What I've Been Up To
3 years ago
|██████████|SANITY
|██████████|ENERGY
Status: Gah MELTING
█ I suppose I'll just cut right to the chase, a few months ago I decided to take up RPG Maker and make a game using that. I didn't really feel like revealing that's what I decided to do with my time cause I didn't really feel like getting people's hopes up about such a thing, and then ultimately it leading nowhere. I'll detail my particular journey with that experience further down in this journal, but what I did manage to put together over the... 3-4 months? What I put together is essentially a proof of concept and is relatively bare bones. It's nothing too extensive since I was spending a lot of time learning how to code inside of it.
I have no particular place to host the file, so I'm using dropbox. The file is a little over 100 MBs in size, and if you can't download it just assume my dropbox hit the daily upload limit; which means you'll have to try again at a later date. I have no clue if that will be an issue or not since I have no clue how many people will attempt to download it after I post this journal, but fair warning regardless. I'm not sure how buggy or unstable it ultimately is, but I hope it works for the most part.
You can grab the file here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/0t82k5hmg.....ct3.1.zip?dl=0
Basic info about the game itself that might need explaining since there is very little info given the user in the game's current state:
- Z moves forward into a menu/confirm.
- X moves back from a menu/cancel.
- Arrow keys for movement.
- You can increase player stats in the skills menu (You start off with 10 points, and gain 10 every level).
- The weapon equipped determines what the character's 2nd ability will be: (A cleave, heal, ranged attack, or a pull).
- The fight in the starting area isn't meant to be won, you'll have to retreat from it (It's there for me quick test edits to combat skills)
- The order of the areas in terms of difficulty is Right (garden area), Top (tech area), Left (crystal area); though the difficulties aren't that different overall.
- Quest items don't do anything, you just sell them.
I'll reiterate that this is all proof of concept, as such there isn't much variation on anything: I'll be elaborating on what plans I have later in this journal.
█ While I do intend to continue work on this game project, it's more of a passion project than something intended for making money. Which is basically me saying that I'll be going back into my previous commission journal and poking at people to see who still want a commission and all that for money to get my funds back up. Game development is still uncharted territory for me, so I don't think I'll be crowdfunding it; I know I can deliver on art, but I definitely do not know if I can deliver on a game.
█ I suppose now I'll just detail my game development journey now. To start I've always been trying to in one way or another learn how to create games, but learning how to code was always one of the biggest hurdles. Programming languages are notoriously fickle, unlike actual language where you can get away with misspelling, sentence fragments, and missing punctuation. You mess something up and the whole thing you're working on might just stop working. Worse still is when something is wrong, but everything still works properly up until it doesn't; and then you have to go hunting down the code that causes the issue, which could be something as simple as the order of how lines of code are written to something like flawed logic being used.
Much like with my art, I'm self-teaching myself when it comes to programming; so everything for me is essentially flying by the seat of my pants. Earlier in this year I decided to look more into game development tools to help with game creation, and I was leaning in the direction of RPG Maker. The motivation for it cropped up again when I went looking through some of my old files, which included some art assets that I put together for a game that I never finished. Art assets which I have yet to post or show (I probably should correct that at some point). The choice of RPG Maker got a little complicated since there's many different versions of the program, each with their own ups and downs. I eventually settled on RPG Maker MV as that one seemed to have the plugin support needed for me to pull off what I was going for.
Though what was I going for? I wanted a combat system similar to that of Darkest Dungeon, as it had a setup that allowed for these large graphical elements but required very few frames of animation. Most monsters only had 4 frames of animation: Standing, being hit, and two different kinds of attacks; and the player characters were roughly the same but had 6 different stills for attack animations. Going from a traditional JRPG styled game where you have a column of characters on the right-hand side of the screen combating monsters on the left to a row of characters fighting monsters on the left hand side proved to be a bit more complicated than I expected. It was made complicated due to me wanting to recreate the formation mechanics of Darkest Dungeon where character position determined what abilities could be used and what could be targeted. JRPGs don't really have a 1 to 1 translation of that combat engine so I spent weeks trying to replicate the system, with multiple dead ends. Most of the problems I had was ultimately due to graphical limitations: I couldn't overlap the player characters or graphical overlays and animations wouldn't display in the way I wanted. If I knew far, far more about JavaScript I probably could have figured out a more direct solution; but my ambitions were clearly far ahead of my abilities.
