Lately I've been feeling like getting back to work on my dream game, Slayers' Reign. And what better way to get back into it by doing some developer commentary? Most of you will find this boring to watch, though, and some of this stuff you guys will already know about. Now, let's see whether I make any actual progress this year.



Going into this, I promised myself I wouldn't do any heavy editing. But there's apparently a lot of extra things I feel need pointed out, so I'm gonna point them out here.

First off, the name of the game. Originally it was called "The Eyes of the Dragon" because of the unique perspective this game takes, but then I found out there was a novel with the same name, so I changed it to "Dragon Warriors of Cradonia" and then "Dragon Warriors of Cradonia: Slayers' Reign", because it was originally going to be part of a series. But then I just left it as "Slayers' Reign" because I decided not to make sequels after all, and "Dragon Warriors of Cradonia" is a mouthful, anyway.

2:07 For some reason, my PS2 is finnicky about how I insert these OFFICIAL PS1 memory cards. And just recently, despite backing out of the memory card manager, one of my cards got wiped whilst trying to finangle the card in properly. Good thing I have backups. Also, I was sooo tempted to black out my name.

9:05 The "buh-dum" effect throughout the intro came as a result of RPGM1's limitations. I wanted to actually show the couple running through the rain, but because the rain consists of sprites, what would've happened is the rain wouldn't have been moving (like with the dog scene). So I needed a better way to show them running. The result speaks for itself.

12:25 Drew's let's play of my previous demo: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLE82AB9E8AF3C863E
The first half-hour or so of what I play here is very different than what he plays, so it's worth checking out his LP to see the differences.

17:40 RPG Maker's chairs only face one direction. A really weird move on the part of the developers.

25:28 Actually, AI is indeed supposed to be chooseable, in case the player wanted a character to act automatically. RPGM1's AI is actually pretty robust, to the point you can choose what actions an AI typically performs in battle.

27:16 Nature's Way is the character-specific AI that I thought AI was for earlier.

27:50 I remembered an example. "Reflect Attack" makes it so you bounce back the damage an enemy tries to do to you and you take no damage. Every. Single. Time. In the end, I think I chose to have them all "Counter Attack" (except the first two for some unknown reason) because counter attacks happened rarely enough that getting one would be as exciting and satisfactory as getting a critical hit.

31:54 I don't actually get this far in my retrospect, so I'll mention it here. You visit this place twice: once in Mick's flashback, and again in the future (this game takes place in a timespan of 25 years). The cutscene from the future takes place in that group of events I hover around. I think the scene is a bit silly, but that may be in part due to the fact it follows a half-hour or so of crap hitting the fan. For those watching Drew's LP, this scene takes place shortly after the end of the demo.

32:35 I'm really not looking forward to coming up with names for all this equipment. I figure I'll wind up doing one of two things: naming them generic names such as "Sword Lv1", "Sword Lv2", etc.; or I'll have someone else come up with the names for me, which would add to my list of credits. Because credits are important.

In Part 2 of this retrospective, I actually spend more time in the editor than I do the actual game. Which is why this is going to be more interesting for people who like inside developer stuff.



4:55 Another thing that bugged me about the dragon world is, that town at the bottom was going to introduce a new party member: a zombie named Malchem. But it occurred to me that Malchem really served no purpose to the plot after his introduction, so I scrapped him, making the town just as pointless as the two dungeons above. On the subject of scrapped characters, I also originally planned on Leviathan on being a party member, as well as there being a Gau ripoff.

5:39 You can see the earlier version of the world map in the let's play I linked to in the previous video.

13:43 Hand motions!

14:26 I kept calling this RPG Maker 3 during the retrospect, for some reason. As a reminder, this is RPG Maker 1. Which is actually the third console entry in Japan, which may explain my confusion. You see, RPG Maker sorta followed the Final Fantasy numbering syndrome, and recently their RPG Maker 4, which never released outside of Japan, has recently been getting some attention because of a fan-made translation patch.

29:33 Unless you use a Take Over command from another page or event.

And in this video, we spend barely any time in the editor. But what time I do spend in the editor is spent showing off something that is quite impressive from a cinematic standpoint.



5:18 Actually, this line has pretty remained unchanged.

11:12 I'm half-right. The Aiming Brace is there to be unequipped for other weapons. But not by Sarah. It's actually for another character you meet later on in the game. That person can dual-wield, and the Aiming Brace is so that person cannot dual wield arrows. If that person tries to equip the arrows, they're also forced to equip the Aiming Brace. Otherwise, the Aiming Brace serves no real purpose statistically.

13:09 Way to show the feature off, self. XC

21:12 Actually, while the beginning of the game is meant to be relatively easy, I notice it's actually a bit TOO easy. I think what's going on is that most of the enemies are still balanced from before I introduced Roger into the game. Either that, or it was balanced from before I decided to include different weapon classes.

23:42 Actually, back in RPG Maker 2000, this wasn't even a character. The tigers acted as save points, because I liked the idea of having an animal be a save point, like in Final Fantasy 9. One such tiger was found living with the old man, which is how the old man wound up with a panther for a friend.

