[Raided]

@ OnionBlaze
Your game is so adorable!!

I have my own entry here! I wasn't too sure of it, but it seems to be appreciated.
http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-33/?action=rate&uid=17529

Raided

Fairly simple you eliminate Courageous Adventurer attempting this All new In town raid boss.


The enemy starts naive, with foolish one man show, and as they get slaughtered they wisen up, come in bigger groups, send stronger opponent and even party up.

While you can not become any stronger (boss dont level up) you can change up your skill arsenal to better deal with the wave at hand. (but really, screw strategy, just wreck havoc as a boss should)
Oh, after death you respawn to the last wave you reached, So just keep trying till you get it.

[ENTRY 14Weekly update Fixing and Arting]

@wizered67
Thanks for the feedback! While the blank expression was kind of what I aimed for, being "bored" wasn't part of it, It really hard to do much with so little pixels in the face. I guess thats why most games have faceless characters these days. Anyway I tried to play a bit with the eyes, I think it improved a bit.


@Alex Higgings
I take it, your talking about the trial? It's pretty challenging to work on, but right now I feel like everything should go alright. I'm past the Hard parts, at least I think. Im looking foward to completing this game too!

but today, Update day!

ENTRY 14
Weekly update Fixing and Arting

A pretty good week, lots of under the hood stuff, but also some art improvement.

I never showed room traveling before, except for the Map teleport. Well I just added a little transition animation. I was planning on making the room change occur when the screen is totally black, but with the speed it goes, I though it looked fine even imperfect like it is (instant room change, the transition actually occurs afterwards) Is this cut corner unacceptable? Do share (if you notice it)

walking travel, featuring improved rooms, new bubbles, new higlights and the shady transition.

Worked on the locations a bit, Living room got a whole overhaul… so much for showing it last week.
Added the “study”,”Library” and “playroom”. They have been there for a while, but never got updated with the new art/screensize, now they are!(still not done though)

Pretty useless but I changed the AI investigation pattern (looks). They used to travel between points of interests continuously in circle. Now they go to the point of interests and stick around for a while, before checking another at random. It just looks more natural I guess, When looking for clues, you actually stay at one point for a while before checking another spot, and sometimes you revisit past locations.(Using that real life experience‼)

Somewhere along the way I broke the “Run away from guy with weapon” system. I fixed it and added the other possibility I wanted: The Ai can instead rush at you. (No attack yet) Or Ask what it is about or stay there (Defend, but no attack yet).
Unfortunate these elements rely on not yet implemented features, I made them but have nothing to show for it (yet).

Worked on my “favorite” problem… the Information amount.  During the investigation you can collect information by talking to others, They used to give you everything they knew (too much info‼!) - > then everything except what is related to you (the player) - > then excluded all (location) info coming from the investigation (still too much‼) - >
Now I took drastic measures, and I hope it doesn’t break the game. The info is randomly given, so asking the same person what he remembers twice, could grant different info. Also the maximum info given is 8.
Im also working on “info condensation” where I could condense multiple evidence in one sentence Ex: if the person  was in the same room all day if fusions all the individual claims into one “was there from X to X”. The evidence pieces would still be received individually though.

Oh and speaking of talking, the last (relevant) thing I did was turn the player interaction to the “VN” style.

New interaction (talk to) it used to appear in a bubble like the ones I just removed.

Overall Im very satisfied with this week, might not look like much to an outsider (I do avoid showing whats not ready) but things overall moved quite foward, lots of little issues fixed, everything looks much better, everything is coming together just fine.

Next ill return to the trial, try to have it fully running. I don't expect to make it for the next Entry with ludum dare taking a lot of my free time(I wonder what ill make!) but we will see how it goes.

This looks super cool and interesting,
I like how the stats have multiple elements to them (start, cap, multi)
And very nice diagram!

Is there inheritance? I don't think flat-out starting with stats close to the father would be wise, but perhaps have the parent stats/class slightly influence the kids stat and class.