One of the main plugins I was interested in was the character creator one, and one of the reasons why I picked using RPG Maker MV. This was both a blessing and a curse. Initially I figured this would be a natural fit for stuff I've done in the past before, since I've done a number of flash animations that did some asset swapping to create different characters; and for the most part that held true. The problem was that how it updated character assets was somewhat restricted in fashion, I spent a fair bit of time searching and looking for ways to update character assets while in combat to no avail. Once again it's a case of ambition being ahead of my ability. I eventually settled for some less than ideal work around, with any true asset swaps happening outside of combat. This isn't something that's in the current build and something I need to hammer out whenever I put more work into the game.
In essence the biggest hurdles I've had with game development so far is related to graphical assets and how they're managed. There's a lot of different work around and tricks I've had to use to get things to look right. It's all the more trickier because the engine was designed with sprites that are in the area of 30-60 pixels high and across, and I'm using graphical assets that are in the 300x300 range. Though I'm not too worried about cleaner and more crisp graphical assets until making sure the game mechanics are more hammered out.
█ So what stuff needs to be hammered out? Basically everything. I believe most of the hard work is behind me, except for User Interface Design. That's a can of worms I have yet to open, and I dread to.
Equipment and Ability Mechanics
This is the biggest thing I intend to work on next. What I have intended is that the equipment worn determines what abilities a character has, but ATM only the 2nd ability reflects this. Certainly one of the more major things is having abilities to help shuffle party position into more ideal spots, as the only player movement option is "charge". In addition abilities to manage the STUN bar, and more abilities that interact with enemy row positions.
Ability Interactions and Resource Management
I intend to add in an "exhaustion" mechanic of sorts when a character runs out energy for attacks, as well as enemies using different attacks if their STUN bar is high. Currently neither resource bar does too much.
Character Customization
This one isn't really about programming, but more so me sitting down and creating a bunch of different character assets so people can build their own character. This one is somewhat hard to commit to since I have to be sure that what I put together in roughs will work; cause if I create more finalized assets and they don't end up working I'll have to create all new assets from scratch.
Enemy assets
Same problem roughly applies here as with the character assets, especially if I'm putting together the action frames in addition to the standing ones. Course plenty of monster types to add into the game, and their related abilities. I of course intent to add in my ants into the mix as well.
Map Assets
Currently the maps are using default graphics, and I'm unsure of how I want to move forward on that front. I think ideally I'd want to use the system Darkest Dungeon uses, showing the party moving from left to right with a map showing the actual layout of the dungeon. This would be far more compatible to my art style, but I suspect it would take me a long time to code together. Everything is still up in the air, and this is probably the last thing I'll be working on until I get a better idea how I want the player to explore or end up in combat situations.
█ Anyways! If you decide to check out the prototype I hope you have fun with it. I know there isn't that much to it, but I did want to put something together to show for the time and effort I put into learning for the past while. I can't promise anything more will come of it, cause I certainly know that projects being abandoned is not all that uncommon. Though as of this journal post I certainly do want to keep working on it, but I still need money to eat; so expect some art to show up in the near future as I do that!
|██████████|ENERGY
Status: Gah MELTING
█ I suppose I'll just cut right to the chase, a few months ago I decided to take up RPG Maker and make a game using that. I didn't really feel like revealing that's what I decided to do with my time cause I didn't really feel like getting people's hopes up about such a thing, and then ultimately it leading nowhere. I'll detail my particular journey with that experience further down in this journal, but what I did manage to put together over the... 3-4 months? What I put together is essentially a proof of concept and is relatively bare bones. It's nothing too extensive since I was spending a lot of time learning how to code inside of it.
I have no particular place to host the file, so I'm using dropbox. The file is a little over 100 MBs in size, and if you can't download it just assume my dropbox hit the daily upload limit; which means you'll have to try again at a later date. I have no clue if that will be an issue or not since I have no clue how many people will attempt to download it after I post this journal, but fair warning regardless. I'm not sure how buggy or unstable it ultimately is, but I hope it works for the most part.
You can grab the file here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/0t82k5hmg.....ct3.1.zip?dl=0
Basic info about the game itself that might need explaining since there is very little info given the user in the game's current state:
- Z moves forward into a menu/confirm.
- X moves back from a menu/cancel.
- Arrow keys for movement.
- You can increase player stats in the skills menu (You start off with 10 points, and gain 10 every level).
- The weapon equipped determines what the character's 2nd ability will be: (A cleave, heal, ranged attack, or a pull).
- The fight in the starting area isn't meant to be won, you'll have to retreat from it (It's there for me quick test edits to combat skills)
- The order of the areas in terms of difficulty is Right (garden area), Top (tech area), Left (crystal area); though the difficulties aren't that different overall.
- Quest items don't do anything, you just sell them.
