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Posting from a Tim Hortons

  • kentona
  • 01/14/2023 01:35 AM
  • 2906 views
It would be a remarkable feat if there are still many fans following the development of this remaster. It was suggested that I post an update on the progress (or lack thereof) that I've made in the years since I started.

After a half-decade of hem-hawing about going forward with a lifelong dream of mine to commercially publish an RPG, in 2017, I finally convinced myself that it would be worth remastering my dear pet project Hero's Realm as a commercial endeavour. When it started, I was full of vinegar and hope and naivety that it might be a moderate success. I even envisioned that it'd be released sometime in, say, 2 years!

I reached out for commissions, and was graced with the skills of Avee (for art and sprite work), BigWig (for monster art and sprites)(he has since disappeared from my contacts - I really hope he's okay tbh), visitorsfromdreams for animations, and pianotm and zDS stepped up and offered music composition. I am very gracious for all the help I've received to date, and owe a debt of gratitude to all of you, especially for sticking with me after all this time. The works you have done are amazing.

Here is a rough outline of the progressbar (not to scale):


A brief recap/excuses of the past couple years:
(background: I announced this project in mid-2017. At the end of 2017 I received a shock that my company was closing up and was out of a job. I became an independent contractor and a self-employed. This has been the case until January 3rd, 2023, when I started a new position as an employee).
-so in 2020 the pandemic started. Kids were schooling from home, and everything was greatly disrupted. It's been tough, and I wish I had the wherewithal to have completed this remaster before 2020.
-late 2020 my dad died unexpectedly, so that sucked.
-in 2021 I moved to a new home (we had outgrown our first home of 10 years - the boys were sharing a bedroom and bunkbeds and could benefit from more space). Moving was hella-expensive and time-consuming,
-2020-2022 I was hella-depressed, too.
-the project got corrupted (there was a blog post about it) and I had to restore from a backup. Oh well.
-started a new job Jan 3rd, full-time, with a pension and healthcare and everything, so that's pretty cool.
-in conclusion, here we are.


Anyway, mid-2022 I started putting actual effort into the project again. Avee had invested a TON of time and effort implementing the tilesets for me in-game (wow!), so I had a great basis to work off of.

-I revamped the hero classes, and implemented the 3 new classes
-I imported all the great resources that Avee and visitorsfromdreams made
-I mapped the class graphics to the battlechars and weapons that Avee made
-I recentlyish mapped all 401 monsters to the 389 monster sprites (with over 95 unique sprites and recolours!). It was quite the undertaking.
-I documented all of the monsters, spells, items, weapons, battle scripts and more into my Excel spreadsheet (this will come in handy when I make the guidebooks and manuals)
-I am currently in the process of mapping the battle backgrounds to tiles
-I am also currently in the process of refactoring the battle events - they desperately need a cleanup and the new skills (an better implementations of existing skills) need to be added. It'll be fun redoing all 977 battle troops. I am leaning on the work I have done in Generica. Hero's Realm - being the first project I ever completed - was a prototype in a lot of ways, and it is evident the messiness of the scripts.
-As part of this battle events process, I will be implementing the new battle animations from visitorsfromdreams AND revisiting the skills and their balance/implementation.


These pieces are all required before I can truly embark on the next phase of the project - polishing and playtesting. This will include leaning once again on pianotm and zDS to prepare a finalized version of their amazing tracks. And eventually putting a call out for official play testers.

Then in parallel, I will need to reach out and ask for help with
-creating multimedia (like videos!) for showcasing the game
-signing up for Steam and figuring out publishing (so many of you have done this now - I would love your expertise!)
-signing up for itch.io

I will also be making my planned guide material, like
-monster lists
-equipment lists
-maps
-guidebook/manual
-OST (maybe! if zDS and pianotm are up for it!)
-other cool things

Then finally - publish the damn game.

So yeah. I'm almost done my double-double and my son's soccer practice ends soon. I will wrap this up now with a promise to you that I will post updates more regularly. If you've made it this far, thanks for reading.

