Daniel's Quest III Full Game Progress Report

[Pagerron]

OFFICIAL PREVIEW OF DANIEL'S QUEST III (by 1ce) now available!!

http://www.rpgmmag.com/issues/issue_11/p-reviews/daniels_quest_iii_preview_i.php

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This thread is something I'm going to use to get myself a bit more motivated to work on completing the full game.

99% memory capacity

9 fields (3 main areas really - Nevernear, McNally, and ?)

9 dungeons (several of which simply serve to connect duplicate fields to each other)

10 towns(2 main towns really - Others have been shrunk quite a bit to minimize unnecessary walking)

63 people

41 Storytellers (so far)

25 monster parties (these need a lot more tweaking)

137 items

[Pagerron]

I had the chance to get a little work done on my game today. I've been working on the introductory storyteller for a while (trying to get it just like I want it). It's finally totally finished. Yay! No more tweaks on it (well, at least not today) :)

91 keys used
216 frames
It lasts just about two minutes.

I must say, I LOVE the Storyteller feature.

[Pagerron]

Several weeks have gone by, but I have some free time today-finally!

UPDATE:

-Made all the armor items for my PCs (7 new items)

-Created new dialogue lines (which took up 1% of the memory consumption. Gulp!)

-1 new storyteller made

-2 People created

My memory consumption keeps edging up there. I'm so close to 90% already. So much left to add. Hmm...

[Ωbright]

It all sounds cool, but the coolest thing for me to hear was that you've added 2 new people! :D

And I feel you on the memory crunch. How many more things would you say there were left to add in order to finish the game, if you can estimate? If you need any possible suggestions from someone who's seen it all...then I'm afraid you're out of luck. LOL!! At least from me. Although I've gone through it twice now, and I learned a lot both times, it was also completely different both times. I don't know how to best economise space in DQIII, but I CAN say to watch out for text boxes that you don't REALLY need, and for superfluous events which can be condensed into one. I don't know about you, but there were a TON of those in my first game. Another biggie is using too many almost-empty modes, when you can use VC branches to fill up those modes before you go on to the next one. Again...I wound up doing that a lot...in BOTH games!

All pretty simple stuff, and probably nothing new to you or anything, but I thought I'd share.

I'm glad to see you're progressing...:)

[Pagerron]

Thanks for the comments Obright. Yes, you're right about the dialogue. If I do end up reaching 99.9% memory consumption, I may have to do just that. I hope I don't have to though.

Things left to add:

Fifteen (or so) special events

5 (or so) storytellers

Lots of event battles

Several more people (if there is space)

Other things I still have to figure out still. :)

[Ωbright]

Yeah, yeah...I'm just saying not to worry about the data to the point that it kills your motivation or inspiration, because there are multiple ways to condense and save space. ;)

It sounds like you're almost finished!!

[Pagerron]

Yeah, one would think! (I'm at a point in my life where things are super busy, and so I don't have nearly as much time to mess around with the game as I used to, also, I have to feel inspired to work on the game in order to actually make some good progress.)

The other day I had the chance to type up three pages of notes for myself to deal with the progress of things as the game comes to an end. Now, I just need to take those notes and plug them in to the actual game.

Well, the next time I make some significant progress, I'll post again. :)

[Pagerron]

-see the first post for an update-

Things have been going well lately as far as game creation goes. Knowing that I'm at 92.6% memory consumption now makes me realize that I'm going to be finished sometime in the near future because I just won't be able to put anything else into the game. Well, I guess one has to finish sometime.

Over the past couple of weeks, I've done a lot of debugging, correcting, and event creating. The game isn't completed yet, but I know I've been making good progress. I have some more events to create, several more people to make (and place) and maybe another fifteen or so event battles. Today I created the last field that I'll be needing (those always take a good memory chunk).

I'm trying to make sure to work on it at least a couple of hours a week. Well, good luck to the rest of you in your game creation. I'll post again when I make some more notable progress. :)

[kamekaze77]

Please! post the full game I want to play it. If you could just PM me what happened in 1 and 2

[Pagerron]

Thanks for the encouragement to post the full game. I'm working on it...albeit slowly.

