Josh's Adventure (Released!)

[1ce]

Re: Josh's Adventure

I lately haven't felt motivated to work on the actual game itself, so today I worked on custom graphics for the title. I mentioned earlier that I wanted to make arrows for several purposes in the game, and I managed to create them without too much trouble. This IS my first time working with anime maker and custom character graphics, so hopefully I don't screw up too much.

Let's talk about the setup I'm using. I'm personally not using RPGC for this particular game, for mutliple reasons. It's tough to work with, my computer use is shaky. No really good reasons really, but since I already own the playstation mouse, it's not worth my trouble to do it on paint and figure out how to export it, when I can do it right on the program and have no extra hassles. The only thing that bugs me is I have no mouse pad, but a game case solves that easily.

And my god, are those sprites ever small! I'm very nearsighted, so I like my text zoomed in so I can read no problem. And even worse, I've been working with multiple colors that are slighty different, so telling colors apart is tough as well.

But it's going well nonetheless. Other than finishing arrows, I'm also working on drawing letters. With any luck, I'd like to have custom graphics so I can spell out "Josh's Adventure" (and if there was any doubt, this WILL be the final title). I have J, o, and s finished. S was particulary tricky, and I had to restart since it began to more closely resemble a 5. Consistancy is going to be my biggest enemy making these letters. But hopefully it'll be all worth it when you boot up the game for the first time and see them lined up, all nice and beautiful.

(And yay, I'm up to four pages of progress on the Pav!)

[1ce]

Re: Josh's Adventure

BIG PROGRESS UPDATE.

I put my nose to the grindstone today and finished all of the letters and arrows custom graphics today. Man, does it look good! It's a little tough arranging them, but seeing my work come together so well is an outstanding feeling. And it doesn't look half bad either. I was particulary careful with the color scheme; since Josh's Adventure takes more than 9 letters (13, to be exact) to complete, I had to spread out the letters beyond two custom graphic sheets, and color consisentacy was very tough to do, but I think I nailed it. It does look a little silly how some letters are better than others (The letter E in particular was hell, because you have to have enough room to make that little o spot open enough to make it readable).

All in all, this is a pretty big step forward for me, and it's the first time I'll have used my own custom character sprites in a game (while Donkey Kong technically had custom sprites before JA, I didn't make those). And hopefully I'll be able to get on epsxe or something to get a screencap to show you all.

This game will be completed. It will be awesome. That is all.

[1ce]

Re: Josh's Adventure

My recent sprite drawing I detailed in my last post gave me such a motivational boost that I worked some more on the game itself. Since 2-2 is complete, I began work on a new level, 2-3 Risk. It's all about risk and reward here. Right off the bat you can go two ways; one will take you to the end goal. No challenge at all. The second path will take you through a monster nightmare, a straight path with multiple monsters. It's tougher, but there will be many more treasures to find. After the path of monsters, you jump into a swimming tank. What I plan to do here is fill this thing to the brim with lots of randomly wandering monsters, and moving treasures as well. You can get chests, and even a carrot you can use later. Once out of the tank, you can feed the carrot to the horse and continue onward, with or without the horse. There will be more baddies to avoid (terrible time clocks; touch them, and your time is up), and then you reach the end of the maze. You have one chest that has a nice item inside, and behind the bushes is a super great item if you grabbed the carrot and brought the horse with you.

Whew, that felt good to post in-detail about a level. It feels like forever since I did that! (Technically, it's only been a week, but that feels like a long time to me, anyway.) I also went back to previous levels and fixed up some coding. The main hubworld intro event removes any lives you have, should you quit and return there, so I removed the command to remove lives from individual enemies in earlier levels. I was still figuring out how I was going to structure the game, so I still had some cleanup to do.

Since I feel like it, let's talk more about the game itself. My god, this game is going to be one heck of a mutterclucker to playtest. Thankfully I usually check things out before I move on, but I've had to go back to previous levels several times to fix stuff up. Soon I think I'll go back and throughly playtest all the levels made up till now. I could wait until the game gets closer to completion, but it would take a load off my mind to know that some things are all taken care of, especially as the game continues to evolve and grow.

