[Genrok]

Ok, believe it or not, I'm making a game! Working title: "Hidden it the Snow". (Probably change the name later.) It's a turn based strategy game, sort of like Fire Emblem. You can walk around from town to town, and while outside of a town, you can run into battles. There are dozens of stages you can fight on when you go into battle.

Your players each have a job (Soldier, Archer, Mage etc.). And when they reach Lv 25, they can upgrade to an advanced job (General, Sniper, Sage etc.). So far I've made 12 starting jobs, and 16 advanced jobs. Your job influences what kind of weapons you can use.

There are over 80 weapons in the game so far, and I hope to add more in the future. There are 7 types of weapons (Swords, Bows + Arrows, and Magic Tomes. To name a few.)

I'll get screenshots and demos to you when I can. In the meantime, any feedback or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[afkHideki]

Sounds like an interesting game. What types of races will be playable for each class? o_o?

Are there going to be multiple game modes or just a main campaign?

[Genrok]

So far the only playable characters are humans. But there are Elves, Dwarves, and other various creatures that can be found as NPCs. I think I will eventually add other races to my game as playable characters. But right now I'm focusing on the battle engine, and not too much on the story line and game design.

There is a main story line. And as you follow the story, you run into a number of large, important battles. But while you're going around from town to town, you can run into random, generic battles in the wild, that don't influence the story line at all. I guess you could sort of think of my game as a combination of Fire Emblem and Golden Sun, with some of my own ideas thrown in.

I hope that answered your question.

[KKairos]

Major props for focusing first on your battle engine. I might even recommend basically getting all your engines done ASAP.

[afkHideki]

All right, that's cool. When you say Golden Sun, are you meaning the puzzles, too? o.o

[SmartRutter]

hey genrok, this sounds awesome.
i can't wait to see it once you release it.

Also, i'm just wondering but have you ever thought of possibly releasing all those other unfinished games you've shown me before? What i mean is, just release them all in a single zip file. After all, some of them were pretty interesting in my opinion. I still didn't get to see the last game you were telling me about before this one. (i'm not saying anything about it in case you didn't want anyone else to know about it yet)

anyway, i hope to see a screenshot or something of this soon. It sounds interesting.

EDIT: also lol when i saw the topic title "Gentopia" it made me think of a sega genesis.

This post has been edited by SmartRutter: 03 December 2007 - 10:01 PM

[Genrok]

KKairos, on Dec 3 2007, 04:30 AM, said:

Major props for focusing first on your battle engine. I might even recommend basically getting all your engines done ASAP.

Thanks . And yeah, I'm making most of the engines first. I already finished the one that makes text appear letter by letter in a dialogue box, and a pixel-perfect engine (like smartrutter's) for movement on the map.

afkHideki, on Dec 3 2007, 9:19 AM, said:

All right, that's cool. When you say Golden Sun, are you meaning the puzzles, too? o.o

Probably not. I may decide to later though.

SmartRutter, on Dec 3 2007, 06:00 PM, said:

Also, i'm just wondering but have you ever thought of possibly releasing all those other unfinished games you've shown me before? What i mean is, just release them all in a single zip file. After all, some of them were pretty interesting in my opinion. I still didn't get to see the last game you were telling me about before this one. (i'm not saying anything about it in case you didn't want anyone else to know about it yet)

I'm probably just gonna scratch those ones . They're so buggy, and not nearly finished.

SmartRutter, on Dec 3 2007, 06:00 PM, said:

EDIT: also lol when i saw the topic title "Gentopia" it made me think of a sega genesis.

Lol it was either "Gentopia" or "Planet Genrok". I couldn't decide, so I fliped a coin.

[SmartRutter]

Genrok said:

KKairos, on Dec 3 2007, 04:30 AM, said:

Major props for focusing first on your battle engine. I might even recommend basically getting all your engines done ASAP.

Thanks . And yeah, I'm making most of the engines first. I already finished the one that makes text appear letter by letter in a dialogue box, and a pixel-perfect engine (like smartrutter's) for movement on the map.

hey awesome, this'll have pixel-perfectness? Just ask me if you need any help with that, since i did an engine like that once.

Genrok said:

SmartRutter, on Dec 3 2007, 06:00 PM, said:

Also, i'm just wondering but have you ever thought of possibly releasing all those other unfinished games you've shown me before? What i mean is, just release them all in a single zip file. After all, some of them were pretty interesting in my opinion. I still didn't get to see the last game you were telling me about before this one. (i'm not saying anything about it in case you didn't want anyone else to know about it yet)

I'm probably just gonna scratch those ones . They're so buggy, and not nearly finished.

thats fine, but send me a copy of them cause i want to see it anyway.

Genrok said:

SmartRutter, on Dec 3 2007, 06:00 PM, said:

EDIT: also lol when i saw the topic title "Gentopia" it made me think of a sega genesis.

Lol it was either "Gentopia" or "Planet Genrok". I couldn't decide, so I fliped a coin.

lol i think "Gentopia" is more creative than "Planet Genrok"

[Genrok]

Just in case anyone's interested, here's my progress since last time I was on:

-Finished movement in my battle engine. (finally...)
-Starting fighting anim and menus
-Started the menus that allow you to minapulate items. (Equipting, un-equipting etc.)
-Added about 40 new weapons.
-Added dwarves and elves as playable characters
-Added the ability to change jobs at will.
-Started working on AI (Ah, the headaches have returned.)

