Sir Dude World Devlog

So I decided to take a break from all of my projects this past week to participate in the GDEX Game Jam. I thought about doing it last year and ended up not following through with it because it was a busy time, but I decided it'd be a fun little week project to help get some of my motivation back.

🎮 Play the game on itchio 🎮

 

Friday 1

The theme "Rest" was announced on Friday night, so I immediately started brainstorming ideas and the first two that came to mind were Beddy Bye World or Sir Dude World. Then the rest mechanic really started to feel pretty central to Sir Dude World and how those Eventures played out, so it felt kind of like a natural fit.

After some initial brainstorming and Eventure reading, I dove right in to start the project file. I just threw some plugins into a project and got everything set up. Then I was sketching a basic scene for the layout, and got a little carried away with the dialogue box. So I decided to just go ahead and implement a little dialogue transition to test it in the engine. I wasn't super excited about any of the built-in animations, so I might update that later, but I thought it might be fun to add a little effect to electrify it more. Animating the border might even look cool, but that's probably a little out of scope for this short project.

While I was designing the dialogue box to have an electrifying outline, I was mostly inspired by this old SNES game called Dragon Ball Z Hyper Dimension. I was always so obsessed with how they animated electricity emitting off of Vegeta and it was honestly one of my favorite SNES art for any game. So I wanted to kind of try to replicate that electrical effect on the dialogue box.

Saturday 1

The next day, my brother and I worked on the game together. We brainstormed a few more ideas and game mechanics together. I started with some timers, customizing its position with code. I was going to use some plugins, but none of them had the basic functions I needed, so I just updated the code instead.

Then I started with the basic sequence of events, just creating ink stitches and basic switches in the engine to get everything flowing in order.

I set up some basic events like item collection and variables to track those for furthering the sequence of events. Then I dove into the abilities. This was a new idea we came up with on this day. But I started with concepting the position in Photoshop for the UI parts.

Then I implemented the functionality of each ability in the game. This involves things like changing the walk speed, the time, or highlighting the items. I got it all functioning and imported the rough sketch of my brother's background for Swiss George.

Then I worked on updating the dialogue box to include a namebox so the character's name would fit in it a little better. I also updated the font to something that felt a little more fitting.

And when my brother made more progress on the background, I imported that version into the game. So this was what we accomplished after the first full day of development. 

Sunday

To start, I cleaned up my brainstorming document since I brought on Adam to compose some music for the game! So I wanted to make sure it was readable from an outside view and that there was some clear direction for him to follow.

Then I sketched the backgrounds on paper in my sketchbook. I mainly wanted to figure out the layouts and puzzle designs. I decided Lilim Town would be a vertical map instead of the typical horizontal ones because it would make more sense to show the height of the Bell Tower. It'll probably be more difficult to do, but I think it'll make it more interesting and is more fitting!

Then I started the walk cycle for Yaguzi. Starting with the rough animation, I wanted to start very loose just to get the overall motions out there.

Then I cleaned up the animation and drew all of the directions fully. I really wanted to get the shininess of the inspiration that I took from DBZ Hyper Dimension's sprites, because that's something I really liked about it.

Then I exported the spritesheet and imported it into the engine itself. So I tested running around to see how it looks in a final level.

I started converting my traditional background sketches to black and white versions and resized them a bit while testing in RPG Maker. I might adjust them a bit more still later, but this was getting slightly there. I was originally just blocking out shapes to know where things were, but when I got to the Lilim Town map, I ended up getting a bit more shapes in there and it started coming along closer to what I could actually use, especially if I run low on time.

 

So I got placeholders in there for every map just so I could start laying things out. Some were more rough than others.

Monday 

I spent all of Monday night on character art and I finished the full character lineup. I still need to animate them and turn them into sprite sheets, but the drawings are there. I might change up the effects a bit too, so they can fit more with the UI style, but we'll see if there's time.

Tuesday

I animated all of the characters and exported their sprite sheets, so they were finally in the game! Adam also finished the first iteration of the song for Mr Dude World, so I imported that into the game. It was good to see things starting to come to life!

Then I decided to include the little extra sprite where Yaguzi crawls through the tunnels. It ended up involving a bit more eventing than I thought so I could get the correct sprites to show up. It's not animated or anything and I threw something quick together just to get it in there.

I wanted to get progress on the backgrounds too, so I just threw some quick colors onto the backgrounds to set them up. It ended up changing some of the contrast that I liked from the original black and white versions though, so I probably still need to workshop some of these.