Like if you always pick scholars, your odds of getting more scholars increase and the odds of a scholar having great stats increases, but as random luck goes its always possible to get another class and "star a new branch".

I think ill try to participate, i might be short on time though... working on weekends.
Might be a good idea to try to team up, i usually have fairly decent ideas, and im a gml (GM:S) programmer.
Art has always been my downfall, so a good artist would help, since im low on time maybe some other gml coder.

Well, im just throwing this out there! pm me if interested, Ill try my best to participate either way!
Jams are always a fun time to let the mind free (without necessarily killing the current project)

Here is my first participation in screenshot saturday!
Wish I had something more flashy or maybe a gif... well lets start clean: a screenshot.

One of the rare times I found everyone toghether, was neat with the recently changed sprites!

I once made a game (small jam prototype) with light as "mana,mp" source.
it was a "magic shooter" only shooting costed energy (different shots/spells cost more)
it had a day night cycle so during day, you essentially have infinite energy regen (although not enough to wreck total havoc) and at night you had no regen at all so you had to be careful. (I wanted to create a reserve system, to build up emergency energy source during day, but that did not happen.)
In the cave, it was constant darkness except few light sources that gave regen (faster then normal in sun) but those source were also sun based so at night inside cave still had no light source.

Doupt this has anything to do with what you were talking about, haven't had the chance to play your exemples.
it is however "Light as mechanics" so hope that helps!

[-ENTRY 13-Other characters, art update]

@hsnabn
I was actually thinking about health bar shake until i put character shake and thought it was enough. Ill go look for those bonus points!

@wizered67
Nice to see you again, pretty cool of sharing it even with friend and even better that he likes it too!
Heres more! just for you! (ok.. this was meant to happen for the weekly update)

-ENTRY 13-
Other characters, art update

Hi, been pretty busy this week (and assisted to an awesome 3 day convention) so not much happen, plus I showed the objection before this weekly update.
Anyway, back to the daily life "gameplay part".
I made the other characters and im ready to show them, as you can see some got some slight change, some major changes, hopefully for the best.

The cute little guys will be missed. Still rocking my avatar though.

This is not the full cast, but it should last until I got a complete gameplay going. (from murder to trial conclusion)
Might be insane, but ill set the objective to September 1st ludumdare!!! so first half of september . This is of course not the whole game being done but simply the bigger part of gameplay being done and meshing together.
Right now im working on animations

rough walk cycle

Also,  thinking about changing the interactions, It currently simply shows a text bubble describing the action. Im thinking about using small little bubbles with icons.

text bubbles

icon bubbles (+ incomplete living room)
I might add the specific action (like text bubble) at the bottom of the screen, away from focus.

Oh, and those are in-game, so mockup no more (pretty close right?)

Thats all for now, will stick with the daily life part of the game for a bit, try to make everything look and work better as well as perhaps add new locations.

I had already explained how objection works, but I finally got something to show for it!

Fairly straight foward, this was a "General" objection.
-After claiming the statement was a lie (which it is, its in the text!)
-the opponent refuses to admit it; he has no reason to, you used no evidence.
-You then get the choice to back out (slight damage)
 or look for evidence (big damage if wrong, big damage to opponent if right)

In this exemple I just picked a random evidence, that was wrong, so we are put in our place, and the game goes on.
Had I picked a good one, the opponent would change his version to the truth (or another lie)

text is placeholder'ish, some might even recognize "stuff"
As for the "Objection" exclamation,(I really wanted to use Objection) I at first thought of having multiple different ones for everyone, but I think I will give each character a unique one. suggestions welcomed.

oh yeah, i was wondering if I should make damage more "damage-like" by adding hitmark and/or damage pop-up. its subtle, but there is character shake for now.

Feedback on this would be appreciated, its a fairly important element of the game.

@CyangmouArt
that is one good looking creature (succubus?) <-- and im just censoring myself with "good"
---
tried a first walk cycle,

 how is it?

[-ENTRY 12- Trial flow]

Thank you hsnabn! I'm glad the trial looks interesting, especially so early on! Final fantasy with words is what I have in mind, well pseudo-rpg to say the least. It still takes a lot from murder mystery though.

