Name one thing that you added to your MV Project today

[Dad3353]

I'm now exhausted, totally whacked, pooped... I've spent the afternoon being chased by a wild boar around the South Forest. It was supposed to give up after a few seconds, but could I get it to work..? I could not..! Rescued by one LTN Games of this parish who, after a few exchanges of screen shots and scripts, came up with an elegant and, more importantly, working, script call that did the job and calmed the swine. It's a bit of a shame, really, as these are features of my Demo that few seem likely to see. I had offered the question on the Forum as to whether it could interest anyone to have a 'jump-start' version of the Demo, so as to have a look at the various parts without having to actually play the game. I realise that this would be a question, not of a few minutes, but, at best, a good few hours, as it's now almost completed..! I've had no response, so I don't know who will see any of these puzzles and challenges. Never mind, the raison d'être was to learn, and to prove, to myself at least, that a heck of a lot can be done using only what comes 'standard', without sacrificing quality game play.
I'll update the Web version this evening, and maybe the Windows and Mac 'zip' files, too, taking the Demo up to version 0.48. More yet to be done, but I'm modestly pleased with it so far. Too complacent, maybe..? Maybe...

 

[Companion Wulf]

Today's major update for Otherworld started with the (mostly) completed Character Selection plugin. And it ended with the first draft of each character's starting maps (these aren't tied in with the plugin yet...Details! Details!)

We wrote some more to the storylines too. More like synopses really, to be properly fleshed out later. And character details were further developed.

Next ptoject: to work on Swan's graphics and overall improvements.

 

[CynicSyndrome]

Today, I perfected my Item Storage system mechanics, which I will add as the 3rd app in my Player PC system. The item storage code uses no plugins. it allows players to check their party's inventory of items, check your stored amount of items, withdraw and deposit items, toss out items from your inventory, or toss out items from storage. As you may expect it comes at the cost of 123 lines of code to copy and correct per item in the game, excluding some key items you cannot deposit. This all comes after I finished the banking/credit/shopping system without plugins. At the moment these features are accessed at a PC or ATM, but I may have, later in the game, mobile apps that can do the same.

 

[Dad3353]

The interesting part (or rather the most interesting part..?) is, I find, the challenge of coming up with new ideas for advancing the story, offering a puzzle for the Player to solve, not repeating oneself, yet re-using the resources and Items already discovered, but in a new way. I've already had the Hero use Fertiliser to cross the Marshes; he's now confronted, in the South Forest, with a stream to cross. If there's any Fertiliser, this time he can have a 'Stepping Lily' grow, and leap across. This takes us into the Southern Lost Forest, in which one can easily get ...errrr... lost..! The unique way through is across a wooden Bridge; who'd have thought it, but the Bridge is down..! I had to copy a few 'A' tiles to a 'B' tileset, with a short spell in Photoshop to make the holes in the Bridge. Then comes the fun of having the Hero look for a suitable Tree to fell (in a Forest..? Not so easy..!) and repair the Bridge. Further on, still on the unique path, there are more trees to fell, with the additional inconvenience of leaving behind a stump..! No problem; if our resourceful Hero still has a Pick, he can dig up the stump and clear the way.
Each blow with the Pick, or the Axe, reduces its usefulness, until it's all used up and need repairing. It's going to be a bit of a nuisance to have to return to town for that; the solution, if one has enough Gold, is to buy a Mithril Pick or Axe beforehand, which are unbreakable (well, a million strokes; should be enough, I'd say..?).There is also a Mithril Key, which won't bend after so many Chest openings. The game is going to change aspect; the chores will evolve away from simple beast slaughter and gleaning resources to become... Well, we'll see. I've given away far too many clues already this evening..! Back to the plot...

