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Announcement

The blessings of the 108 are upon this game.

As promised, the game has been updated on it's two-year anniversary. The main download should be stand-alone, with an alternative download for those who have VX Ace's RTP. I now largely consider it...

COMPLETE!





In case you missed it, I've put up a page detailing recruitment info for characters that are not recruited automatically. I'm a nice guy. Or try to be.


Probably the most difficult part of the making of this game was Unites. Some of the things I had to do for it to work at all:
checking that each member of a given Unite were in the party
each character that had a relevant Unite skill in the context of the active party could access the Unite skill
they all had to be able to act for Unite to be selectable
when the time came for the skill to be used, all members had to be able to act
selecting a Unite skill for the "skill leader" meant that other involved characters had to be skipped over when entering actions
cancelling out of a Unite skill meant that all involved characters could act normally, unless Unite was re-selected

Man, I still feel like I'm forgetting something. However, I hope I made my point to how complex this was to set up. ;_;


There were a few moments where whatever troubles I was going through to make this game was worthwhile. Obviously, seeing Unites actually work. Putting together the party-window for shops (thanks for reminding me of the window in Wyrm Warriors, Liberty!). Showing a six-person party in the main menu, and in battles. Hell, even something as simple/small as the "<Character> recruited!" window made me a little bit happier.

However, I think among the biggest moments was achieving the 108 Bonus of the game during my test-plays. I'm not going to say what that bonus is for now. I'll keep that a secret for a liiiiittle bit longer. However, it still feels like a big accomplishment, even though this game is only 2-3 hours long. Whereas a typical Suikoden game takes me around 30-ish hours to complete? Depends on which Suikoden we're talking about, I suppose.


So, what's next on my gammak plate? This is an excellent question. I don't know if I have an answer. There have been times when I've considered taking Uchioniko, and applying a new set of paint (Celianna's Modern-Day tileset), with maybe a few more touch-ups. However, my inclination to actually do anything about that game has been a solid "meh".

Request

Calling all testers!

I have just uploaded a demo of this game, with all story sequences included. However, I'm not 100% confident of passing this out to the general public. That's where you come in! I want to know if I need to squash any bugs, if something feels unfair, or other interesting tidbits, whether they be positive or negative.

Write a comment here, send a PM, or message me on Discord if you are interested!


Within the hide-tag are the available Stars of Destiny, and the approximate order they can be recruited in.

Show

Chapter 1
Auto: (Sarah, Hans, Davin, Kerry), (Natasha, Drew, Johan, Sylvia), Feroz, (Karina, Gail, Cory, Savat), Zoe
Non-auto: (Karuna, Aurelie), Hal, (Oscar, Oharu, Naora, Chris), Bailey
Total: 22 (14 + 8)
Grand total: 22/108

Chapter 2
Auto: (Kit, Murial, Chen, Wilma), (Masako, Mina), (Anton, Chloe, Harrison, Lewis)
Non-auto: (Lintis, Mae), (Brett, Lara, Izumi), Clem, Okiku, Regis, Xavier, (Momo, Shizu, Jack), (Nicky, Curtis), Alex, Amy, Ginny, Jason, Tyler, Joel, Sidney, Joy, Jasper, Blake, Gertrude, (Lilith, Betrum)
Total: 37 (10 + 27)
Grand total: 59/108

Chapter 3
Auto: (Maria, Vincent, Saya, Rosie), (Leara, Osonia, Kolvar, Aenwyn, Nevarth), (Hillary, Olivia, Hector, Jodie)
Non-auto: (Noel, Lesley, Skye, Rowen, Joshua, Justin), (Ash, Jorden, Ali, Nicolas), Nina, (Niku, Yasui), Tanner, Vanessa, Theo, (Madelyn, Arthur), Eleazar, Nicole, Rudy, Clide, (Beatrice, Maya, Melvin), (Waldo, Jospeh), Shay, Myriam, Lester, Jessie, Harley, Glenn, Rita, Jayleen, Roger
Total: 49 (13 + 36)
Grand Total: 108/108

Progress Report

Inching ever closer to something that might vaguely be called a game

So, you might have noticed the switch from the "hiatus" state to the "in production" sate. I may be throwing down a spattering of additional screenshots in the next few days or so as well.

