So, to catch up those not in the know, I've cancelled my plans for Sourdough Eyeglasses and am now working on a new game much in the same vein.

There's not much I can say, since most things are still in planning. What I can say is that it's a platforming game, and will use many of the same gameplay techniques used in Donkey Kong. So this could be considered a "spiritual sequel" of sorts. I wanted to expand on some ideas I had for Donkey Kong.

Here's the story:

"There's a rumor running wildly around schoolyards all over the town of Littletown. The rumor states that anyone standing in the local arcade at the stroke of midnight will witness all the lights turn on magically, and all arcade machines will play for free. Tempted by the idea of playing his favorite games for free, Josh sneaks out of his bed one foggy evening to see if the rumor is true. Sneaking into the local arcade, he waits until midnight for his favorite machines to turn on.

It turns out the rumor is only half true. While all the lights do turn on, the games don't play for free. Josh understandably gets a little upset. Thinking the switch for free play is somewhere close, he reaches into the back of his favorite arcade game to find a switch, only to recieve a nasty electric shock!

When Josh next opens his eyes, he's having an out-of-body experience! The grim reaper shows up to take Josh where no mortal should go, but the grim reaper is shocked to learn that Josh's body still has a heartbeat, and according to Death rules, he can't take any soul away until the body is completely dead. So, to humor both Josh and himself, the grim reaper challenges Josh to a series of tests to see if Josh should be allowed to live. Careful there Josh. In this game of life and death, you only get one credit."


I've been slowly working on progress for this game. Since so much is still undecided (including the title), progress is somewhat slow. I've created many of the levels related to the beginning of the game, which have been very carefully detailed. The hubworld for Josh has been transferred over from Sourdough Eyeglasses, so much work there is complete.

I'm a little concerned, since there's still a lot of things I'm trying to figure out as far as pace, story, settings, and many other decisions. I'm forcing myself to charge on, however, because I know I can always edit whatever doesn't work.

I'll hopefully have more to report next time. Feel free to leave any suggestions or comments.

Drat, there goes one of my ideas.

I like how you described the game. I love the idea that he is attempting to game away from home at midnight.

I'm currently hooked on a problem.

I could go either two ways here: One, I could have the game as a simple platforming game, jump here, do this, much like Super Mario World. Or I could add abilities and have areas unreachable when you first see it, but unlockable with equipment you get later in the game, like Banjo-Tooie.

This is kinda holding me up because the level design would have to revolve around that fact, and would have to be changed accordingly. Since the worlds would have hubworlds connecting individual levels, it's possible to do either one, really.

I'm leaning more towards a simpler game design, so I may go with the Mario approach. Feel free to comment on what you think.

Today I got a lot done. Which is very good for both production and morale, because progress had been slow till today.

I have worked on the very first level you'll encounter, 1-1. I plan to give these levels individual names sometime soon.

The first level is fairly simple. You start at the top of a dock-like structure. You then use the jump pads on the dock to move down to the next one, and the net one. On the final dock, you jump into the water with a cool little splash animation. Here, you can swim in all directions (unlike the docks, which is mostly left and right), and swim below the rocks through an underwater cave. In the water with you are multiple enemies (those have yet to be added), and make your way out of the cave, back out of the water, on dry land, and finish the level!

Making the rock formation and cave was rather time consuming. Rather than using the same rock tile over and over, I used a rock pillar and used it rather randomly throughout the level. It makes for something far better than using only one tile.

I also finished an extra hidden in the level. On the top level, you can cut a barrel down to the second level, and from second to third, etc, until it's in the water. At the bottom of the water you can push the barrel onto an enemy, taking it out and getting something special. It took me a long time to program the falling barrel, mostly because I had debugging issues with it falling on another event, making it unmovable. I had to fix that in a rather unique way; to give room to both events and keep them close, I split the whole level and lengthed it by one tile across. It made for a bit of re-fixing, but it all worked out.

So Level 1-1 is nearly done, and most of it is finished. I still need to add enemies and other smaller stuff. I also re-did the hubworld a bit. Before you talked to a guy and he let you through, and you took a long winding path to whichever world you wanted to visit. Now you jump between places, and can't head back to the main hubworld after you take the initial jump. This will help me keep the game glitch free; Since the player can't return after he's jumped, switches and items can be turned off or re-arranged.

Will post more progress as it develops.

No.


It better not look like the marshlands from Usuru.

This sounds really fun. Also, Bango Tooie is a good game.

Nothing like the swamplands in Usuru, trust me. Organized randomness is what I was going for, and I got a pretty good result.

Personally, I didn't enjoy Banjo Tooie (lots of things rubbed me the wrong way), but I've decided to go with the simpler method. The way I have it planned now is that certain levels will have new pathways that only show up on harder difficulties. For example, playing through the first level I just made, you go under a rock formation, but in Hard mode there's a jump pad that'll let you go over it to possibly unlock a new level.

