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Transparency and Future Updates on Concordant

  • BerryRMN
  • 12/03/2017 04:21 AM
  • 2659 views
Let me start this off by saying these simple words.

"Mood Whiplash".

That's the current state I'm in right now when it comes to making this game. I've been undergoing a rollercoaster of emotions from depression to happiness to just outright anger and then tiredness. It comes and goes and it honestly feels like I'm feeling so random that it felt like I want to burn out and quit altogether. But in reality, I realized that I don't want to continue feeling these emotions. The reason why I felt this way is because I've been contemplating on whether I should drop this project altogether or discontinue it seeing as I'm just emotionally exhausted making something that, after careful hindsight, isn't really worth it in the long run.

Since I worked on Lily Renewal in between periods and The Boy who Cried Turtle, a game that I will never put on RMN because of personal reasons, I realized that Concordant is directionless in a way. Since I only wrote the beginning parts and the twists and the ending for the most part. I never considered the in between or the journey to that point, which is why the writing gets a bit stale at times. I've learned it myself after actually playing the games I've made and carefully read things through the original and the rebooted version.

I wanted to make a point or a message across and it kinda failed in more ways than one. So I got tired of it and worked on something else because if I keep working on Concordant, it will drive me insane and I won't be able to recover much from it.

That being said. Months have passed since the v.0.0.1 update. I'm feeling a bit better now. And I have decided to put one last gambling chip on this project. This is essentially my last chance.

Point is, I'm rebooting this for a third time.


This is the last attempt I'll be making for this game. I've left it on the dust for a few months now and I'm pretty much ready to tackle this one last time. But then this begs the question, "Why would you reboot this again? When you already did this twice?"

Well, the answer to that is that the previous 2 versions lacked any semblance of sense or coherence to the whole narrative and I made it too complex for my brain to keep track of every point in the game. I realized some characters were getting the weird writing treatment and others gets issues in terms of how it was executed. It ended up being a mess. I checked the script a couple of times and realized a lot of fundamental flaws in the logic of the game's rules and character mindsets. So I stopped and reflect on things a little bit more now. (And making a couple of games to keep my mind off of this one for now) After much deliberation, I decided to discontinue the two previous versions and decided to start fresh.

So, yeah. It's a longwinded speech there. But point is I'll be remaking this from scratch with major changes in the game. But I want to make certain points clear so that you have an idea on what you're in for in this new version and some questions regarding the old version. I'll be doing this via Q and A style so I won't write an essay's worth of text.

1. What about the two versions? Are they discontinued? Are they considered canon?

This is going to pertain a spoilery detail that I do not want to divulge in detail, but if I were to give an answer, I'd say Yes. But that is a tentative answer. I'll leave it at that.


2. Will this new version be a completely new story or not?

It will diverge from the original story, but in terms of how the setting and genre works, I will say that it will likely be the same.

3. What about the gameplay mechanics, music and art? Will they change?

That is a good point. And one I can address immediately. I'll put this in bullet points so I can go through things on rapid-fire mode.

- The Game will no longer 100% rely on RTP tilesets. In exchange, I will make new assets for the tilesets and some sprites here and there. The iconsets will also change alongside the environment. The characters will remain the same style wise but I will also add my own characters design in it as well.





- The game will no longer be Front First Person view. It will now be Side View in terms of how battles will be arranged. Which means you will see the characters directly in combat as well.



- Argument Break will still be a part of this game. But it will be a lot less forced and somewhat natural in terms of how it will be presented. I also discarded unique texts for each character in exchange for the usual message box, to make things easier. Art will still contain busts for characters and multiple choices. However, I'm planning on adding variety to Argument Break so that there are more options than just simply making choices like a multiple choice question.



- Music style will remain the same but with added tracks. I can't say if any of them will be original. But I will try to use less of the RTP / the community's assets (or use them as placeholders until I can get the music that fits).

- Support systems in combat will remain and will be improved from the last version. I will explain the details in a later update.

These are the general points I want to address for now. As for when this will be released, I won't make any promises. I tried making promises that I would finish this by the end of this year and it ended up backpedaling me to a wall instead. So updates will come when I do have updates. I can be sure of one thing though. It will be infrequent. So you can expect no updates in 1-2 months or more if anything personal were to happen to me. Just as a heads up.

Well, that's all I have to say on the matter. I still ended up writing an essay's worth of text. 1000+ words isn't too bad though... people tend to write more. Anyways, I digress. I can't say when I'll put up the next update. But I'm telling you guys this much. I'm not giving up on this game. I started it and I want to finish it. That's all.

I'll see you in another update. Hopefully the gap between updates isn't going to be so large this time.

