[Dr Lancer-X]

NihilistMatt, on Jan 31 2007, 11:24 AM, said:

(I wish we still lived in a world where overlay text engines were the symbol of leetness)

Sorry, but overlay text engines were never a symbol of leetness =p

[djtiesto]

I'm not trying to be leet, I'm trying to make a good MZX game here.

[T-Bone]

MZX is quite capable of decent looking layers. Nothing to really do with text unless your talking about ZZT.

By the way nice screenie djtiesto

[Goshi]

NihilistMatt, on Jan 31 2007, 11:24 AM, said:

(I wish we still lived in a world where overlay text engines were the symbol of leetness)

Overlay boxes were never anything fancy. It just proves that your not lazy >_>

Quote

I have no idea what vlayer is, although there are a few sprites here and there (nothing fancy with them though).

We should really get some tutorials on vlayer. In fact maybe someone should update that very badly aged tutorial file.

[djtiesto]

And of course, I have a demo released of this game... available as part of the "Duky Inc. Anniversary Collection". See here for more details

[djtiesto]

*****BUMP*****

NEW!!! (Contest):

Kikan is gonna have 3 extraneous minigames in it. I have ideas for 1 and 3, the first one is gonna be a small "Root Beer Tapper" type game for the Smoothie Bar in the Shoshinkai level, and I don't wanna spoil the 3rd one yet. But, for the second one... I want one of YOU to do it. And if I get enough entries... there'll be a prize.

Basically, make a quick, unique, and FUN arcade game, no SMZX or anything too fancy. It should fit in the style of Kikan and should only be on one board, of any size (no MZMs, and only 1 char/pal set please).

If I get enough entries, the winner will get a $30 gift certificate for GameStop!!!

Hope to see a lot of entries... just email me at ldrelick@gmail.com with your entry when finished!

Progress Update:

Systems:
Title Screen - 100%
Options (Tutorial/Sound Test/Credits) - 80% (Just have to do SFX test)
Battle Engine - 95%
Victory Tally/Experience Calculation - 90%
Status Screen - 99%
Shop Screen - 99%
Intro - 100%
Ending - 0%
Game Over Screen - 20%
Minigames - 0%
!!!ALL NEW BEATS!!! - 100%

Areas:
(Map Design/Cinemas/Interactions/Item Placement/Enemies and Enemy Balance)
Bridge: 100/100/100/100/100
Town 1: 100/100/100/100/NA
Shoshinkai: 100/100/100/100/100
Towers of Dub: 100/100/100/100/100
Town 2: 100/100/100/0/NA
Zoo: 100/100/100/100/100 (Got a whole new graphical facelift)
Bootlegging: 100/100/100/100/100
Town 3: 100/100/100/100/NA
Carmageddon: 100/90/100/100/100
Blue Room: 20/0/0/0/0
Final Area: 5/0/0/0/0
Final Area Part 2: 0/0/0/0/NA

Another teaser screen to whet your appetite (click for bigger pic):

This post has been edited by djtiesto: 28 April 2007 - 08:41 PM

[Nash]

having a 'contest' to put a mini game in the game is kind of a dumb idea. if the game is really gonna be the 'best game ever' or whatever you don't want some other random person taking credit for it.

This post has been edited by Nash: 01 May 2007 - 03:32 PM

[djtiesto]

*****BUMP*****

I haven't updated this in a while... but that doesn't mean I wasn't working on the game... quite the opposite, in fact! I'm hitting the home stretch, and we will probably start beta testing sometime early fall. I'll let you guys know, so I can take apps for testing. Kikan is definitely on track for a late 2007 release.

I made several optimizations to both the dialog engine and the menu systems in the game. The dialog engine now operates a lot smoother, and you won't have to worry about skipping text due to holding down space for too long. The menu systems/status screen/combat menus operate much smoother as well, and you don't have to worry about accidentally holding down space/control for too long.

The custom save/load system is now in place, without any bugs to my knowledge.

Joystick support has also been added.

Progress Update:

Systems:
Title Screen - 100%
Options (Tutorial/Sound Test/Credits) - 80% (Just have to do SFX test)
Battle Engine - 95%
Victory Tally/Experience Calculation - 90%
Status Screen - 95%
Shop Screen - 99%
Intro - 100%
***NEW*** Save Engine - 99%
***NEW*** Joystick support - 100%
***NEW*** Smoother dialog engine - 99%
***NEW*** Smoother menus in battle/status screen - 99%
Text file (KIKAN.TXT) - 75%
Ending - 99%
Game Over Screen - 100%
Minigames - 33%
!!!ALL NEW BEATS!!! - 100%

Areas:
(Map Design/Cinemas/Interactions/Item Placement/Enemies and Enemy Balance)
Bridge: 100% (100/100/100/100/100)
Town 1: 100% (100/100/100/100/NA)
Shoshinkai: 100% (100/100/100/100/100)
Towers of Dub: 100% (100/100/100/100/100)
Town 2: 100% (100/100/100/0/NA)
Zoo: 100% (100/100/100/100/100)
Bootlegging: 100% (100/100/100/100/100)
Town 3: 100% (100/100/100/100/NA)
Carmageddon: 100% (100/100/100/100/100)
Blue Room/Navy Yard: 100% (100/100/100/100/100)
Final Area: 100% (100/100/100/100/100)
Final Area Part 2: 0/5/0/0/NA

