SHYAWAYGAMES'S PROFILE

Hello everyone! shyAwayGames is an indie game developer based out of San Antonio, TX! We specialize in RPG games!
Saga of Denwyn Episode I...
Join Rhone and her allies on their journey from being mage apprentices to court wizards!

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Saga of Denwyn Episode I: Apprenticeship

yes I'm still working on it! The full demo will be done by September!

Game Jam incoming! All are welcome!

Yeah it's still crappy though. Like I felt like this was a really good opportunity to learn a lot from everyone's submissions and get to know more people and give back to the community... and then some random just, quite literally, shatters all hopes of it happening.

Game Jam incoming! All are welcome!

author=Sooz
Holy crap, that's balls! :(
Well, I found someone to do a last minute repair on the vehicle (literally a day before we departed the area) so it was a very, very close call and with the money I had left over, I bought my niece a gift for Christmas. :(

Wish I could've spent that money on the community, though - as I see a lot of good work that goes into the indie games published not just on this site, but itch.io and gamejolt as well!

Game Jam incoming! All are welcome!

Hey everyone! Yeah... Sorry about that. COMPLETELY HAD TO CALL OFF THE GAME JAM.

Some winner decided to break into my car 3 days before Christmas (where I had a 2 day drive to Illinois and a 2 day drive back to Texas) so all of the money I had planned for prizes (over $200, from yours truly) had to go towards a new car window and replacing everything that was stolen - isn't that grand?!

So let me formally apologize for not keeping on top of this to the community - and I will have to host another game jam for everyone at a later date.

For anyone interested in a game jam which is happening currently, there is the global game jam! Just check it out on Google, or I believe there was a link posted in this thread for the Global Game Jam!

Once again, my deepest apologies to everyone who had their heart set on this game jam. There was a lot of buzz going on about it - since we were also accepting entries from TCGs and Tabletop games in addition to Video Games.

Just can't have anything nice around here, I suppose. :(

Saga of Denwyn Episode I: Apprenticeship

author=djbeardo
Hey, I saw that Driftwood did a play of your game! Pretty cool! I haven't watched it yet.

So I watched it. And I really think Drifty did you wrong, man. He bailed on his playthrough way too quickly. I think that video says more about him than it does about your game.


Yeah so I finished watching the game review. I think he had some fair points, but I think he bailed too quickly on the game too. I really think I need to railroad the player in the very beginning so that way they don't just wander around for no reason - or at least do my best as the dev to prevent that from occurring... What I took from it was this:

Railroad player early on - at least until the first cutscene (I don't want to automate the process through an event, but I might have to - maybe just transfer the player to the Mage's District the first time they take the exit and bypass the market district - I dunno.

Lock/Deny entry to areas with nothing until there is a reason beyond "Exploring" for the player to go there. This is really about the Commons District. It's old, run down, nearly abandoned - the only reason to go there is for a cutscene for Yael with the orphanage - that's it. So I guess I could just leave it optional or integrate it into the actual storyline.

Fix a lot of little display/eventing errors like fireplaces, etc.

Fix the "Default" aspects of the game - this is a planned thing for the 5.6 and 5.7 versions - where the actual polish goes on and I go through the game with a fine-toothed comb, document every single little thing wrong, then 1 by 1 go in and fix it - then test it again.

Just a lot of minor issues I think can be easily resolved to one degree or another... I still may allow the player to go walk around the Market District so that way they can at least get a LITTLE taste of exploring everything in the world... but still keep them contained in a smaller area compared to the current set up.

Saga of Denwyn Episode I: Apprenticeship

hmm - its an old version of the game anyway - no hard feelings

Saga of Denwyn Episode I: Apprenticeship

Oh he did? I mean I asked him to check it out and everything, but like... I didn't want him to make a video about it because it's definitely not ready lol.

But it's all good I guess - I haven't even seen the video, watching it now.

[RMMV] The Tale of "Tale of Aranath": What I've learned along the way...

Admin willing to x-pose to a blog post pretty please with sugar on top? :D

(still on my phone)

[RMMV] The Tale of "Tale of Aranath": What I've learned along the way...

Hmm... maybe I should've made it a blog post. haha.

[RMMV] The Tale of "Tale of Aranath": What I've learned along the way...

Hey everyone! So I started this whole gamedev journey from nothing except a general knowledge of programming... right now I'm on my 10th iteration of Tale of Aranath! I have about 200 downloads of the game across all versions (which I'm really happy about... and honestly surprised) of the game and about 11 subscribers interested enough in the game that they want to see the mundane updates I post in devlogs / blogs.

