Stage Left Devlog

So I had a a dream the other night that I made a game in RPG Maker, so I decided to make the game a reality. I spent about 6 hours developing this game and tried to reuse some character sprite assets I already had so that I could focus on the game mechanics.

 You can download and play the game here:

I didn't end up taking screenshots along the way while I developed, but I'll dive into the development process here. I started off by making an event that sets a random number between 1-4 to each of the characters. Then, it checks if those random numbers are different. If they're not, it loops through until all 4 numbers are unique since they're associated with each character.

Then I set each of the slots to a character name and show their appropriate sprites in the slots that they're associated with. This is so it can briefly show their positions to the player so they can spot where everyone is for the memory portion of the game.

I made a quick console check before I even showed the sprites though so that I could fully test one of the characters and know which each position was.

There are 4 character sprites on the map that I set up. And like I said, I started with one before I really split everything up. I later split everything into common events so I could reuse the code, but it was originally in here. Basically, when you interact with a character, it'll set some variables and visuals, but then change the sprites back to their characters and reveal whether you were right or wrong. Depending on the round you're in, that'll redirect you to see the success or incorrect sequence.

At the start of each round, it briefly reveals the characters for a set amount of time. This speeds up as the game goes on to make it more challenging. Then, once you've seen them all, it changes the sprites back to the mystery sprite so you can't tell who it is.

 

 

And once you answer correctly, it moves on to the next round until you've guessed them all correctly.

If you answer it incorrectly, it still reveals the character, but reveals who that was to indicate you answered incorrectly. It ends the game and starts over.

I ended up drawing my own background so it would be integrated a bit more. I made it super simple, since the lights are out and you don't see it in much detail anyway.

I also drew the lights that shine down and made those be individual picture files. This was a simple ellipse and straight lines, but I think it works for what it is. I also added a custom blend mode and opacity to make it look more like a light.

And then I wanted Clove, the player, to stand out when walking around. So I created a following parallel event where it follows her X and Y positions when the player is able to walk around. I added a bit of an offset so it would show up where I wanted it to.

I also added moving pictures for the curtains so they would open at the start of the game and close at the end of the game. This is 2 picture files moving towards or away from each other.

Because I wanted this to be a very quick one-night project, I reused a lot of sprites I already drew and used RTP music and sound effects from RPG Maker. I just used some custom fonts and basic plugins so it wasn't entirely default. But I added sound effects for each instance of something changing on the screen to help show that.

So this was a fun short little project to keep me motivated since it's been hard to find time lately to work on projects. So taking a break to finish something in about 6 hours really helped with this.

Linkship Competition Devlog 5: Core Battle Mechanics Continued

I came back to working on this game after about a month or so break. I continued to focus a lot on figuring out core battle mechanics and trying to really get that MVP there.

The first thing I did was update the resources and other HUD elements so they would line up properly with our placeholder assets. I also updated the enemy resources to associate with those enemy variables.

Then I started creating the functionality for the health bars so that they'd be tied to the variables and scale based on where the health was at. I also updated the special attack bar to work similarly to this. 

To make this all functional, I started working on the Knight teammate's abilities. I started with an attacking feature where it would deplete health. I also added a healing mechanic to heal them.

While I was adding these, I decided to update the characters (which are actually listed as Armors in the Database) to use the Armor Types. This way, I could check if they're healing, attacking, defending, etc. with just checking their type instead of having to cycle through every character we set as that.

And then after that, I worked more on the cooldown timers. I updated the visual to show their face icon filling up when a cooldown is active, so the player can tell how close they are to completing them. Then, an animation plays on the character to show that they're ready.

Then I took a little break from game dev to draw some rough animations. I decided I wanted to do run cycles instead of walk cycles for the characters to look more natural with the actual speed that they're moving at. So I started with Ralphie. Just doing roughs for right now.

Then I got the animation working in RPG Maker after using Galv's plugins. It took me awhile to figure out how to get it working, but I was able to adjust the animation speed and also show different animations for idle and walking. It allows me to use 4 frames instead of 3 also, which makes it overall more smooth than the typical RPG Maker limitations.

After our full work day, I decided to update some mechanics we talked about. I started with changing the Knight's ability to be a regular cooldown and then the healing and attacking to be button mashing instead.

Then I changed the orange resources to automatically fill up your special meter when picked up instead of acting like a regular resource.

Then I fixed our current issue of resources being stuck on the page with self switch B even after you turn them in to the Inventor. I wrote some code to find the last event on the map, and work within a range to reset those and turn self switch B off.

And I bought Kadaj's Parallel Lives plugin since he added controller support. It had some conflicts with some of our existing plugins and I couldn't quite get it working correctly, but I was messaging with him to try and see if it could get fixed in the future at least so we might actually end up using it. He made some updates and we're still working to see if we can get the rest of the plugin conflicts figured out.

Then I started working on the hacking mini-game functionality and loop. First, the player destroys the room door when they have their weapon. Then, it turns off the roof of the room to reveal what's inside of the room.

And from there, the player can interact with a control panel. If they complete the mini-game, they successfully destroy it. I haven't actually implemented the mini-games, but it does work for what would happen if you did complete the mini-game, as the HUD updates with it.

I added all of the door and control panel events with some placeholder art so I could properly test out all of the mechanics.

I also added a cooldown timer that refreshes where the enemy will actively destroy the player's control panels as well. This is on a timer and it randomly selects one of the rooms to destroy if it hasn't yet.

With most of the core win and lose mechanics set up, I decided to actually implement the win and lose conditions to show that. So I created an event that checks for all of the win and lose conditions, and triggers the end of the battle when that happens.

I did a few performance optimizations since I noticed some lag. So I added a loading screen and set it to fade out when it goes there and back in once everything has finished loading. I'm hoping this will help a bit.

Add that's the update for this time! I spent a few days on all of the updates in this post and our battles are getting closer to including all of the core mechanics needed. Only a few parts left in the battle for the MVP to be fully there, then we can work on polishing things up and testing the fun. I'm looking forward to having everything in place so we can also figure out some of the timing on the cooldowns and seeing how it all works together.