Small Update

So work on the editor is still going strong. Kyle managed to add a bunch of features that make the process a lot easier to handle. There is now a selection tool (think of the marquee tool in Photoshop) that allows you to fill in a specific area.

On the non-programming side, I've managed to start thinking up equations for the game mechanics. I had a few questions on the subject and found a great StackExchange Q&A page dedicated to game development. Turns out I wasn't the first to ask similar questions and managed to find great answers.

That being said I decided to figure out what my main attributes will be. From there I will find derived attributes calculated by the main ones (for example, the strength attribute would modify the physical attack derived attribute). Having these is helping me understand the role for each character and will then help me map out the growth of these stats as they gain experience.

One of the major things I'd like to change from classic jRPGs is try and find a way to remove the randomness of misses. I've always hated the random miss during critical moments. I've always felt that if I avoided running from every battle leading up to a boss that I should be able to defeat it without having to go back and grind. If at any given time one of the characters misses arbitrarily and it causes me to lose the battle... well, let's just say that it's infuriating.

I do feel that critical hits and misses are part of the jRPG formula but I'd like to shrink their importance in battle and rather have a situation where a hit might — instead of missing — deal less damage.

Map Editor (Version 2)

We're almost back to where we were in the first iteration of the game. The editor is now solid enough to start drawing maps! This means that it was time to start making tiles to use it - I decided to go with house tiles that I will be able to reuse easily. The resulting houses aren't as pretty as they would be if I drew them pixel by pixel but it's a small price to pay for the ability to make a bunch of houses on the fly.

Having the week off has really helped me get back into the project. A few weeks ago I bought myself a sketch book and I drew the outlines of the maps that would be used for the first scenario of the game. So far it gives me a good TODO list for what needs to be done.

It's so much easier to work on the 16x16 scale.

Mockup Time!

The end of the holiday season was pretty busy for both of us but we finally managed to get back into it. I made myself a TODO list of tiles we could use in our first map and it's coming very close to being checked off completely. Once that's done I'll start thinking about different settings we'd like to explore and make more lists so I don't slow down too much.

The editor is coming along nicely. I won't go too much into detail since Zedix and I were kicking around the idea of making a blog for the game itself where he could post his own updates.

Here is another pictar! Not all the stuff in there is completely new but I'm particularly proud of the filler trees, we'll now be able to have a boarder around our maps that aren't just blackness.

Of Map Editors and Men...

The past 5 days have been really exciting. Zedix and I have been working ceaselessly. Our progress has been nothing but phenomenal which is kind of amusing since everytime we try to do something like this our attention wavers. This time is different because we both have something to show so we feed eachother's motivation and we end up working harder and harder.

As far as the map editor goes we're pretty much recreating an interface similar to RPG Maker's own. It won't be as feature rich but it will be more specific so that we can use the tools we build ourselves with 100% feature utilization. By building our own system we can add certain functionalities without having to google how to do it for hours with someone else's design and/or have to resolve it with a hack. That being said the editor is looking shhhweet especially since it's using our own map format.

As far as pixel art goes I figure pictures speak louder than words. Here are a few mockups: