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Progress Report

Progress report.

I've edited some early maps for quality and fixed a long number of small errors and oversights.

Maps and monsters for the 5th dungeon are finished and testing is under way.

Most of the endgame equipment is finished, some new optional bosses have been added and testing for the 4th dungeon is finished.

Many small things have been changed or edited for consistency and a more user friendly experience.

Monsters for the 6th dungeon are in the early phase of creation.
More early maps will be edited for quality.

Progress Report

Progress report.

Play testing for the previous area went really well with a few tweaks. I've realized this is the part of the game where the player should be worrying less about money and allowed to collect as many of the new weapons as they want.

As much as I like a good long RPG I know not all of my players will share the sentiment. I'm trying to keep that in mind as I move forward with the project because not every game needs to be a black hole of logged hours to be good or interesting.

Optional dungeons have subsequently been short and worked into being part of side quests I had attached to the magic users and their ultimate spells. I figure doing it this way allows players to skip content if they don't like a character and choose to not develop them, or if the character doesn't fit into a final party setup the player may have in mind if they're replaying the game.
This also allows me time to properly develop more fun extra stuff later in the game because the player will have no reason to worry about missing something important.

I've nearly finished all the maps for the fourth area of the game's second half and I've spend a fair amount of time thinking over dialogue. My game has 3 chapters, each divided into 3 parts. I am beginning the second part of the second chapter.

The monsters have been planned and the difficulty curve has been set to match the previous area. This makes my job a little easier and lets the player develop their favorite characters to match the difficulty. I don't want this game to become a mindless fight to compensate for numbers that never stop rising. So far my play testing has been with a balanced party in which I develop each character without picking favorites to see how they fare in each new area. I believe everything is well balanced as it is if the player takes some time to understand my system.

My biggest concern has been HP, which I have made a little effort to limit. If I'm constantly making monsters hit harder to compensate for how much is available to a player everything quickly becomes a boring mess. By making HP gained from levels mean more over time I can make 200 damage feel like a fair and challenging amount for a long time. In doing so I hope to avoid weird balance issues I encountered while playing Final Fantasy 10 and The Legend Of Dragoon, despite how much I enjoy those games. :)

Of course anyone can circumvent this by overpowering 1-2 characters with more souls than others, but I also want power players to be able to break the system. If you're not a power player I want the game to be a fun challenge with a weird system to exploit and work with.

I think I'm on the right track and I'm loving what I'm building right now. Thanks for staying tuned. :)

Progress Report

Progress Report - Challenge surpassed.

After several weeks of brooding over ideas, dialogue and a music playlist of unhappy music, I've finished several conversations for the project.

Deliberating over how to present my ideas in a tangible way to people unfamiliar with philosophical discussion is tricky but not impossible. What I found more challenging was giving a consistent amount of attention to writing depressing existential monologues.

I've now finished 3 of the most difficult conversations in the game and I'm relieved to know I can focus on some of the more lighthearted ideas I've had in mind.

There will likely be a few more edits as I input the dialogue into the game and it feels great to finally reach this amount of completion.

Thanks for staying tuned. :)

Progress Report

Progress report - Much ado about writing existentialism.

Creating a playlist of music to write with helped me stay focused.

The second Ubermensch conversation is finished and I'm much more happy with it than I was.

The third conversation has been started and I have a good feel for what I'm trying to say.

Perhaps the most difficult part of this kind of thing is how depressing in can be to sit around thinking about this for hours at a time. But if the passion and dedication are there the project is eventually finished.

Thanks for staying tuned. :)

Progress Report

Progress report - Complexity and the creative process.

I was on holidays from work for a couple weeks and had a visitor during that time.
Now I'm back to my regular programming schedule. :)

Many RPGs will throw around a few status effects or minor debuffs and call it a day. The strategy to combat seldom evolves further than the player putting on a piece of armor or utilizing a passive ability for protection.

I hope to surpass this trend with the way this game has continued to develop, and it feels like the next step in the evolution of the system I've created for myself over the years.
The second half of my game is made up of seven areas and I'm currently working on the third. As far as statistics are concerned I've set a consistent but slow development for the difficulty so far. I want the player to have time to adjust to changes in difficulty. I also don't feel constantly bombarding the player with a new equipment to match the upcoming challenge is a good way to facilitate remaining engaged with the experience.

Power creep is a precursor to predictable and mindless back and forth slugfests with what should be interesting bosses.
There is a point in many games where, as much as the player likes the experience, the novelty wears off and the system becomes a chore. My game is no exception to this. Subsequently the second half of the game less about lazy tactics like cranking up monster statistics, and more about giving the player all sorts of options to approach the situation.

Something I've rarely seen implemented well in any RPG is enemy parties working together against the player. Sure there's enemy healing in some games but that always turns into a minor annoyance that drags out the length of a fight.
That isn't necessarily a tactical situation and it's seldom fun.
The system I'm using is rather limited in how I'm able to tackle this issue, but there's a way to do it. What I'm attempting to create is a know thy enemy kind of experience.
Later in the game monsters will support each other. They will buff themselves.
Enemy groups will function as a unit as best as I am able to make them do so.

I hope this will bring something new to the table and help me grow as a creator.
Thanks for staying tuned to the project. :)

Progress Report

Progress report.

The maps for the area with the third Ubermensch are all finished and I've begun putting NPCs on them.

The monsters have been picked out but I haven't set any stats for them yet. Once they've been given some functionality and I've found some more images to choose from I'll start testing them.

The conversation with the second Ubermensch is 75% finished.
Everything's good so far. :)

Thanks for staying tuned.

Progress Report

Progress report.

I found some weird errors today and fixed them. A boss didn't have music but in my test playing I remember the music played fine.

The next dungeon's play testing is finished and the dialogue for the antagonist's scene is underway.

I have many ideas and notes for the monsters in the next dungeon. A few hours ago I worked out some details in the game's numbers I have to implement for escalating challenge, new equipment, and keeping the combat intensity consistent.

Thank you for staying tuned, the project is coming along well. I'll upload new screenshots as soon as I can. :)

Progress Report

Progress report. Good ideas and solid editing.

Play testing the snow area has gone extremely well so far. It's time consuming going through each area with more than one party but it's necessary. The numbers feel balanced and the challenge isn't overwhelming. At this point even if the player is unfamiliar with RPGs she/he should have a firm grasp of the game mechanics.
When something doesn't work or the results have low numbers, try a new element or a new weapon. Simple. :)

The monsters and maps for the next dungeon are finished and I'm brooding over some dialogue every day.
Ideas are forming for the next dungeon.

The second half of the game consists of 7 dungeons and 8 conversations.
I'm ready to start making the third dungeon and I've nearly finished the first conversation.

Thank you to everyone staying tuned. When I'm not fixing small errors I'm always looking for something new to add to each area. :)

Progress Report

Progress Report. It's all looking good. :D

There won't be many screenshots of the next area as it's very special to me.
It's modeled after a dream I had around age 6. In terms of recreating such an experience the accuracy is around 80%, diminished mostly by my creative liberties taken to create a dungeon in a game.

It took a couple days but I added icons for weapons, armors and items for everything available in the game so far. Given some of the obscure names a lot of the weapons have, it was necessary to prevent players from lurking menus finding which character belonged to each new weapon in the second half of the game.

I've started dialogue for the encounter with the first antagonist and it's going well. I'll begin play testing that area soon, although I feel the difficulty is appropriate so far. 4 optional bosses became 6 because I had a few more fun ideas. :D

Progress Report

Progress report.

I've set up a few maps for the next area and conjured ideas for 4 optional bosses. The second half of the game will also have random encounters with mini bosses in every area.

Currently I'm preparing monsters for the new area and I've spent a lot of time organizing my monster resources. Working with RPGXP's 80% monochrome color palette in the snow tilesets is a little aggravating, but not impossible if you're careful about how to offset the white.
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