Wednesday

I spent all of Wednesday on the backgrounds. I started with Sir Dude World, since that one was pretty simple. I was trying to figure out a style that meshed with my brother's Swiss George background and the character sprites.

I also threw together the tutorial area, though I didn't add the items to it yet. This was mostly just an edit of the Sir Dude World map.

Then I moved on to Mr Dude World, inside the house, where I also tried to keep it pretty simple. I ended up keeping my old drawing on the left wall for now since I didn't want to have to recreate that or just have a blank wall.

The next background was a bigger one: Terica Middle School. I ended up just drawing a couple of main background elements that I could reuse. I also made the windows be on a separate charset so I could swap them to be open or closed.

Then came Lilim Town, which was probably the most involved one. I ended up using brushes to make shading go faster, but it also meant it was a slightly different style. I would like to go back and tone down the textures a bit if there's time, but with me already being about a day behind on how long the art has been taking, that's gonna have to go on the wishlist. 

 

My brother also finished the Swiss George background and I got some more music from Adam. I didn't have a chance to fully integrate the backgrounds with the events yet, but that's for tomorrow.

Thursday

I started this day by getting all of the parallax maps working. Luckily I had a lot of notes on it, so I was able to quickly remember which plugins worked best for what I needed. I started with the Swiss George map, making sure all of those worked on top of each other.

Then I made common events for all of the interactions you have with objects so collision boxes could be bigger. I was able to streamline it to be pretty quick to implement.

I finished drawing all of the objects and turning those into charsets so I could place them in RPG Maker.

And then I finished the last background, outside of Mr Dude's house in his world. I animated the meteors and set them up so they disappear the further along you are in the game to better show the game progression.

I spent a lot of time just placing events and testing that everything was working. So I got through most of the game loop without any major bugs, which was good. But from here, it was really getting down to the wire.

Friday 2

Friday after work was a major development day for me. To start, I designed the title screen, which has animated elements. I was torn on what the title of the game would be, but I decided to keep it pretty simple and make it be Sir Dude World. I also added the title music that Adam made for it, which was really fitting.

Then I worked on the UI. I was originally going to draw the characters' faces for the UI, but because I had a lot left to do, I kept it simple and just reused the sprites for it. I added all of the final art, and it was already mostly set up functionality-wise. I also updated the UI to include clickable and keyboard elements.

Then I recorded some voice clips and added those for various parts to add a bit of flair. I did various bug fixes as well, including some issues with how the time worked. I added UI behind the timer to make it stand out as well.

I replaced the default Game Over visual with a custom one. I also decided to just use the built-in Game Over system instead of creating my own retry button so it would have less room for error in the short time.

Previously you could only swap characters through a menu when you talk to Sir Dude. I updated this to be when you talk to the characters instead. I also added them throughout the mission maps as well.

I wasn't super happy with the choices text box, so I decided to redesign it to look closer to how the regular text box looks. I also added some common events to make the text show up on the same screen so you could tell what you were selecting.

Then I added a lighting system to the Terica Middle School level. This added a lot more atmosphere to the mission and gave it a bit more of a challenge.

And finally, to end the night, I wrote all of the story for the game. This was about 700 lines of dialogue in Ink, so it was a lot! I also on the spot decided to add a few different endings because it made sense for the story and the final part of the game.

I created an ending scenario where you have to answer questions truthfully based on the story events so far.

So with that, I uploaded the first build of the game to itchio!

I ended up mostly pulling an all-nighter Friday night, and then sleeping most of the day Saturday.

Saturday 2

So when I woke up around 10pm on Saturday, Jinny played the game as my beta tester and gave me some feedback. Wes from COGG also played it and gave me some notes. So from there, I implemented as much of the feedback as I could. The first thing I did was add arrows and icon indicators above characters to show that they're able to be interacted with. That seemed to be the biggest challenge for players. I also updated some collisions generally to make it easier.

I updated the pop-up window location when it's high up on the screen and would otherwise cover the timer. This was mostly in the Terica Middle School scene. I also adjusted the time on most of the maps because it was previously too easy to beat without using any character abilities. So I wanted to provide more of a challenge.

I added some instructions after the credits on how to progress back to the title screen, because there was a weird bug where it would require pressing the back button twice. So I wanted to give more direction.

I added colors to the nameboxes so it would be easier to tell when the character was switching, especially when they're standing close to each other.