26:27 Another reason why I'm not giving out talents at the start is because the method in which you recover MP isn't introduced until a bit later (next video).

27:30 I think another issue is that in RPGM1, after Level 21, every level requires the same amount of experience (roughly 32,000). And as I mentioned in an earlier video, I'm expecting end-game levels to be in the 40s. On top of that, the most experience a single enemy can give is 9,999. So if I increase boss experience too much, I'm going to hit that cap way too early.

58:27 The other change here was that originally the dragon flew down and blocked your escape. But with the introduction of Roger, I felt a blast of flame would be more appropriate.

Secrets! This game has secrets! Any game worth its weight in optional stuff should have secrets. This game also has its weight in a custom menu.



0:20 I think the hours of nonstop talking has gotten to me. I've noticed my voice has begun to sound a little funny in this series.

21:58 Offhand, I can't remember for certain, but I think after the bridge is rebuilt here, the dog wanders back home on its own. So if you don't grab it on your way to Rockford, you won't have that chance again.

26:43 In fact, Seth and Mick recieved their names as suggested by one of my cousins.

27:29 Actually, I forget to cover this. But if you head back to Slayer Road, she'll be at the lake gathering more water. Ultimately, she's the one who informs the townsfolk that the bridge needed replaced.

29:00 No, you can't. I did allow it during one period of development, but that complicated things more than I would've liked.

30:25 I think what I'm going to do is just have the MP-restoring items restore you in full, rather than force you to blindingly use a bunch of them. At the very least, it'd encourage people to use their MP-consuming spells more often.

30:44 The reason party order might get messed up is because RPGM1 doesn't allow events to restore magic of only a single party member, but instead the whole party. So if the player restores someone's magic in this menu, I have to remove the other party members to do that, then restore the party immediately after, and that's what messes with party order.

Just wanted to point out to everyone here in the thread that majority of the conversation for these videos are happening in the Youtube comments. Probably why this thread isn't getting a lot of attention.

But I will mention that I've really enjoyed your re-visiting of this and I really hope you can pick up the torch and run with it again.

A lot of that YouTube conversation is one particular person being all "RPG Maker VX can do that" and "why can't RPGM1 do this". =P

im waiting to comment until the last video is up. you have heard much of what i was thinking anyway. for myself id be interested in doing a developers commentary but this isnt something ill do for some time. i do think i should release more code so people can see what ive done. why dont you release your custom menu and ill make a file with my pokerish game.

i will say one thing early though in regards to your comment on graphical design. you are not bad at making interiors. you have some good ideas and interestingly innovative approaches. just for the love of all that is holy use less chairs for the tables. unless the queen is coming with all of her court you dont need to have 8 chairs around a table. cut it down to 4 and youll be fine.

I assume you're referring to the setting where the meeting with Anthony takes place. The problem I have with only using four chairs around the table is that we've got a person on three sides during the cutscene. Cutting down to four chairs while still sticking with that arrangement would look funny, cutting down the size of the table would make the table big enough for an arm wrestling match and nothing else, and I'd rather not have Mick and Seth sitting directly side-by-side. If you have any suggestions, I'd like to hear 'em.

you dont need a symmetric set up. 3 people look fine on a table, it wont look out of place. a round table with 8 chairs is insane looking and is way out of place. arrange the chairs like a shuriken star (i cant believe im explaining it this way lol).



imagine if the bladed side was down and the square body was the table itself. have a chair where each of the bladed parts are.

remember, my problem is with round tables have too many chairs, not big tables which need plenty of chairs (great tables i guess they are called).

video 4 25:52 for instance is one place with too many chairs. otherwise your inside graphics are fine.

And in the finale of the retrospective series, I show off how to make a racing mini-game in an RPG Maker that does not feature a timer option, and discuss the possible future of Slayers' Reign.



4:55 Actually, I think I'm a little confused about what I'm trying to explain here. The fact these events used invisible graphics is important, but I'm not entirely sure whether the importance is what I explained here.

16:26 http://youtu.be/0xA6oN1NHbY

29:54 And this is a big reason why I have decided to stick with RPG Maker 1 as the platform of choice for Slayers' Reign. Because anybody who has ever used RPGM1 and has seen its limitations will find this game very impressive. It's actually BECAUSE of its limitations that I came up with creative scenes like the opening. Had RPGM1 allowed me to, I would've had the opening actually have the couple running through rain with like camera motions and stuff. But thanks to the limitations, I managed to come up with something that was actually more cinematically impressive.

But the PC RPG Makers have no limits. So if I did this game on one of them, what I've done here wouldn't be nearly as impressive, and I wouldn't be pushed to the same level of creativity. Plus, in order to compete with the big guns, I'd have to do custom graphics and sound and all sorts of special not-default scripting, and I don't think I'm capable of that. Here on RPGM1, though, this IS a bug gun.

Also, I like elaborate credits sequences, and you can't create elaborate credits sequences if you don't let us know who made the RPG creation tool. *glares at the PC RPGMs*

31:14 If you didn't watch it the first time I linked to it, maybe you're more interested now. Here's the link to the LP Drew did of my demo: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLE82AB9E8AF3C863E