I'll reiterate that this is all proof of concept, as such there isn't much variation on anything: I'll be elaborating on what plans I have later in this journal.
█ While I do intend to continue work on this game project, it's more of a passion project than something intended for making money. Which is basically me saying that I'll be going back into my previous commission journal and poking at people to see who still want a commission and all that for money to get my funds back up. Game development is still uncharted territory for me, so I don't think I'll be crowdfunding it; I know I can deliver on art, but I definitely do not know if I can deliver on a game.
█ I suppose now I'll just detail my game development journey now. To start I've always been trying to in one way or another learn how to create games, but learning how to code was always one of the biggest hurdles. Programming languages are notoriously fickle, unlike actual language where you can get away with misspelling, sentence fragments, and missing punctuation. You mess something up and the whole thing you're working on might just stop working. Worse still is when something is wrong, but everything still works properly up until it doesn't; and then you have to go hunting down the code that causes the issue, which could be something as simple as the order of how lines of code are written to something like flawed logic being used.
Much like with my art, I'm self-teaching myself when it comes to programming; so everything for me is essentially flying by the seat of my pants. Earlier in this year I decided to look more into game development tools to help with game creation, and I was leaning in the direction of RPG Maker. The motivation for it cropped up again when I went looking through some of my old files, which included some art assets that I put together for a game that I never finished. Art assets which I have yet to post or show (I probably should correct that at some point). The choice of RPG Maker got a little complicated since there's many different versions of the program, each with their own ups and downs. I eventually settled on RPG Maker MV as that one seemed to have the plugin support needed for me to pull off what I was going for.
Though what was I going for? I wanted a combat system similar to that of Darkest Dungeon, as it had a setup that allowed for these large graphical elements but required very few frames of animation. Most monsters only had 4 frames of animation: Standing, being hit, and two different kinds of attacks; and the player characters were roughly the same but had 6 different stills for attack animations. Going from a traditional JRPG styled game where you have a column of characters on the right-hand side of the screen combating monsters on the left to a row of characters fighting monsters on the left hand side proved to be a bit more complicated than I expected. It was made complicated due to me wanting to recreate the formation mechanics of Darkest Dungeon where character position determined what abilities could be used and what could be targeted. JRPGs don't really have a 1 to 1 translation of that combat engine so I spent weeks trying to replicate the system, with multiple dead ends. Most of the problems I had was ultimately due to graphical limitations: I couldn't overlap the player characters or graphical overlays and animations wouldn't display in the way I wanted. If I knew far, far more about JavaScript I probably could have figured out a more direct solution; but my ambitions were clearly far ahead of my abilities.
One of the main plugins I was interested in was the character creator one, and one of the reasons why I picked using RPG Maker MV. This was both a blessing and a curse. Initially I figured this would be a natural fit for stuff I've done in the past before, since I've done a number of flash animations that did some asset swapping to create different characters; and for the most part that held true. The problem was that how it updated character assets was somewhat restricted in fashion, I spent a fair bit of time searching and looking for ways to update character assets while in combat to no avail. Once again it's a case of ambition being ahead of my ability. I eventually settled for some less than ideal work around, with any true asset swaps happening outside of combat. This isn't something that's in the current build and something I need to hammer out whenever I put more work into the game.
In essence the biggest hurdles I've had with game development so far is related to graphical assets and how they're managed. There's a lot of different work around and tricks I've had to use to get things to look right. It's all the more trickier because the engine was designed with sprites that are in the area of 30-60 pixels high and across, and I'm using graphical assets that are in the 300x300 range. Though I'm not too worried about cleaner and more crisp graphical assets until making sure the game mechanics are more hammered out.
█ So what stuff needs to be hammered out? Basically everything. I believe most of the hard work is behind me, except for User Interface Design. That's a can of worms I have yet to open, and I dread to.
Equipment and Ability Mechanics
This is the biggest thing I intend to work on next. What I have intended is that the equipment worn determines what abilities a character has, but ATM only the 2nd ability reflects this. Certainly one of the more major things is having abilities to help shuffle party position into more ideal spots, as the only player movement option is "charge". In addition abilities to manage the STUN bar, and more abilities that interact with enemy row positions.
Ability Interactions and Resource Management
I intend to add in an "exhaustion" mechanic of sorts when a character runs out energy for attacks, as well as enemies using different attacks if their STUN bar is high. Currently neither resource bar does too much.
Character Customization
This one isn't really about programming, but more so me sitting down and creating a bunch of different character assets so people can build their own character. This one is somewhat hard to commit to since I have to be sure that what I put together in roughs will work; cause if I create more finalized assets and they don't end up working I'll have to create all new assets from scratch.
