All my pictures broke

Everything I do is so slow, but hopefully it's pretty?

Yooooo, it's been some time.

To be honest, I haven't actually done too much, and the stuff that I have done isn't really noteworthy. I've been totally procrastinating making maps and I'm at the point where I just gotta force myself, because the story can't progress without them. I've also been chipping away at a few scripts and things and tightening things up behind the scenes, which is good, but more like a step sideways than a step forwards.

Also, this blog update is truly, shamelessly just about updating image links on my other sites, because the old image provider I was using has turned all my pictures into sad faces.

Don't give me that face

So, it's a short and sweet one, but I am doing things! I promise!

The Fifth Element

*Disclaimer: this blog has nothing to do with the movie starring Bruce Willis.

Do you want to upgrade your elemental skills throughout the game? You betcha goshdarn tush you do. Well, luckily ya girl has been slaving over a skill upgrade system for the last couple of months, and things are getting pretty real.

Learn Suffocate? Wow, what a wholesome skill!

Triumph of Sword and Shield

Picture this: you start off in your small, picturesque hometown in the middle of the sticks, and you buy Armour 1 and equip it before you leave the village. You trek through the Forest Dungeon to Slightly Larger Town, where you purchase Armour 2 and equip it, leaving Armour 1 totally irrelevant. Not long after, you reach Decent Size Town, and you buy Armour 3, and now Armour 1 and Armour 2 are either cluttering up your inventory or have long since been sold for a pittance. To make matters worse, you now have two more party members to feed and clothe, so you need to purchase extra Armour 3s.

While there's nothing inherently wrong with this model, I've recently decided to go a slightly different route with Vermilion. For those that played the demo (which is still available, by the way), you may remember that your equipment consisted of the following items:

• Weapon
• Shard (two slots)
• Conduit
• Armour
• Other (two slots)

Shards are items that you equip to access elemental magic (fire, ice, etc.), while conduits are accessories you equip to boost your Power (magical attack). Armour was mostly for improving defense, but some items also improved other stats. The Other slots consisted of accessories that performed a range of different features, such as improving tolerance to certain stats or boosting one's Water attacks, etc.

Tools are TBC; just wanted to test things out

Apparently I should update more often

What is UP, my dudes. It's been a while. I've been making quite a bit of progress on my game, but it's always small things and I never think it's worthwhile making a blog post about. However, now I have a handful of small things, so maybe it's time to make an update. I'll even include pictures, because otherwise WHAT'S THE POINT.

Everybody look at me 'cause I'm sailin' on a BOAT

Hey everyone, come see how good I look

New menu of niceness.

Hey friends. It's been a while. I haven't totally dropped off the face of the earth. Trust me, I have been working on gam, but I have also been spending a lot of time playing gam as well, which has been awesome. Finished FFVI and I've clocked up quite a few hours in the Witcher 3—such a good game. I don't have a plethora of free time, since I work full time and I train everyday (kickboxing and lifting weights), so I kinda have to split what's left between working on creative pursuits and just relaxing (i.e. playing vidya games).

Anywho, you may recall an earlier blog about how my goal for 2018 was to learn Ruby ... I think I've almost accomplished that goal! I'm nowhere near as great as, like, anyone else with actual programming knowledge, but I've been doing a lot of bug-fixing and modifying existing scripts for people, which has been great for me knowledge. I've also managed to convert a bunch of event-based mechanics in my game to scripts, which is AWESOME. It makes me feel like a wizard. It also means less copy-pasta in the event editor, and things are a lot more flexible and easy to change.

Happy Demo Release Day!

Please excuse me while I go lie down and sweat nervously.

The time has finally arrived ... after a few uploading mishaps (i.e. me trying to upload it to Dropbox three times simultaneously and wondering why my internet was crapping itself), the demo is finally up and ready for download.

It feels like a relief to finally be able to show something for this game that's been stewing away for the last, what, five or six years? I was worried that there wasn't much to show, and then a beta tester told me they were surprised it wasn't over when they were only halfway through, so I guess that's good. I just hope people like it. I understand that it probably won't be everyone's cup of tea, as it's a bit of a slow burn and it's very story-oriented, rather than having a fancy new-fandangled battle and upgrade system, but I hope someone likes it!

If you're interested, check it out here: https://rpgmaker.net/games/4415/

HEY FRIENDS

Remember how I said I was going to have a demo ready? Yeah? Well, I do ... I was just waiting on a couple of beta reports that never eventuated (I guess because holidays?), so I think I'll aim to have a release by the end of the week. Isn't that exciting? Kinda worried that I'll release it and then the beta reports will finally come in and they'll be like, "GAM BREAKING ERROR in this scene". But, hey, I guess that's part of the adventure.