So as far as I'm concerned, I've already been mildly successful being as Tale of Aranath is my first game ever... like... ever, ever.

And so it begins:

I didn't really mess around with tiny games before jumping into a large project... I approached the gamedev thing with the mindset of "Hey, I have this game I've been thinking about for a really long time - I've just never had the engine, money, or anything else to get started" and then I downloaded RPGMaker MV on a steam sale one day and the engine just sat there for the longest... I think it was probably in my library for around 8 months before I remembered I had bought it. So anyways I open the program and immediately I was like "So this is what a game engine looks like...?" - I mean REALLY not knowing WHAT the hell I was doing AT ALL. So for me... it was a pretty steep learning curve. Hell, I didn't even know about plugins (I would like to say right now, thank God for Yanfly) until after my 2nd month of dicking around with the engine. I would just spend hours and hours watching sumrndmdde's tutorials and trying to emulate what he was doing and TRYING to understand EXACTLY what was happening on the screen and why it was happening... So I was essentially "trying to learn how to build the plane as I was flying it." Every bit of knowledge I managed to hold on to, I found a way to apply it towards the game. Doors, Map transitioning, events... everything. Somewhere along 2... 2.5 months is when the switch kind of flipped ON in my head.

This is when I began testing out new things and truly learning about the engine- what I couldn't do with it or what was impractical to do. I actually found a way (albeit a very long and tedious way) to make a polymorph mechanic for the game during this time and I remember feeling like it was a huge achievement or a milestone - and it was at that point - but I didn't see the real issue: I didn't have a plan of attack for the game except pick up everything I can as fast as I can and hit the ground running.

That process continued until recently - so let's fast forward to now.

I now had the abilities to use the engine, plugins, and the experience required to properly test new things I wanted to do with the game. I learned how to easily make cutscenes. I learned all about switches and variables and how to make the most out of them. I learned all sorts of things! I'm still learning all sorts of things and it's wonderful! So here's all I can really say about what I've learned about the entire process so far:

  • For the love of god - if you don't know what the s*#t you're doing - START SMALL.

I never thought I would be the one to say this, but just start a little piece of crap game to familiarize yourself with whichever engine you decide to use. You won't have to go back (as I have shamefully done) and rewrite entire SECTIONS of the game... because it's just a crappy little game that doesn't matter anyways and you can easily scrap it and start fresh with no investment in it. So please, just do yourself that one favor if you DO anything at all.

  • Re-watch any/all tutorials you may have seen


This is a necessary evil. Youve seen it like 3 or 4 times already, but i assure you that once you start your big project - youre gonna forget something. Something important. So - and this is what I actually did - until you've gotten to the point where you only need to ask VERY SPECIFIC, CIRCUMSTANTIAL questions, play the tutorials in the background like they're music! You actually learn a lot this way and I can just think time and time again when I wasn't sure about something, I could recall what the tutorial said if I actually thought about it (now it's pretty much automatic).

  • Market your game. I mean ACTUALLY market your game


Yeah... If you're trying to sell a commercial game... turns out you have to talk to people (to my dismay). You mayg think that "OH, THIS GAMES SUPER BADASS AND IT'S GOING TO BE AMAZING AND..." Blah bla-Blah bla-Blah. Naw man, doesn't work like that unless you're a fluke (Minecraft)... and I do mean a FLUKE. You have to put in some SERIOUS time networking with other people and marketing your product if you want success. Like... weeks. Months... You get the idea. Keep in mind - ALL WHILE MAKING YOUR GAME. Sounds easy... but you spend 4 hours (minimum) talking to people on forums, social media, email, and everything else EACH DAY and see how big of a wrench it throws into actually getting to work on the game! Which brings me to my next point...

  • Have a team; Someone; Anyone; Just get one!


You will be pulled thin in every direction without help. Find help. Buy help. Request help. Whatever you need to do: just get more than two hands working on the project. You will soon be in over your head and, for me at least, hear the phrase "I AM OVERBURDENED!" like a nonstop f*$^ing record in your head as you're rushing around trying to do EVERYTHING. So yeah... don't. Don't do everything... not alone, anyways.

There's a WHOLEEEEEEEEE LOT MORE to say l; but I've been typing this on my phone and it's very inconvenient... So I'll leave it here for now.
Heed my warnings - or don't.

-shyAway
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