.


Why thank you! Appreciate it. I'm sort of a perfectionist so whenever I do a map I meticulously comb it to make sure things are tight. And don't get me started on the editing I do of one to two pixels at a time of the monster sprites. Too often I play a game and the characters are like 1/40th the size of a skeleton they're fighting ha ha. None of that! Damn it.
Awesome mapping dude, when will you release a demo?
author=urano23
Awesome mapping dude, when will you release a demo?


Thanks! I do my best, even though a couple of those are going to be redone ha ha. I think that's the problem with working on something for a while, you get better with the tools and when you look back at your earlier work you're like "WTF IS THIS GARBAGE."

As for your question on a demo, I'm currently ironing out all of the eventing and transitions, making sure there aren't any glaring holes etc. I would say give me roughly a month or so and I'll have the first planned release uploaded. In terms of size, it will include probably four or five dungeons and three or four cities. I'm not sure what that equates to in terms of game play but I'd give it maybe ~3 hours on the long side?
Linkis
Don't hate me cause I'm Cute :)
1025
So, I've just subbed what looks to be a beautiful game...

I know nothing about game making, wish I did :) but I do know what I see is very good to my eyes.

Don't let your perfectionism get in the way of completing your game.

I don't want to see a "hiatus" or "cancelled" notice on this game so get back to work. :)

author=Linkis
So, I've just subbed what looks to be a beautiful game...

I know nothing about game making, wish I did :) but I do know what I see is very good to my eyes.

Don't let your perfectionism get in the way of completing your game.

I don't want to see a "hiatus" or "cancelled" notice on this game so get back to work. :)


Great news for you, I never quit anything until it's finished. Just ask my wife. ZING. Thank you, though. I appreciate it.
author=jedahxii
Great news for you, I never quit anything until it's finished. Just ask my work. Thank you, though. I appreciate it.
Ask what?
author=Noel_Kreiss
author=jedahxii
Great news for you, I never quit anything until it's finished. Just ask my work. Thank you, though. I appreciate it.
Ask what?


Wife, but she's the same thing virtually.
Generally do not give due credit to do. There is to provide a demo so that the played may indicate what they liked or give suggestions for improvement.
author=shun
Generally do not give due credit to do. There is to provide a demo so that the played may indicate what they liked or give suggestions for improvement.


Making sense of your post, I can generally agree with that statement. I am working on putting out the demo but as I have said, I do not want to put something out that I am not happy with. I understand that revisions are always possible, but I feel I owe it to the community to put forth my best effort. If that means remapping a remap, then free time be damned I'll do it ha ha.
This looks like a great game I will have to check back on this one.
author=Tom_Bombadil_
This looks like a great game I will have to check back on this one.


Thank you, I appreciate both your comment and sentiment.
This looks awesome; I agree about the amazing mapping too. Thanks for making it and putting the time into something for others to enjoy.
author=DominatedMind
This looks awesome; I agree about the amazing mapping too. Thanks for making it and putting the time into something for others to enjoy.


Thank you, I appreciate that very much. The best part about mapping is that you get better over time, so all your previous work in a game ends up looking like crap compared to the ones you just did. This, ironically, has led to me redoing like the entire beginning of the game ha ha.
Looks interesting from the Screenshots. Hope to see a full version so I can download soon.
ok have a few questions

1) how often does the blue ! comeout instead of the red one because my characters are losing battle of attrition because of the herb limit of 15

2) i think the lily puzzle is bugged a bit because my character got stuck after one of the jumps

3)where do we go exactly in the liet forest since the lily got me stuck i went through the north east route with the dead wolf cub and couldn't find and exit

author=longshot
ok have a few questions

1) how often does the blue ! comeout instead of the red one because my characters are losing battle of attrition because of the herb limit of 15

2) i think the lily puzzle is bugged a bit because my character got stuck after one of the jumps

3)where do we go exactly in the liet forest since the lily got me stuck i went through the north east route with the dead wolf cub and couldn't find and exit



The blue encounter mark will always occur if the party's level is high enough to eliminate the encounter. Level 4 is high enough to skip all encounters, 3 for the weaker ones.

The puzzle shouldn't ever completely make you stuck, pressing the action key a second time should return you to a movable position. I'll look into fine tuning though.

As for the direction, head north. It may be covered by an overlapping tree but it is most certainly that way.
author=jedahxii
author=longshot
ok have a few questions

1) how often does the blue ! comeout instead of the red one because my characters are losing battle of attrition because of the herb limit of 15

2) i think the lily puzzle is bugged a bit because my character got stuck after one of the jumps

3)where do we go exactly in the liet forest since the lily got me stuck i went through the north east route with the dead wolf cub and couldn't find and exit

The blue encounter mark will always occur if the party's level is high enough to eliminate the encounter. Level 4 is high enough to skip all encounters, 3 for the weaker ones.

The puzzle shouldn't ever completely make you stuck, pressing the action key a second time should return you to a movable position. I'll look into fine tuning though.

As for the direction, head north. It may be covered by an overlapping tree but it is most certainly that way.


ok thank you
OK, thoughts from the start. You overpopulated your maps to the point that it's hard to move and somewhat laggish. Sometimes less is more. As usual I start at the easy mode if it's available. Well I'm struggling in easy mode. You have to think about casual players, if you make an easy mode. I found it a bit frustrating and not easy at all. And that is just in the beginning of the game. Casual player would find it frustrating and just quit. I will continue to see how I can handle further into the game on easy. But... I'm being whipped by the monsters that have a blue!.., in easy??? Really!!!! Not gonna try any higher difficulty, for sure. It looks like a very good, well thought out game, but you should think about your audience. If you aiming for stalwarts, than you are good, if you're aiming for larger audience, than you should balance battles (more exp, and certainly more $), especially in easy, mode. When the monster hit you for 15 - 20 HP each, and your healing item cures you for about the same amount, and you only have the max of 15 to carry on you, that is not an easy mode.

I'll see how it is going to be further on. Might quit the game for the difficulty. Unfortunatelly had to do it in some very good games.
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