Oh and its great to hear people, speak up about the killing mechanic, I asked about it a long time ago, but it's still up for discussion, as is pretty much everything I asked about.
And yeah, i'm definitely heading towards a comic approach at this point, lots of positive feedback on that!

But today, Is update day, and I have been waiting for this one (well more like rushing to make it)

-ENTRY 12-
 Trial flow

Quit a big update today, also Slight title change to... smoothen title transition? Don't want to loose you followers!(and lurkers) Project Killer will be the title until I settle with a final name.

I actually never mentioned the overall flow of the trial in my previous posts about it so I made a flowchart.
I did mention it was non-linear, semi-linear would be more exact. And I have shown the listening mode gameplay. However, how does it all connect?
TLDR:(or/& read what follows)


The listening mode I showed (where everyone states their location) is one of many sections in a trial.
The trial should start with an intro: the basic facts being laid out.

Then the case is defined: this section you set the current consensus on:
•   Time –set the time frame for the murder
•   Location –set the scene of the crime
•   Weapon –set the murder weapon

Then you debate: In this section you set the personal alibi, weapon access & other things.(these use the case defined facts(consensus) as a basis)
•   Alibi –this is what I showed (in an incomplete state) Everyone speaks out their locations.
•   Weapon access –In this everyone speaks out their awareness of the murder weapon; did they see it, did they know it existed, does it belong to them.
•   Other – this is more open, and is a discussion about other relevant facts. Did someone not like the person? who found the body? Was someone too clever? Was someone acting suspicious? Etc..

I think I will make all of these flow one into the next one and after one run, you will have access to the overview menu from which you can revisit any of those and:

[maybe mode] <- not sure if it will happen yet (a big damage dealing) pre-accusation of sorts.

accusation: Accuse someone of having committed the crime.
This is big, when you accuse someone others will have their (independent) opinions about it, agree or disagree depending on the suspiciousness of you and the target as well as other things such as their alibi, relation; Knowing for sure its impossible etc..

If majority is in favor, case is closed and you win, if rejected it causes big damage to you.

Oh and yeah, Ai will be free to launch accusations too!

Heres the overview menu

Its essentially A hub, nothing* happens it. you can choose what section to (re)visit next.
You get to see the current consensus, as in what your group currently thinks are
the time,weapon and location of the crime.
It also shows the current assesment of the other members (it cycles trough them)

and a simple scale of suspiciousness of everyone.

*I want to make it so Ai can decide to go revisit something on their own.(after a long enough delay)
*Accusation from Ai would happen from here

That's it for now!  Feel free to ask any question or share your thoughts

I'll work a bit more on objections and agreements before returning to the murder part of the game. (taking a break from trial progress on a good note) Theres the whole new look I have to continue and probably fixing some stuff.

Thanks a lot, that's super encouraging!
Things are actually going quite smoothly these days!
Got my first follower on my blog (features some of my other stuff too), things are moving along, got time.
It's great you like the presentation, i had mostly positive feedback on it. I'm not satisfied yet, but I think it is good.

I think  ill have to edit the zoom model as I find it looks a bit too young.
It might be missing a little flash/impact
and the font is still not set in stone.

As for the overall look, I think the bubbles stand out oddly. ill eventually try to remake them better (better and wiggling if not annoying), but for now it works. I like the concept of thought bubbles as theme, although sometimes I wonder if I should have went for a more gamey menu.

im looking foward to the next update, I hope things keep going smoothly because its an essential part.

[-ENTRY 11-Weekly update]

Been a week, time for an update!

-ENTRY 11-
Weekly update

Iv’e revisited a lot of stuff again, I guess that is the downside of starting fast. That and deciding to reskin the game mid-development. It does look far more pleasing now, so I feel its worth it.
So what got done?