I also plan on advertising here pretty soon. Since I have all my letters done in custom graphics, I plan to assemble them in a presentable way and get myself a new signature. Isn't that exciting!? Maybe, maybe not, but advertising has always been one of my strong points in the rpgmaker community, and with how big and expansive JA is going to be, this really isn't a game that should be missed, and I'll make sure that I try to get that across to everyone.

Whew, it's been a while since I've made a post that's as large as this one. But I hope that you guys will continue to support me as I march forward with this exciting new game, and hopefully this will be complete sometime in 2010.

[1ce]

Re: Josh's Adventure

A bit more progress today. I finished up all the coding for 2-3, and playtested it as well. That little sweep revealed a couple mistakes I left behind. But it's done!

I also went back to previous levels to sweep for more bugs, and there were some particulary nasty ones in there. Ones that warped you to completely different areas if you're prompted to continue after losing a life. So I naturally checked every level to make sure none of those were left, and also cleaned out some unneeded code. So things are looking good.

One big thing I managed to do today is something you might have noticed before this post....I've switched out my old DK signature for a brand new Josh's Adventure sig. It looks like this:



It also showcases the custom letters I made for the title. It's not perfect, I know...some of the letters are too big or too small, and it looks a little barebones right now. I couldn't figure out how to get a transparent color either with paint or photosuite, so that accounts for the lack of more text. All in all though, I'm pretty happy with it, and hopefully it'll get some people's attention.

If you've been keeping up with the media I've released, you might notice the girl next to Josh, and realize she hasn't been in any prior screenshots. Well, I didn't just throw her in there for no good reason; she plays a part in a feature I haven't mentioned yet. The feature I haven't talked about yet is co-op mode. Yep, you and a friend can go and try to beat the game together, and she'll be controlled by the second player. This is something I've wanted to include in a game for a long time now, because if done right, it'll help add so much more enjoyment to the game.

The reason I haven't mentioned this until now is I'm still not sure if I can do it. I've already got 2 system blocks, 4 secnario blocks and 2 graphic blocks, so whether I have any room left for this feature is still up in the air. I also haven't coded a 2 player co-op mode before, so trying to figure out how would be tough as well. Basically there's still much about it to think about, including whether the feature will make it in. But I figure I'd let the cat out of the bag since I decided to put her in there.

Level 2-4 will begin soon, and onwards after that.

I'm now trying to shoot for a winter 2010 release. Let's see if I can make it happen.

[1ce]

Re: Josh's Adventure

The last two days, I've been working on a new level called 2-4 Trial. It's a long course where you basically have to get your horse, clear an area, then jump ahead without the horse, and find a way to allow the horse to pass through. The whole level took all the events it could (120ish), and I even had to cut back my ideas quite a bit simply because I didn't have enough events to use. But it's almost all up and running, and I got about 80% of the level running. My biggest gripe is that at several points where you ditch your horse, horses appear in every other stall, including the one you left behind. I'll have to find a workaround for that.

This level was pretty tough to make, and it absolutely ate through the scenario. I have one new block thanks to this game. I'm going to have to decide whether I want to shorten the length of the game, or jump to a new scenario to keep going.

[1ce]

Re: Josh's Adventure

Call me crazy.....but I made a RPGMaker Wiki page for Josh's Adventure. I was somewhat bored one afternoon, so I've been spending some time pulling information from several different sources into this one wiki page.

[1ce]

Re: Josh's Adventure

2-4 was finished tonight. Seperate switches fixed the horse problem I had earlier. This level is the first I've made that uses all events. It also uses 24 switches to make everything work. It's a big level. Pretty happy with how it turned out.

Now I'll need to plan out a boss battle to finish up this world....Which I haven't thought about at all. Oh well, I'll think of something. Hope you guys are looking forward to this.

[1ce]

Re: Josh's Adventure

I feel rather embarassed to admit this, but...I have no creative ideas to move ahead with. I have 2-4 finished, I have a boss battle to make so I can begin World 3. I just haven't thought of what I'm going to do for this boss battle, and in an unusual turn of events, I've been focusing more on what I've been doing now than what I'm going to do later.

I don't think this little creative dry spell will last, but this is the first time I've ever had this problem. Not too sure how to react.

[1ce]

Re: Josh's Adventure

Well, I've got some work done that I posted at the Mag, and couldn't post here because of the forums being down. Then I updated this topic with the posts from the Mag, and since we're back to the old style, everything from yesterday is gone. So, let's try this again.


"I haven't had any time between the last post and now to get any work done on the game. Work has been hectic, and game playing mostly has gone to either Virtual On or Tales of Symphonia. I hope to get some work done here pretty soon, and the creative dry spell went away right after I posted it.

So, other than taking a small break from rpgmaker, I've also found and booted up my two garbage games, Don't Move and Find the Needle in the Haystack, and gave them both a playthrough. Just like I mentioned in this topic, I want to release sequels to these games, and playing through them has refreshed me on what I've made, and given me ideas on where to take them.

Since Don't Move was a Pav exclusive and Find the Needle in the Haystack was a Mag exclusive, I think I'll keep their sequels in the same places too.

So the Pav can look forward to Don't Move! 2 soon!"


"So today I booted up that shiny red disk and did some more work.

I have the basic layout for the second world boss. It's a racetrack that will have multiple obstacles as the boss, Dark Horse, tries to catch up with you and take a life. When you pass the finish line, you beat the level!

To be honest the track is a little barebones, so I'm not enjoying the layout right now. Oddly enough, this is the second time I've made a horse racing track, the first being an ending on A Work in Progress. And that first racetrack looked far better. So what I think I'm going to do is load up that map, see what I did, and make a new layout based on that.

I also went back to previous levels and did some bug fixing, and it was unfortunately pretty bad. Thankfully the playtesting helped make the mistakes obvious, so fixing them was fairly simple.

I've also been thinking about space on the memory cards...I think it's inevitable that the game will take at least three memory cards. With how things are going, it's possible to spill into a fourth. Unfortunately, the game is taking up far more memory than what I expected. Eight worlds may be asking too much, and I may consider trimming that down to six worlds. It's something I'm still considering, so we'll see what happens as more space is taken up.

I'm also deciding on difficulty levels. There will be, basically four: two will have different enemy layouts, and two difficulties will be different variations on those.

There's Normal difficulty, which is the basic difficulty level.
Easy is exactly like Normal; changes include an increase of lives to ten, and you can't progress in Easy mode.

Then there's Hard mode, which involves more enemies, and slighty different layouts. More hidden levels can be obtained in this mode; while hidden levels are harder to pass, they also reveal more goodies. And after Hard? The dreaded Difficult mode! Here, you try and beat the entire game with one life. One hit, you're dead. It's made slighty easier because the enemy layout won't change from Hard, but completing this is not gonna be a cakewalk!

So:
Easy (Lots of lives, but no progression)
Normal (The standard difficulty)
Hard (Tougher, but has more hidden levels)
Difficult (Same as Hard, but you only have one life!)

So that's the progress I've made insofar. Keep your eyes glued for any and all progress reports for this game!




PS: A couple nights ago, my local arcade had an event where you paid some cash up front, and all the machines were set to free play. Free play for three hours. FREE PLAY. If Josh was alive and well, he would've been in heaven."

[1ce]

Re: Josh's Adventure

Taking a slight break from this right now, I'm doing a little side-project over at the Mag. http://www.rpgmmag.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=8460

[1ce]

Re: Josh's Adventure

In case you haven't heard the news:

http://www.rpgmmag.com/forums/viewto...p?f=139&t=8527

Josh's Adventure will be at the Magcon!

I'm really quite psyched for this. I'm eager to see what other members of the community will think of this big project I've been working on for the last couple of months. At the same time, I'm super anxious and a little (well okay....a lot) worried, because I don't know how the game will be received.

(And hey, Magcon guys. Don't treat the game nice and cuddly; give me honest opinions! No fluff!)

