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[Windybeard]

Looking much better with the fewer stars. As for the fight screen, i would go with functionality, If the game is based on a timer then speed will be key. I would much prefer an easier to use system over something slightly more pretty. Plus i think there isnt much difference in the two.

[JaJ]

Looking much better with the fewer stars. As for the fight screen, i would go with functionality, If the game is based on a timer then speed will be key. I would much prefer an easier to use system over something slightly more pretty. Plus i think there isnt much difference in the two.

I don't think the difference is big enough to change up what works anyway. Function it is

I worked some more on the water, made a little video of the result so far:


The music in the video is an instrumentalised version of one of the songs I made for the game. I havn't made music for the forest yet, but at least this fits for now.

[Alextended]

I like what I'm seeing. I don't think the story sounds FF-like, no mention of crystals, balance of the world, etc. It's only a basic setting that you've told us anyway, not the whole thing, it could end up all sorts of ways in the end. Anyway, all stories have been written before if those things sound too much like anything, just make it charming in its own right and it'll be good. But yeah, gameplay first

[SolarLune]

I like the graphical style you've got going, and the colors used in the forest look great, too.

As for constructive criticism, I think the main character looks like just the head of a character on the side views, though...? Where are his arms and legs?

The leaves in the water might look a bit better if they were turned upside-down.

EDIT - By 'turned upside-down', I meant if they were drawn so their curved bottom was up toward the sky. -

Anyway, great work so far!

[JaJ]

I like the graphical style you've got going, and the colors used in the forest look great, too.

As for constructive criticism, I think the main character looks like just the head of a character on the side views, though...? Where are his arms and legs?

The leaves in the water might look a bit better if they were turned upside-down.

EDIT - By 'turned upside-down', I meant if they were drawn so their curved bottom was up toward the sky. -

Anyway, great work so far!

Thanks. The character's legs are purple and hard to see. Should be fixed with a color change. I'll take another look at the arms too.

Someone suggested to have leaves fall from the sky and sink into the lake. I really like that idea, but I have no idea how to even begin to make that work. My first problem is that I have no clue where the leaves should even come from, etc. Also, it makes no sense for leaves to only fall above the lake, so what should happen to the leaves that land on the ground?

I like what I'm seeing. I don't think the story sounds FF-like, no mention of crystals, balance of the world, etc. It's only a basic setting that you've told us anyway, not the whole thing, it could end up all sorts of ways in the end. Anyway, all stories have been written before if those things sound too much like anything, just make it charming in its own right and it'll be good. But yeah, gameplay first

What sounds FF-like (or RPG-like) is that the characters are on a quest to save the world. But if it was a quest to save a princess that would have obviously been done before as well. I think the most important thing is that the quest is not the story itself, but the thing that forces the story to happen, and that will be the case here.
They do say every story has been told before. There are only eight basic plots after all.

I counted, and my story has elements of 5 or 6 of them.  

[Windybeard]

sounds like your missing one of them... 

[JaJ]

sounds like your missing one of them... 

I know. None of my characters are of an innocent nature, so that makes one of them impossible. Also, there is no love triangle, so that rules out another.

Perhaps I'll get a better score if I check the 20 basic plots, or the 7 basic plots, or the 3 basic plots, all of which are devided differently.

[JaJ]

I've been planning out some battles and bossfights for the demo I'm working on.

My findings so far:
A lot of battles will feel like mini-bosses, and the overall number of battles-per-area will be signifficantly lower than most rpg's. (The forest area will have just 4 battles: three optional mini-boss battles with good item rewards and one obligatory boss at the end.)

Instead of having random encounters in dungeons, most battles are fought in between locations. If you want to go from one location to another, you have to 'unlock' the road to that location first by fighting a battle sequence of around 7 battles of increasing difficulty.

The battle system is speciffically designed for either these sequences, or seperate longer battles. There will be no stand alone, short battles. (random encounters etc.) 


Anther thing I've been trying to work on is the music for the forest. I havn't been able to compose something with the right mood yet. However, I did end up with something that fits a different area in the game.

Music: Temple of healing
It sounds a bit darker than the title would imply. It's supposed to be.

[JaJ]

Finally, a forest theme I'm happy with:

Music: Starlight Forests

I'm also probably going with the idea that it is actually day while you visit the forest, but the trees are so big that they let through barely any light, making the reflection in the water seem like stars.

[JaJ]

Working on the second* boss, which is going to look something like this.


I'm going to work on the composition and details some more later, but I think it looks okay so far.

It's a hydra. The individual heads will not be too hard to defeat, but the trick is of course that as long as even one head is still alive, defeated heads will regenerate within a short period of time.

Each head has a different strategy. The top one is physical with hard-hitting attacks but no other tricks. The middle one has physical attacks too, but its main concern is healing itself. The bottom one is magical and tries to inflict poison.



(* note that while this is the second boss in the game, it's actually the first boss I am designing)

[impulse9]

Absolutely stunning. I adore your pixels. 

[JaJ]

Thanks!


I've continued working on the boss. It plays the way I want it to but the balancing is still pretty rough. I have to know exactly what items and skills you can have by the time you face him to do that so that will have to wait for now (as some of those items arn't even scripted yet). I think tomorrow I'm going to pixel some basic enemies. I'm steadily working towards something more concrete to show you. Hopefully within the foreseeable future I'll have a video that demonstrates the battle system.



 

[Windybeard]

looks awesome!

[JaJ]

I entered Ludum Dare last weekend and have since been rating, fixing and sleeping, but now I'm back to work on this.

I have been working on enemies as promised:
(don't really know how to slow them down)

[JaJ]

I hope you all had a merry christmas!

I have been experimenting with music a bit.
I found this instrument. I'ts a choir made up out of over a thousand voices, something which resonates with the theme of the story* rather well to me. So now I seem to want to incorporate those voices into every single track of the game.

Here is my first experiment:
The original
With voices (and other added instruments to make it sound better)    

Second experiment, here I just added a single (new) melody
The original
With voices

* I don't think I actually told you the theme yet. It's about the importance of a single person in a world that will probably eventually forget you. Does the title make more sense now?