Pre-release Update

Hi, guys.

I'm finishing working on the build. Only minor tweaks and re-writing text are left to do. After that it's when Lyk finishes fixing grammar of the text. Then the release happens and the short updates basis follows, as planned.

The first build will cover the game until the first crossroad before Old Corona Village + one map to the left, where fisherman is located. I think it's a good starting point for building up updated content on the game.

Examples of updated content you can see bellow the “Work Progress Report” warning line, if you don't mind spoilers. If you do, then the warning line is as far as you should read this post.

There was plenty of work being done since the previous post; the build had a lot of problems. About 90% of everything was remade or edited in some way, mostly because of issues with coding and with old assets that didn't work with bigger resolution (plugins, UI, some in-game logic and such). Also, my drawing skills had improved over the years, which made the old drawings and the new ones look weird when combined. So I had to fix almost everything there too.

All-in-all the game's shaping up great. Nothing seems out of place, the graphics are adjusted, every new added feature harmoniously complements gameplay, and all the gameplay scripting makes more sense now. The new TDLT makes previous versions look outdated as hell. So get ready for the new one.

If no force majeure occurs, I expect the build to be released at least this or next week.

Take care of yourselves, guys.

Work Progress Report, SPOILERS AHEAD

Following spoilers include: Artwork, skill animations, gameplay mechanincs. 

In this section I will list the big stuff and what I would like to bring to your attention.

- The “Once upon a time, above Olypmus” text isn't an image anymore, so that translation enthusiasts could translate it as well.

- The intro cutscene was re-made to fit the new resolution. The background was changed, and the characters were placed higher on screen so the text window won't overlap them. The old and the new version:

These screenshots also show a downscaled comparison of the old and new aspect ratios.

- Rapunzel's look went through a bunch of edits, you know if you followed my site. She got some more edits since my last post there; this is the final version, next to the previous build version for comparison:

- Hades was remade; I didn't do him justice with his bulkiness the first time. Now he doesn't look skinny. Comes with a bunch of different poses I won't display here.

- The forest nymph has been redrawn anew

- Robbers too + different poses

- Added some details to Stabbington Brothers (had to go with animations, cause next to each other changes seem badly noticeable on these)

- Fisherman got fixed.

- Captain of Guards got some minor fixes too, not worth showing off.

- As well as the rabbit in the cage.

Again, these are about remaking or adding more details so they look better after re-sizing, to fit the new game's resolution. And about fixing some mistakes along the way.

- Also the chameleon was added.

- All the maps before the Old Corona crossroad got edited. Forest locations mostly.

These screenshots convey the gist of what was done: The road was fixed and the grass became less plain. Also I got rid of the black outline that emphasis every rock and cliffs, cause it makes maps uglier. Not sure why I started doing this, but after hundreds of maps being made it was too late to reverse it. The reboot gave a good opportunity to derail that.

- The new aspect ratio broke position of text windows, so I had to spend time trying to figure out how to change their sizes and how to move them around along with the choices height (the engine was stubborn with giving away how to do that).

I tried to calibrate positions of every text containing window you will encounter during the game. Trying to find the sweet spot for comfortable perception of the whole composition. It came out good enough, I reckon.

After playing Akabur's Star Channel 34 game, I noticed that he rarely goes for more than 2 rows when he displays text. It pays off with going through the text easier when you read it. I'll steal this trick. I'll leave space for 4 rows though, just in case.

- I fixed some coding issues concerning Skill Tree. + I re-organize the icons, so a player could navigate on it easier, using controller/keyboard.

The result isn't ideal, but it works.

A few words about pacifist walkthrough. Since TDLT is an alternate universe sequel to Princess Trainer (the game that didn't have much fighting in it), I think that providing a pacifist route is justifiable. So now it will be possible to play the game without fighting once.

For that you need to focus on the third skill tree. Figuring out which skills you should learn first in order to avoid fights later.

- Speaking of battles. I finally did a thing I wanted to do since day one – I swapped the places of enemies and main characters.

The way RPG Maker makes it by default rubs me the wrong way. I read from left to right, the commands panel is placed on the left, our hero's HP/MP and stuff is located on the left, the transparent speedup-battle button is on the left. All the additional information, items, skill and magic are being listed from left to right, as well as its descriptions.

It's like our base of operations is there. So it makes sense seeing our chars appear on the left too, during battles. And the right half of the screen should be enemy territory.

I assume original placement was based on the fact that the engine was created for making JRPGs. Most of JRPG games I've seen tend to place heroes on the right. Even if the game is in 3D, the camera usually takes an angle that displays heroes on the right side.

I don't know why it's like that, there are probably reasons for this. But the way I do it works for the game better. And it plays well, as if the engine been like that by default.

- There will be two skills available from the beginning of the game. 1 for Magic and 1 Special Attack. I had to place Multislasher and Fire from Bellow lower down the skill tree, cause they're too strong. 

Every Magic and Special Attack skill can be upgraded up to 3 levels in the Skill Tree section. Initially, I wanted every upgrade to be about increasing damage values. But I had an opportunity to made every upgrade differ visually, so I did that.

Here's what these two skills will look like at the moment, non-upgraded and maxed:

- Choosing difficulty. I guess, this one can be considered as a failed addition. It works, I set it up, it was ready to be embedded in the game, affecting database values, but I had to cancel it after all.

Because at the moment I don't know how to properly balance numbers in this game. I tried to write schemes, calculating the difference between the enemy and player strength values. Tried to predict which enemies you will encounter, and how many. An amount of Exp you could get at different episodes of a walkthrough. And I came to conclusion that I need to have at least 1/4 of the game to balance it somewhat correctly.

I'm currently designing the game around Normal difficulty, with a focus on giving players more power rather than limiting it. So, before I find a proper way to balance numbers, you will probably end up being OP. I'll try not making it an absolute walk in a park. But at the moment the main thing to me is to be sure that right now you won't stuck, playing the game.

I'll talk to RPG Maker veteran devs, who might be experienced enough to be able to give me a hand with balancing this thing at early stages. And maybe then choosing difficulty will be implemented. But that's for later.

Alright, I'll wrap it up here. There are numerous edits and tweaks I didn't include into the report. But all the main stuff is covered, if I didn't miss anything (after re-reading the post, I noticed that I missed mentioning reputation system, but I better cover it when it will affect the gameplay (meaning reaching Old Corona village)).

Untill the next post, guys, which will be the release of the build.

See you there. Take care!