My goal for 2018 was to finally learn Ruby, which is the coding language used for RPG Maker VX Ace. See, I've always been terrible at maths, and any time I see things that look vaguely 'maths'-like, my brain immediately switches off, and that has been a barrier for me with things like coding and scripting, because they reminded me so much of algebra (which I hated). I'd been reading through the base scripts for Ace for a while and trying to understand things, and I could do some simple stuff (for example, 'if' branches) and I kinda got the gist of how things should work, but couldn't really understand why they worked that way.

Look, wordy bits! And I understand them!

The one where I mak gam

There will be peddlers and merchants along this bridge, hawkin' their wares.

Hey friends. We're almost at demo time. I KNOW. It's only taken me ... this many. *holds up fingers and squints*

While waiting for my beta testers to get back to me, I decided to get started on the next dungeon, which was originally going to be called the Sylvan Grassland and is now called the Sylvan Floodplain. Originally I had a mind blank when I was creating the world and didn't have a great idea for a dungeon, so I was just going to have a field/grassland because I already have a forest, a mountain pass and a cave. It seemed like a good way to round it out.

The idea is that you're heading south after the events of Act I (aka the demo, get hyped fam) and you cannot continue along the Maeden Road, which is the quickest way to get to the capital. You cut through the Sylvan Floodplain, which does exactly as its name suggests—when it rains heavily, it floods.

Just so you know that I'm not dead

Let's just say that Gramps knows his shit.

A lovely forum-goer prompted me to update my blog, so here we are. Haven't updated for two years, hah. You'll be pleased to know that I haven't been sitting with my thumb up my ass this entire time. I'm unfortunately not a lady of leisure and I spend a lot of time working and exercising and trying to maintain my tiny friend base, so progress is slow—but it's progress.

Happy Birthday, Stephen King!

Seemed like a good enough blog title. Did ya miss me? Well? Please respond.

I did some things, so that's good. If you're a keen bean, you'll see screenshots after the jump.

Evented Encounter System Part II

Look at my hard work and PRAISE ME.

Surprise attack is SURPRISING.

Evented Random Encounter System

I've been working on this stupid Evented random encounter system for the last couple of weeks and I've FINALLY gotten it to work. You know when you've been trying to do something for ages and it doesn't work and you can't understand why, and then you crack it and you feel like you could craft a full-blown whale out of potato skins? Yeah.

But yeah, friggin' stoked that I got this stupid thing working. To explain a bit about the system: I played a game made in RPG Maker XP a few years back called Exit Fate (I think?), and it was kind of like a Suikoden-rip (hence why I liked it, because Suikoden is boss), and it had this nifty wee system where it would alert you by making a sound and showing a picture in the top corner whenever a random encounter was about to initiate, and you could press a button and let go of some gold in order to avoid the fight. It always stuck in my mind, because I'm personally not a fan of on-screen encounters most of the time, to be honest. Pretty sure everyone else loves them, but hey.

One of the major complaints about random encounters (i.e. where the enemy is invisible and the encounter is calculated by the (random) amount of steps you take) is that there's generally no way to avoid them, they can be immersion-breaking if you're in the middle of something, like a puzzle, and just generally annoying. I thought this was a great way to keep them in the game and hopefully lessen some of those issues. Also, RPG Maker has a weird way of calculating the random encounters, so you could be getting into a battle every couple of steps if you weren't careful.

I looked up an 'encounter alert' script of some kind that I could use, and I found one for RPG Maker VX Ace, which is a newer system than what I'm using (RPG Maker VX), so the script was incompatible. So I tried to find tutorials on how to make one using Events, but couldn't find anything (generally because no one likes random encounters, I presume). And then finally I found a tutorial written for one of the earlier RPG Makers (with no scripting capacity), which detailed how to make your own random encounter system using Events, so I based my system off that tutorial and then added my own changes in order to make the 'alerts' work.

Don't know if any of that makes sense to any of you, and I'm sorry that this isn't an update with pretty pictures, but hopefully I'll get another update out soon with all of that good stuff. I just needed to vent and explain my frustrations and my little journey to getting something that seemed simple to work. :B (that's a smiley face with buck teeth, by the way)

I did more things!

Today's entry is brought to you by the inspirational Bloodstone and Diamonds by Machine Head and every song Amon Amarth has ever made.

Don't be too alarmed, but I've made some maps. Like, actual progress. I've made six (big) maps in total so far and redone the cliff tiles in three of my previous maps, because I realised that the tiles I was using were really pixelated, and I never understood why they looked kinda weird.

But I digress.

Here's a screenshot so you know I'm not lying.

UGH, I AM TERRIBLE.

I am horrific at updating. I apologise.

I've just started making game things again, so that's good. I lead a very busy life of work and exercise and family time (and all-important sleep), so it can be hard for me to actually find time to sit down and gam mak. I do my best, though!

