The blog post to end all blog posts

Ok, here it is. The post that chronicles everything I've done in the last month.

First off, we had meetings upon meetings and discussed the game into the ground. What I mean is, we brainstormed all aspects of the multi-linear story, and came up with a gameplan for the event scripting. Henry was given the task of re-writing the combat system, and Marie and Kyle were working on sprites and tilesets. This was going on from march 1'st - oct 15'th. We'd have weekly meetings on Tuesdays, and discuss our progress. I was busy learning how to use RPG maker and finding tilesets. Marie was designing sprites, and Kyle was learning how art worked in RPG maker.


I began work on the game design and event scripting itself around Oct. 15'th.
By November 1'st I had finalized a working copy of the first area of our game, and we tested it for the following features:

Script, fun factor, creativeness, originality, and believablility.

The game scored low on almost everything. It was obvious that something was missing.

Nov 2nd:
I began re-vamping the entire game infrastructure, from the way I depicted elevation to the way NPC's talked and interacted with the player. All areas got a major overhaul. Scripting became a major issue. Me and Steven had multiple meetings to discuss the way the NPC's interacted with the player. Together, we made the game more believable, and the story more interesting.

Nov 7'th:

I added about 5 new maps and about 15 minutes of real gameplay to the game. Henry had developed a working beta version of the new ATB combat system, and we tested it. It was a little buggy, but it worked.
The version of RPG Maker I was using was not compatible with this version of the combat system, so we continued working on it and I continued developing the game on my version.

Nov 14'th.
By this time, the game up until the "shaman" (about 1/3 the way through) was complete, although buggy. Areas of the map were giving me wierd collision issues. Henry had completed the Combat system, but I had not used it yet.

I ran into major roadblocks here. The areas I wanted to develop were becoming stagnant, and unoriginal. Everything looks and feels exactly like the first area of the game. To change this, me and Kyle worked on new tilesets. I also found new and creative ways to use events to depict the narrative. Using our new tilesets, and my newfound knowledge of complex event scripting, I began working on the first major multi-linear aspect of our game.

Nov 21'st:

This is a little closer to a working, real game. During this week, I spent about 30 hours reworking EVERYTHING I had ever done. Even the script changed again. The way I handled enemies changed, and I started utilizing common events to script battle events. This allowed me to create the attack "mug".
I also redesigned almost all the areas of the game. Everything from the players starting house to the first dungeon got improved. The game became much more polished, and feels much more like a real RPG.

Nov 28 - current
My Laptop charged died, and I had to backup everything to my comp.
The game now has many new maps, about 7, added. It is now fully multi-linear, although incomplete and buggy. we hope that by Tuesday, it will be complete. Henry is working on polishing the combat system, and incorporating other interesting features VIA ruby. Marie is re-designing sprites for this new combat system, as is Kyle. Steven and I are continuously revamping the games story for optimal player enjoyment.

That's all for now!