Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Slight Delay
Unfortunately, there has been a slight delay(read slow programming) in putting the game out and we didn't meet our release date. I'm just making this post to let anyone that goes looking for it that this game is still due out very very soon.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
DBP Post-Mortem
I thought I'd write a little about the process leading up to our DBP Entry Build version of Final Saga. So, here goes.
We started working on this game engine mid to late Janurary. We wanted to come up with an engine that would be able to handle a JRPG in the style of the early Final Fantasy games. And so I set off coding. Our artist meddled around with various styles. Our musician musiced up some music. After the first week, we decided that an RPG may be out of scope for our first game and thought a game more like Zelda would be a better fit. It would have less dialog and less overall scripting. So, by the end of the week, I had created some very simplistic gameplay (though with a few problems.) Our artist had come up with a neat little 8-bit look. Our musician had a basic song that over the next month would get ripped to shreds time and time again. The original version can be heard in this video.
The game was going, but we were working very casually. At most 4-5 hours a day, some days no work at all. The game slowly progressed into early February at a steady pace. We still hadn't decided on an art style, and although we liked the 8-Bit, we thought we could spruce it up a little and came up with this. I'm quite pleased with the visual effect that this achieved. And I think it's quite a unique and distinct look.
Moving on through the month, I came across quite a few problems. I began work on a message box system. Now keep in mind this engine was being written in mind to be used in our future JRPG project, so I went a little overboard with everything. Had I made a message box system for this game only, it would have most likely taken two days tops. It ended up taking 1-1.5 weeks because of the features I decided I would need in the next project. Shown here is a portrait system that we ended up using exactly zero times. Although, a lot of this wont be used for this project, overall I was very pleased with what I accomplished on the message box system. I took this message box system and made this with the scripting system implemented. None of this scene was implemented, but it was a very good test run to check that the system was working.
Meanwhile, our artist was making maps, and our musician was going through version after version of the song he originally came up with.
The next 1.5 weeks I spent making my first Inventory System. It was extremely difficult and I got disillusioned midway through making it. It took iteration after iteration until I finally came up with something that would work for what we needed it to. Some things didn't make sense to me why they didn't work, and still don't. But I am quite happy with the final result. It took another couple days to integrate it into the game itself. And as you can see from this video, this was achieved on February 28th.
What most of you may not know, as of February 28th, we still had no intention of entering DreamBuildPlay. This changed on March 1st, however. Many posts started showing up here on the forums showing off peoples projects and they were motivating to look at. So with that in mind, I talked to the other two members of the team and we decided to give it a shot. We thought that if there was a chance at getting in the top twenty list, it'd be worth it for the extra publicity. The artist finished up all the maps in the game. And I set out on one of the most tedius tasks of my life. I took all the maps, gave them collision and stitched them all together with map transfers. It was mindnumbingly boring and I almost fell asleep 100 times doing it.
From March 1st to March 3rd, I stayed up 60 consequitive hours to get the game ready to enter. After an initial 14 or so hours of piecing maps together, I moved onto something a little more entertaining. Making the scripts for each of the maps. This process was pretty complex. The artist would write something, a story or general feel for the map, I'd take it turn it into my built in scripting language, send it to him to try out, and get a list of things that needed to be changed in it. This went back and forth and overall I think we got a very nice feel to what we wanted, although, had we had more time we definitely would have made some of the cut scenes a lot nicer looking. Unfortunately, there were many scripts that I'd like to have added to the scripting system that I just didn't have enough time to write. An example was having a tile pop a message box on touch. There's atleast six places in the game I'd have like to have this, but instead had to use placeholder rocks to block the path due to lack of time.
The artist was busy arting during this time as well. We got a Death Screen made and implemented two hours before the competition came to a close. He also made a Menu Screen on March 2nd. Our game ends kind of abrubptly after the first boss fight so we also needed a way to explain that the game has come to an end. He made a screen for this as well. Our final version of the main song came in on the second and can be held in the trailer we uploaded for the competition.
Now things came together great in the end, and I'm extremely happy with what we got out during that three day period, but there were definitely a number of things we could have improved on had we had more time. The scripts weren't as polished as I would have liked to make them. The bow and arrow is a bit overpowered in the game, at the moment, and shouldn't be as powerful as it is. And another big one was the trailer we did upload. This trailer is just terrible. My computer isn't all that powerful that I work on. It's just a cheap $400 laptop with no video card. At the point I was able to record the trailer, my computer was taxed to heck. It had been running for the whole 60 hour period with 6 copies of c# open, along with everything else that was needed. As a result, I could only get fraps running at 10 fps. It clearly shows in the video. The sounds aren't even in sync with the actions.
That leaves us where we are at this point. And a look into the future. We do plan on completing this game and hopefully a final version will be in playtest within 1.5 weeks. Today I coded a save system and all that really leaves is AI plus tons and tons of scripting. Along with the storyline being finished. We really can't wait to get a game up on XBLIG, it'll be huge for us to prove to ourselves that we can do it. And from there we'll move onto the JRPG project we want to make so badly. We have our art style planned for that(moving from nes to snes), and I think our experience on this project will definitely help get that game out even quicker.