That's about it. I'll post back later.

[afkHideki]

Can't wait for a playable demo or somethin'.. o. ob

[Genrok]

I'll get one to you as soon as I can. But there isn't much to show right now I'm afraid. -.-
Once I finish most of the battle engine I'll put together a battle demo. That shouldn't take too long, the AI won't be so complicated for a controlled board.

[nrofkahr]

Sounds good. keep up the good work.

[Genrok]

Well, it turns out that this dumb battle engine is quite a bit more complicated then I though it would be. I'm afraid it will take a bit longer then I first thought... -.-
I'm also pretty disgusted with my graphics, so I guess I have some work to do lol.
Sorry to everyone, it will still take a while for me to get a demo out. (And because of the terrible grahics, I'm reluctant to release any screenshots. -.-) The first thing I'm gonna do is work on graphics, so I can get you some screenshots.

[afkHideki]

Genrok, on Dec 15 2007, 04:17 AM, said:

I'm also pretty disgusted with my graphics, so I guess I have some work to do lol.

Can I help you out any? :3

[Genrok]

Actually, now I've improved the graphics and am pretty happy with them. Thanks anyway though.

[SmartRutter]

Does that mean we get to see screenshots or a demo soon?

[Genrok]

Screenshots = Very soon.
Demo = Not quite yet.

I just need to spruce up the terrain graphics a bit. (I'll get this done tonight.) Oh, can anyone tell me how to take screenshots in mzx? I did it once, but I can't remember how.

[SmartRutter]

F1 is your best friend in stuff like this lol.

i believe it is F12.

[Genrok]

Ok, I've finally made a screenshot of my game. Sorry it took so long, there where a lot of complications. This is a picture of one of your players moving in battle. Please tell me what you think about the graphics.

Attached image(s)

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This post has been edited by Genrok: 08 January 2008 - 12:33 AM

[afkHideki]

That looks nice, are you open for criticism? >_>

[Genrok]

Yep, please tell me anything you like or don't like about it.

EDIT: I should say, the colors aren't exactly the same as in the game... I don't know why.

This post has been edited by Genrok: 08 January 2008 - 12:47 AM

[SmartRutter]

i don't know if it helps, but whenever i played mzx games on your computer, Genrok, they looked different than on mine for some reason. I'm guessing it's just something of how the monitor displays stuff.

Anyway, as for your game, it looks pretty good so far. I'm guessing the red chars are the enemies and the white ones are the player controlled characters. That one char that has the blue tiles around it and has a few arrows i bet is the one thats currently moving right? I assume the blue tiles show how far you can move. Reminds me of Fire Emblem lol.

I can't wait to see a demo sometime. I can help test it before you release it for bugs or anything since i'm your cousin.

[asgromo]

Those halftone characters (dots) only usefully look good in conjunction with the other tones, to make nice patterns and shading and whatever. If you're going for texture, draw your own texture. If you're going for a particular hue, edit the palette.

[Genrok]

I don't exactly understand what you mean. Do you mean the sand by the river?

[afkHideki]

Genrok, on Jan 7 2008, 10:04 PM, said:

I don't exactly understand what you mean. Do you mean the sand by the river?

I think he means the grass.

[Koji]

He means all of it.

It looks like your using the same character for grass sand and the between. When in reality it'd probably look better if you just used solids for the grass and sand, and that texture for the between using c(sand)(grass)

Thats just one idea

[Genrok]

Oooohhhh, I think I get what you're saying. I'm just blending the colors of the sand and grass together, and since the grass color I'm using is dark, it makes a really bad effect, and doesn't even really look like sand and grass anyway. (Please let me know if I completely missed the point. -.-) I'm gonna play with the palette a little, and see if I can do anything about this. I'll post back with another screenshot in a little while. Oh, and thanks to everyone who criticized my work. I really appreciate your honesty.

[afkHideki]

I think the field looks very nice.. But the open areas would look nicer if they had some misc detail. Compare the details around the trees and the bareness of the plains. adding little bushes or small rocks might fancy it up a little. o__O

[Genrok]

Ok, here's another screenshot of my game. I've added another color to the palette and used that in place of the dark grass color in the grass/sand border. Please tell me what you think.

afkHideki, on Jan 13 2008, 03:12 PM, said:

I think the field looks very nice.. But the open areas would look nicer if they had some misc detail. Compare the details around the trees and the bareness of the plains. adding little bushes or small rocks might fancy it up a little. o__O

Yeah, I've been thinking that too. I can try to do something about it, but the problem is, the way my engine works, I have a somewhat limited number of characters I can use, at least for blocks and obstacles. I could try add some more floor types though. Thanks for that comment.

EDIT: I took the screenshot in the editor, so there's the dumb mouse cursor in the bottom corner, sorry.

Attached image(s)

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This post has been edited by Genrok: 13 January 2008 - 07:23 PM

[afkHideki]

The darker colors look much nicer. The original red of the enemy units (?) wasn't very nice to look at. :3