Ah, I see--fair enough.

Hmm... You say that some of the videos will offer side-quests--do you mean that the player would be asked to make the decision during the video? If so, is this likely to be common (essentially making your game a hybrid of turn-based computer-board-game and visual novel, which I like the sound of)? If it's not likely to be common, I'm not sure that I recommend it--it might be a little jarring to have passive content (cutscenes) occasionally and suddenly become interactive content. Such options could still be presented after the cutscene, after all.

I like the look of the library; the tree is an intriguing inclusion. ^_^

Greetings and salutations!

For this week's screenshot, an excerpt from the next scene of the first-level cutscene--an establishing shot of the Archive at Teli:


My birthday fell during this past week, so I once again took a three-day holiday. As a result, the week was a little short. Still, a few things were done:

First, I believe that I've completed the backdrop to the next scene of the first-level cutscene. (An excerpt of which should be shown above.) The Archive at Teli is the next stop for our protagonist, hoping to find there a lead to follow towards the door that she seeks. The Archive doesn't give out its services for free, however...

Second, I made a few edits to the images of the protagonist in the preceding scenes, making her face--and especially her nose--a little smaller. The results look rather better, I feel!

They have yet to replace the old versions in the cutscene itself, but that shouldn't take long at all.

(A minor note: As the abovementioned edits were posted and discussed here, it seems superfluous to repost them. However, this is not the case for my blog on my personal site. As result, this is one case in which the two versions of the blog will differ slightly. (Beyond minor things like captions or GIF-embedding.))

That's all for this week--as I said, the week just past was a rather short one! Stay well, and thank you for reading! ^_^

That sketch looks like a good start! Good luck in your collaboration. ^_^

Happy new year to you too! ^_^

I recall you describing the Spellshaper class previously; as then, I rather like the idea! The sprite looks cool, too. I imagine that I'll be switching from the Floramancer to this once you release a build that includes it. ^_^

Likewise, I really like the idea of the characters reacting to your choices, and affecting what choices are available to you! That may well go some way to making them feel less like playing pieces and more like people.

One thought, if I may: Instead of simply not showing options to which characters object, show those options as not available, along with the relevant objections. (If I've misread you, and it's the characters that are not available, then much the same applies: have them visible but not selectable, and objecting.) This might both inform the player as to why certain options are not always available, and provide a little more characterisation.

I don't know Game Maker, so I don't know if the following is feasible with it. However, if it is, then I really recommend looking into a third-party physics engine (as suggested above). I suspect that there already exists an engine that does what you want (or close to it), allowing you to concentrate to a greater degree on the game itself, and less on underlying technical matters. Unless, of course, the creation of a physics engine is itself one of your goals--in which case fair enough!

Ah, excellent! That's good to read. ^_^

Thank you again for all of your critique on this--I appreciate it. ^_^

I love to see a game like this, there's been so long since I've seen one of this genre, and it brings me good memories.
I can't comment anything since you've detailed everything about the development process. It's impressive! Congrats

Ah, that's wonderful to read! Thank you! ^_^

I'm curious, if I may: you say that it brings back good memories--what game (or games) do you have in mind?

That's an improvement, I think. If you wanted to go further, I think you could also flatten the bridge of the nose, and lessen the depth (I think that's the right term - push the tip back, closer to the face?). If you look at the silhouettes in the 3rd scene - everyone else has a normal little nub of a nose, and the MC looks like she has a witch's nose, very jagged and pronounced. I guess I'm just being picky - and I doubt it will stand out to many players in real time. I'm only noticing because I can watch it on replay here.

Hmm... I see what you're saying, I think. In this case, I think that I made her nose both too large and a little too bent. I stand by the general shape, however. I've made a few more edits--what do you think?

I'm only noticing because I can watch it on replay here.

*in a tone of mock-dismay* You- You mean most players aren't going to sit and watch my cutscenes over and over, examining each intently? T-T

Ooh, that is lovely artwork, to my eye. ^_^

I like the switch to hex-tiles: they should prove more better-suited than square tiles to representing relatively organic shapes, and might discourage rectilinear arenas.

Likewise, I hope that 2017 is for you a happier year than the last! ^_^

For me, 2016 was... Pretty good, overall, I think--thank you for asking. ^_^

Hmm... On the one hand, the player's choices do at least change the outcome of what information they find--but as Pixel Noise says, some may find that a slightly anaemic reward.

If it doesn't go against your vision for the game, or the themes thereof, I think that a few minor consequences to player decisions might indeed be worth including. Perhaps a modular epilogue, such as found in Baldur's Gate 2 or Until Dawn?

All right, I've made some edits, and would like your feedback before I integrate them into the cutscene, if you don't mind:





[Edit] Oh, and did the same critique apply to the silhouettes in the third scene, or was it just the close-ups?

Yeah, I wanted to make the scroll disintegrate in some way, might need to do some shader magic for it, and also have to decide whether we need to make a different effect for each scroll type... Stretch goals

Hah, fair enough!

Hmm... It should be fairly straightforward to implement it such that you can start off with a single, universally-applied effect, but later swap in individuated effects if you so desire.

It looks as though progress is being made. ^_^

I hope that the VR experience proves scary!

I think the pose with the MC leaning on the table is very natural and looks good ...

Thank you! ^_^

(Getting it to the point shown above took a few attempts, and a few instances of leaning on a desk myself (sometimes rushing to it first) and observing my own pose, as I recall.)