As far as what happened in the first 2 Daniel's Quests, I'm actually including a summary storyteller in the Daniel's Quest III game itself. Thanks for asking about it. I'll be glad to send you a PM about them over the weekend.

[Pagerron]

The last couple of days have been productive.

I'm now at 94% memory consumption!!!

I think I may have to substitute my underwater mini-field for a storyteller, depending on what else I can squeeze in. Boo Hiss!! There's so much more left to put in this game!

Today I put in about two and a half hours of playtesting and event modification. I also created a 75-key storyteller that I'm pretty satisfied with (to have ready to substitute for the underwater mini-field). It's been a good game day today.

Oh, and one really cool thing that has happened is that Daniel's Quest III has been previewed by 1ce in the latest issue of the mag. Here's the link: (1ce played through the demo to give his impressions on the upcoming full game.)

http://www.rpgmmag.com/issues/issue_11/p-reviews/daniels_quest_iii_preview_i.php

Yay!

[Pagerron]

Well, it's been a long while since I last posted anything new about Daniel's Quest III (the full game). I've been working on it when I can. I'd say that in the last two months, I've probably put about fifteen hours of playtesting and tweaking and just messing with it. Haven't had nearly as much time as I'd like. Today, though, I made some good headway on one particular event. I worked on it for about an hour. Yay! It's good to get more accomplished.

I've also been working on a little promotional thread that I'm hoping to place on a couple of sites once the game is ready to play.

After deleting several more events and things to adjust my completion percentage, I'm at 92.4%. Still a long way to go until I finish, but I'm just happy to have made a little more progress. Little by little.

Also, anyone is welcome to post comments about the Daniel's Quest III demo in that thread. :)

[Lausen]

Hey Pagerron I can't download your demo. :( When I look at the file type it just says file. Every other game says Max.Zip file. I don't know what that means. Do you? I figure you might since it's your game.

I get it onto my memory stick, but when I try to load it on my max drive it doesn't show up. I've tried 3 times. If anyone knows please tell me. Thanks.

[Pagerron]

Hey Lausen,

First of all, thanks for your desire to play the Daniel's Quest III demo.

I think the problem is that the file simply needs to be renamed as a .max file.
The zipped folder contains both the game and a "Read me first" text file. Try just renaming the game file to a .max and it should be fine.

I just tried downloading it myself and noticed that it didn't have .max in the name as it should. That's weird. I know several people have downloaded it and played it successfully.

Feel free to post any questions at all if it doesn't work for you still. :)

[Lausen]

Thanks that worked. It's strange how the file type changed just by putting .max at the end. Hopefully I'll be able to post a review in the next few days:happy That depends on time. Plus I'm doing finishing touches on my own demo.

How long would say it takes to beat it?

[Pagerron]

Oh cool. I'm glad that worked. I'm going to resubmit it with the .max extension. That's so strange.

The demo takes 1 1/2 to 2 hours to beat depending on which ending you get.
I hope you can get the "Most Excellent" ending. :wink

That would be great to hear any comments you have about it Lausen. Please feel free to post them in the thread linked below.

http://www.pavilionboards.com/forum/showthread.php?t=11507

I know you're keeping busy with your demo too. Nice! (I wish more people were actively working on RPG Maker 3 games right now.)

[Lausen]

Whats two or three hours? my Demo can wait. I'm excited to play the game now that I just took a look at your maps. I see what you did with them and its interesting. I won't give it away though other then they look good.

I'll post a reply in the morning.

[Pagerron]

Cool! I'm looking forward to reading what you think about it. Thanks again.

[Pagerron]

Yay! Progress. Yesterday, I finished up (except for a couple of typos) a Storyteller that took a couple of hours to make. It explains more of the backstory to what the Stone of Destiny really is and how King Donald came upon it. (By the way, thanks Ryner for your encouragement to make this!!!)

So many people here seem to go off on the Storyteller as a lame substitute for cut scenes, but I believe it's a great feature of RPG Maker 3. It's like you're making your own movie (that requires button pushes of course).

Anyway, I'm kind of excited because this week I have some extra time away from work to be able to work more on my game. I'm holding strong at 92.5% memory consumption, but I think I'll still be able to finish it with everything I want in it. Also, this weekend my girlfriend is going to be out of town, so I will have more free time to really make some good headway.

[Pagerron]

Alright...so we press on. I worked on my game from 1:30 to 4:30. I got to the point where I was getting sick of looking at the game, so I turned it off.

I added 6 rather complex events (the Oldenpots), which have two variable branches and a yes/no branch in them. Then, I playtested each one to make sure they worked as planned. Also, I had the chance to create another person and two new storytellers. My game has 31 storytellers now! Woo Hoo!

My memory capacity is getting back up there. I'm at 93.6% now.

I'm determined to make the most of this week. Friday should be another productive day. I look forward to posting more updates soon.

Thanks for your support everyone.

[Pagerron]

Well, this morning I got up early to keep working on the full game, and I got scared by a screen I'd never seen before.

I went to modify a dungeon and this message appeared.
"Not enough room in the database--may not be able to save" - scary

I have several things I am planning to get rid of and have them earmarked already, but whoa, this is cutting it super super close. I don't think I'm going to be able to put in everything I'd like to be there. Well, anyway, today, I'm hoping to make some more good progress.

EDIT: Got a couple more hours of playtesting and tweaking in today from 4-6 p.m. Yay!

Gotta love being at 97.4% memory capacity though. :)

[Pagerron]

Well, it's been several days. I got a little more work done on my game on Saturday. Figuring out the storyteller for the final scene. I already know what I'm going to say. Just trying to figure out how to say it in the best way. Today, I've been working on writing/typing it out during breaks at work.

This coming weekend I'm going to be going out of town, so I won't be able to do a thing with it, but the weekend after that, I hope to crank out some more playtesting and event creation.

I hope that tomorrow, I can get some stuff done as well.

Thanks for reading...:)

[Pagerron]

Yay. Update time.

Now that I'm on a short vacation, I have more time to work on my game, and I really cranked out some good playtesting today - about 3 hours worth.

Mainly, I worked on my event battles in one particular cave. It took a while to get things to feel just right. I like battles to be short and sweet but fun too. I think I'm getting there.

I also added several new events and a new character, which was nice. My memory capacity is still up in the stratosphere, but that's okay.

When it came time to save the changes I made,I accidentally saved over another small game I'm working on. Talk about frustrating!! Well, I'm so glad that I didn't do it the other way around and save the small game over Daniel's Quest III. I didn't have a back up for the small game(boo! hiss!), but I do have a backup of the full Daniel's Quest III game on another memory card.

Anyway, just an update. Have a great rest of your Thanksgiving weekend, everyone. :)

[Pagerron]

It feels like forever since I last posted an update and well, it has been about three weeks, so, yeah. With the Thanksgiving holiday and lots of things going on at work and in my personal life, I haven't been able to work on things too much. I don't apologize, though, because all of the other things going on are very important too.

However, I'm really looking forward to having some time to work on the full Daniel's Quest III very soon. Starting on Wednesday, I will be on vacation from work until January 6th, I think, and I have plans to make some major progress. You're probably thinking, major progress? How much more can you do if you're already at 97% memory capacity. You'd be surprised, really, how much work needs to get done on a game. The % isn't the important thing at all, in the end.

Anyway, for the last two days, I've been having some trouble getting my computer to work for me at home. I'm on it now, but only after trying to turn it on about six times. Once I got it on, I made sure to save all of my important files on a flash drive and do a complete scan of the computer for any viruses or what not. None were found. This computer may be on its last megs. (rimshot) As a result, I may not be able to visit the Pav much until after Christmas, which is when I would have to purchase a new computer.

One good thing is that this will give me some good time to focus on finishing up my game. Yay! I really can't wait until it's done and playtested and ready to be uploaded. That's going to be such an exciting feeling.

Alright, well I hope to see everyone on the boards (if my hard drive allows).
Lord willing, watch for Daniel's Quest III to be finished some time in early 2008. :)

[Pagerron]

Alright~time for another real update.