What mainly needs to be done, before beta testing can commence:
-Nearly all of the Final Area Part 2
-Minigames #1 and #2 (Lancer-X is helping me with #2)
-SFX test
-Trial run through the game, fixing bugs and any balancing issues

New Screens:


Battling in the Bootcamp


Load screen


Exploring the Navy Yard/Blue Room


Battling some mammals at the Bronx Zoo

*****ENJOY!*****

This post has been edited by djtiesto: 19 August 2007 - 11:43 PM

[hob nado]

Heheh, Gouryella.

Lookin' nice there =)

[Xx*SaturnineMatthias*xX]

That Jesus needs an acute accent, I keep thinking you've made a notable biblical figure a party member

[djtiesto]

I need a break from doing all this MZX work, hehe. I did some animation tweaking today, and I will probably do some more balancing/testing this week/next weekend. I want this to come out like soooo bad.

Was there anything you peoples were unhappy about with the demo (I received a couple of complaints about slightly slow response time in menus, which is now fix), so I can fix it now?

This post has been edited by djtiesto: 25 August 2007 - 05:14 AM

[Lachesis]

the load screen background color kind of sears my eyes, otherwise this looks pretty good

[Goshi]

Kuroneko, on Aug 25 2007, 03:15 PM, said:

the load screen background color kind of sears my eyes, otherwise this looks pretty good

How's that any different from typing messages in a word processor?

[Lachesis]

Goshi, on Aug 24 2007, 10:27 PM, said:

Kuroneko, on Aug 25 2007, 03:15 PM, said:

the load screen background color kind of sears my eyes, otherwise this looks pretty good

How's that any different from typing messages in a word processor?

because word processors don't use light blues and browns for text as default

[djtiesto]

Kuroneko, on Aug 25 2007, 02:46 PM, said:

Goshi, on Aug 24 2007, 10:27 PM, said:

Kuroneko, on Aug 25 2007, 03:15 PM, said:

the load screen background color kind of sears my eyes, otherwise this looks pretty good

How's that any different from typing messages in a word processor?

because word processors don't use light blues and browns for text as default

It looks better in-game, since you're not viewing it on top of a dark blue background, and the jpg compression made the colors look less crappy. Did you play the demo, it's the same format as the (well-received) status/shop screen.

[Exophase]

djtiesto, on Aug 25 2007, 12:13 AM, said:

I need a break from doing all this MZX work, hehe. I did some animation tweaking today, and I will probably do some more balancing/testing this week/next weekend. I want this to come out like soooo bad.

Was there anything you peoples were unhappy about with the demo (I received a couple of complaints about slightly slow response time in menus, which is now fix), so I can fix it now?

Don't know if you'll change it now, but my biggest complaint about the game is that it just feels like there's way too much unnecessary slowdown in battles. I'm playing it now, I'll list it as I see it:

- Battle transition takes too long
- There's a relatively long pause before the battle even starts showing you the names of the enemies. It'd be much better to have them visible elsewhere.
- Cursor moves too slowly (don't know if that's what you fixed)
- Instead of doing engage/flee it'd be quicker to have a flee option in the menus (like, hit right and it comes up, something like that)
- There's a delay between when you choose something and when it comes up, cut it in half or so.
- When you miss on the gauge (which pretty much never happens for anyone who has been in more than one battle) there's a time consuming animation for it going down
- And when you get all of them you have to watch it shatter every time.
- Then you have to watch the players go through several relatively slow animations. It'd be much better if you overlapped the animations and made the damage appear above each other, or if you just summed them. Most people will get all the attacks every time so this is really boring having to watch over and over.
- The "Round over" display is pointless and adds further to the time...

Not to be too harsh, but I basically found the battles to be an incredible chore to play. It'd be nice if you could do something to make it less easy and repetitive/monotonous, but at the very least you could make them go about 2-3 times faster.

[djtiesto]

Exophase:

Battle transition takes too long
Hmm... I will work on making a new battle transition that is much faster. I'm not particularly crazy about what I have now, anyways, and the thought of redoing it lingered in the back of my mind.

Pause before battle, showing you names of enemies
This is fixed, there is less of a wait now, it still shows you enemy names when you start up but the time it takes from displaying the names to selecting engage/flee has been reduced. You only see the names of the enemies upon entering the battle, too.

Cursor moves too slowly
This has been sped up in the battles/status/shops.

Flee option directly in menus, instead of engage/flee
Thought about doing something like this, but I kinda like the engage/flee... having only 1 chance to run instead of 4 chances makes things a tad more challenging IMO.

There's a delay between when you choose something and when it comes up, cut it in half or so.
Not entirely sure what you mean by this, but I removed/reduced some of the "wait" commands in the code, especially before selecting the command down to the command actually executing, so as soon as you select the enemy to attack, your character will start striking.