Enemy assets
Same problem roughly applies here as with the character assets, especially if I'm putting together the action frames in addition to the standing ones. Course plenty of monster types to add into the game, and their related abilities. I of course intent to add in my ants into the mix as well.
Map Assets
Currently the maps are using default graphics, and I'm unsure of how I want to move forward on that front. I think ideally I'd want to use the system Darkest Dungeon uses, showing the party moving from left to right with a map showing the actual layout of the dungeon. This would be far more compatible to my art style, but I suspect it would take me a long time to code together. Everything is still up in the air, and this is probably the last thing I'll be working on until I get a better idea how I want the player to explore or end up in combat situations.
█ Anyways! If you decide to check out the prototype I hope you have fun with it. I know there isn't that much to it, but I did want to put something together to show for the time and effort I put into learning for the past while. I can't promise anything more will come of it, cause I certainly know that projects being abandoned is not all that uncommon. Though as of this journal post I certainly do want to keep working on it, but I still need money to eat; so expect some art to show up in the near future as I do that!
I wasn’t sure if you already had data/results/issues of the game itself, but if I go through playing this game, would you want some feedback of it just in case? Just curious, and if not then that’s cool too! Can’t wait to try it out when I come back home!
I hope I'll be able to build on it down the road.
Any of the "problems" I can find are just pre-pre-pre-alpha stuff. Like, I'm sure in later versions that running away from a fight won't delete it from the map and allow access to treasure, and the Wait command won't make your arm and sword stick out straight through full-body bindings.
I do have an opinion about something I think will persist, though, and it may be counter to one of your goals... I think the game might turn out more visually appealing with four distinct characters, rather than letting people create their own party out of bits and bobs? I kind of feel like the "generic" bondage required to fit over the different body types might weaken the aesthetic. On the other hand, having four distinct characters would potentially quadruple the art assets required to portray their bondage... A compromise could be that they have "generic" glop / vines / etc. over them up until the final level of binding, and then it's snug, smooth, character-specific helplessness art, with relevant expressions on their faces, and so on? Just thinking out loud here. n.n;
Anyway, I totally empathize with the urge to make kinky games. If I was more of a go-getter I'd already be working on a proof of concept for a choose your own adventure bondage text adventure thingy. Someday, perhaps, but in the meantime: I'm totally wishing you lots of luck with this!
Though I've already setup the behind the scenes stuff to allow for better differences in character appearances, it's a matter of actually creating said assets. Struggling with the graphics has basically been 50% of the fight!
Though as to your own game thingy, it would actually be pretty easy to do it using the RPG Maker engine. Heck, if you had the dialogue trees planned out (and any relevant images) odds are you'd be able to assemble it in a couple of days. Most people use it for like dating sim games anyways.
As for what I (vaguely) have in mind, I think I'd better stick with pure text, or close to it. I can't draw, don't have the budget to pay anyone else, and all the generic chibi sprites running around in free RPGM locales would take away from the mental imagery of helpless wigglies in a shiny dungeon. I'm probably better off relying on readers' imagination, rather than spending days and days trying to make it look semi-close to what I'd want.
That said, if I was a visual artist? I'd be slamming my head against that same brick wall as you, I'm pretty dang sure. :D
Though if I was in your position, I'd probably commission head shot art work; since all you'd need there is the base head, then different eyes and mouth flaps for expressions. Also different 'extras' depending on what was needed!
In the end sounds like you just might need a good kick in the pants to give it a shot!
You can try it at https://twinery.org/2
If you're particularly bored you could look at www > js > plugin > SSD_CharacterCreatorEX.js and tell if it's possible for the code to be executed during combat (to update any changes to the visuals during mid-comabat), and how it would be done. I assume a function is called when a combat sequence is started. A related plug-in is SRD_CCEX_DynamicActors.js which allows for asset swapping on the fly (outside of the character editor itself) which is done via equipment swapping. As is the graphical updates only happen on the main map. The base code for handling the graphics I believe are in the rpg_sprites.js file.
If you figure that out, the direction of how I setup certain game mechanics certainly would change drastically from what I currently have planned, which is basically after combat events based on what happened during the course of the battle itself. Doesn't flow as nicely of course, but it's what I have to work with.
Outside of that, something that might be useful to know is how RPG Maker handles the Z location of animation effects. I don't think it was designed with multiple animations playing on the screen at once so the order of which they are shown are probably shown in the order which they are created/loaded, so sometimes a 'newer' graphic will show under an 'older' one. This one I have no clue how the game handles this.