 

[Sinnistar]

So lately I've not gotten too much done due to not being able to keep an attention span passed 5 minutes for some weird reason. But, I did come up with this awesome idea I'm definitely working into TOTL and probably Ebony Stars too. Before, the enemies were always the same, stale and kinda boring. This made the time system rather pointless since the shops would close at night and the enemies were the exact same as day. Now, I've altered the enemies to work with the time system xD. The enemies will now change depending on the time of day. So if the time is night, now you'll run into stronger and more rewarding nocturnal based enemies. This will give a reason for hunting at night and allow for more uses with the time system rather than "Oh yay *sarcasm*....it's night....wooo". xP

On top of that, this same system can be used to create dynamic material nodes based on time of day. So for example, if a node normally contains rocks with a chance of copper, at night it can contain copper with a chance of glowing stones (used for upgrading equips). With this alone, it will greatly enhance the purpose for the night hours in the game but also increase the dangers and challenge to balance out the benefits that come with it. Definitely gonna make for a unique playing experience heh. But that's about all I got for this week, but still working hard on the game and trying to get things situated for this next release with the various changes and fixes in it.

 

[Dad3353]

More Mapping today, refining the Forests. I modified the Tileset for the Forest of Decay, as I found it a bit too tern using the standard Dungeon set. . I copied the Dungeon 'A4' Tiles as 'Dung_Fore_A4', so as not to mess up any other Maps using that resource, and copied the Dungeon Tilest in the Database to Dung_Fore. (That's my 'standard' notation, by the way, which I've used in just about every programming language since... well, a very long time ago. I always split the names into four-character parts, separated by an underscore. This saves having to think every time 'Now how did I name that [whatever...]..? It's always a grouping of four_four_four... Three is too short to be meaningful, five is too long and clumsy. Four is the Number...).
I'd already modified the canopy of the Forest Trees; I only had to copy those Tiles over to the relevant spot on the Dung-Fore_A4. They were a bit too garish, so a quick reduction of Brightness and Contrast sorted that out. I don't go in for deft touches and indecision on such things; a quick up and down the value range, -48 seems about right, so -48 it is. Artist, I isn't. Bam. Sorted. (Yes, but... No, it's sorted. I'm incapable of improving such things by fiddling about for twenty minutes. It will end up as -48 anyway, so...)
Lots more replacements, additions and improvements to the basic Map, with passages to open up and more Boulders to roll, then... flat. Just like a torch battery running out, no stamina, no spark, no nuffin'. Time to rest up. What to do whilst waiting for the Muse to return..? Strike up a chord..! Yes..!
I had been meaning to get some music done for these Maps, anyway, so lit up my trusty DAW (Reaper...), plugged in a Vst (Stylus RMX...) and trotted out a three-part guitar part for the South Forest. Simple, basic, homely, with the obligatory opening pre-loop, pop it into place and test. Yes, that's fine; I can stroll through the South Forest (avoiding the boars..!) and back without hurting my ears. The idea is to have something interesting enough, but forgettable whilst you're playing. Ideally one should hardly be aware of the music at all, in most scenes, but more especially in the 'long-haul' Maps. I hope I've struck the balance right with that one. Now for another, compatible piece for the following Lost Forest...

 

[Sinnistar]

So furthering my idea from earlier and last night, I've created a series of 3 bat enemies and 8 variations of a Highwayman enemy for the night time. These enemies are roughly 50 hp stronger than the day ones in the tier 1 region, and they give 5 more experience than those as well as more currency and have the chance to drop some better equips and other goodies as well. These enemies are different from the daytime enemies (the bats anyway) because they can Absorb AND reflect their own element if used against them. Day enemies can only do 1 or the other, not both. This will provide an increasing difficulty scale for these type of enemies since there's no pattern to which type will spawn (Pyro, Darkrai, or Glacial currently but may expand it to all of them later). xD I am liking this flexibility with this style of system that ties in quite well with the time of day. (Thank you Final Fantasy 12 for the next idea!)

So, the next idea....I will take the system further and create special "marks" that will spawn during certain months at random times in that month. These will be very valuable targets and give a good amount of experience as well if defeated. The challenge will be that they will be heavily armored and have lots of HP to take down. This should be pretty impossible to do early on, but easy enough once passed level 10 or so. (after the first 3 or so hours of gameplay). But, the early gameplay should never reach the certain dates since they will start a few months after the game starts in the game's time. So that should never be the case, but who knows if someone will find a way around it. Now the fun part, you can hire mercs to accompany you during these "Mark Hunts" and they will take up a party slot for the duration of the hunt, and it's for the guild so you'll gain some good rank points and potential rank ups in that so that you can access more quests and better ranks that give other classes you can play as. The idea of this is purely from FF12 and The Last Remnant lol so not too original, but hey it'll make for a very interesting set up when done right! (And gives a reason for literally every date in the game heh as well as night hours and day hours both). Some of those marks will only spawn at night, or in rain, and so on. Should be interesting to see when fleshed out lol. Welp, that ends my adventures for tonight.

