its been a while since i did an update on my progress so now would be a good time to level with you.

i havent done very much due to the acquisition of a few new games and the huge time eater of a new system i very much want to play. additional excuses are: max hours at work, very sleepy over taxation of my body, and real life chores that demand my attention (you can also blame sez for taking the last bits of my time).

to bring you up to speed on my dilemas ive detailed this in two parts, the first being my 3rd card woes and the final being changes ive made.

3rd card woes:

when i hit the 3rd card i couldnt figure out what to do for the story. i knew that by the end of that card i would have to have all 4 elements connect like wild arms does, but i wasnt sure if i could do it in one card. i could very well go on to a 4th card but i want to end this 4 different story arc thing because lets face it, its a b*tch. with one story arc i can move forward with the plot much faster and i dont have to build each part at the same time and hope for enough space. this means im going to have to edit the past cards a bit to speed up some of the story bits so they can match the speed that the 3rd card will be moving at.

here is how the cards are laid out. the first card introduces the characters and their problems, the 2nd card exemplifies their traits and the situations plus the world/time they live in, and the 3rd card introduces the main catastrophes facing each of their respected time periods. this way when they join up at the end of the 3rd card they each are still facing personal problems that wont confuse the player and the player will understand what is going on in each time period before i introduce the main story arc which is the focus of the game.

if i did not lay it out this way then the game would be crippling to me and the player in its complexity. by breaking it up into pieces i can let everything sink in before i weave it all together. when i release the demo i will have to see just what the players think and edit accordingly so most people will be able to pick up on the story without reading every post ive made in this forum. i dont imagine my woes will end with the uniting of the 4 arcs, but ill tackle that hurtle when i get there.


here are some of the changes i have made/decided:

-though i havent built much in my game, i have on the other hand been thinking about the direction id like to take it and ironed out some of the serious problems that have been stone walling my progress. since i find creating dialog for the dating mini game to be such a massive choir and to not be even remotely fun to craft anything that would be exciting to the player i have chosen to discard it and the many hours i put into getting this far into it. if i ever want to progress this game then this is a necessary step and will have to save this mini game idea for a time when i do wish to create it. also i found having two really good and memory intensive mini games on one scenario card puts me in a huge war for space which results in a less then satisfactory gameplay. with the removal of the game i will free up some space that i can devote to two smaller mini games, and perhaps add some additional story elements or extras that will give the game the type of feel i want.

one of those mini games will be a short car racing game though i havent figured out how im going to make that work, though i have had the design made since i began the 2nd card. the other which ive put more thought into will be a fighting game similar to the one that guy has displayed on you tube. mine will of course be different, though the video has given me a few ideas as to how to tackle my version. mine will end up more closer to rock paper scissors. i dont want it to be that stale so ill have other elements and use the same types of coding i used for the castlevania mini game (which is nearly finished and ready for a test play).

-ive also been at war over consistency between the two cards, removing some needless elements and trying to meet obligations that i laid out in the beginning but forgot or didnt bother to meet until now. some of these changes is the reoccurring items such as Guilded Falcon dialog, wrongly colored chests, repetitive lines of text for certain events, same functions for various repeating elements, and check everything text prompting (click on it and it gives you a blurb).

-also history is the wonder essence item that i made which revives the player with no penalties. ive decided to just make the battles painless and give the player zero penalties for dieing except that they will have to go through the dungeon again (since death will restart them at the dungeon entrance).

-inns have been eliminated and replaced with a free service (the athena shrines) since sleeping at an inn is cleche and the player could get just as good a sleep outside and for free.

-also reduced will be the shops. in a game that doesnt rely on battling to push the story, there is no need to have new equipment every town or to have every damn shop available so this will clear up space for regular town houses with more story dialog bits plus stop some of the lame repetitiveness that has creeped into my towns (the sameish shops and a few obligatory town homes=lame)

-the jury is still out on weather ill eliminate status items though i think i will remove all the status curing items and replace it with the single remedy item. i dont think anyone would stock pile status items with the exception of antidotes (since rpg maker is evil when it comes to poison effects). this would also means magic status causers would go bye bye as not many would even use them and even if they did it wouldnt be very likely to hit the monsters.

-towns folks need to change their information once in a while. when i have extra space i should start doing this. this isnt necessary for many towns since backtracking is long gone, but at the very least the towns folks need to have more then one line of crappy text to say.

-in the same token ive also begun adding more lines of text to random objects as mentioned earlier. i always enjoyed a nice entertaining statement when clicking on a normally routine item. not every item will have this though enough of them to make it worth while to click and check everything.

-i have also taken a shining to adding insultive text when a player loses a battle or does something dumb during an event. i prefer this kind of twisted humor to being overly serious in my games. this also gives more opportunity for interesting choice dialogs that produce interesting bits of speech. some choices will effect the game and will have ramifications later on. a game gets very boring if the plot is stale and liner rather then open ended and player controlled.

this update is much more detailed then i had originally intended but i think it was a good idea to make it to clear up some doubt in my mind and to give you guys an example of what it is i am doing. people make two kinds of games on this site: games made within 100 hours or less and games made with 100000 hours or more. to my chagrin my imagination only allows me to create exponentially growing epics. youd think id of sorted this all out in the 9 years its been in production.

Something I've never really minded is the townsfolk of a village saying the same things over and over. To me, once they've said their piece, they're usually finished and you can continue in a straight line.

If you game is linear, then I wouldn't worry much about that. Save the space you can for the big events.

interesting perspective, ill keep it in mind. i really need to work on long bits of story events, i suppose thats my next step to tackle.