[BD21] SUPERGAME BAKEDOWN 2021 !!!

[sleepysmiles]

Ok ive basically got an outline of the scope of the game, and have started fiddling with the numbers and testing the combat so it’s closer to what i want. I have most of the maps sketched out and im gonna start building them in engine. There won’t be a lot! I’m dividing the game into 3 short acts and there’ll be a little “overworld”/hub area per act, with a couple interior maps. And i mean short and little lest that sound really ambitious lol. This is an rpg short story, not a novel.

Big goals:
-good, punchy, decently strategic combat. The basic RPGM combat is classic Dragon Quest, Wizardry, etc. first-person turn-based and my goal is to at least make it so you dont bash bash heal yawn through everything. Not saying im gonna try to make the perfect balanced combat system for my first game, but i do want to design around my tastes: smallish numbers, skills that are unusual and powerful, short and high-risk fights instead of long attritional ones. (all that said, it’s probably going to end up being really easy if you’ve played even 1 megaten game)
-also there will relatively few combat encounters, none will be random, and they’ll be finite. All killer no filler
-and at least as many non-combat encounters. Think like, choose your own adventure segments that use skill checks. Jrpgs glide over that kind of stuff even though it’s a crucial fun part of tabletop and gamebooks
-a reasonable amount of nonlinearity. We’re talking, do these things in whichever order, or maybe find a shortcut and skip a few sections. Again, trying to make the jrpg i want to see, as much as i feasibly can at least
-not a ton of plot or dialogue! but what’s there will be umm very recognizably sleepysmiles lol. I actually nipped bits of the story from ideas for comics ive had
-obscure hidden shit and mechanics that i’ll implement on a last minute whim that most of you probably won’t even notice

Tbh when i write this out it still looks a bit overambitious for my first game, but im having enough fun brainstorming and crunching numbers together that if i get at least 1/3 of this done by the end of the month i’ll feel pretty good about it!

[Gate88]

Added an idle animation for when the ghost is stationary.

[slime]

ghost farts

[aislesgrises]

i finally have tiles getting into the right places, as well as animations ACTUALLY behaving correctly. dynamic draw order is still not finished, but i’m gonna need to implement movement before i can fully start testing the way i want to implement it.

[Gate88]

lol i nearly made a sliding ice block puzzle on accident!

thought process was something like “huh this is a weird teleporter edge case” -> “what happens if i put a bunch of them?” -> “oh”

[slime]

as I surpass an eighth of my cartridge memory, pico is telling me to take this shit seriously

[HOBO]

You’re all making cool shit this is nice

[RT-55J]

I did another room for the Caves of ZZT remix collab. I decided to give one of my favorite screens more of a sense of place, and made it so the intensity rises instead of falls as you progress in it.

Original Board

New Board

(Maybe I’ll work on a Real Game sometime this month.)

[BLUE_BLACK_PURPLE]

Loving that cross! Very good, very good

Edit: hey, I still need to play the game you posted in the other BD21 thread. I’m excited!

[BLUE_BLACK_PURPLE]

I went with RPG Maker, like I said in the other thread. I’m making a… a thing. You run around as a 2D sprite in stock asset RPG Maker maps and when you talk to people you get Daz3D images that play out the scenes. It’s not very creative, yeah! I’m sorry but it’s hard to keep up with all of you and your cool sprites, I’m working off of what I know here.

The 3D scenes look like this:

I’m very sorry I couldn’t find a better “park” asset, it’s not very pretty. I’ll have to roll with it though, it’s the best I can do right now.

The two main characters (just test renders, these images are used nowhere in the game, obviously. Ignore the clipping, please):

Pretty proud of the suit color!

I tried to make him look a bit insecure and emotional to make him a more interesting character. He still looks kinda smug to me in this test render but hopefully that won’t be the case for the game proper.

This is Delilah. I like her a lot. Draping that scarf in every scene is a challenge but I feel like it adds so much personality that I can’t leave it off. The game takes place in early fall and she’s the kind of person that likes the colder weather because you can wear a bit more and accessorize. I am that kind of person, too.

Btw, this is not going to be a pervy game and the characters I use in this are new and none of them are ever going to be in a pervy game. Just feel like I have to say that because, well, I do make pervy games, sometimes.

This game has a short little story that I want to be sad and yet heartwarming to a degree, although it is more heartbreaking in the end, if everything goes right but that also depends on player choice. To a degree~.

The “home” map:

You might notice that the sofa and the bed look weird and clash and that’s because I made those sprites from 3D models. 3D models are the important things you interact with in this game, where the gameplay happens. I like that they stand out (I mean, looking at this small screenshot they don’t stand out that much but when you play the game you’ll see) and also, this way I was able to easily make sprites for when the player is sitting on the couch or sleeping in the bed.

The entirety of the overworld map:

I just now noticed that the building on the bottom right is crumbling and, uh, that’s not on purpose. Gotta switch out that sprite, oops! I should start playing in fullscreen so I actually see what my game looks like!

So that’s what it looks like at this point. I’m severely behind schedule for art and text and, well, I’ve been in a slump recently. I blame this on my new year’s goals because they made me change up my whole daily routine and that’s been throwing me off. So yeah, please send your encouragement to keep developing this game jam game my way because I could use it!

[BLUE_BLACK_PURPLE]

Some more scarf physics:

The lighting still needs a lot of work and I’m scared I won’t have time to get it right! It’s supposed to be the golden hour of the day, in the evening, in the fall, though I’d rather have it look a bit unnaturally bright than too dark. Still, it’s not quite right. There are lamps in the park and then the HDRI for the scene and tuning just these two aspects is really difficult in this scene somehow.

Also, the aspect ratio is weird and not 16:9 because that’s what I went with in RPG Maker. It’s really interesting working with it because I’ve never done compositions for anything other than 16:9.

[slime]

I’d like playtesters by this weekend. PM me if you want to eat dots. Any and all feedback appreciated

[slime]

SCREAMING

[aislesgrises]

the draw order and jumps are wonky but i can fix that later. rn i’ve got working 3d tile movement and i’m glad i got that figured out

[slime]

got minimaps and map switching working smoothly. still hoping to have enemies working by this weekend

[RT-55J]

I looooove that lighting effect.

[AutomaticTiger]

I’m working on a thing but it’s extremely preliminary and secret.

[slime]

thanks! i considered splitting the tiles to have twice as much granularity in lighting, but i decided I like the traditional roguelike-esque style of lighting entire tiles

[VastleCania]

working on a “what if a gallery was creepy” vibe

i’ll have to figure out how to make it something that loops cleanly

[slime]

alucard voice im interested in this