 

[Companion Wulf]

Ironically, I've had all this time off - since Thursday - but don't feel like I've accomplished much (although I actually have). My 2-week vacation officially starts today! I finally finished Otherworld's character selection screen, but haven't implemented any "OK processes" yet, as I don't have their corresponding maps created yet. No pun intended, but they're mapped out already on paper.

So, the first priority is to translate them to RMMV using the default RTP to start with and then the custom ones I'm planning on using. The first stages of the storylines will finally begin, starting with Anna's because she's the main character from the original novella (of which there's a LOT written already).

I've given my other half, Tina, who is also now my game dev partner, free reign on creating Swan. This includes the graphics and, talking of which, I've already started proper on hers. Tina wants to "tweak" her slightly though, so we'll see where that goes and if her ideas can be recreated with the software I use.

 

[casper]

Just reading these posts is fun, knowing that all you guys and girls are working hard on projects right now too is awesome. I'm new on the site and to RPG Maker MV but I've racked up 77 hours and I've had the the software for a week. Never used Rpg Maker before or paint, I didnt know about events or variables or switches but I'm learning a lot and I cant make any progress in my game because I want everything to be polished to my full potential before moving on so that there's less polish to do in the future when I have more work to go back on. I've just finished making a boss fight and adding picture I made on paint.net of said monster comically lying there dead. xD Fixed a few bugs and full of ideas.

 

[Sinnistar]

Just reading these posts is fun, knowing that all you guys and girls are working hard on projects right now too is awesome. I'm new on the site and to RPG Maker MV but I've racked up 77 hours and I've had the the software for a week. Never used Rpg Maker before or paint, I didnt know about events or variables or switches but I'm learning a lot and I cant make any progress in my game because I want everything to be polished to my full potential before moving on so that there's less polish to do in the future when I have more work to go back on. I've just finished making a boss fight and adding picture I made on paint.net of said monster comically lying there dead. xD Fixed a few bugs and full of ideas.

Welcome to the RM community xP. We're literally one of the most helpful communities in terms of game design that there is (not just this site but all RM sites). xD And if you're ever having problems with anything, I can guarantee someone else has already figured it out and made a guide on it. Youtube comes in handy for anything relating to guides and tutorials. It's definitely fun to be the designer of your own game, especially if it's turning out how you planned it from the start. The important thing is to make it the way you'd want a game to be in order for you yourself to play it. Hope you have an awesome journey making your own project as well xD

As for TOTL, today I've made a little more progress. I managed to wrap up 2 more side quests that take place in the Chapter 2 regions (and one finishes in the first region you get to explore). With those down, there are 3 more side quests to finish and a few more map overlays and I should be set to release the updated version of Chapter 1-3 at least for the dev build so my team can get going on Leon's side with all the blank maps that will be available. With that new enemy system taking fold it's already proving to be a slow process (literally have to make an enemy event page for each time change (morning, midday, evening, night) and that's gonna take awhile to get fully in there since I've already created all the enemy encounters for every map with the 1 page setup lol). I'll prolly just have the first zone set up like this for the update though since it's easier on me that way.

Other than all that, I created the material gathering events and just need to place them in the key locations to get the gathering system finished up for the zones that exist (this will include special ores and stuff at night since special Lumminai play at night apparently). Lots of things to be finishing! That's it for now though.