... the only thing I'd say is that I think "she" looks a bit too masculine; not in the pose, but in her features. I think it's in the nose-mouth proportions. I'd make the nose a bit smaller (top to bottom), and the mouth a bit wider and fuller? If I hadn't read your description, I would have thought "she" was a man.

Hmm... Looking again, I think that you're right--her nose is a little tall (and her face thus similarly), and her lips could be a little wider. I'll make some changes there, I think!

Thank you for the critique! ^_^

(In all fairness, her gender isn't a particularly important part of the story, so it's probably not a major issue if some people mistake it.)

The first three scenes of the cutscene to the first level:

Greetings and salutations!

For this week's screenshot, the first three scenes of the cutscene to the first level:


As with last week, the week just past was made a little shorter by the holiday that I took over Christmas. In addition, during my holiday I played through the "Kingmaker" module for Neverwinter Nights (which I picked up for free during the GOG.com Winter Sale (I think that it was))--but didn't quite complete it. And while the final dungeon itself wasn't that difficult, the final boss gave me quite a bit of trouble. As I recall, in my attempts to defeat him I ended up staying up quite late on two nights this past week. And defeat him I at last did, I'm glad to report!

Nevertheless, I feel that a decent chunk of progress was made:

I completed the scene from which an excerpt was shown two weeks ago (I believe that it was)--a tavern in which we find our protagonist sitting at the bar, perking up when her ear catches a scrap of story from nearby, a scrap of story of particular interest to her.

The next scene sees her arrive swiftly at the story-teller's table, demanding information.

It's a fairly simple scene, but I'll confess that some of the poses gave me a little trouble--in particular the two in which our protagonist leans forward on the table.

The scene was originally intended to be black-on-white. This proved a problem, however, when it came time to add speech-bubbles: the white bubbles were lost against a white backdrop. For a while I considered adding a black outline or secondary backdrop to the bubbles. In the end, however, I instead reworked the scene's backdrop, painting it in browns similar to those of the tavern walls in the preceding scene. Aside from rendering the speech-bubbles visible, I feel that this has the advantage of being rather less stark, and of connecting this scene to the setting of the previous.

As with the previous, this scene is now done, I believe.

The first of the two scenes described above--the protagonist in a tavern--was originally to be the first scene of this cutscene--as shown above, it no longer is: a new scene has been inserted before it, tying off the events of the prologue.

The brief text used in this scene is somewhat of a violation of the "show, don't tell" principle, I'll confess. And indeed, I had previously intended to close out the prologue with a short, dedicated cutscene that might better have shown what this tells. However, I feel that these opening cutscenes are already getting a little long (indeed, this cutscene has three scenes yet to be shown--albeit that one is a brief establishing shot). I don't want to add too much more passive viewing to the start of the game.

(I'm also perhaps a little anxious to get to work on the first level itself!)

Implementing this new first scene presented a minor challenge: While appending a new scene is easy, neither the cutscene system nor its editor were designed with insertion in mind--a bit of an oversight, perhaps. Support for scene-insertion might be a useful feature to add, but I'm not convinced that it's worth the development time at this point.

So, how then to add a scene to the start of a cutscene? In the end, it was fairly simple: I didn't. The first scene remains, technically, the first scene--I just extended it, offset the starting times of all objects belonging to the original first scene, and added a black overlay to simulate the usual inter-scene fade.

This, too, is now complete, I believe.

All of this done, I've made a start on the next scene of the cutscene: an establishing shot of the Archive at Teli. It makes for a nice change of pace, being fairly broad and simple--and having no human figures. It does, however, include the return of grass; once again I am engaged with my old enemy, although I think that I may have the upper hand for the moment. But grass is a tricky foe, so I hesitate to call a victory just yet...

As a side-note, none of the cutscenes yet have sound or music--something that I have in mind to go back and add later.

Finally, I toyed a little with the texture used for the in-game sky, using an approach taken from my cutscene painting. While I've reverted these experiments (they were just quick proofs-of-concept), the approach that I was testing may provide an improvement to the sky's appearance, should I get around to repainting the texture in earnest.

That's all for this week--stay well, and thank you for reading! ^_^

I like that! ^_^

I do have two points of critique, if I may: I think that to my eye it might be improved if the scroll didn't simply vanish at the end of the animation, and if there was more of a connection between the scroll and the resultant fireball.

Combining the two, a suggestion: perhaps have the scroll disintegrate into flames that then become the fireball.

On a relatively minor note, it feels a little odd to me that the fireball appears to come from the player-character's face--but that does at least make aiming that much easier, I imagine.

Happy New Year to you too! ^_^

As to the conversations, fair enough--I like that (if I read you correctly) the selection of conversations raised should vary depending on the player's choices. ^_^

@Pixel Noise: There seems to be a gameplay video hidden away in the first post--the word "Gameplay" links to it. Based on that, it seems that the moment-to-moment gameplay very much resembles (my impression of) a table-top RPG: it's turn-based and tile-based, with combat that involves virtual dice.

@MyrkviATM: I believe that you can embed videos into your posts here by simply pasting in the URL of the video (the standard URL--i.e. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=...--not an embedding or shortened version).

You mention conversations between characters--do you intend something similar to the party-member conversations in games like Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights, with story-threads running over multiple conversations, and perhaps even side-quests emerging from them?