What all of this means is that I'm aiming to release a version of the game with story sequences at least up to the end of Chapter 1. I have no idea when that will be, nor do I have a progress nautilus bar to visually represent what has been done, how close we might be to the current goal, or how far that goal is from completion of the game.

However, when the new release is out, I'll make an announcement. I kinda want to keep using this blog as my "release thread", but, throwing down a post on RMN's Discord channel might not hurt either.

Miscellaneous

Stream of consiousness - Ending the game

So, I have a few ideas about how to start this game, and maybe a few ideas of story-sequences that occur in the middle in regards to auto-stars. How the game ends? I have no clue.

I suppose one idea I had was to pull something of a Suikoden 3, where a small group of stars exist as antagonists for the bulk of the game. With Suikoden 3, the objective of Green Bishop and the Fire Bringer was essentially the same (humanity's freedom, if I recall correctly), they just have different methods/ideas of how to achieve those goals. So, if I go that route, the objectives of the protagonists and antagonists should be the same, but with wildly different methods/ideas of how to get there. The objective for the protagonists in this game is essentially "human freedom", but, I fear the objective of our antagonists is essentially "power for the sake of power".

Another idea is similar to the above, in that there will be a small group of stars that are antagonists for the bulk of the game. However, maybe there is a threat that causes them to work together for a time. The nature of this threat might be supernatural (the Sovereign Rune eventually comes to the conclusion that nobody is worthy of bearing it, and goes haywire?), or external (a foreign power, possibly one that had a hand in the Empress' assassination, tries to leverage the civil war to it's own purpose?), or... I dunno.

Suikoden has had some neat political intrigue stories (see Suikoden 2 and Suikoden 5). I have no idea if I can make a story on that level. I don't really have a team on this game. I've been doing this mostly by myself. Though, Darigaaz, look at what this game can do, despite working alone on it.

Announcement

Revolution updated!

The main download has been updated! This build is still very much incomplete, naturally. However, it includes...

  • Glikx Hights

...which now had it's mapping revised (including the Bandit Camp), and standard encounters to fight. I'm currently using encounters triggering on a number-of-steps basis (altered from the original method, of course), but, I may change to on-map encounters later.

  • Sraphyhl Peak

...which has one new (to this release) recruit, and a possible point of story development that is currently unimplemented. This area also has standard encounters, which are slightly more difficult (but not by much) than Glikx's.

  • Revised creatures

...thanks to the work on my entry in Theme Roulette, and A Half-n-Half Affair (which currently has FRONT PAGE EXPOSURE, BABY (Thanks Libby!)). This revision was more about HP values, though some MP values were altered as well. Though, I kinda worry that this revision might backfire on me. It's always tricky to figure what the HP of enemies of varying levels might look like, given the HoM&M damage formula, and how it functions.

  • Unites fixed

...AGAIN! They've been tested several ways, and I'd like to think I've covered all the things that shouldn't happen concerning them. However, I've been proven wrong on this before, so, please let me know!

Available Unites in this build include: Best Friends, Bandit Attack, Luxaren Allure, Training Regimen, and Blade Flash.

Miscellaneous

Stream of consiousness - Unites (again), and self-doubt (again)

There has been a very heavy focus on two-character unites. The "Luxaren Allure" Unite has gotten a lot of mileage as my "debug" skill for this purpose. To be fair, the bulk of Unite skills I've got here involve two characters. Still, I should probably test other unites to make sure the rules I've set in place work consistently. Then, maybe, if I'm lucky, I can call Unites done.

However, if I want to be completely honest, I started having doubts about fixing unites. Some time between these two comments, there was this question in my mind of, "Is it worth all this trouble?" with the suspicion that the answer is "no".