Today, I got about four hours of work done on the game.
-deleted various decorative objects to clear some memory
-created four special events requiring variable branches
-wrote and typed dialogue
-created several new treasure items
-playtested several things

I don't know if this is possible, but I'm really trying to see if I can get this game done by next week Thursday. It won't be ready to upload then, but the game will be done and ready for playtesting. At least that's the plan. I'm committing right now to work on the game every day for the next week. This is the perfect time for me to do this, so I really really want to take advantage of it.

Well, I'll be updating in this thread once a day to give my progress. I'm looking forward to it.

I hope you all had a Merry Christmas and have a great New Year. :)

[Lausen]

Next week!!! That's great news! Hopefully the playtesting proccess will only take a few more weeks. A few new games coming soon. That's awsome.:happy

[1ce]

Good news. I've been waiting to play this for awhile.

[Pagerron]

Thank you for the encouragement guys. :) I really appreciate it. Today has been super-productive. I worked on events and deletions today from 9 to noon. Then I took a several hour break and did more work for about three or four hours. I'm so drained from it all, but I'm glad I got done what I did today.

Today's progress:
- several more treasure items
- lots of new dialogue
- a couple of storytellers
- multiple VAL conditional branches
- playtesting, playtesting, playtesting
- changed one town to always be noon so that I could delete the night
modes for the NPCs. That shaved off a good little chunk of memory.
- many other things I can't remember

I've been using one of those little digital recorders to take notes for myself as I play through what I've made. Much quicker than writing it down, and if I write it down, it'll just get lost in the stack of Daniel's QUest III pages I already have.

Well, I'm so glad to have had the chance to get more done today.

Tomorrow, I'm going to be working on the last two dungeons and balancing the event battles there. Yay!

[Ωbright]

COOL! Wow...we're about to complete our games at the same time! I know what you mean about the memory usage not being directly proportional to the work left. Just because you added a character doesn't mean that you've made their class, their stats, their skills, or their skill stats! It's an incredible amount of work required in many cases after you've already taken up the memory space.

Well good luck, and I'm all eager over here! :D

[Pagerron]

Yeah, I guess this time of the year gives everyone a little more leeway as far as game creation goes. I'm glad that you're almost done with Tree of Life. That demo was a really cool playthrough. :)

Well, today was another productive day. I feel like the end is around the corner, but I've felt that way before, so...yeah.

Today
-playtested for a couple of hours
-created one level of event battles in my next to last dungeon (they are all pretty well balanced now)
-created a new weapon
-created a variety of new events
-changed one town to just be "noon" in order to do away with redundant event coding

Yay. Progress.

[Pagerron]

Progress went well again today. After church and shopping for groceries for the week, I settled down for a long afternoon of game-making. I think I've put in about five hours or so today.

-totally redid one of my fields (am much happier with it now)
-finished off the next to last dungeon
-created all event battles for it too
-worked on the final dungeon
-figured out a couple little puzzles I'm putting in at the end of the game (required in order to finish the game successfully)
- messed around a bit with the character classes

A great gaming day! :)

[Lausen]

Dang you're killing it this week.:D Sounds like Daniel's Quest is getting closer and closer to being done by the minute. Keep it up!

[Pagerron]

Well, so far I've been able to stick to my commitment of getting things done every day.

This morning I worked a little more on the final field. Also, I'm almost done with the final dungeon. I was getting a little bit burnt out with the creation though, so this afternoon, I just put it away for a bit.

This evening, though, I've been playtesting everything from the beginning and typing up fixes and notes as I've gone along. The gameplay clock shows 4:47:32, so I guess I've put in about seven or eight hours total today. Good stuff, but yeah, I'm ready to turn it off.

Happy New Year to everyone who's reading this post. I really appreciate all of your support.

[Pagerron]

Well, this morning, actually yesterday morning, (it's just that I haven't gone to bed yet) I got several more hours of playtesting in. Later today then is going to be my real chance to get a lot more done. I need to do it! Thursday is going to be hard. Then the weekend. Then work begins again next week, so yeah, tomorrow.