I thought I'd throw this up here, just for a little laugh. You see, this game's original design was planned in the early 90s. Our artist did these in MS Paint back then.
We started working on this game engine mid to late Janurary. We wanted to come up with an engine that would be able to handle a JRPG in the style of the early Final Fantasy games. And so I set off coding. Our artist meddled around with various styles. Our musician musiced up some music. After the first week, we decided that an RPG may be out of scope for our first game and thought a game more like Zelda would be a better fit. It would have less dialog and less overall scripting. So, by the end of the week, I had created some very simplistic gameplay (though with a few problems.) Our artist had come up with a neat little 8-bit look. Our musician had a basic song that over the next month would get ripped to shreds time and time again. The original version can be heard in this video.
The game was going, but we were working very casually. At most 4-5 hours a day, some days no work at all. The game slowly progressed into early February at a steady pace. We still hadn't decided on an art style, and although we liked the 8-Bit, we thought we could spruce it up a little and came up with this. I'm quite pleased with the visual effect that this achieved. And I think it's quite a unique and distinct look.
Moving on through the month, I came across quite a few problems. I began work on a message box system. Now keep in mind this engine was being written in mind to be used in our future JRPG project, so I went a little overboard with everything. Had I made a message box system for this game only, it would have most likely taken two days tops. It ended up taking 1-1.5 weeks because of the features I decided I would need in the next project. Shown here is a portrait system that we ended up using exactly zero times. Although, a lot of this wont be used for this project, overall I was very pleased with what I accomplished on the message box system. I took this message box system and made this with the scripting system implemented. None of this scene was implemented, but it was a very good test run to check that the system was working.
Meanwhile, our artist was making maps, and our musician was going through version after version of the song he originally came up with.
The next 1.5 weeks I spent making my first Inventory System. It was extremely difficult and I got disillusioned midway through making it. It took iteration after iteration until I finally came up with something that would work for what we needed it to. Some things didn't make sense to me why they didn't work, and still don't. But I am quite happy with the final result. It took another couple days to integrate it into the game itself. And as you can see from this video, this was achieved on February 28th.
What most of you may not know, as of February 28th, we still had no intention of entering DreamBuildPlay. This changed on March 1st, however. Many posts started showing up here on the forums showing off peoples projects and they were motivating to look at. So with that in mind, I talked to the other two members of the team and we decided to give it a shot. We thought that if there was a chance at getting in the top twenty list, it'd be worth it for the extra publicity. The artist finished up all the maps in the game. And I set out on one of the most tedius tasks of my life. I took all the maps, gave them collision and stitched them all together with map transfers. It was mindnumbingly boring and I almost fell asleep 100 times doing it.
From March 1st to March 3rd, I stayed up 60 consequitive hours to get the game ready to enter. After an initial 14 or so hours of piecing maps together, I moved onto something a little more entertaining. Making the scripts for each of the maps. This process was pretty complex. The artist would write something, a story or general feel for the map, I'd take it turn it into my built in scripting language, send it to him to try out, and get a list of things that needed to be changed in it. This went back and forth and overall I think we got a very nice feel to what we wanted, although, had we had more time we definitely would have made some of the cut scenes a lot nicer looking. Unfortunately, there were many scripts that I'd like to have added to the scripting system that I just didn't have enough time to write. An example was having a tile pop a message box on touch. There's atleast six places in the game I'd have like to have this, but instead had to use placeholder rocks to block the path due to lack of time.
The artist was busy arting during this time as well. We got a Death Screen made and implemented two hours before the competition came to a close. He also made a Menu Screen on March 2nd. Our game ends kind of abrubptly after the first boss fight so we also needed a way to explain that the game has come to an end. He made a screen for this as well. Our final version of the main song came in on the second and can be held in the trailer we uploaded for the competition.
Now things came together great in the end, and I'm extremely happy with what we got out during that three day period, but there were definitely a number of things we could have improved on had we had more time. The scripts weren't as polished as I would have liked to make them. The bow and arrow is a bit overpowered in the game, at the moment, and shouldn't be as powerful as it is. And another big one was the trailer we did upload. This trailer is just terrible. My computer isn't all that powerful that I work on. It's just a cheap $400 laptop with no video card. At the point I was able to record the trailer, my computer was taxed to heck. It had been running for the whole 60 hour period with 6 copies of c# open, along with everything else that was needed. As a result, I could only get fraps running at 10 fps. It clearly shows in the video. The sounds aren't even in sync with the actions.
That leaves us where we are at this point. And a look into the future. We do plan on completing this game and hopefully a final version will be in playtest within 1.5 weeks. Today I coded a save system and all that really leaves is AI plus tons and tons of scripting. Along with the storyline being finished. We really can't wait to get a game up on XBLIG, it'll be huge for us to prove to ourselves that we can do it. And from there we'll move onto the JRPG project we want to make so badly. We have our art style planned for that(moving from nes to snes), and I think our experience on this project will definitely help get that game out even quicker.
I thought I'd throw this up here, just for a little laugh. You see, this game's original design was planned in the early 90s. Our artist did these in MS Paint back then.
Boss Fight 1: Meridian Soldiers
Here we have the first boss battle in Final Saga: the Gaia Cross Chronicles.
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