I also updated the options screen to show the default controls and allow the player to navigate back to the title screen. I also

Then I did some bug fixes. This included completely redoing Klam's ability. Instead of doubling the time, I changed him to give you 20 seconds. And then I changed everyone's timer to be 20 seconds in total. Klam in particular wouldn't work if you interacted with him while in the middle of a mission and not on the Sir Dude World map. So I updated all of that and fixed all characters so you could use more than one. Through all of this, I also added a new variable bar that displays on the screen to show the time that you have with character abilities. This way, you could visually see the stamina and how much time you have to use the ability instead of it being hidden. This was a consistent piece of feedback I got, so I wanted to make sure that got in there, even if it was a bit bigger of a change to make during the last bit of time.

And that was the last big change I made. The rest were small bug fixes and various other changes. And by Sunday morning, the game was done and version 2 was uploaded on itchio! On Sunday night, I got to see Tom and Wes play through the game on the official GDEX stream, which was cool too.

Final Thoughts

This was a really fun project! At the start, I was able to come up with an idea that would be fairly simple to execute within a week. I ended up spending a few long days on it and worked on it every night after work, but overall spent about 74 hours on it. So not quite as long as my GGJ projects yet (which includes the weeks after for cleanup), but I might end up coming back to it after the judging period to add a bit more polish and make some final updates.

1 week felt like a good time to work on a mostly solo project at this scale. Because I kept the mechanics simple, I did spend a lot more time on the art and overall design. My brother drew one of the backgrounds, but I drew a lot of backgrounds and characters for this, so it did take a lot of that time.

And then this was my first time doing audio direction for a composer, which ended up being a really great experience! I was a little nervous about it at first because I was planning for this project to be mostly a solo project and I thought adding more members to the team could detract time, but we kept it fairly simple and communicated over Discord chat with direction and when progress was made. So I was really happy with how it all worked out!

Another area I was a little worried about was the story because I saved it for very late. I usually tend to do this in game jam projects because I have to focus more on the playable mechanics, but this one had a lot of story moments and I had to explain how to play the game through that. I was worried that this story might be a bit complex to jump into without an understanding of The Nays, but from the observations I did of a few people playing it, they at least didn't indicate to me that they were lost in the story at all. So that was a relief too.

Originally I wasn't sure if I was going to actually do this project because doing a game jam during a work week without taking additional days off sounded like it could be difficult. But I made it work! Keeping things scoped down and small scale really helped me with this. And I didn't run into any major bugs during my playtests, which is a good sign. None of my playtesters ran into anything game-breaking either. So I'm hoping that means all of my thorough testing paid off.

I'm excited to hear more about what people think once the judging happens. And then while I was originally disappointed that I wouldn't be showing Linkship Competition at GDEX this year, I was pleased to hear that it sounds like this project will be there at their booth! So in the end, I will technically have a game on display that's playable at GDEX, even if it's not the one that I originally planned (and didn't have time to make playable by then).

I always like doing a solo game jam project each year, so this really helped fulfill that for me. I was feeling a bit down on lack of project creation recently, but this really helped motivate me and inspire me to continue working on my projects again. I'm hoping to get back into things again with this project complete for now!

Vote Milkshake Devlog

With all of the news of RPG Maker U2U coming out recently, my brother and I have been very inspired to make games. While we've been working on our longer project Linkship Competition, we were more in the mood for making a game quickly without a lot of intense game mechanics, art, programming, etc. to take a break and make a lot of quick progress. That's how our games used to be when we were hobbyist kids who didn't really know much about game design. So we took a day to work on a couple of mini-projects for fun without any intention of actually posting playable versions online or anything. We called this "Vote Milkshake".

Vote Smoothie: Context

So the reasoning behind the name of this project is that back in 2016, we made collaborative projects in RPG Maker MV called Vote Smoothie. We were drinking smoothies and deciding what we wanted to do for the day. We usually like to come up with a list of ideas for creative projects to do and this one came out of that time. We made two games at the same time. The requirements were that we would include a random sound clip we made, have our characters take turns "making the game", and that each "turn" would end with a dialogue choice. The next person would decide which way to take the story and start developing from there.

During this time, we made one that was more of a visual novel where it was like a pop-up book with little characters on Popsicle sticks and Pigger is telling a story to the other orphans.

The other one was an underground explorer game where Topaz is mining and searching for treasures. This one had a unique sepia tone, zoom, and interface elements.

Vote Milkshake: Process

We've tried many times since then to recreate this experience with new projects, but every time it just didn't feel as fun as this one. And we didn't want to just continue those games, but wanted something fresh usually. Each time we tried to do this, we had a lot of requirements and restrictions that we added, which maybe over-complicated them. But with Vote Milkshake, I think we did recreate that feeling finally but in MZ. We kept it simple with the same basic requirements, worked fast, and didn't do a lot of planning. I started by setting up a basic project file and GitHub for collaborating, but that was it! Then we duplicated it so we'd have the same starter project for both.