So, I'm planning to make a playable demo for the Magcon, and shortly afterwards I'd like to release it publicly for everyone to play. Before the announcement I figured I would release a demo late in the year, and because of this new announcment and my rapid decision, I'm a little shocked it will happen so early, when I was planning on doing this much later in the year.

Oh well, no time like the present!

Right now I'm doing the very last touches on my Calculator project, but soon afterward I'm jumping right back to JA. I've got quite a bit of work ahead of me if I'm going to have a playable demo.

[1ce]

Re: Josh's Adventure

With no general direction in mind, I worked on JA today.

First, and maybe most importantly, I played the game I've made up till now. After playing through the first world, despite some small text problems, it works completely, and is a fun little game. I think that really has helped me. It's like, "Hey, you know what? You've got a real winner on your hands. This is polished, bug-free and pretty dang fun." So, the past few days worth of anxiety and "what am I going to do?", is cleared up, and I'm set to get this demo ready. So, a little advice for those in a game-making rut: try playing what you've made already. It might give you ideas on what to do next.

So the first thing I did is I went back to my first levels and cleaned up some text I didn't like. When I first started making the game, it was more like "Just finish this so I can move on to the next one". The game didn't have a particular style to it just yet. Now that I've found the niche I want to hit with this game, I went back and typed in some better text that will make the game flow a little better. It's almost crazy how many little things have to be considered when making a game, come to think of it. But I'll leave that for another topic.

One of the bigger changes I've made is to the hubworld itself. The hubworld is located on the top-left of the dungeon map. And I just got this great idea for a new feature that takes up most of the left-side of the hubworld. So, in order to make it fit, I had to move the entire hubworld over four or five spaces. Not so difficult, right? Until you realize that I'll have to move ALL of the events to match the new placement. That won't be too fun. On the other hand, hopefully I'll have the new feature up and running by the time the demo is released. And when I make more headway into that feature (most likely sometime today), I'll tell you about it.

The demo again will be available at the Magcon first, then made public shortly afterwards. Look forward to it!

[Pagerron]

Re: Josh's Adventure

It's great to see that you're making progress. That's very cool that a demo will be ready soon, too.

I see also that at first it's a MagCon exclusive release, huh? I look forward to hearing what other people have to say about it.

[1ce]

Re: Josh's Adventure

Whew, it's been almost a week since I've done any progress. And what with a deadline coming up soon to finish a demo version, you'd think I'd be more productive. But I've been busy and have only recently had any time to work on this, and even then I'm still working inbetween a busy schedule.

First thing today I fixed was the event/new level scenario in the hubworld. Last time I re-arranged the dungeon to implement a new idea of mine, and today I moved all the events so they look exactly how they are supposed to be set before the change. Today's other big focus was on the tutorial level, which has been updated slightly to go a bit farther. After reflecting on it....the tutorial is really quite boring, in my mind. I may have to change that somehow.

Not much to say, but it's good to be working on this again.

[1ce]

Re: Josh's Adventure

More work done today.

I find that as I try and ready the game for demo release status, I'm playtesting this baby a lot more, and have found some unfortunate bugs. Unfortunate in that they exist, not that they're troublesome to remove :P So the first world is nearly bug free, and the second world is recieving 1ce's patented comb over with my anti-glitch and bug comb. Works quite well.

Oh, and one big pain-in-the-ass situation I've found myself in....since I moved the hubworld, I have to redirect all the events that warp to it. And there are a lot of them. ARRRRRRRGH.

Here's some advice from me: write down ALL of your switches. Each and every one, in a easy-to-read document. I started this practice with Donkey Kong, and it makes life so much easier, because I can glance at any given numbered switch and know exactly which level it's in and what it does. In fact, when I had to restart my Calculator project, since I had all the switches written down, starting back up took about half the time it usually would've. JA currently uses more than 80 switches, so having this is a lifesaver.

Anyway....did I derail? Sorry. The excitement of having a playable demo for the Magcon gets me really excited (yeah, that sounds really stupid, sue me). I'm trying to go all-out for this. And hopefully you, too, are looking forward to a demo, and see what I've been blabbering about since I started this back in September. Rise and voice your desire! Hoie hoo!