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The Island Evolves
zDS- 12/20/2015 05:19 PM
- 2700 views
I'm pretty new to blogging, but I'm going to try to make this as coherent as possible haha.
Cope Island was originally a three week project that I made for IGMC 2014. I tried my best to make the best game I could make in such a little time. For months it received almost no reception or any sort of buzz, though a few people played it and responded positively. That was good. It was the first time I had the courage to show a project to the public. Anyone playing at all was a great feeling.
Then I see the contest results and there my game is, third place on the RPG side of the contest.
I really had no idea it would do that well. While I believed in the project immensely, I saw a bunch of nice looking custom made graphics in the contest. It was a very early decision to only use RTP for the graphics, as I felt it would give me a chance to focus more on gameplay. To me, three weeks felt like it was not enough for me alone to do all the graphics, music, and gameplay.
The first version of the game I came up with, I spent a lot more time on making the maps look nice. When I decided to redo all the maps, I made the decision to focus purely on gameplay and not too focused on making nice lush environments. I tried to make simple and nice, though thinking back to it, simple and nice is kind of hard to pull off if it is nature based haha.
After I got my prize for the contest, they asked me if I wanted to work further on Cope Island and make it commercial. I said yes and here we are.
The first bit of business was to focus a lot more on the mapping and overall graphics. I felt a lot of the charm of Cope Island was from me expressing myself without holding back, so I truly believe the best experience of the game for now will be if I do all the graphics myself.
I've worked a lot with pixel art, though I don't have much natural artistic talent. Every bit of progress I made was from the determination to get better at it. By the time I started on Cope Island, my pixel art skills have gotten decent, though nowhere near where I wanted to be, especially for commercial.
So I set a strict standard for myself and have been working hard on polishing and refining it as much as I can. It is still WIP and needs plenty of polish, but I think it's about time to show my new stuff.
Here is a picture from the original Cope Island for the sake of comparison.
Looks like the standard RTP RPG Maker game. Now here is the updated version of it.
Now I shut up and show a bunch of other images.
For now I am only showing environments off, seeing how I still have plenty to polish on the menus and I'd rather show those off when they are ready. I'm pretty far into the development, but with that said still a big hurdle to pass before I finish and release.
Regarding actual content before polishing, I'm about 90% done. I re-designed all the maps and added a bunch more areas and secrets. I re-did the whole battle system to make it much more balanced and fast-paced.
I made 30 different enemy sprites at this point. Not sure if there will be more than that yet. For now I think I am done there. I would love to show some off, but I want to wait a little more.
The original version had 7 songs I made for the game within three weeks. The new version has 24 songs made now, which 3 of the songs I made for the original I scrapped and re-did. I may add a couple of more.
There are a whole bunch of features planned, but I will not discuss those until they are made, seeing how I'd rather not make false promises haha. So I hope for now this will suffice.
For all those who enjoyed the original Cope Island, I'm trying my best to deliver the best version of the game I can possibly make. Thanks for all the support so far! I'll try to keep everyone updated much more often for now on, especially now that things are being made at a very fast pace right.
There is no release date and I have no estimation to when it will be released. Though I'm 99% certain it will be finished and released next year. Hopefully early next year.
(Whew, this was hard to write, I've kept this stuff to myself for so long now it's hard to let go, haha.)
Cope Island was originally a three week project that I made for IGMC 2014. I tried my best to make the best game I could make in such a little time. For months it received almost no reception or any sort of buzz, though a few people played it and responded positively. That was good. It was the first time I had the courage to show a project to the public. Anyone playing at all was a great feeling.
Then I see the contest results and there my game is, third place on the RPG side of the contest.
I really had no idea it would do that well. While I believed in the project immensely, I saw a bunch of nice looking custom made graphics in the contest. It was a very early decision to only use RTP for the graphics, as I felt it would give me a chance to focus more on gameplay. To me, three weeks felt like it was not enough for me alone to do all the graphics, music, and gameplay.
The first version of the game I came up with, I spent a lot more time on making the maps look nice. When I decided to redo all the maps, I made the decision to focus purely on gameplay and not too focused on making nice lush environments. I tried to make simple and nice, though thinking back to it, simple and nice is kind of hard to pull off if it is nature based haha.
After I got my prize for the contest, they asked me if I wanted to work further on Cope Island and make it commercial. I said yes and here we are.
The first bit of business was to focus a lot more on the mapping and overall graphics. I felt a lot of the charm of Cope Island was from me expressing myself without holding back, so I truly believe the best experience of the game for now will be if I do all the graphics myself.