I recall my entry into Swap 2 (the half that's on the event-page), and having similar thoughts about making maps. Could those thoughts have spilled over to Dragon's Gate? Maybe. There was at least one bug that was reported to me that I probably should have caught, if I did a test-run after the minor detail of putting the name-tag code ("\n<\n[1]>" and the like) at the end of a SHOW TEXT, rather than at the beginning. Well, two, technically, since one caused a game-closing crash, for reasons I still can't comprehend.

At any rate, I apologize in advance to the two people that are looking forward to the next update, but, this project will probably remain on hiatus a bit longer. Though, I sometimes wonder if I shouldn't outsource some of the work? I don't know. The thought literally just entered my head. I'm not even sure what part of gamedev I would even outsource, if the completion of this game is merely a matter of getting myself together probably several times over?

Announcement

Demo updated! LET'S GET SUIKO-SCREWED!

I've ran a few more tests, and it looks like the game is ready to go! Well, as far as it has come along, at any rate.

As of this release, players will no longer have access to all 108 Stars of Destiny at the offset. What recruits do exist are in Staerdale Palace. Recruits that are intended to be auto-stars will join you without a prompt, while non-autos will have one. Right now, the total number of recruits available is 31.

I don't recall if Mae gambled before, but, she's been set up to play a simple version of Blackjack. Chincirorin, is still a consideration to include maybe later, but, I'm still on the fence about it.

I don't recall if the shops still sold all the items that exist (regardless of whither or not they would be in the game) in whatever category of items they sold. However, this is certainly no longer the case in this (and future) demos.

Talking to Hans in the War Room will allow you to view what war-battle units you have. To be perfectly honest, this is more or less how far I've gotten with war-battles. However, with the characters that you can recruit, you should be able to have three units at max.

Cameo characters still very much exist, but, the ones you will not see in this demo are: Shizu, Momo, Saya, and Rosie. The good news is that you'll see Oharu, Naora, Masako, Mina, Lintis, Izumi, Okiku, Karuna, and Aurelie. Weird. I seriously thought there were only 12 cameos, but there are 13? Oh well.


I know there still isn't a lot here yet, as far as, like, actual gameplay in concerned. However, this release represents a lot of behind-the-scenes work, and I just want it to be appreciated, noticed, and all that jazz out there. Regardless, let me know if something doesn't seem right, or otherwise screwy.

Game Design

Stream of Consciousness - War Battles!

Alright. No more putzing around. Let's talk war battles. What do I need, at the very minimum, for war battles?

There's generally two sides to any given war battle. So, that probably means two WarBattle_Player objects, representing each side. Or... whatever I end up doing. Regardless, a WarBattle_Player consists of:
-an array that consists of WarBattle_Unit
This variable is probably going to be where most of the interaction happens. However, we probably need to issue commands, so...
-a variable that keeps track of commands given
It could be an array of commands given if each unit can be given a command. However, the thought in my head here is to issue a more army-wide command. Players would select a unit, and that unit would take the brunt of the damage, and be the one damaging the enemy units.


When selecting a unit to be on the front lines, players will probably want an effective unit. This isn't just a matter of having good stats, but, a unit's abilities should play a part as well. As for how stats affect the outcome, I'm probably going to use the standard attack formula for this game. As for abilities, let's go over the ones I've been considering.

-First Strike
This unit attacks without invoking a counter-attack. Triggers only on attack. The chances of this triggering is... I dunno.
Basis: "Charge" from Suikoden 5.

-Critical
This unit deals double damage when attacking. Trigger's only on attack. The chances of this triggering is probably the same as First Strike?
Basis: "Critical" from Suikoden 2.

-Evade
This unit avoids damage. Triggers on both attack and defense. The chances of this triggering is probably 10%, maximum.
Basis: "Evade" from Suikoden 2.

-Rest
This unit recovers lost troops. Triggers at beginning of turn. Restores 5% of the unit's maximum capacity.
Basis: "Rest" from Suikoden 5

-Toughness
This unit has 100 more troops available to it. Static ability.
Basis: "Heavy Armor" from Suikoden 2

-?
Not 100% sure what to call it, but, what about an ability that attacks all enemy units? Probably Rune-based. It would only trigger on attack, and the chances of it triggering might be, I dunno, 10%?