• Made skill usage
  -made a nice (not nice enough yet) usage anim
  
  More on skills to come
  

• Added general objections
• Made answering questions work.
• I started redoing the main menu
• Realized talking to people made them give you “Investigation locations” and removed that. (For the most part, where you (all) have been during the investigation should be irrelevant)
• Returned on the working on the player sprite, as well as the other sprites.
• Probably a lot of smaller stuff

And this is a little art piece I made! (I guess, I like trying stuff out)

It should be the background of the pause menu

I should have more stuff next time, so hopefully you stick around!

Wait... so I didnt make the Ga.. NOOOOOO!!!

Welcome onboard gunswordfist! dont steal my game!   

I really need to give this a proper name -_-

Have'nt heard of Criminal: The last Of the Innocent. Ill try looking into.
I really like the Mystery genre, although I'm quite busy these days with this game.

And good eye on noticing the glorious nature of the exchange.
Been a while since I thought of the kill system but due to the appreciation it received I definitly want to include a comic portion. I hope it turns out well.

But for now, im still on the trial. Its essentially half the game so I hope it sounds great!

[-Entry 10-Update & the Trial (part 2).]

Been held back by the jams lately, but I've made progress. Unfortunately the progress involves simply Achieving in game my mockups (mostly functional too). I Feel I should stop doing mock ups or at least showing them because it shows progress that has yet to be made, lessening the perceived progress when the it is actually achieved.
(But hey, I love mock ups, they give a good vision I work hard to achieve )

Things having slowed down nonetheless, I think I will start weekly updates regardless of actual progress made, to keep myself involved and the community updated.

-Entry 10-
Update & the Trial (part 2).

SO things are starting to come together really well!
Main thing that is still missing is Text that makes more sense and feels fluent, but the main ideas are there.
and some chatter may happen
(background still in progress and not quite perfect yet, but its a start)

Essentially everyone is divulging the locations they have been at throughout the day.
Everything is still very basic but can easily be complexified.
Characters choose if they lie or say the truth. (Obviously wont be all In your face in the actual game)
All their statement are based on evidence they gathered.
Using that, I can easily figure out what objects & agrees to it.

An actual Objection (Not shown in gif)
Either damage the opponent and make him change his version (right)
or Hurt you and continue (your mistake)

I haven't done Agreements yet. (essentially the same as objection)
but they will either Heal you and your opponent (right or no one has evidence against it)
or cause a third party objection. (wrong+someone else has evidence against it)

there is some random chatter that is essentially irrelevant.
-That's cool and all... (transition chatter, more fluent flow)
-They see me trollin... (totally irrelevant chatter)
-thats odd.. (context relevent chatter, kind of hints)
But what it does is prevent the talk from being: I was there,I was there,I was there.
Right now they are all fixed for exemple sake, but Ill make them more varied and appropriate.

oh and all of that is randomly generated!

Hope this was interesting! Feel free to ask any question or post feedback. My previous entry questions are also still Very valid.

[-Entry 9-The trial (Core)]

Alright!
Afraid there wasn't much progress since last time, I left for a trip expecting to come back full of energy but actually came back sick. A great mental recovery (not that I was in a bad shape) kind of ruined by a bad physical state.
Anyways if the coding side didn't progress much(so much revisiting code because of the resizing!), concepts did! It wasn't too hard to just relax and think of what I wanted to do with it.

So here goes:

-Entry 9-
The trial (Core)

The trial much like danganronpa & ace attorney revolves around finding contradictions/lies in opponent statements. With the added responsibility of putting out your own and not getting caught.
Since you are the killer, framing anyone else results in a victory. Since you made the kill and it obviously wasn’t scripted, theres a bit more freedom at the cost of, ill admit, a bit of narrative.
I initially said the trial would be akin to a battle, and that is the case.
Everyone has an health bar (suspiciousness (0- > 100)) and special bar(credibility (100 -> 0))
since going from 0 to 100 is weird in bar form, I might change it to "innocence".
The goal is not to outright bring one person to 100% suspiciousness, but to simply have someone else take be found guilty (high suspiciousness helps, but if everyone is highly suspicious, it doesn’t help the consensus.)