 

[Dad3353]

Progress..? Ah, yes; progress indeed..! Several innovations, starting with a surprise addition, spin-off from the Forest of Decay. Why surprise..? Well, because I didn't really know what I was doing; it sort of just... happened..! I was toying with my rolling rocks, and wanted to access a hidden cave entrance. After a fair bit of trial and error, I finally got the stone to roll away, and stay rolled away, from any direction, even when returning to the Map. Great, but where does this Cave lead to..? A big fight..? A Chest..? Almost without thinking I'd created another Maze, and, with a flash of inspiration, made a boulder that could be rolled from one end to the other. I crafted in a few 'roll away the stone' puzzles to make this tortuous task even more 'fun', and thought it a good idea to intersperse other boulders throughout the Cave. A real commando course..! Then came the illumination, the stroke of genius, the bolt from the blue. At the end of the Maze, the rolled rock fits into a pentagon, there's a flash and rays of light; by some miracle, the rock has triggered the finding of the Rachdale Cheese..! Yes, yes..! Who'd have guessed it..? Deep in the heart of this Forest of Decay, in a hidden Cave, at the end of an obstacle course, there, before the Hero, is the Rachdale Cheese..! Wow..! I was shocked myself..!
I've been wondering from the outset how, if at all, I was to weave this element into the story. Here, then, was the solution, and very elegant, too, if I say it myself. Completely unplanned, but perfectly fitting into the advancement of the plot.
Not all good news, of course. I'd cleverly made it so that once the Cheese triggered, the boulder should no long roll. It worked well. It also blocked the entrance; that, too, was deliberate. The trouble started when I copied the rock (albeit with a different graphic...) onto the Map to create nearly four hundred other boulders, scattered around. I then thought it a Good Idea to test what I'd done. I (with the help of the virtual Hero...) carefully pushed the boulder around the Maze, solving each puzzle, eliminating any boulders in the way on the way. I finally received the Rachdale Cheese..! Now to leave the Maze. The way back is blocked; one has to continue further through the Maze to reach the Exit. Any that block the passage will have to be rolled away. Oh no..! In copying the original boulder, I've also copied the fact that it can't move once the Cheese is obtained..! The Exit is blocked..! Nothing for it but to rectify a boulder, and replace each and every one with the new version, without this blocking mechanism. Nearly four hundred of 'em..! That'll teach me..!
I'll finish on a much more positive note, jus the same. I have, in the Overworld and a few other Maps, a Step Counter, which reduces HP with every Step. I had found a Health Bar head-up display (HUD...), and had decided to adopt this, despite my initial 'no plug-ins' rule. Not perfect, as it displayed on every Map, where it had less utility. Plucking up my courage, I contacted the author of the plug-in, to ask about the feasibility of having a version switch-able by Map to be visible or not. After a few exchanges of views on the exact needs, I now have such a version..! Each Map now has an Autorun which tells the HUD to display or not. Useful in the Desert, not required in anyone's Home. Excellent. Credited in the Game, of course.
What's next..? A bit more music then another think.
PS: I also populated the new Maze with flitting butterflies and Biting Frogs, just to spice up the challenge. I may put a few Chests in there, we'll see... The Web version of this Demo is being uploaded as I type, taking us up to ver 0.4.9. The downloadable versions will follow tomorrow...

 

[casper]

Welcome to the RM community xP. We're literally one of the most helpful communities in terms of game design that there is (not just this site but all RM sites). xD And if you're ever having problems with anything, I can guarantee someone else has already figured it out and made a guide on it. Youtube comes in handy for anything relating to guides and tutorials. It's definitely fun to be the designer of your own game, especially if it's turning out how you planned it from the start. The important thing is to make it the way you'd want a game to be in order for you yourself to play it. Hope you have an awesome journey making your own project as well xD

Thanks for the welcome Sinnistar, everyone seems to be very friendly in this forum.
Today I have added a quest and made a dungeon map, I will work more on my project tomorrow as a friend showed up with some beer to try out his new mini fridge! So I'm taking a well deserved break tonight.

 

[Cunechan]

I almost completed the sprites of my friend's game (it's 6/9) and every char has two single char sheets (so in a 8 char sheet, there are four sprites with their poses etc) and made two faceses. And I completed busts and a map for the game of my other friend. Yay for progress!

