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[JaJ]

You sounded very positive, no worries! I focused on that part because it's the part I can learn the most from.

The automated part was the part I disliked the most from the FF13 battle system. I'm not too lazy to control all my characters' actions after all. The linearity was FF 13's most obvious flaw and I didn't really love the story either, but I actually did like the battle system for the most part. What I think was good about it was the variation it allowed between the battles, the different effects physical and magical attacks had on the stagger bar and how much that impacted the battles, and I also liked that you had to keep paying attention to the battle at all times. It's because of these things that I listed it as inspiration.

I think a big flaw a lot of classic rpg's had was repetitive battles. On one hand they make you feel like you're working towards something, which is good. On the other hand, having to face the same formation, or even having to use the same strategy over and over again can be so boring.

I'm now playing through FF5 again and I think that's really the biggest inspiration of the listed games. I love the feeling of achievement when you work towards gaining new abilities in that game. There is a level up system, but more than anything it's the abilities that make your characters feel like they have become more powerful. That's what I've been aiming for from the start with this game: You have to work hard to gain new abilities, but they should be worth it.

In FF5 'working' means 'grinding.' And while in FF5 grinding is more satisfying than in any other game I have played, having to grind is still not something I'm aiming for. That's why my characters learn abilities the way they do, by playing close attention in battle and get the maximum out of every battle, instead of just battling a lot.

There are some abilities that can only be gained during a few battles, and if you've missed them, you've missed them. You can still go to the colloseum where you can battle random monsters and hope you'll get another chance, but I can't make that too easy since there is a lot of satisfaction in being able to get that one ability that took so much effort to get, but was so very worth it.

   

[Windybeard]

FF5 is straight awesome! i agree, I love grinding though but its something you either love or hate.

Another RPG with a great battle system is "Lost Odyssey" on the xbox 360. It has a great addition to its battle system, If you havnt played it i recommend it very much.
The jist of it is that depending on what skill you use you get rings of different sizes and speeds spiral into the screen, if you stop it on the correct place you get a critical hit, it added alot for very little.

I really like your idea of taking skills from fights. Its something i would very much enjoy. Plus i like the fact that you can also miss them, it gives the player the incentive to try harder and not just sit back and hammer "attack"

 

[JaJ]

Another RPG with a great battle system is "Lost Odyssey" on the xbox 360. It has a great addition to its battle system, If you havnt played it i recommend it very much.

I'll add it to my to do list!

I had a relatively productive day! I created some tiles for the forest area:



The stars (which are supposed to be a reflection) use parallax scrolling, here's a little gif of that in motion:



I'm pretty happy with them! (A lot more happy than with the village tiles, I have to say)

[DrunkDevs]

The character skill progression for this game sounds amazing. It seams like what everyone on your devlog is talking about too, so I think that shows that you are on to something great.

[tchassin]

I like the idea of the stars reflecting on the water, but I think you should space them a bit, or at least make it look a bit more random.
The grass could also use a little more variation.
Strangely, I expected the graphics to look more "simple", with less details, maybe because of the style you used for the characters.

Anyway, good job overall.

[Windybeard]

Looks great, i would think about adding some sort of shimmer to the water, perhaps around the "down" earth tiles, this way it would make it look more like water as at the moment it kinda looks like you are high up in space with the stars below you. And perhaps dull the stars a little for the same reason. Just a thought. :D

[JaJ]

I like the idea of the stars reflecting on the water, but I think you should space them a bit, or at least make it look a bit more random.

I agree. The stars were made quickly just to see what it looked like. I'm also thinking about showing the reflection of the trees instead, to suggest that the darkness of the forest is due to the trees and not due to it being night. On the other hand the stars may make the forest feel more magical, and I like that too.

Strangely, I expected the graphics to look more "simple", with less details, maybe because of the style you used for the characters.

I think the top of the trees, the grass and the sides of the ground are pretty simple, it's the logs that really jump out as detailed to me. I think that's mostly because I couldn't figure out how to make them look like logs without those details.

This did however give me an idea. I think I'm going to give it another try and try to avoid using loose pixels and instead using only solid shapes, as I did with the sides of the ground. I think Skyward sword should be good inspiration for this.

Looks great, i would think about adding some sort of shimmer to the water, perhaps around the "down" earth tiles, this way it would make it look more like water as at the moment it kinda looks like you are high up in space with the stars below you. And perhaps dull the stars a little for the same reason. Just a thought. :D

This, and I'm also going to animate the background to show water movement.


I didn't have a productive day yesterday. I stuck some post-its to the wall with everything I still have to do to make a demo video that shows how the game is paced. To show things like what the balance is between story, battles and puzzles. I don't really have a good feel of that yet. In my mind there is way too much story and too little gameplay the way things are now, but I won't know that until I've actually seen it in action.

[JaJ]

The last couple of days I´ve worked on boring repetitive programming things, so not much to show for that.

However I´ve run into something that I need some opinions on. It´s the age-old question of looks versus functionality again.



On the left we see "functionality." All the elements on the screen are a bit more cramped together. This gives me room to have three buttons in a column instead of two. Because of this I have enough space to put all items/ skills/ etc. in a single screen for each character.

On the right there is "looks." As you can see everything has a bit more room and I think that makes it look better. However, it is likely that not all buttons will fit in a single screen, and I'll probably have to make a "next" button to show the rest, or a scrolling system.

This would be perfectly fine for an rpg that is not time based.
But this game is, and the fewer clicks/ taps to get something done, the better.

 

[antoniodamala]

Great palette and interesting combat, sign me up to the testing.

[JaJ]

Great palette and interesting combat, sign me up to the testing.

Thank you! I think the first few test versions will be public, I havn't even really thought about testing yet.


I've worked on the forest tiles for a bit today, made them a bit less detailed. Note that I havn't done much with the stars/reflection yet.

Before:


After:

[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.

[Games Inquirer]

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)