I've worked a lot with pixel art, though I don't have much natural artistic talent. Every bit of progress I made was from the determination to get better at it. By the time I started on Cope Island, my pixel art skills have gotten decent, though nowhere near where I wanted to be, especially for commercial.
So I set a strict standard for myself and have been working hard on polishing and refining it as much as I can. It is still WIP and needs plenty of polish, but I think it's about time to show my new stuff.
Here is a picture from the original Cope Island for the sake of comparison.
Looks like the standard RTP RPG Maker game. Now here is the updated version of it.
Now I shut up and show a bunch of other images.
For now I am only showing environments off, seeing how I still have plenty to polish on the menus and I'd rather show those off when they are ready. I'm pretty far into the development, but with that said still a big hurdle to pass before I finish and release.
Regarding actual content before polishing, I'm about 90% done. I re-designed all the maps and added a bunch more areas and secrets. I re-did the whole battle system to make it much more balanced and fast-paced.
I made 30 different enemy sprites at this point. Not sure if there will be more than that yet. For now I think I am done there. I would love to show some off, but I want to wait a little more.
The original version had 7 songs I made for the game within three weeks. The new version has 24 songs made now, which 3 of the songs I made for the original I scrapped and re-did. I may add a couple of more.
There are a whole bunch of features planned, but I will not discuss those until they are made, seeing how I'd rather not make false promises haha. So I hope for now this will suffice.
For all those who enjoyed the original Cope Island, I'm trying my best to deliver the best version of the game I can possibly make. Thanks for all the support so far! I'll try to keep everyone updated much more often for now on, especially now that things are being made at a very fast pace right.
There is no release date and I have no estimation to when it will be released. Though I'm 99% certain it will be finished and released next year. Hopefully early next year.
(Whew, this was hard to write, I've kept this stuff to myself for so long now it's hard to let go, haha.)
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Red_Nova
Sir Redd of Novus: He who made Prayer of the Faithless that one time, and that was pretty dang rad! :D
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CloseHoly crap this is quite the overhaul! I like how everything looks, too. The only point I'm concerned about is the second picture from the bottom. The top cliff looks a bit unnatural, as it's originally designed to be planted in the ground.
And woah, you're going from 7 songs to 24? Granted, I haven't played it in a while, but I'm trying to figure out where 24 songs would even fit in the game. Is there a unique track for each screen?
Regardless, this is exciting news! I can't wait to play the commercial verison!
And woah, you're going from 7 songs to 24? Granted, I haven't played it in a while, but I'm trying to figure out where 24 songs would even fit in the game. Is there a unique track for each screen?
Regardless, this is exciting news! I can't wait to play the commercial verison!
author=Red_NovaThanks!
Holy crap this is quite the overhaul! I like how everything looks, too. The only point I'm concerned about is the second picture from the bottom. The top cliff looks a bit unnatural, as it's originally designed to be planted in the ground.
And woah, you're going from 7 songs to 24? Granted, I haven't played it in a while, but I'm trying to figure out where 24 songs would even fit in the game. Is there a unique track for each screen?
Regardless, this is exciting news! I can't wait to play the commercial verison!
About the second to last picture, hmm. I think I see what you mean. You're actually high on the cliff there, but I'd definitely want to avoid confusion and unnatural looking stuff.
Edit: Bah! I totally see what you mean now, I need to make a new tile to look more natural when not connected to ground haha.
About the songs, I'm adding a bunch new secret areas. In the original there was 3 small dungeons plus a last area just for the final boss fight. This one will have those areas (vastly updated and a bit larger each) and at least 4 more dungeons. The way I have it set up is you can do 3 dungeons then the game ends. On the "permanent death mode" I've added a bunch of secrets and you can manage to do alternate routes on that. So the game I hope will always take about 30 minutes, but replays could end in quite different experiences.
On the main routes, I've added 3 songs. Since the forest area is larger this time, I added a second song after the first two maps, as I feel the forest has two parts. The shrine where you put the talismans is much larger and more of a map now, so I added background music to that. And I added boss stage music as well. And there is a title screen song now.
There are a good amount of secret areas and they each have their own theme.
I don't like having new music for the sake of new music, so I try to make sure it all fits, haha. I basically added a bunch of new content. I'm hoping to make the game I envisioned at first and not be limited this time. With that said, I still am trying to keep the short and sweet aspect to it.
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