Here, in case you wish to use it. https://katai5plate.github.io/RPGMV.....8A%B6%E6%85%8B
At any rate the problem I have is figuring out how the plugin itself handles character sheet updates. I already know how to swap spritesheets in battle if I use the default engine, which is using "setBattlerImage" and pointing to a filename. The plugin on the other hand builds a custom sprite sheet using multiple files and then loads it into the combat engine, so I have no idea what I have to reference to load up the spritesheet assembled by the plugin.
It's definitely got that darkest dungeon mechanical feel, but I love how the actions (and graphics) evolve as you get more and more bound. It almost has a "Mira Co Rescue" feel to it.
It's one of the things I love about how accessible game development is getting, relatively speaking, is that not only do you as the player get to put yourself more into the action and feel like you're there, but you can also get hours of enjoyment out of the same sprites.
I know a lot of people aren't into it, but if you did decide to start a Patreon on this, I'd be all over it.
Looked up the Rescue thing, and I guess it's kinda the same boat in a way; using the default map sprites while making a bunch of custom sprites for the combat system and what not. I did consider for a short amount of time using the setup in what they've done to show the graphic progression, but in the end I really like the Darkest Dungeon style and layout.
Like Glee, I am really fond of games bases around kinks, and I dabbled into it myself, so I know that even a proof of concept must have taken a lot of time and effort, si great job on that end. I'll make sure to give it a test.
"unable to find locale data files. Please reinstall"
Other RPG Maker games work on this VM so I'm not sure what's up. If anyone has any Ideas or a good way to run RPG Maker games with WINE please let me know and I'll give you virtual cookies.
-The first bit of advice any RM veteran gives to new users is to never start your first project and expect it to be an excellent game, especially if it's a passion project. Game development is hard, even using pre-made assets or commercially free resources on the official forums or or hand-made spritework. It's mindbogglingly complicated stuff to do alone.
-That said, as a proof of concept, this is actually pretty solid. The character creator is solid and the battle system, from what I could play, was honestly kind of iffy, but I understand what you're trying to do with it and where you're trying to go with it. (I'm presuming the bindings are a stacking status effect, with Struggle and Assist being used to help the afflicted party member- the former works most of the time, though Assist never worked. The damage done is very low numbers, which is a good start for balancing combat, but can make it feel tedious if not balance correctly. My advice, save battle balancing for last, or work on it when you need a break from story/mapping/etc.)
-The maps that I've seen are interesting, for a proof of concept. The use of on-screen and random encounters in tandem is something of a controversial design choice from what I've seen, and considering the overall feel of what you're seeming to want to convey, I believe on-screen with a some or most events chasing after the player (a la Earthbound would be a good idea, especially if you can recreate the system it uses to determine pre-emptive attacks, ambushes, and normal battles) would be a better choice design-wise. (I would also suggest having some battles be avoidable, players like to feel like they can choose when to battle a given enemy, especially if they don't respawn, and especially especially if they do.)
-I recognize a few scripts that you're using, such as I believe Yanfly's Action Battle Sequence scripts. I can see the inspiration from Darkest Dungeon, and think you are emulating the mechanics of it well enough, though would suggest looking into why the developers designed the game the way they did. Game Maker's Toolkit is a great youtube channel that examines games, why they were developed the way they were, and can offer some great insight into how to design and develop your game.
-Your use of the available assets is pretty solid, you've already listened to the number one rule of 'change the system sounds' and chose some that don't sound too distracting. Overall, it's a pretty solid project, it does obviously need work, but what game doesn't after a few months? I've been working on a few for years at this point and I'm still learning.
-That said, if you're ever looking for someone to help out, whether it's designing some maps or doing some proofreading, or even having an ear so you can talk your way through a problem with the project, (or to ask for advice, I'm a fairly solid writer so I could also do some proofreading/corrections if asked,) my notes are always open. (Though I also have Discord and Telegram.)
-This shows promise, and I'm sure you'll make something truly amazing.
character custom looks nice sprites are good I would argue that restraints shouldn't remove your actions that fast
the enemy side is very cluttered making it difficult to tell at a glance how many enemies there are and where the are on the map mouse control might as well not exist for how useless it is in combat clicking on the party names in the menu works fine but on the map/field the "clickbox" of your party members is way off to the side and trying to click one enemy in the sea of bodies is impossible
basic system and mechanics seems solid enough might wanna look into escaping form battle removing enemies from the field as i am pretty sure beating the game by running from everyone was unintentional
(Though as a toy, its not hard to excite me hahaha)
I really hope this can be continued, in your own time of course. Thank you and keep up the amazing work