It's still all speculation, but this is how I'd like the game to play out.

I approve that idea.

Alrighty, got some more progress done.

1-1 Sea Cave (it's offical name), is mostly complete. I finished putting in the rest of the enemies, and I need to playtest the level to check for difficulty. I want the level to be somewhat easy, but I want to make sure the enemy placement doesn't create any problems.

The most exciting progress I have done is developing a new level, 1-2 Sand Fun. The whole level is completely drawn in, and a good amount of coding is finished. The level starts in a sandy area, where you walk across to the right and jump your way up some cliffs. Then, you make a big jump onto a high cliff, and reach some floating platforms. Here, you avoid enemies, and make your way up to finish the level. The little challenge here is a small, almost unseeable ledge that you have to jump on to from above. The trick is, there are several jump points. One is way off the mark, one gets you very close, and one makes it onto the ledge. What you get there, I haven't decided yet. But the level is designed nicely to hide it so you can almost see it from below, which adds a little challenge.

And so far, these two levels have been more basic platforming. But that will change with Level 1-3 Bridges and Baddies, another level I've worked on today. I only have half the level designed and there's almost no coding right now, but I hope to have some more unique challenges in this level, and playtesting a certain concept has proven great results, so I'll tell you about it next time I work on the game and get this level more complete.

In other news, I'm trying something different with this project. I've set up epsxe on my computer and have learned to take screenshots. What I hope to do soon is make a picture progress topic. When I type out in words what I've been doing, I imagine it's difficult to get a mental picture of what I'm doing. The picture progress topic would post pictures of all the progress I've made to a certain point, and give you a clear picture of what I'm doing. I think it sounds like a really neat idea. My only problem making it work is finding something to upload the pictures to. I'm going to start looking into image hosters and whatever image hosting the Mag has. Hopefully I can make this work!

That's all for now. Stay tuned.

Aside from IMAGine, Photobucket is probably the best image hosting site.

Before I start talking about my progress today (and to a lesser extent, yesterday), I'm proud to announce that the Picture Progress report I had planned is up and running! Take a look at the new game in progress, here:
viewtopic.php?f=64&t=8229

I worked on Level 1-1 a little yesterday. It's nearly completely....complete. Graphics are final, scripts are nearly final, and playtesting is almost finished.

Today I finished up the coding for 1-2. I still want to alter the level a bit, but it's otherwise finished.

And 1-3 saw a lot of coding and playtesting. The idea I wanted for this level was to make a bridges-themed level, and that's why it's called Bridges and Baddies. At the start of the level you have to operate a machine that will extend a drawbridge to let you cross. You operate this machine manually by pressing left and right alternately. This little short segment was a huge pain to make. It didn't work right most of the time and it needed to be altered constantly to stop all the incorrect coding. But hey, it's finally up and running smoothly. Another shorter segment later involves taking out a baddie blocking your way by 'accidently' dropping a sword on him. So you actually use the environment to kill him, which I thought was a nifty idea. 1-3 isn't completely finished, but it's getting close. Just some more baddies and it'll be done, moving me to the next exciting level to create!

And that's it for now. Until next time!

Worked on the game a little today. I mostly took the time to polish up Level 1-3 and finish the majority of the coding.

One area that disappoints me is something I learned through trial and error today. Monsters can't walk over invisible events that have the clear graphic. For those who don't know, you can make a clear event (graphic 38 I believe, color 3) and this allows the character to walk on unwalkable events. Which is a great tool for level design, especially in a platforming game. However, since enemies can't walk on such events, they are stuck wherever you put them. So to have movable enemies, I have to use walkable tiles. Not a deal breaker, but it is unfortunate.

Before I finish, let's talk release date. I would love to release this sometime before the end of the year, maybe December 2009. That's a very optomistic forecast (spelling? who needs it?). I think a more realistic release is January/Feburary 2010. If I really dropped the ball or got pushed back, March would be the worst case scenario. So, look forward to it!

Hey there everyone.

Lately I've been doing a retro-revival of sorts with media. Playing old games and seeing old shows again, which has slowed my progress lately. Today I got some more work done.

I've been working on the beginning of the game. Since I'm recently dry on new level ideas, I went to work on the first introductionary levels. I'm still fiddling around with how to approach the intro, but I'm thinking of making the game somewhat interactive. My original plan was to make it a simple narrative, and get to the gameplay right away. The new plan is to give the character some cutscenes, and also make part of the introduction playable. The cutscene starts with Josh explaining how he learned the rumor of the arcade at midnight, and them it's up to you to get him out without getting caught. You can either go out the window, which is easy and gets right to the game, or you can sneak through out the front door, which requires you to be stealthy. I figure I could also explain how the game works, like a tutorial of sorts.