[Ωbright]

GO, man...GO!! :D

[Pagerron]

Well, I had a good little work spurt last week. The last couple of days I haven't gotten anything done on my game because of the fact that I was preparing to propose to my girlfriend. That was so so cool. She said yes! :)

Next weekend, though, I'm going to be working a lot more on my game because she's going to be at a conference with her school out of town. I think I may be able to finish it up then.

Then, I'll need to playtest.

So, yeah, just wanted to check in with a little update. Have a great weekend everyone.

[Pagerron]

It's been almost a week now since my last post here. Today has been a pretty good game-making day.

-I worked for a while on the ending credits (still have a lot to go to get the storyteller just right. Again, I just love the storyteller feature!)

-I'm mostly finished with the last dungeon.

-I do need to set up five event battles before the last battle of the game. I worked on that a bit today.

-I also messed around with a couple of events.

-About a week ago, I playtested quite a bit and made a list of 57 fixes. Today, I fixed 12 of them.

Slow but Steady :)

[Lausen]

Nice to hear progress is still being made!!! I know mine has dropped quite a bit since the break. I hope you keep getting things done even if it may be slow. Why rush things and have the quality be jeperdised? Well I can't wait for it to come out!!! 08's starting off with a bang for rpgm games.

Good luck!!!

[Pagerron]

Thanks man. Yeah, I get what you're saying about not rushing things, and I agree. Sometimes, I just wish my game would take some time to finish itself up though. Well, I do enjoy working on it in little spurts. The best thing of course is playtesting and seeing everythign go as planned.

Thanks for the encouragemet Lausen. I know you'll make time for your game when you get the urge. It's going to be a good one when it's done, too!

[Ωbright]

The last couple of days I haven't gotten anything done on my game because of the fact that I was preparing to propose to my girlfriend. That was so so cool. She said yes! :)

AWESOME!! HOW did I MISS that?? Jeez, that was like a WEEK ago! Congratulations!

And I'm glad to hear about the game progress, also. If you keep making checklists of errors to fix while you playtest, and then going down the list checking things off, the game will get done. Checklists are the way to go, man.

[Pagerron]

Thanks Obright! It's really scary and exciting at the same time. I love her very much and can't wait to tie the knot.

Well, some good progress lately with Daniel's Quest III. Yesterday and today, I put in a good 4 hours of work.

Today, I planned out a little side quest that I'd had in mind from the beginning, and I think it will fit in nicely to the game.

I also worked hard on creating the three different storyteller endings. Depending on how much/what you complete in the game, you will get one of them. :) I love the Storyteller!

One of the most enjoyable things I've been working on lately too is the Ending Credits. It's really cool to go back and see just how many people really have contributed to the game.
The categories in the Ending Credits so far are:
-Demo Playtesters
-Demo Feedback
-Official Previewer
-Translation Assistance
(more to come)

Well, it's good to give an update. Hope you all have a great Sunday!

[Pagerron]

It's been about a month since my last update, but I just wanted you guys to know that I'm still working on the game. I don't apologize for the time it's taking me. I'm glad not to be pressured to finish it by a certain date. I am, however, looking forward to getting Daniel's Quest III finished some time in the near future.

This afternoon, I'm going to finalize my little field for the "Field of Dreams" contest, but maybe next weekend, I'll have a bit of a chance to get some more Daniel's Quest III work done. :)

[Pagerron]

Cool. Today, I popped in Daniel's Quest III a bit and playtested and created a couple of new events. It's not much, but this is how I get back into it little by little. After being away from it for a while, it's hard to remember exactly where I was in the game-making details. That's a little bit frustrating, but I'm glad to have made a little more progress. :)

[Ωbright]

Awersome. So do you use checklists when you work on your game? I'd be totally lost if I didn't use them, for the very reason you just mentioned. It's hard to get back in the swing of things when you haven't worked on your game in a while. I used to spend 30 minutes just sitting there going...uh...ok...WHAT was I doing again?

Every little bit brings you closer to the end, and you have a good attitude about finishing it. Deadlines kill games, I swear.