Gameplay
The main mode is
Listening
In this mode, one at a time the others make statements about whatever is being talked about.
Each statement is shown for a while before moving on to the next (automatic change)
During this time you have your “listening” menu open (similar to an rpg action menu)

• You can Object if (you think) the statement is false
• you can support if (you think) the statement is true
• you can use skills for whatever reason.
• Or you can simply do nothing and let the statement change.

Mockups
(sorry for no background)



Both Objection and supporting work on two level: general & specific.
If you select objection(general), you will claim the statement is wrong. To which your opponent could simply say: no its true. (could also admit his mistake)
In that situation you can accept having been wrong or insist on it being wrong by pulling out evidence (specific).
If you pull out correct evidence after being denied you will deal critical damage. If you are wrong you receive critical damage.
dmg= initial objection +(maybe) specific (critical) objection
You can also object directly with an evidence.  This goes directly to specific critical damage.
dmg= specific (critical) objection
So depending on what way you decide to object/support you can deal (or be hit by) different level of damage.
Id say general objection is better when you’re not sure and a specific one and specific objection when you are sure.

(Specific) evidence menu for Objection. (same for agreed) (mockup)

One problem I am facing is the ridiculous ammount of evidence that is available. (everyone records their everymove over potentially 9 sub-day periods.) I am thinking of only showing "context sensitive" evidences (depending on the subject at hand) But I am curious How much evidence choice is Too much evidence?

At the end of the discussion you are asked if you want to rerun the discussion. If you do everything will be resaid, giving you another chance to spot contradictions. You can rerun the same discussion 3 times with no consequences, more than that and your credibility/suspiciousness take a hit.
So that is the main gameplay mode of the trial.
It also contains two sub elements.

Think Fast
At anytime during the trial someone could ask you a question, you will have answer choices replace the usual “listening” menu. The answer is permanent and final. The consequences will only happen once (Even though it will be restated when you rerun the discussion) So stay on your toes!

My statement
This one is very large because it will depend on context, but this is essentially how you give your facts about whatever is being talked out. So if  you are discussing your locations throughout the day, when it is your turn your character won’t be honest and say where you have been. You will have the map pop up and be asked where you have been. Feel free to say the truth or lie. Don’t be stupid however, the others will spot illogical stuff.

So that is the core of the trial, I do have ideas for other modes (and they will likely be implemented) ill discuss them some other time. On thing at a time, just building this up seems intimidating enough.

So, does this system seem alright and interesting? Used a different font this time, is it better? And of course how much evidence would be too much?
Answers to these questions would be greatly appreciated.
 As well as any contribution really. As always, I'm open to suggestion and feedback!

The kitchen looks nice and it looks like you're making good progress! The mechanics look like they're starting to come together and it sounds like it should be fun. I wasn't a huge fan of the text font, but I don't really have any suggestions for a better one.

This really did move a lot, I also think the new coat of paint delivers makes it more evident.
I started adding it in-game and took the opportunity to resize the game.
used to be 960x480 and I shrunk it to 640x360, scales nicely to full screen and the previous size had way too much free space.

One design element im not sure of is where to position the smaller rooms. when in small room (like toilet) much of the area is black (not room) and I don't know if I should center the room (always in the middle) or leave it "location sensitive" As in room is on the edge of the side you come from.
ex the toilet is right (to the hall) if you enter it, the room will be glued to the left side.

As for the font ill look into that, is the Hud font alright? I could use that. Part of me want to use something really simple and bland like Arial but I feel it would look off/lazy.

Im working on the new models for the other characters, so some might face some changes. (not that I ever really showed them). Anyway, looking foward to have more to show!

[-Entry 8-Update and Mockups!]

-Entry 8-
Update and Mockups!

Its been a while since my last entry, And I honnestly haven't had much visible progress. Worked a lot on improving things I already had. for exemple when investigating, NPCs move (in the room) to the different points of interest. (evidence)
worked on a sentence generator so when you discuss evidence they talk about the evidence:
ex:(responding to having to being asked if anything interesting was found)
Well I saw blood in the kitchen.Can't believe someone did that. Absolutely disgusting.

