Here's the follow-up I talked about earlier talking about things to come in the sequel(s).

I sincerely apologize for the length of this.


Foreword
This blog will go into details about upcoming plans and ideas regarding the sequels of this videogame. Spoilers are ahead for pretty much every aspect and nook and cranny thing for this series. Keep in mind that this is all hypothetical and I will probably drop 75% of the ideas I have in the future, because of:
A: lack of understanding on how to implement thing
B: lack of interest in further developing the idea
C: limitations of the (insert any*) engine.
*most likely going to be VX


Gameplay
I like my games challenging and thought invoking. But what I like the most is originality in already existing gameplay aspects.
Due to a bug(?) in the tankentai script, I have created a mechanic that might or might not have been used in other games. The bug being that you can guard at any given time once the guard command is selected.
This bug has given me the opportunity to fiddle around the aspect of reflex based gameplay. It has also given me the idea of hotkey command selection I.e. pressing D key for the Guard command. Unfortunately, this is only true for this one simple command, but I would like to further evolve it into a deeper state of interactivity during turns.
My thoughts for the sequels would be to implement a dodge system, that allows you to evade attacks. This would be one of the more ambitious ideas, so I don't expect it to actually come to fruition at all, but what this essentially boils down to is a small rythm game you play during someones turn, if it is a damage based skill that they throw at you. Obviously I would also want skills that ignore that aspect and skills that would help out in that regard.
This is how it would work:
An enemy is about to attack with a skill that has a pretty long animation. During that animation, it will create a slow circle around your players and basically in all rythm game fashion, another circle slowly approaches and shrinks towards the other circle. Hitting the guard command at the exact same time the circle is inside the other cirlce gives you a dodge. Hitting too early will give you a Guard. Hitting too late, will do nothing.
So basically it is a risk vs. reward sort of deal.
I would want it to show up at specific times and have it move at specific speed as well, not just the same thing every time.
I highly doubt this will become a reality, but throwing this idea out there isn't really going to hurt me.

Another idea, I had previously, was to implement a punishment system. Unfortunately it proved very difficult to implement via. conditional branches and switches alone. The idea behind this is to punish the player for using overpowered stuff for bosses/special strong enemies. On the other hand, I had an additional thought for this: you can also punish the enemies.
For the punishment system, I would simply show a bar filling up the meter beneath the enemy/show it in the bottom menu for the characters. For every unfair* move done to the enemy/you, the meter would fill up to 5 small bars. Once it reached it's limit, the enemy/you are able to counterattack immediently, regardless of turn order. The punishment for you would simply be the desperation skills from the first game. I think that would fit them more, than just simply being at low health and using it every 50th turn. I would also want to decrease the meter in some way and give special states the ability to increase it for 2 at a time than 1 and so on.
I would like to think that this is harder to implement than the dodge rythm game idea, but I don't know. I feel like you could still do some of it just with conditional branches + switches.
*Unfair moves being, weaknesses/applied state conditions/special circumstances revolving around gameplay focused story aspects... aka. cinematic gameplay, lol

Now let's actually talk about an idea I had waaaay before I even began to remake this game and one that will most likely work with not much effort: Conversations with enemies/Interactions with enemies.
This was still in the back of my head, when I typed it out in the blog section of Tod 2 a couple years ago. (All blogs from that game are gone now, because I wanna start fresh... don't judge!)
Because of (story:) he will be able to interact with other fellow beings... at least with some that have intellect and aren't just braindead monsters.
Originally I planned this feature for the third game, but because of (story), I kinda thought it would be cool to introduce it earlier and flesh it out entirely in the third game. Oh yeah, anyone remember Tod 3? If not, I can't blame you, because I never shared that game on this site, but it is basically entirely inspired by Undertale... and you already know where this is going!
However, in the second game, I would like for it to play a less bigger role, because of (story).
There's no doubt in my mind that I can't do this feature, so I guess I will promise to implement it, because I like the idea of it being in the second game already.

Additional ridiculous wish: better game performance...
yes...
I would love it, please oh my god.

Last word:
I know that many times I have been told to switch engines for things I would like to have. But switching for me means a great cost, because it would not only alienate me from my current visions, but would also mean I would have to rebuild a lot of assets with different scripts and most importantly the gameplay aspects. I don't deny all of the things that are currently in the game are possible in Ace or MV even. For me, it would mean a lot if I could just simply stay with VX until the third game. There are too many things I would need to learn and be comfortable with, to rebuild the things I have been working on for the past 3+ years. Not to mention, I cannot script at all and I would need to research scripting in order to make the gameplay function as it does in VX. It would also mean to start from scratch for me... again. And yes, I'm tired of that. I would rather follow my vision, instead of rebuilding it again. I'm happy with what I have and I would rather beg for some bread crumbs, then hunt for countless fish in the ocean right now...