In any case, most of the level design has been finished. The interior of the arcade has also seen a massive upgrade in visuals, with many differently designed arcades everywhere.

Hopefully I'll get most of the intro done in the next couple of weeks. Ixzion also recommended I try playing Fufu and Nano-bot for inspiration. I might also do that as well. I'll let you know either way.

I also updated the picture progress topic with highlights from level 1-2. I would post the shortcut link, but I lost it....Doh.

Worked a bit on the game yesterday, got some more work done.

I made a new level, 1-4 BB Gun (short for Big Big Gun). I'm sure you can already tell where this level is going. Right at the start of the level, you can see the exit, but can't get to it because it's covered by a titanium rock. To remove that rock, you blast it with a nearby gun. The gun has no power however; you must follow a fuse through the small level and find the end of it. At the end of the fuse line is some flint. Josh makes a spark and lights the fuse, giving the gun power allowing you to blast the rock and finish the level.

The level code is all complete, and work has begun on the coding part.

I'm also thinking of making a big change to the game. Instead of 8 levels per world, I'm thinking of cutting that to 4, not including the boss. This will allow more variety and keep the game moving at a quicker pace, while using a standard of lives I'm used to. See, in Donkey Kong I gave the player three lives to complete four worlds, and it worked out really well, so I'm thinking of using it here. Feel free to chime in with what you guys think.

I'd also like to get the game a proper title. Calling it an unnamed new platformer isn't exactly appealing to me. Even if it was something as basic as "Josh's Adventure", it'd still be something. I haven't thought of a good one myself, because I want the title to reflect the game the player is going to play. I guess what I'm asking are suggestions for a game title. Something that's more relevant than cool sounding.

Do post any comments or suggestions you may have.

Grim's Games?

Death's Rules?

Josh's out-of-body Adventure?

I like the third suggestion Duel. I may use something like that for the title. Thanks.

Now for some small progress. I admit progress has been a little slow. I've been doing many other things lately, froming re-watching Dragonball Z to re-playing games, etc. And with the news of a new RPG Maker for the DS, I wonder if anyone is reading these little progress updates. I did finish a bit of the coding for level 1-4. I finished most of the easier scripts in the coding, such as jumping and re-directing the player so they don't walk on certain areas. I'll still need to add in enemies and the tougher coding some other time.

I think that I'll probably go with 4 levels and a boss level for each world. That way there is a fair bit of variety and it will be easier to balance the game this way.

Many of the levels are linked up, and I playtest each one before moving on, but it's been a while since I've checked how these levels connect and if there's any problems moving between levels. Something else on my to-do list that I'll need to finish.

Me, Duelpro, Bo, Valkysas, MRevelle, Obright, FlamingMage, salamander, and Ryner, to name a few.

If you're worried that interest would wane because of the announcement, well, how many RPG Makers have we had since RPGM1? The only RPGM that killed interest was RPGM2, and that was only for a short while.

I don't mean killing interest in the "there's a new maker, let's abandon the others!", I was thinking more like, "RPG Maker DS could get translated! Hooray!". Where the initial excitement of something new would drown out my little progress updates. But then again as you point out, there are lots of people interested in my little game, so I shouldn't worry over it too much. I'm very grateful to all for you for your support.

And I also finished a bit of coding related to the hubworld. In the hubworld there are many different jukeboxes. The nifty thing about them is I plan on setting them to a switch and having the music you choose change the music of the hubworld....until you change it. So you could choose a theme you really like, leave the hubworld and when you return, it'll still be playing.

So far I have four jukeboxes finished, and the advanced coding will still need to be finished. What I'd like to do are make special jukeboxes that will play certain music that other games use alot. Say, a special jukebox will allow you to play a certain theme from Usuru: Ultimate Story, or play the hubworld theme from Donkey Kong. With any luck I'd like to extend this to something I could host for other people's creations. Say, playing a theme from Secret of Everyone or Slayers' Reign. It's a nice thought, anyway, and we'll see how it works out.

And one last thing I keep forgetting to mention....I have 2 system blocks and 2 scenario blocks! Woohoo!

I never found any reason to do anything special with the music. Everyone who owns RPGM1 is able to hear the songs whenever they want, and every RPGM1 game gathers from the same collection of songs. Saying that you'll collect music from Arc Arath or that game which shall not be mentioned by name (FYI) would be like saying that you'll be collecting music from Abyss of Vynsaga, Acre-Age, Fu-Fu, Devil Hunter Moniko, Dark Illusions, Jester's Hunt, Lady Tuts, Door: The Game, Monster Football RPG, Purgatory, Man Getting Hit In The Groin RPG, Watch Grass Grow, and so forth.