[Pagerron]

Well, I can't believe a month has passed. Actually, yeah, I guess I can. Life has been really busy with lots of good things like job-hunting, getting ready for married life, preparing to move. So many things.

Anyway, I really appreciate your PM you sent the other day Ωbright. That was a real encouragement.

I was taking a walk this morning and kind of got a bit inspired to work on my game. The thing is that I have a stack of papers and folders (with game ideas, variables, walkthroughs) that I'm going to have to sort through in order to really get it done, and that can be challenging sometimes, especially after being away from my game for so long, but I'm doing it today- the sorting part. I hope that this afternoon, I can get some good game-making in. I know that I'm so close to being done.

Anyway, just wanted to check in with everyone to let you guys know that Daniel's Quest III is still in progress. I really can't wait to get it uploaded here at some point.

I think about what it takes to be a professional game developer. Man, there is just so much that goes into making a game the way you want to. Daniel's Quest III has been in progress since November 2005.

Well, yeah, so I've said my piece for now. Check in tonight if you want to see what progress I made during the day. :)

------------------------------------

EDIT: Well, I found some very good usable notes when I went through my stack. I got a little more creation done. Now, I'm at 99% memory capacity. Oh, the horror. Well, I hope the last 1% goes a long long, yes long way. :)

[Pagerron]

Yay! A progress report with actual progress in it.

Yesterday was a very good day. I took a piece of paper on which I had typed about 50 bugs to fix. I went through and fixed 45 of them, I think.
I spent about four hours on game-creation and debugging yesterday.

Today, I played through the first half of the game from the beginning. Everything went so smoothly. I wrote down some final fixes I want to make on this section. I put in another four hours today. It feels good to make so much progress over one weekend. Well, now real life things are going to pick up again for a while, but I'll be sure to update this thread when I can, and believe me I want to. :)

[Lausen]

Nice.:D Thats awsome your getting into a small groove again. 9 hours in two days is great progress. I hope to see more updates soon. I'm excited to play this once it's done. If the demo is any indication this game should be a good unique experiance.

[Perversion]

Keep it up, buddy...but don't let RPGM get in the way of "real" life. Good luck, and I hope you are able to squeeze everything else you need to in that last 1%...I already know how hard that can be, especially if you find a bug that forces you to "rewrite" some code.

[Pagerron]

Thanks Lausen and Perversion for your comments on things.

It's nice to finally have a solid update! Yay!

Life has been incredibly busy these days. I'm moving this week. I'm looking for a new job. I'm getting married in a month! Wow, but God is very good.

Well, last weekend, I played through Daniel's Quest III from beginning to end. There are still some things to work out, but I can say that the bulk of all the creation is done done done!!

I'm not sure when I am going to post the game exactly. I still really want to have a couple of people playtest the game to see if they find any little quirky things I might have missed in my own playtesting.

I'll definitely keep you updated on how things progress. :)

[Pagerron]

Well, I'm up to 98.9% memory capacity.

I have been working on the ending credits and they are finally done.

I've also worked some to finish up my last dungeon. I just have a couple of small events to go and that will be done. So cool!

I have also posted a request in the RPG Maker General forum requesting volunteers to playtest the game. Please let me know if you are interested. It would be awesome to have some fresh eyes take a look at the game for me.

:)

[Pagerron]

Just wanted to post a bit of an update here.

Crythania has playtested Daniel's Quest III for me and he has done a great job on letting me know his suggestions and recommendations.

Lausen is playtesting the game as we speak, and he has also really done well keeping me updated on his progress through the game. He is very close to the end.

Today, I'm working on making those final tweaks based on their comments, and it should be available to play very soon.

I'll be so glad to be able to post Daniel's Quest III when it's done. I hope that everyone has fun with it.

[Ωbright]

Go, man!
:serge

[Pagerron]

Well, Daniel's Quest III is done! I have had three people playtest it, and all changes that were necessary have been made. A W E S O M E.

I'll be posting it up tomorrow (Saturday) once the Pav is working normally again. Go Valk! Sorry the site is having so many problems tonight.

[Valkysas]

eh, you can try to upload it tonight if you want. can't hurt anything.

(wants to play it)