Spoiler

HAHAHAHA PROGRESS! (and dont you dare use these :3)

 

[casper]

Today I went over everything I had made up until this point since I started my project and made adjustments to the cutscene events to make it look smoother and changed some sentences to have the conversations flow a bit better. I have now started work on my very first dungeon! I have only made boss fights so far so I am learning (or trying to) how to set up my dungeon and will then have to test play to see what difficulty my troop encounters should be and how much exp dropped will be the right amount leading up to the dungeon boss. Will take a while before I'm happy with it but that's what I've been doing today.

 

[hbn]

Today I mostly looked at how magic works and how people are able to use abilities. Since humans are the typically cliche child race of a far greater civilisation they're magical abilities are somewhat subdued. Magic is split into two (maybe three) classes malemagic (basically black magic) and benemagic (white magic) alongside the usual elements. An augment item can be equipped which will give access to certain elements or magic types. Without this, most people are currently only capable of basic spells. I know that might sound similar to the materia system from FF7 but you can only have one of these equipped at a time and there is no levelling of the augments.

For some reason though I'm having trouble with attribute modifiers. I want the fire augment to add +5 to attack, for some reason the game is ignoring that five and grabbing it's own number. The generic black magic I want to add +2 to attack and magic attack, and -2 from defence and magic defence, instead it is increasing them all and attack by +9. There aren't any percentage changes other than +50% MP. No idea where it is getting those values from.

You gain access to more powerful spells of that element the more times that element gets used. I have made a variable and linked it with a common event that will be able to add those spells but it has done it party wide when I want it per user. I don't know a non-script way of doing that and I've not searched around for scripts that can. I'd prefer to avoid using common events and variables though, 1) because it doesn't quite do it the way I want and 2) The common event runs after each time the skill is used and I'm not sure how much lag and overhead fully doing it that way might add.

 

[Dad3353]

Another discovery upon which I stumbled whilst perusing these hallowed pages, in the form of a multi-Currency system. A video tutorial, posted by one TheUnproPro of this parish , aroused enough enthusiasm to try it out, which implied transcribing from the Y'tube, adjusting the names of Variables and the like to fit my Project. Several errors in passing, which slowed up the progression, but eventually it started working as predicted (my fault; should have just typed it in verbatum...). It needed a 'tweak' or two to fit my exact needs (I didn't want the Player to change Currency, but rather have each Map define its own...). All working now, though, and the author duly mentioned in the Credits, although they won't be seen until this version gets deployed. A milestone, of sorts, as we'll be up to 0.5.0 next time..! 'Twill wait a while, as I have to test a bit more fully, and have some house-keeping to catch up on, so that the storyline is fleshed out and made available to the Player. A couple of days, probably, although who knows what novelty will strike before then..? I'm satisfied that the currently posted Web version and the 'zipped' downloadables will give enough to be going on with. It won't be all that long, though, before I'm able to draw all of these evolutions together for a Grande Finale and conclusion..! Onward, then, and upward..!

 

[Companion Wulf]

While I've not really focused too much on Otherworld (or Gaia's Dream) that much today, I did create another Events Tutorial video - uploaded tomorrow because editing it took way longer than previous videos did. Also, added a few more functions to my Extra Message Codes plugin (such as party members gender), started working on an alternative Save Scene plugin. And a multi-currency system of my own, which was something I started for Otherworld, but @Dad3353 rekindled it.

Most of today, however, apart from the odd break for the inevitable cleaning and household chores, was spent on researching the viability of being able to share posts to social media sites (Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and the like) directly from within RMMV. While it IS certainly viable, the integration of their SDKs is limited and limiting. This is still ongoing.

 

[Jodis]

Was finaly able to get my farm set done. Last night, with my hubbys help i was able to get the water wheel the angle I wanted.

I am so exsited about this new set. and the waterwheel is working I had problams with the math so i had to have hubby help me with where to place the wood.

 

[hbn]

Not really adding to the game but I've been doing planning.... creating ideas that I've no idea how are gonna be put in game with my skill level.

One of them is probably gonna share the SP system... however on earth I'll manage to do that. I'm too poor to hire a scripter. Anyone got any advice on learning JavaScript?

Not to mention trying to think of a decent and balanced damage algorithm for magic.

 

[Cunechan]

Bust sheets for this lovely sprite!