Veil of Corruption

[Lausen]

Re: Veil of Corruption

Hey thanks Page. It's good to hear you're still working on Wander too. I can't wait to chack that out when you're done.

Well I made a little bit more progress today. Nothing in game, but I typed up all of a cutscenes text on the computer. I plan on actually making it all tomorrow. I have a hard time coming up with good dialogue on the fly and I'm generally not happy with it when I do so I feel like the harder, more time consuming part is already done. I've also been thinking about how I want the first major town to look and feel/play.

[Lausen]

Re: Veil of Corruption

Well, I know most of what I have listed in the description is backstory and other nonsense. It doesn't really describe how the game is going to play. Time to change that. This is a bit of what you can expect to experiance when you sit down and play Veil of Corruption. Whenever that maybe.

I know in most RPG's the player can travel anywhere in the world that they choose and can freely backtrack. While in VoC I'm going to be going a different route. It's going to play a bit more like Final Fantasy 10. It will be pretty linear for the most part and once you beat an area you won't be able to go back. Of course there will be some exceptions, but in general you'll visit a place once and that'll be that. This will save a massive headache as far as switches are concerned and I'll really be able to focus on detail and quality of each area individually. It will eliminate having to worry about memory constrants too. RPG Maker 1's default world maps won't be used.

That being said each place will be loaded with things to do and interactive objects. When you talk to NPC's in towns you will get several options to start up different conversations about different topics. The goal is to make Hyboria feel like an actual living breathing world. I want each NPC to reflect the issues that are happening in their cities. This will also really help flesh out ideas, locations, key figures, religious ideals, plot points, etc... through the people living in the world and dealing with these things. That way the player isn't getting crammed with a crap ton of info all at once in the main story. If you want to learn more about plot related stuff you can talk to the NPC's. They don't just say "Welcome to our lovely town." If you don't really care you can just keep on going.

Another "feature" of VoC is that when you are in a town your party members will be walking around it. You can go up and talk to them to get thier personal take on what is going on. This will really help with character development and is a great way to make sure the player never gets lost or forgets what has been happening if they take a break from playing. The thing is it will say that they are still in the party in the menus, but they won't be following you around. This way you can still equip them with new gear and you don't have to wait.

As far as the "Dungeons" go I want to give the player some choice as to how it plays out. For instance you may have the choice to sneak in a place or just bust in. How things playout will be different depending on what you pick, but it ultimatly leads to the same thing. Fighting fiends isn't the only way of getting EXP. And of course you can fight them the old fashioned way, but you can also beat them special ways without actually fighting them. Just because you didn't kill the enemy in battle doesn't mean they aren't dead so you still deserve the EXP for getting rid of them. Also I'm working on NOT making them the same stale navigate a maze fighting monsters to fight the boss formula. The game will have a lot of puzzles intergrated into the environments and dungeons. The puzzles offer their own rewards and not just another obstical in your way. I'm going to working hard on the pacing to keep things fresh.

I know a big issue among the RPG Maker community is how to make boss fights interesting. While I've done some experimenting and think I have found some fun ways to make boss fights. Several of the boss fights will play out like interactive cutscenes. The best way to describe what I mean would be to just describe one of the boss fights I have already made. (which is just one. Still very early in production.) The party is surrounded by soldiers. The player gets to pick what soldier to attack via an overhead arrow. Once you beat a couple of them the main character notices a barrel with gun powder. Now the barrel is selectable with the arrow. You pick it and the main character shoots a fireball at it and causes an explosion killing the rest of the enemies. Sure this is a pretty common sequence in commercial games, but I've never seen it done with RPGM1. With things being interactive boss fights can be looked at and beaten in different ways adding a new element of strategy.

That's it for now. I overhauled the first post eliminating the spoiler section and adding this post entitled "Other Info" Note that a lot of this is still just PLANS I have for the game and some things will change. This project is still very new.

[Lausen]

Re: Veil of Corruption

Update:

The last 3 or so hours I've been working on a cutscene. I just put the final touches on it and I have to say I'm really happy with how it turned out. The more work I get done programming wise the more motivated I'm becoming. Finally seeing my ideas for VoC come to life with RPGM1 is a great feeling. It's no longer just a bunch of ideas on paper.

[Lausen]

Re: Veil of Corruption

Update:

Today I made the games first town, at least the outside portion of it. I still need to make the insides of the buildings and I haven't touched the scenario side of the town yet. I'm happy with how it turned out. It looks like how I envisioned and thats pretty rare with RPG Maker. Progress has been made at a steady rate the last few days and that's really all I can expect. A few hours a day and I'll be happy.

[Lausen]

Re: Veil of Corruption

Update:

I made some nice progress today. I made the insides of the first town. It was a bit time consuming getting the building interiors the way I wanted them to look. I'm happy with the results. I added all of the events that warp the player in and out of the buildings. The last thing I got done today was the dialogue for a scene. It is pretty text heavy so I'm glad I got it typed up on the computer. Tomorrow I plan on programming the scene and then doing some debuging.

[Lausen]

Re: Veil of Corruption

Update:

I ended up renting Assassins Creed 2 the other day. I basically played it until my eyes bled so I didn't work on VoC at all. I had to bring it back so now work has continued smoothly.

Today I finished up the cutscene and typed up a bunch more dialogue for the next few events. I also have planned out a few readable books that will be found on bookshelfs.

[Thutmose]

Re: Veil of Corruption

I just read through all your stuff. It looks interesting, certainly ambitious. I'd really like to see how you pull off the interactive elements, especially in boss battles. It's got me wanting to start working on my game again, for which I planned similar mechanics (though, mine was for RMXP, making it a lot easier to customize game play).

As far as names go - I find that the Latin root-words for various names in games are way overused. If you want to, I'd recommend looking at Mesoamerican or near-eastern languages & religions, rather than the de facto Western ones (i.e. Greek, Roman, and their derivatives). You rarely see characters in games with names inspired by Assyrian or Mayan gods - if you look at Ancient Egyptian gods, well, there's hundreds of them to get inspiration from.

I won't even start to go into detail, because I wouldn't be able to stop myself, but AE names are very meaningful, not abstract and meaningless like modern Western names. Get yourself a copy of an AE dictionary and or elementary grammar, and you'd be supplied with inspiration for a hundred games. Of course, even Wikipedia gives basic translations of the names of most Pharaohs, and lists of various gods.

Regardless, studying mythology and religion is a great way to get inspiration and will help to ensure that your story's complex mythology is believable, original, and that your divine characters/deities are well developed.

That's my two cents, anyway. Being as I've never actually completed a game, take it for what it is.

Good luck.

[Lausen]

Re: Veil of Corruption

Thanks for the encouragment. Admittedly, I didn't do too much research so names don't hold too much meaning. If you have any suggestions I'd love to hear them.

I guess now is a good time for a little update. Emphasis on LITTLE. Lifes been kind of hectic and free time short. Right now I'm still doubting if I'll be able to finish a game for the contest. I plan on trying though.

[Lausen]

Re: Veil of Corruption

You don't have to worry about me ever dropping this project. It just might take a few years. I took your advice, Zeroth. The last few hours I went through what I have so far and have done some debugging. I managed to fix some minor things and tweeked a bit of the dialogue. Everything I have so far is in good working order and I can focus on the next part of the game. That consists of several cutscenes and making Tarnwood a fully functinal town.

[Lausen]

Re: Veil of Corruption

Update:

I put a good 5 hours of work in today. I made a couple cutscenes that play a big part to the plot. I have 2 system and 4 scenario blocks thus far. The in-game clock reads something around 6 hours. Really it's closer to 40 because it only counts time working in the system section.

It feels good to make significant progress on VoC considering I haven't touched it in close to a month. I hope to have my first town up and runnng by the end of the week.

[Zeroth]

Re: Veil of Corruption

VERY glad to see you working on VoC again. Hopefully all that time off will inspire you to be even more creative.

Btw, did I make that last comment to you in a rep comment, or a post? If the latter is true, where the heck do the post go to? For some reason I can't quite seem to remember. Oh well...

[Thutmose]

Re: Veil of Corruption

Btw, did I make that last comment to you in a rep comment, or a post? If the latter is true, where the heck do the post go to? For some reason I can't quite seem to remember. Oh well...

It was lost in the data hiccup the other day.

[Zeroth]

Re: Veil of Corruption

Thanks, I just found out after reading the "Did we loss data" topic.

[Lausen]

Re: Veil of Corruption

Update:

I made a decent amount of progress today. I hammered out another 2 cutscenes. I also went through and made all of the healing style items and weapons. I've yet to do the armors and accesories because I still need to decide if I want to do a light and heavy class of armors.

Overall I'm really happy with how things are turning out.

[Lausen]

Re: Veil of Corruption

Update

The last 2 days have been extremely productive. I started and finished work on VoC's opening cutscene. I've been neglecting it because I wanted to add parts that will be later in the game that haven't been made yet. That and the first few minutes of a game are very important. You only get one first impression. I wasn't 100% sure how I wanted it to play out. I just wanted VoC to start with a bang and to draw the player in right away. Damn am I happy with how it turned out. It took close if not more then 10 hours to make and 6500 scenario space and it isn't even very text heavy. Of all the things I've made with any of the RPG Makers this is by far what I am most proud of. Words can't describe how happy I am with it.

I feel as though I've gotten over a huger hurtle. The begining is set, main plot points have been introduced and I can focus on the next part of the game. I'm more modivated then ever to see Veil of Corruption through to the end.