-?
I feel like there could be another static ability that might be cool?

-?
Suggestions? Perhaps there's an ability from the Suikoden series that I've temporarily totally forgotten about?


Other notes of interest:
Movement abilities, like "Fly" (Suikoden 2), or "Calvary" (Suikoden 2) will probably be irrelevant.

I think there's a static ability on Kasumi in Suikoden 2, I forget it's name, that shows what the chances are of dealing damage? Or something like that. Maybe I can turn that around, and return the damage multiplier? Hrm.

Announcement

Belated happy birthday, RMN!

I didn't make a dumb game this weekend for RMN's birthday, but, I did manage work on this. The results of my work have now been uploaded. Changes from last demo:

  • Imperial Palace

Shops no longer sell absolutely everything, including objects not meant to be included. In fact, they will not have anything to sell, unless you visit the shops in...

  • Staerdale Palace

Steardale Palace is now available to visit, either by walking or via teleportation. All it has are shops and an inn, but, maybe a later demo can have recruits there.

  • Unite skills

Unite skills work as they should! I only have one in this demo ("Luxaren Allure" -Karuna and Aurelie), but, it should serve as a template for others to come!


As for the status of the project, I don't know. At minimum, I'll want to take a break from working on this, but, I don't want to bring any hopes up beyond another demo where players can recruit characters. I don't know when that will come down, either, but, I'll keep you posted.

Miscellaneous

Shoot me now.

One thing that's been annoying the heck out of me is that stats can technically go down when characters level. Yeah, I know, it's not what players would expect from levels, but, it's not entirely intentional either. See, I use a "stat multiplier" in a feeble attempt to make characters slightly more diverse when it comes to stats, when they share the same class. The past couple of hours have seen me try to rectify the fact that they can go down, only to notice that, at some point, characters will end up having the same stats if I ensure that they always go up.

So, the variance used to be between 80% and 120% of the base value for the level in question. I ran some tests, and noticed that, with how stats fell in this game, they would never go up when the multiplier is less than 100%. Part of that is because the stat multiplier starts out as 100%. I don't think I want to change that. Because of this the variance became between 100% and 120%. I mean, if a character "rolls well" for level 2, and hits the 120%, they are probably going to retain that throughout their carrier. Though, it's not really a question of if they hit the 120%, because there's 99 levels to go through. Even if we only really expect characters to hit level 50-ish, that's still a lot of instances of leveling up. The question becomes when it's hit.

The idea at present is to have tried multipliers based on level. Maybe not the best solution either, but, the code looks something like... 

class Game_Actor < Game_Battler
  # This function re-defines the stat multiplier.
  def re_mult
    case @level
    when 1 .. 30
      @stat_mult = rand(3)
      @stat_mult = (@stat_mult.to_f / 10.0) + 1.0
    when 31 .. 60
      @stat_mult = rand(3) + 2
      @stat_mult = (@stat_mult.to_f / 10.0) + 1.0
    when 61 .. 90
      @stat_mult = rand(3) + 4
      @stat_mult = (@stat_mult.to_f / 10.0) + 1.0
    when 91 .. 99
      @stat_mult = rand(3) + 6
      @stat_mult = (@stat_mult.to_f / 10.0) + 1.0
    end
  end
end


This won't necessarily stop the RNG from generating the max value at first go. I had a brief thought of over-writing how stats are done to begin with, or at least force the game to read from a custom table for the replicated classes via scripts, but, I'm not 100% sure where to begin with this, or if this whole thing I'm trying to do with stats is even worth it, in the end.


I suppose a solution to this mess would be to copy-paste classes in the database, and hard-code values from there. Though, the main reason I wanted an automated solution in the first place was that there are 8 instances of each class, and, well, who really wants to mess with what amounts to 8 copies of the same class, where the only difference would be the stat-block?


I dunno. Maybe I'm worrying too much again.
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