When you miss on the gauge (which pretty much never happens for anyone who has been in more than one battle) there's a time consuming animation for it going down
Have you ever played the Shadow Hearts games? I modeled the gauge entirely on that, right down to the "clearing" animation. I don't even recall the animation being THAT time consuming, but I will take a look at that.

And when you get all of them you have to watch it shatter every time.
Yeah, this is completely modeled after the SH gauge as well... I don't think the shatter animation takes that long either, but I'll take a look.

Then you have to watch the players go through several relatively slow animations.
Duly noted, I think I'm gonna go with what you said on overlapping the attack animations and stacking the damage for each hit, just gotta think of a cool way to do it. May take a bit more tinkering than some of the other changes you suggested, but yeah, I will definitely work at this.

The "Round over" display is pointless and adds further to the time...
Would be really easy to remove, I personally like it there as sort of an aesthetic thing, (in fact, its original purpose was to verify that every char/monster took their turn during a round), but if enough people complain, I will take it out.

Thanks, I really appreciate the comments! Perhaps I will release another demo in the future showcasing refinements to the current system (but containing the same locations that were in the current demo) before further advancing with the game.

[djtiesto]

Woot, added nearly all of Exo's suggested changes, still have to make the "hit" animations flow smoother and you see the damage stack, that's gonna be done this weekend, if I can find some time away from playing Blue Dragon

Things I recently changed:

-When you start a round and see the enemy names, you just press SPACE to clear this, instead of waiting
-Random encounter flash happens 2x as fast, it looks a bit cooler this way
-Gauge disappearing/shattering now happens 2x as fast, as well
-Victory screen/level up screen is cleared by hitting SPACE, instead of waiting
-"Round Over" display removed

Only things that I am not gonna change, because a modification would take wayyyyy too long:

-Separate engage/flee menu at the start of round
-When a spell/item targets multiple enemies/chars, it does the damage one by one (DQ style), instead of all at once. (Well, I might still change this... we'll see if enough people complain during the next prototyping)
-When a spell name/item name/etc is displayed, there is a 20 second WAIT before it clears. I think this is adequate for what I wanna do.

Yeah... the battle speed has been significantly improved, so far. Any other suggestions to things I should change?

This post has been edited by djtiesto: 30 August 2007 - 01:32 AM

[Exophase]

Sounds good. Do you think it'd be possible to make the spell/item name overlap with the animation? Shouldn't be too hard to do with another bot.

[asiekierka]

djtiesto: Go lazy and put M-DOS. And BTW, i don't have GameStop here in POLEND. So find some other prize. Some MZX art lessons will be ok.

This post has been edited by asiekierka: 30 August 2007 - 05:45 AM

[djtiesto]

Some new updates:

-Got rid of the engage/flee menu, now you can flee from the main combat menu and it's not limited to once per round.
-Multi-hit basic attacks occur much faster and the damage "stacks". This is still being tested.
-Battles sped up a tad further.
-Maxim is hard at work on a minigame for use in the Shoshinkai dungeon, a minigame based on the classic arcade game "Tapper".
-I'm almost done with Blue Dragon, once that game is done, then I'm spending most of my free non-socialising time working on Keeks until a beta is released.

Left to do before beta #1:

-Final Area (4 stages + boss fight with a few new spell effects)
-Play all the way through the game, tweaking balance and fixing any bugs
-Integrate minigames from Maxim and Lancer.
-Release beta #1

This post has been edited by djtiesto: 21 September 2007 - 02:13 AM

[djtiesto]

Quick Update

Development work, level design, engines, and minigames are FINISHED! Yes, its about time!!! Tomorrow evening, I will start with doing a trial run of the game, from beginning to end, making note of any bugs/glitches/balance issues. This weekend will be spent (among other things, like hanging out with my friend who is coming up from Miami) fixing those bugs, and I will then send the betas out to the people I have selected as testers.

So yeah... there will be 2 rounds of testing/bug fixing... maybe 3 if any substantial bugs have been found in prior phases. And then, I will make a small "hype" webpage and release! This game is DEFINITELY a 2007 game!

[Mr. Apol]

dude i am heck of hyped

[djtiesto]

Just sent out the first beta!!!

[asiekierka]

make ads and post them on youtube.
Also add one to Z-MZX.


Then it'll be awesome.

[djtiesto]

asiekierka, on Nov 9 2007, 07:54 PM, said:

make ads and post them on youtube.
Also add one to Z-MZX.


Then it'll be awesome.

What's Z-MZX?

A youtube video might be a pretty cool idea. How can you record .avis of MZX games?

[djtiesto]

Fixed a ton of bugs and sent the second beta out! There's a good probability that this will be it, as soon as I get the final bug reports, and fix them, that's it and the game will be ready to release! So the ball is finally out of my court (for now)...

[asiekierka]

Camtasia Studio.

I used it for all of mine and it works perfectly.

[djtiesto]

02/02... mark the date on your calendars. That's when this game is coming out. Nearly everything is finished and fully tested, just a few little things here and there to fix up in the next week.