Titan City

The Titan City Demo has an update to address some errors due to missing files. The update should fix the following:

- Missing file during St. Damiens Park scene
- Missing file during apartment complex scene
- Missing audio file when player uses their bed
- Missing audio file during Non-RTP Demo with garbage outside of Gang Hideout
- Missing animation file for Non-RTP Demo after fight with gang members in Gang Hideout.
- lengthened the fade time from morning to day, day to night, night to morning.
- adjusted quest rewards for the Slums. Main quests now give 20 IP, up from 10.
- added a chance for players with the persuasion skill to get extra money from turning in main quests. this is an automatic check. the player is not required to do anything special for this benefit.
- Started to adjust training costs. When completed training costs will be cut in half. Spiker turf trainers are affected by this change so far.

First I just want to say thank you to those of you who have submitted some feedback for the Titan City Demo I released about a week ago. I have been given some great advice and ideas for the future of this game.

I've had some time to consider some of the suggestions brought to me to make the game a bit more user friendly and the last few days have been packed with modifications to what I feel impacted people the most. Here is a list of some changes that you can expect to see for the upcoming patch...

- Fixed a number of scene changes, spelling errors, and annoying little bugs that slowed the player down (Thank you Clareain for pointing these out and offering fixes)
- Character selection at the start of the game will now offer a choice to let you create your own stats and skills or select a premade character. If it is your first time playing Titan City it is recommended that you select the premade character for the best play experience.
- FAQ & Help item will be available in the key items inventory to use as a reference for players. This interface isn't pretty, but it can enlighten players until I finish the Instruction manual. (again, thanks to Clareain)
- A Quest Journal system. Players will receive items in the Key Item Inventory that they can use repeatedly to help guide them on any quests they may be on. Players are notified of changes to these quest logs.
- A new opening sequence. The original opening for Johnny Li was laughable. Dare I say it was embarrassing. I have created an entirely new opening sequence for the player to help them better understand how to play Titan City.
- Reduced encounter rate in Spiker Turf. No one seemed to like beating on these guys like I did. Encounter rates are now area specific. No more encounters in the middle of the road or sidewalks.
- New items to remove new debuffs
- Remodeling on the Prison in the Slums

This update should be available once the Journal entry system is completed for the quests I currently have in the game. My goal is to release it in the next day or two.

Welcome Punks to Titan City!

I thought I would take some time to elaborate on the game play elements of Titan City. The first thing I would like to mention is that very little of the original source material that was created in RPGMaker VX Ace is being used for this game. When I first started working on this project it became quite clear that the skills and abilities I wanted the player to have access to would require some innovation on my part. Most of my time has been spent creating each item, skill, state, and script needed to make sure each of these elements works in the way I have envisioned.

The results are something I am very happy about and I hope it creates something memorable for the players as they make their way through the game.

Character Development:
I wanted to make sure that the player develops the character they want to play. I took this as far as I could by allowing the player to place points into 5 main attributes much like you would in a paper/pencil game. I named these stats Intelligence, Reflex, Luck, Technical, and Cool. Each stat has a direct effect during game play that the player will feel whether it be an increase in health gain from items, damage from one use items, attack order, successful use of skills, weapon damage and so on.

Skill Choices:
I created a long list of skills that the player can choose and develop as they play the game. For instance someone might choose to take 'Critical Strikes' which increases the players chance to crit by 1% per skill level. There are currently over 50 skills to choose from with more on the way. This creates an open class system. There is no limit to the number of skills a player can choose.

Combat:
I wanted combat to be as engaging as possible. I admit I'm not there yet, but I feel the potential. I am still tweaking a lot of enemy AI, and balance. My goal is that boss fights should be engaging, but not overwhelming. Random encounters should only mildly challenge the player, but not be so repetitive that it becomes monotonous. I am trying to create this effect by making sure that the enemies in the game have 'skills' that effect the flow of combat. This means that from one enemy to the next there is usually only a subtle difference in how much damage needs to be done to take them down (Boss battles don't follow this element. They take longer to take down than normal encounters). Enemies are scaled more by how much damage they do, and armor ratings rather than how many HP they have. This could change, but for now it is the current implementation.

Main Character and their Skills:
My goal is to have 14 playable characters. Each is separated by one special ability that they can use throughout the game. It's their profession so to speak, and it's what they do to make a living. I am still story boarding each character at this time, so the only playable choice is Johnny Li the hacker. My ambition is to have a web of interconnecting stories between the characters. This kind of work will move quicker once I have the key elements working and all the maps created, which is why I am focusing on the one character at this time.

Hacking:
Johnny Li is the only playable character right now and his specialty is hacking. Much like the world of cyberpunk and shadowrun this game element takes place in the Web. Through the use of programs Johnny can hack into mainframes, steal bank accounts, download files and so on to make some extra money. I have a random map generator incorporated with the demo that has 9 maps to toy with (there will be 150 maps with 6 different difficulty levels when this is completed). Hacking is where a lot of the puzzle, thinking elements will take place and is still under development, but the basics are there. I plan to include spec's for the characters computer (with upgrades, hopefully) which will effect the players experience while hacking. RAM, Hard drive, and CPU Cores are in the works to effect things like how much Data can be acquired in a run, attack speed and so on.

This covers some of the basic elements and ideas planned for Titan City.