Posts

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Well, this seems like a progress report with more meat than some others so welp, nice work, hope everything goes well. :^D

Here is some Christmas candy. >o< ////////
author=orochii
Well, this seems like a progress report with more meat than some others so welp, nice work, hope everything goes well. :^D

Here is some Christmas candy. >o< ////////


Ahhh.. Thank you. Well, I'm hoping that I can keep pumping updates more frequently now that I actually have some time working on this. I'll be putting out more details about some parts that are more vague on a later time.

Also, nice. Sweet sweet candy to add to my library of digital sugar collection. XD
Don't worry about writing too much, this stuff is interesting.

It's awesome you're making your own tiles and other graphics as opposed to using the RTP. Those tiles look really nice, and they work really well with the rest of the artwork.

A couple of things, firstly that the battle screenshot looks a little too foggy, like you can't see the enemy sprites that well because there's too much mist or whatever that is covering them. Secondly, there is a lot of space between the enemies and the player party. Is there a reason to have that huge empty space in the middle of the battlefield (such as large animations being placed there)?

Other than that, everything looks really neat. I really like the art style, the character design, and the fact that you play as a goblin for a main character. That is sweet.
author=suzy_cheesedreams
Don't worry about writing too much, this stuff is interesting.

It's awesome you're making your own tiles and other graphics as opposed to using the RTP. Those tiles look really nice, and they work really well with the rest of the artwork.

A couple of things, firstly that the battle screenshot looks a little too foggy, like you can't see the enemy sprites that well because there's too much mist or whatever that is covering them. Secondly, there is a lot of space between the enemies and the player party. Is there a reason to have that huge empty space in the middle of the battlefield (such as large animations being placed there)?

Other than that, everything looks really neat. I really like the art style, the character design, and the fact that you play as a goblin for a main character. That is sweet.


Haha.. maybe I shouldn’t worry so much about word count as long as they remain relevant. Ahaha...

To be honest, the previous two versions relied much on the basic RTP. And while so many people can work with RTP to make it so beautiful that they can possibly glance it’s flaws off, I realised that it severely clashed with what I’m making. So I changed it up a bit. Granted, I’m not the best mapper or tileset Maker, but I tried to do with what I have.

Yeah. I do agree that the fogs were... visually distracting. But that shouldn’t be a difficult fix. And the distance between the player and the enemy were too far is because of how I see the screen. But it is true that there’s a large gap between them. I’ll see if I can address that a little better.

I should have said that those images are still tentative to change. But oh well.

To be honest, I’m glad you liked the concept. I’m a little paranoid of how things will go from here since this new version is essentially the last attempt on this project. Here’s hoping for the best.
Your tiles look fine. I just realized there's another artist who made some of the artwork? Everything looks much better and obviously more cohesive with the new graphics rather than the RTP, as you've said. I make edits of the RTP for tiles and such too for my stuff.

Ah, I see now that the frame with the darkened edges is on every screenshot. I'm sorry if I've criticized something you've designed to be more accessible/to better suit a different level of visibility (and if this isn't the case then I apologise for making assumptions!).

author=BerryRMN
To be honest, I’m glad you liked the concept. I’m a little paranoid of how things will go from here since this new version is essentially the last attempt on this project. Here’s hoping for the best.


Yeah absolutely, best of luck with the project!
author=suzy_cheesedreams
Your tiles look fine. I just realized there's another artist who made some of the artwork? Everything looks much better and obviously more cohesive with the new graphics rather than the RTP, as you've said. I make edits of the RTP for tiles and such too for my stuff.

Ah, I see now that the frame with the darkened edges is on every screenshot. I'm sorry if I've criticized something you've designed to be more accessible/to better suit a different level of visibility (and if this isn't the case then I apologise for making assumptions!).



Ah. I see what you mean. To be honest, that was intentionally placed there. But I think I understand how you would come to that conclusion. It's alright. I've made assumptions as well. So you're not the only one.

As for the other artist, in terms of characters, there are a few that are taken from Aekashics and other parts artists. I haven't credited them yet but I will add them to the credits section once I've changed the description of the summary at some point once I get the chance. Funny thing is that one of the characters is actually taken from MV's Minotaur from the RTP. So really, in terms of characters, not all of them are 100% original. Still, this game isn't going commercial, so I have little issues using them as bases and recreated using my own style. Just thought I clarify that.

There are other characters later down the line that will be inspired from a specific game I have a specific fondness for, but I'll talk about that when I get to it.
Sorry! I just meant if you were making it specifically for some vision impairment or other disability (from the way you were talking about the battle screen), that I criticized it thoughtlessly - but it sounds like you weren't, so never mind.

Well, that's what those RTP characters are there for, for people to get creative with. As I said, I use the RTP to make edits, although I make faces and such from scratch. I haven't seen much of MV so I'm not so familiar with the RTP graphics as with those of the other engines.

author=BerryRMN
There are other characters later down the line that will be inspired from a specific game I have a specific fondness for, but I'll talk about that when I get to it.


Now I'm intrigued! Interested to hear about that in the future.
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