Not quite 10 days, more like 30, but! estimations are made to be off!
As said back on the old blog, I designed a schedule with a lot of free time to do whatever I want that will force me to develop these games and train myself in other skills I'm doing (like art) no matter how I spend the rest of my day (often I can spend the free time doing one of the two)
Today is the day I shall start following it, and for today I need to work on this game for at least 3 hours, but I haven't developed for a loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong time.
And so it's about 13:48 now, I will develop for lets say one hour until 15:00 then take a break. Then take the other two hours later on.
Now last time I was
1: Developing a prototype "foundation" or "RPG Base" system in raw python. I wanted to design a leveling system that works and while it was easy to get this done inside of articy draft, the only way for me to actually test it reliably is to program it in and well.. run it as a program, test various scenarios and stuff.
2: Story/Character development. I've done quite a bit of this in my head. Without writing anything down in here. I've got a lot to add to what exists of it and several things to change
3: Lore/World creation (develop the continents, races, special items, special monsters, history, future, etc))
4: Nail down what kind of game my first one will be, and the last one too.
I haven't ruled out visual novel yet but I have a few other candidates, for example Unity has Linux support now which I don't think it did when I started developing in october last year (at least not to my knowledge at the time) so I can make a full blown 3D game, that said I don't have the resources to do that just yet so Unity is a flat no for the first game. But it is a possibility for my last one, however I'll need quite a big budget to make my dream game in glorious, animated 3D.
I am also considering platformer/RPG style gameplay comparable to Dust: An Elysian Tail. But no, it doesn't fit the setting i'm gunning for in the first game, but it might be a perfect match for another game. I just don't know yet.
I am also considering just doing a more "pure" oldschool dungeon crawler style game, like lands of lore, might and magic, wizardry series and the like and this is rather close to my original aim so I may go for this. But the question here is, what approach do I take, and do I stick with Ren'Py and go for Lightning Warrior Raidy style, or do I go for a more Lands of Lore style and perhaps consider another game engine for it? I've got a big fat handful of games to ply to help me decide (loren the amazon princess, legends of grimrock, might and magic X just to name a few)
Now lets boil it down a little.
What kind of combat system do I want? Turn Based (like Final Fantasy series, where you see your characters and your opponents)
What systems can I achieve that in? Any.
What kind of navigation/movement system do I want? Mixed and TBD. I will want to have a world map for "fast travel" between continents as well as continent map for fast travel between towns/key locations, but that won't be in the first game. So in the first game what do I want? will I have travel between locations like that?
I should decide this now. Allright so the story starts in a linear fashion as most visual novels do. You need to run through a dungeon to escape a bad place, but then what? Then I think I should have a local/continent map like record of agarest war does it to travel between places, and after that it's lightning warrior raidy styled gameplay *nod* this will do good.
Pause at 14:28 (40 minutes) (playing chess with my friend from the philippines, damn that was a tough game!) end at 17:11 (nearly 3 hours break) but then I turned hungry :/ ate, and it's 17:50.
Ok, right back to where I paused. I added the last sentence, "and after that it's lightning warrior raidy styled gameplay" after the break. I can envision this model pretty well now
What systems can I achieve this in? Unless I change the dungeon crawling experience into a platformer one... which I won't, I can only achieve this in types that allow first person gameplay, and I am limiting myself to 2D for this first game, so i'm right back at square one. Ren'py/Visual Novel.
The last question would have been "How do I want the narrative to be delivered?" but this is an area I'm willing to compromise in a bit. I prefer it if narrative is delivered without any text (i.e. player just realizes it through events occurring) but I need dialogue for character introductions one way or another, so it just comes down to describing the environment and atmosphere of each location in the game. It will be tough, but good 2D artwork can do this without any sort of text to describe it.
Ren'Py it is for this first game. (I.e. I'm sticking with the plan.)
4 is done, I don't have to decide what my last game will be like now since I won't know what kind of resources I will have. So.
1: Developing a prototype "foundation" or "RPG Base" system in raw python. I wanted to design a leveling system that works and while it was easy to get this done inside of articy draft, the only way for me to actually test it reliably is to program it in and well.. run it as a program, test various scenarios and stuff.
2: Story/Character development. I've done quite a bit of this in my head. Without writing anything down in here. I've got a lot to add to what exists of it and several things to change
3: Lore/World creation (develop the continents, races, special items, special monsters, history, future, etc))
I guess I have to pick one and stick with it today huh? none is more important than the other in this case.
I choose 2 to start with, I may wonder into 3, who knows.
...
I really need to name my demoness, Riye's sidekick if you wanna call her that. I need to decide more about her, I just made a revision in her character traits outside of these logs but then again I had never defined her personality, lets say she's a tsundere demoness but I need to decide on her "class" is she a mage, rogue, monk, warrior ?
She is the first demon character in the series so I need her to match the stereotypical demon in the game series, this makes her a mage with a chunky healthbar and a silver tongue (with more than one use ;) )
But she needs to have a preferred weapon. Whip! for more stereotype! (it's fitting too since it's a weapon that will be readily available for the first fights in the game.)
Allow me to pick a first letter...
G.
Let me block out letters.
I, Y and E are not allowed.
(Pause: 18:40 - 19:00)
G... Galia
Galia and Riye.. hmm..Yes, it works, I used an I but i don't care, it works!
Galia it is, how long did it take me to find her a name? 50+20 thats 70 minutes add the 40, i've been at it for 110 minutes (19:25).
Now I need yet another break...
22:15
70 minutes to go. Now then I planned up to Galia's introduction. I'm gonna add in some lore though, battle slaves.
...
I have written a mountain of stuff, I decided some of the toughest parts of Riye's story (woot! this was something that actually did take me long to figure out. How do they escape a prison cell that is.)
As well as wrote down my thoughts on battle slaves.
I've written the story in it's order of events so far, but now I stopped to think "is this really the best order to deliver it in?"
Not quite, I need to spice it up. I fee llike i need to drop the player right into the hottest moment i've captured so far. Yes. Give them a taste of it as a sort of intro sequence before the prologue, because the prologue might just be a bit boring if you don't have any carrot to chase after. You need to know you're gonna like this if someone is supposed to convince you it's worth wasting your time on reading through the prologue (in the possible event that it bores you)
Oh wait i had already thought of this I was planning to start the game in the middle of a dragon attack! doesn't get much more exciting than a dragon, right? We'll see how much of an impact that is gonna have.
Anyhow, 23:25, time's up. Today was quite productive.
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