I started with Squidwik's game, which was the "Nun Version". Because we work fast with these projects, we don't draw our own art. We use existing premade sprites and tilesets, and assets we designed with our characters in character generator software like Looseleaf. The biggest challenge was finding premade tilesets honestly, because most are paid nowadays. Back in the RPG Maker 2003 days, those were free and all over the internet!

But I found a tileset that was pretty good by hou-uoh. I was able to design a little outdoor area pretty nicely. I just had to adjust their tileset a bit to work with RPG Maker specifically. A lot of their aspects were paid/not included, so I used the free assets that were available for this.

Because we were creating all of the dialogue straight in RPG Maker, old style, without the assistance of Ink, I really wanted to make writing dialogue as seamless as possible. I used Hakuen Studio's Message Common Events plugin to create common events before and after messages so I could show a picture file and erase it for the dialogue box. Because I wanted it to automate per character, I set up a string variable for the character's name that I set before a dialogue box, and then this common event runs automatically before and after dialogue boxes to show a smooth transition of the message boxes and faces, depending on the character. This way, it shows the character's face graphic automatically and their name is set up automatically in the name box. I really wanted this to be automated upfront so I could develop even faster!

Then I designed the dialogue boxes and choices images. I wanted them to be themed together, so I made use of some of the pieces of hou-uoh's tileset to design the borders of these so they would thematically work together. I added some gradients and other aspects too.

Because I was working on the visuals more, I also used the fountain portion of the tileset and set up event pages to cycle through and animate the water. This was a fun little feature I added to make the scene feel more alive.

I also played around with Moghunter's Weather effects plugin to make the scene feel more alive. I was going to use RPG Maker's built-in rain weather effects, but there wasn't enough customization. So I used this one to add a more custom rain, and then had even more fun with star effects, butterflies, and more!

Because the choices are a big moment, I wanted to make that stand out a lot in terms of visuals. So I added the weather effects, but also added a picture at the top that indicates that it's a big decision. And I used Aerosys' Gab Windows plugin to add a little pop-up that reminds the player of what the choice is that they're making.

I also wanted the sound files to stand out more, so I added a speaker emoji and different text color for when the character is talking.

And that was everything I did during my first turn for Squidwik! Like I said, I didn't draw the sprite or tile assets, and I also didn't bother finding royalty free music because this is a very hobby project that I'm not planning to post as a playable game online. So here's a clip of the whole scene so far (some copyright music is included again because it's just for fun, so please support the original creators):

While I was developing that project, my brother was developing the "Jungle Version". Once he finished his part, it was Pubby's turn to create the next scene. I started by adding the transitioning parts from his existing maps to the new areas I was going to design. So I made some basic story parts. Then, I designed the swamp area. Finding tilesets again was a challenge, so I combined a few together to make what I needed (by hypnobius and noelru).

Because I was struggling to find free tilesets, I used mostly RTP ones for the interior of the house. I was trying really to make the shapes more interesting, since I always struggle with making backgrounds look interesting and not too flat/boring. So I added a bit more depth to it. 

I spent a lot of the time for this one with finding tilesets, making multiple maps, and adding more story parts. I also updated some aspects to make the dialogue a bit more streamlined with events like the previous game. I didn't add nearly as many effects though since this turn was a lot shorter. Because the textbox style was very close to being just a faceset in the standard RPG Maker way, I updated them to be actual facesets instead of individual image files so it'd be easier for us to add those straight into the text boxes with less additional showing of pictures.

This involved me having to edit the rmmz_windows.js file to add the additional padding. It took me awhile to figure that out, but it was really the only way I could figure out while having word wrap enabled in VisuStella's Message Core plugin.

So this one had a bit less extra features compared to the previous one with the parts I worked on, but here's a clip of the scenes I put together (and again, has copyrighted music and tilesets/sprites that I didn't draw):

It was fun playing around with effects and experimenting when I didn't have to worry about complex game mechanics or drawing my own art assets on this project. So this really helped me expand and have fun with more of the fundamental and basic features of RPG Maker. It's a very different way than I've been using MZ for the most part in recent years, but it's fun to hop in and do this kind of hobby project every once in awhile where it's nothing serious and no intentions to commercialize it in any way. I'm hoping we can come back to this project again to continue working on it when we want to make a game but aren't worried about the polish and presentability of it quite as much. Overall, this was a really fun Saturday project!