Woot... and fail... at the same time. On the woot side, I've gotten an amazing ammout of work done in comparison to these past few months. I've finally finished what's going to be the party's replacement for that crappy teleport spell RM1 comes with. I couldn't use that anyway because when you'd start a new game on New Game Plus, you could go to places before you should which could ruin some stuff.

In lue of that, I've made something sort of like the End of Time from Chrono Trigger. There are a total of 7 diffrent world maps (spread throught 2 worlds) and each one has what we are calling a "Luna Gate". Each one will lead to this palce called the "Lunasphere" which has 7 differnt warp type points. I spend a good deal of time making this area look worth while... it's definately alot more complex than simply moving location. I'm really pleased with how it turned out.

Anyway, the fail side of things. I'm pretty much caught up with SK's work. Which means I'll be sitting on my ass doing nothing for a good while. The worst part is that I'm really pumped to get some work done.

*sigh*

Ah well...

I know the feeling, 'cept usually I have to wait until I have the chance to work on my game due to me being at work or something.

Heh, when I said "sitting on my ass for a while", I didn't mean for like a day or two... this is probably going to be a matter of weeks. Maybe months.

And here's why:



Anyway, so I have two options. Just lose interest and pick it back up whenever SK feels like it. Or keep the hype and offend him somehow and contine to wait longer. I kind of think he may be losing interest all together. I mean, when was the last time he's even posted here in our own studio?

Oh well... don't mind me. I just felt like this and didn't want to just sit there and deal with it. Getting it out kind of liberates it a bit. Because talking to SK about it would end up in another threat to delay the game even more. I think it's unfair... But I'm honestly powerless to do anything about it but post here. I just didn't want to keep bottling this up. Telling anyone else would be kind of pointless as they wouldn't really care. Everyone here at least can kind of sympathize with me... And I'm greatful for that. But anyway, I'm just rambling... so kindly disreguard this post.

Well, you could always go back to earlier sections of the game to do some tweaking. I do that all the time.

I can't do that either. When he has it, he'll go back and change past scenarios too. So if I changed things on my copy... when he gave me his work that would allow me to begin working on it again, it would over-ride whatever I might have done.

Maybe if you paid him to. $5 a scenario.

Eh, that's sounds frustrating.
I hope you cam work it out somehow.

Arc Arath will definately not be released in 2008. Expected some time perhaps the first or second quarter of '09.

::edit::

Also, don't expect an update for quite a long time.

Trust me, this isn't the way I want it to be... and if I could do something about it, I would. But I can't.

*dusts off topic*

*coughs and waves said dust out of face*

April 5th was the last time I really had any work done... and here on July 28th, I can finally update again. With SK and I moving and with other events happening, there has been a good deal of delays. I had enough time durring the down time to <a href="http://www.rpgmmag.com/game_display.php?id=194">make a little demo</a> separate from Arc Arath.

But at long last, I've finally got my hands on it again. What work has been done is getting all the scenes ready for the final strecth of the game. And when I say that, I mean that the goal at that point of the game is to barrel through straight to the final boss... though, there'll be quite a bit in the way... it just doesn't derive from your main objective all too much.

Also, we are at the point in the game were there are more than four party members... which means I finally get to work on that custom menu for changing them out mentioned back at the end of march of this year. I've already got the basic part of it done. when it's finished, I think I'll put a video up of it here.

The reason the progress bar in my sig hasn't been updated in so long, is because I believe that we should be finished with the story and working on the battle system at 70%. And I usually only increase that bar by 5% when I update it. Though, I can promise you, once it hits 70, you'll be seeing it update alot more regularly instead of 5% incraments.

Also, the updates are going to be a little spacious like this until 70% as well. SK really doesn't like to post in the studio... he really doesn't even like telling me what he's done (though I've never understood why). So the gaps when there is no updates, you can assume he's got it for the time being.

Okay, I'm going to try something new. I wanted to try and do a video update instead of just text this time. Also, this will actually give you almost a demo type feel as it'll be actual gameplay.

<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/0baj2zObEO0&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/0baj2zObEO0&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>

One thing I did not mention is that at any time while you are forming your party, you can hit square and check the party's stats and equipment by hitting square. Oh, and I'm not sure why it didn't record the audio for the game and just the audio of me speaking. Ah well.

Anyways, let me know what you think. If you guys liked this, I'll try to do it more often. Also, let me know what you think of the menu. If you think it could look better, let me know because I kind of think it could... I just don't know what to do with it though.

The party changing system looks good and the video is an excellent idea.

Great menu!

That's really cool. More impressive than my menu will be (basic flashing characters). The custom arrow sprite just makes the UI look more user-friendly.

Question, how did you code the ability to scroll through each character?

Actually, the character models have less code than anyone. There's litterally nothing in them. Just a number of pages with conditions.

First off, the actual party is dead center in the screen... just on disappear.surrounding the party are events. But the important one here is either the left or right event.

When you touch one of them (you don't actually move because there isn't a floor to walk on) they turn on and off events. This is how I have it set up

The first character highlighted (and walking) is set to switch 1 (which is on when you first get into the menu). So if I tough the right event, I want it to go and highlight the next character. So the next page for the touch event should be with a condition. If switch 1 is on... you want to turn off switch 1 and turn on switch 2.

The second character on the list, is set to light up and walk on switch 2... and you just do like that for all 8. Of course, actually selecting them and making sure they aren't re-selectable is another story... bu tthat's how you scroll. Just know that for the left event, you'd need to do that backwards (if switch 1 is on then turn switch 1 off and switch 8 on.)

... All right, well, everyone, I thought it would be good to make a post here on progress since it has been so long. 'Slow as it seems to be going, I guess you would at least like to hear that we're still getting closer, however little by little.

... So, I am trying to get the greater bulk of the storyline part of scenario 12 out of the way before I must go back to slaving away in the dusty barrens I call a bromine laboratory this weekend ^_^, and, I guess, by now this would probably bring the total completion of the game to almost 70%. ... Meh. Even now I am still reminded of the time that Lantis, Sang Yung, and I were about to try remaking this game on RPGMaker 2 a few years ago. And here I thought at that time that it was a lot of work. ... Yup.

God, if you guys made this game on RPGM2 you would never finish because you would realize just how much you can do with it and you would be too tempted to make your scenarios as complex as possible. So it would be a totally professional quality game when it came out in 2083.

..... Well, I guess so, yeah. ^_^

Well, I've gotten my grubby little hands on Scenario 11 and 12. 11 is mostly done, I just have to tie up a few loose ends with a few switches, but 12 is going to need a good deal of work as there's allot of text with no scene to go with it... yet.

The worst part is that now is that there are so many new games coming out right now, it'll be hard to put them down to go work on it. I mean, I intend to play through Dead Space, Star Ocean (PSP, which btw is just awesome), Disgaea 3, and a plethora of games that I don't own yet like Rockand 2, Fable 2, LittleBigPlannet... as well as games soon to be out like Mirror's Edge and the Chrono Trigger remake for DS.

What's a gamer to do?