Posts

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Of course, I can playtest. THat's all I can do to help.
author=LordBlueRouge
author=Marrend
This post, perhaps? The text specifically talking about making a fan-trailer uses strikeout, so, I question the seriousness of it. Though, LordBlueRouge seems to have a tendency to use strikeout as a "speaking softly" effect, so, I dunno.
I'm always serious...™

...Speaking honestly however, I think visitorsfromdreams would be a better person for the job, since he's done this professionally and I admire his work greatly, (I'm still pinning for slime knight to be RMN's mascot, I would've thrown him into so many commercials).
I don't work well with deadlines yet, so I mostly do this stuff for fun at the moment.


You flatter me. ~ <3
I'll pick a nice one for this year!
I just want you to sing me Christmas songs again
author=kentona
I used Slime Knight as my avatar at work for Teams for months (until they forced us to use employee photos)

Take a photo of yourself dressed as slime knight and make it your avatar!


Also I'm down to voice or anything for this project (RE: commercial). You know I'm a big fan of HR - it's one of my faves.

This slime knight, not the DQ one
my work enforces bitmojis *shudder* it would be dope if employees had to use dragon quest monsters
I used Slime Knight as my avatar at work for Teams for months (until they forced us to use employee photos)
author=Marrend
This post, perhaps? The text specifically talking about making a fan-trailer uses strikeout, so, I question the seriousness of it. Though, LordBlueRouge seems to have a tendency to use strikeout as a "speaking softly" effect, so, I dunno.


I'm always serious...™

...Speaking honestly however, I think visitorsfromdreams would be a better person for the job, since he's done this professionally and I admire his work greatly, (I'm still pinning for slime knight to be RMN's mascot, I would've thrown him into so many commercials).
I don't work well with deadlines yet, so I mostly do this stuff for fun at the moment.

All I really wanna do is remake this:

...into a short commercial and have like cash, liberty and few others say like "Hero's Realm" at the end of it.
As soon as like a demo or something is released, I'll start gathering footage.
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
author=kentona
I could swear that he also offered some months (years?) ago but I cannot remember where the comment was :/


This post, perhaps? The text specifically talking about making a fan-trailer uses strikeout, so, I question the seriousness of it. Though, LordBlueRouge seems to have a tendency to use strikeout as a "speaking softly" effect, so, I dunno.
author=CashmereCat
Ooh excellent! Let's go. Collaboration! lordbluerouge is also great at trailers, if you need more :D

I could swear that he also offered some months (years?) ago but I cannot remember where the comment was :/
CashmereCat
Self-proclaimed Puzzle Snob
11638
Ooh excellent! Let's go. Collaboration! lordbluerouge is also great at trailers, if you need more :D
author=visitorsfromdreams
Yo! If you need help with a trailer hit us up! Ill do it for freeeeeeeee! ;)

100% because I wouldn't even know where to start
Yo! If you need help with a trailer hit us up! Ill do it for freeeeeeeee! ;)
CashmereCat
Self-proclaimed Puzzle Snob
11638
I hardly get time for games anymore but I'm still looking forward to this, even if only because I want success for everyone involved :)
fwiw, your progress bar stinks. Make it an enemy we can fight like Unity did in WaUTaH.

(Tim Hortons also stinks now)
I only finished the og hero's realm recently and it is definitely one of my favorite rm games! Always been looking forward to this so I'm happy to hear you're working on it still. Sorry about the rough time you've been having in recent years though D:
Dyluck
For thousands of years, I laid dormant. Who has disturbed my slumber?
5184
From my experience, my advice is never get any of the sandwiches because they come in a bun as hard as a rock. The chilli is pretty good though.
Glad to hear the game’s still alive! Looking forward to seeing/hearing more! 2020 was a rough year for me, as well. These last few months have also been rough, but I’m glad you got through it all!

And congrats on the new job!
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