This is made up of multiple small sentence parts, some are present some are not, most have some variants and I want to have a lot of variety so they stay kind of unique. although there are only so many ways to say you saw blood somewhere.

I also started to work on the trial, the base is there, been approaching the challenge of generating the trial. kind of hard but I think I can do this. Discussing what im planning for trials is probably what my next entry will be about.

except bug fixing, another thing I did and put quite some time into is working on Art, lots of time went on it (oups) and I think i managed to get something good. I still haven't implemented it yet, but it really shouldn't be hard/long once I decide to go for it. I just wanted to at least get some feedback before going ahead.

So here is what I have:

The good old kitchen, new verion mockup (Real deal should be very similar to it)

and well, I did say id improve/figure something out for the visual novel elements.

If it was actual talking, instead of tought small cloud, it would be a bubble talk pointer(small).

Made the model by trying to convert my hand drawing to digital, and thought I fell on something interesting (as far as amateur art goes)simple cartoonish, sketchish
I'm curious if the text box and font are alright, checking most VN they tend to go for gradient boxes, haven't seen speach/thought bubbles used (although im sure it exists). They are a bit plain, but do the job, not sure how id improve on that.


So what do you think? approved? comment, suggestion? fire away!

oooh and bonus! some (reverse?)fanart I made! maybe ill color it someday.

Looks cute! Seems like a good idea too!

One thing though.. how does one ever get the "edge" over his allies?

Good luck with this!

[-Entry 7-Investigation]

Well, I put art experimenting on the side, although im still progressing. I think ill be able to put out something that looks good.

Sorry, but the original art will stick around a bit longer.
I however have a new update! Things are moving quickly!

-Entry 7-
Investigation

Investigation starts after a meeting with someone not joining in, or when a body is discovered.
When someone is not found, everyone will part way looking for that person: the investigation has already started and thus anything suspicious they find is recorded. Once someone find the body (and someone will) everyone else is called to that area. A body discovery scene/discussion occurs and then the investigation continues.


If the body is found before a “missing person meeting” the person that finds the body calls everyone, there is the body discovery discussion and the investigation starts straight away. In that case the investigation lasts longer because it will be all the remaining time until next meeting (premature investigation) + all the time of the next day period (like normal investigation)

In this scene, Tyson was killed in the kitchen and left there alone. When all the others headed there for the meeting well: Bad surprise! Dat emotion though! forgive the poker face; it will also be replaced eventually.

Not sure if I should go for bigger pixel art models or simply drawings for the VN models. (after quick research, pixel art vn models dont really exist... Im doomed! ok, not really ill figure something out)

During investigation you can no longer cover up. All you can do is investigate. To save you from “slip ups”(and myself some work), you can only mention things you have investigated or remember during trials.
So even if you know where the weapon is (because you hid it) you can only ever know/use it if you investigated/found it during the investigation.
Ex. If you hid the knife in the toilets, but never investigated it in the toilet, you cannot mention that fact.

When you investigate an object it gives you some evidence. Your player has a short reaction(not yet) to whatever is investigated and new evidence pops up and is recorded to your phone.

During investigation by talking to others you can get more information: testimonies. Right now they just give you all the character’s knowledge excluding everything related to you.
I want them to eventually consider the relationships they have and importance of the info to choose what knowledge to disclose.

Im not sure but I may also add false information. (if relation is very bad perhaps)
Furthermore, listening to testimonies ends the current time (sub)period. So basically you can only have 3 testimonies in a normal trial. (but one might result in more than 1 evidences)
You can talk to the same person more than once, they might have obtained new info after further investigation, but it still costs you the time period.

I still have some bits to work on for the investigation, mostly the details i mentionned I want to add, but thats about it! It was quite a challenge and im glad to have made i through after I finish up the little things left I can go encounter the final boss, The Trials (with final form The Art).

Im looking foward to it and hope you do too!

@Nikas
That looks amazing! fake 3D?
I find the illusion pretty good and slightly hypnotizing!