Recently, I've decided to overhaul the faces, as they weren't looking the way I wanted and everyone was the same colour. Below are the fruits of my labour:

Antheia

Blanche

Toll

Wes

Merrin

Soren

Okay, that was such a mission for me to figure out how to line them up. I hope it's worth it for everyone.

I'll try to update more often, but I've learned not to make any promises. I seem to be making good progress at the moment, so we'll see how I go.

In Which I Return to the Internet Land

"I'M GOING TO UPDATE SO OFTEN IT'S GOING TO BE AWESOME."

Completion of the Third Town

Morrowmere in its woody, once-occupied glory.

Oh joy of joys. I have finally completed all of the maps I need for the third town, Morrowmere. This is pleasing to me. TELL ALL THE MINSTRELS.

For the month of November, I intend to do at least one map per day, or the equivalent of one to two hours of game-makery. November is a month of hardcore gam mak. Y'all better respect. I managed to squeeze out five maps since Friday, so that's me exceeding past-Shannyn's expectations, and that's always a good thing. The partner and the hound understand too (the partner begrudgingly so—we usually watch things (currently DBGT) on the laptop for about an hour before bed and I am eating into this time selfishly).

Happiness and Cider

Today is a good day. Want to know why? Other than the fact that I've got a nice cold cider in hand, I managed to overcome a problem that was almost driving me to tears. Nothing tastes better than a celebratory cider, especially after being so frustrated that you almost bawled like a small child. And we all know small children don't drink cider.

The product of a day of almost-tears.

Updates of Good

Hey—remember when I said I was going to update heaps and everything was going to be special and magical and full of wonder? Well, I didn't. Such is life. I'm in bed sick, so I'm updating, as is the custom. I haven't been laying dormant this whole time (since April, geez I'm lazy), however!

Today, the real test is figuring out how to attach pictures. Some days I feel really tech-savvy and like I can do something real fast and stand back and snap my fingers, like, "uh-huh, uh-huh, that's how it's done." (I'm totally that sassy in real life, by the way—ask my dog) Today is not one of those days. To be honest, I haven't even tried yet. That's the problem with reading: to me, this is all happening one word at a time and it's an adventure and who knows how it'll all turn out. To you, dear reader, it's a wall of text and you can look below and see what's happened. It's like Instant Transmission.

All right, enough philosophising.

I've been using my hardcore mappin' skillz and I've made a handful of maps. That's impressive for me. A lot of the stuff I've been making progress on is pretty invisible and pretty much consists of me making spreadsheets in Excel. I love Excel. I barely even scratch the surface of Excel's capabilities (the makers are surely horrified that I'm just using it to make lists of shit), but I love it. Since my last post I have made ... *checks RPG Maker and counts* eight maps. TWO HANDFULS. Want to see some screenshots? Rhetorical question.

Introductions

"Make a blog," they said. "It will be fun," they said.

No, but seriously now, folks. My name is Shannyn (alias A-Moonless-Night) and this is my game-development blog. I've considered making a blog for some time now (like, five years) but I could never figure out what it should be about. I'm still contemplating making a blog about the things that I hate but I thought perhaps I should make this blog first.

When I say that I make games, I mean that my hobby is to use RPG Maker to make games that may or may not see the light of day. I've been using RPG Maker since I was about nine or ten (so since about 2000—makes me feel so old) and I've always had a game in the making, but this is the first time that one has been well thought out and, can I say, promising. This is the first time that I've had the whole story planned out (and separated into palatable 'acts'), instead of just opening up the developer and being like, "this is the very first cutscene ... fuck it, I'm going to play Minecraft."

Not that Minecraft existed back then, but you get my drift.

So, the game that this blog will be focussing on is Vermilion. *cue epic music or some shit*

I have topics on rpgmaker.net and the official RPG Maker forums. Read the topics I just linked; it's easier than me copying and pasting what the game's about.

Vermilion is being made in RPG Maker VX, referred to from here on as RMVX. The game will be free when released. I'm doing everything myself (except, of course, for all the pre-made things, such as scripts and tiles), so it's going to take me a while. I would say that the game has been in-development for about a year and a half, but I only really started making progress in about July last year (I was off work sick for a while and had lots of free time).

Parts of game-making that I enjoy:

  -  Story/character creation and all that jazz (aka writing)
  -  Spriting characters
  -  Parallaxing maps (for those not in the biz, this means painting out a 'background' in Photoshop, rather than using RMVX to create the maps tile by tile)
  -  Creating face-sets

So, you know, basically all the writing- and drawing-related stuff.

Parts of game-making that I hate find difficult:

  -  Script-making and -altering (it involves writing in code, which reminds me of maths)
  -  Making and altering enemy stats (i.e. making the battle system work/be balanced)
  -  General databasing (making items, armour, etc)

So, yeah. That happens. I think this is enough wall-of-text for now, but I'll update when I can. I might even include pictures, if you're lucky.