Story
Since this is all story stuff, you get to see a spoiler tag open up a giant novel in real time!


Visuals/music
It's no secret, seeing with my game, that I like to make things cinematic. You can expect this to move up somewhat in quality in the next game. Just like with the story, I wanted to tap my foot into making this stand out from the rest of the RPG maker games.
In a way, it still looks like an RPG maker game, but it's hard to get that flair of off the games you make, because it's so recognizable.
When playing through my game, I realized that it actually feels less and less like a standard RPG maker game experience. Maybe it's because of the engine that everyone already abandoned, or the way I create my experiences like actual old JRPGs, but I feel like I can say that my game stands out if you play it for a couple minutes. And I'm really glad of that!

My best features would be my pixelart skills. Funnily enough, it's not necessarily my most enjoyable trait to have, because it's a chore to do pixelart sometimes, but I'm still thankful to have somewhat of an artistic skill.
In terms of visual direction, I would like to own every single pixel, but unfortunately that would turn out to be a lot of work, with the already many things that I need to do that clamper my time away. I focus mostly on characters and their respective designs and I think that's good enough.

I am extremely thankful that people have free to use assets/assets you can buy that I can use for my game. It may make things less personal, but It's appreciative in terms of saving myself some time and stress. It helps focus on more important things for me.

Now the most notable and sad subject I have to talk about is the music of my game.
You have to know something about me and that is that I am an extremely stingy person when it comes to music. It's by far the most important aspect to me.
The fact that I have to use soundtracks from other videogames saddens me, really.
The reason I use them, is because it helps me create my visions and my ideas. Now the problem lies in actually changing the music in accordance to the visions I created...
First I pick a soundtrack from a videogame I like, then I think of a scenario to that track and boom! It makes me feel like it fits perfectly together. The hard part is changing the tone and feel of the music to that of an original track...
I am no composer. And I already had hired 3 composers that would work for me in the past. Unfortunately, none of them were passionate enough to even play the game.
I wanted someone who would understand the same feel I had, when I created these scenarios and unfortunately it's an impossible task, because my mind is hard to read, even if I do explain what kind of feelings I have and what mood I want.
I have stopped looking for a composer now, because I don't think I would ever want someone who isn't as passionate about the project as I am.
Of course, the alternative would be to make music myself. And for once I'm not going to actually rat out and make excuses as to why I don't want to do that. I actually do wanna make music in the future, so I will try and persue that eventually... it will just take me some time.
I'm still welcoming composers, but only those that are passionate about the project. I'm sorry to say it like that, but music is too important for me to treat it like it's not special to me. Music is by far the greatest factor in creating ideas and visions for my game. If my vision and the music don't fit together, I'm more than just unhappy about it.
You could argue that I only used megaman zero tracks for the first game, but you'd be surprised how well it fits inside my head. Also the original 1 week game was also formed entirely on the concept of megaman-ish... stuff.
That's why you see a boss rush at the end and references to megaman a lot lmao.
For these upcoming games, I have mixed in a bit of other soundtracks from other games to be more diverse in terms of feels, because the story picks up and what not.
It's weird, I know. I can't help it. That's how it works best for me for now.


Teamwork/Not Solodeving
Surprise surprise! A forth subject has appeared, because I like having big blogs! Don't worry, this one is short.

Yeah, in regards to the music thing: I am not only looking for a composer, but also for people that generally want to help out in any way. I would also like testers to play through my game, because I'm tired doing that myself now. lmao
I know it's probably too much to ask for, but I'm looking for scripters who can help me out with stuff in RGSS2 as well.

In the final blog post I will actually, finally, give a link to an official discord server for these games. I'm sure some are eager to yell at me for doing mistakes and now you can!
I just, uh... have to create the server first lol


PUUUH! Thanks for reading this... or literally skipping through to the end, I don't care, because this killed me.

This took me 3 hours to write and it's past midnight... sorry if something sounds incohesive, but that's just me being tired rn

Uh... well then. See you at the final blog post of this game, whenever that's going to be.

Much love to the people that follow me, you guys do me a solid, even if you don't say anything! <3

~Shin