horror_n_oates

On 2021-07-20 at 7:21 PM, Yotes said:

Love how this game has such a cozy nostalgic feel. Def one of the fandom's best.

Thanks for taking a look at this ol' thread!
Hoping to do better with the next one!

@Rikifive Just my honest thoughts and what I learned from experience, hopefully it helps.

I can definitely relate on juggling a job and irl matters all the while focusing on game development, in all honesty it can be incredibly stressful and sometimes it can ask too much of us. It can also be incredibly frustrating to not be able to deliver on certain things, be that lack of knowledge (coding, etc), or assets.

It's a bit of a balancing act, but sometimes it's probably best to take a step back and reevaluate what you're doing and when necessary- compromise.

It also largely depends on how you work though, find what's best for you.

In terms of the end of G4, there may or may not be a dip in relevance, but it certainly will be the end of an era, but I find it's best to not see the show as a giver of deadlines as that's not the best for development without a clear-cut plan.

Again, hope it helps.

Spike’s Time Off is COMPLETE!!!

Play it NOW at Newgrounds!

https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/714724

Spike’s Time Off is a story-driven adventure game and is the third installment of Spike’s mundane adventures.

Want to download Spike’s Time Off?
WINDOWS
http://www.mediafire.com/file/u9id0b830eng8ro/Spikes_Time_Off_WIN.zip
Mac OSX
http://www.mediafire.com/file/cbtip4zsbhaebdz/Spikes_Time_Off_OSX.zip

Check out the past 2 games here on Newgrounds!
https://sonicboy112.newgrounds.com/

Spike’s Time Off Dev Log #3

Happy Summer everyone!

Got some good news here!

Spike’s Time Off is content complete and will be hitting your computer screens soon!
All that remains is to polish this bad boy up before delivery!

But before I get back on that, let’s discuss a concept that makes a game stand out- its theme. Beyond just its purpose in the storyline, a game’s theme can be conveyed through other elements as well. Things such as UI design to gameplay elements can do a great deal in putting the player in the right mindset.

For Spike’s Time Off, the theme is that of the “family vacation”.
We even got a brochure for ya’ll to look at…

Activities for their stay include relaxing on the beach…

Trying new, exotic flavors…

“Chilling” in the hot spring…

and y'know, what usually goes down…

Aside from the aesthetics, gameplay must also take into account user experience and what encounters they’ll most likely trigger. This largely depends on the type of game, but any immersive experience is seldom coincidental as the developer(s) are in charge of accommodating user decisions, should their expectations be set appropriately. An example would be introducing a mechanic one way, but failing to communicate that it can’t be used another way would skew the player’s expectations about that certain mechanic. Proper, but subtle communication can go a long way in establishing player expectations.

Anyway, Spike and company have got some time off, but like in any video game, destiny takes no vacations

Thanks ya’ll

Spike’s Time Off Dev Log #2

Howdy ya’ll, let’s talk about text and dialogue in game development. Specifically in how such elements are presented to help convey the story.

In the Spike games and in Day Dreaming Derpy, text is predominantly displayed at the top of the screen like this,

Basically just a standard textbox with a mugshot, typical for most rpgs. But break it down further and we got a good amount of design decisions to consider.

Firstly, the font.

Of course, the standard font RPGMaker first loads up is, while perfectly readible, clashes much with the aesthetic of the pixel art around it. Hence the obvious choice to use a “pixelated” font was made (Earth Momma seemed to fit best).

Previously in rpgmaker VX Ace, the font functioned and looked as intended, but with rpgmaker MV’s larger scale and resolution, anti-aliasing becomes more noticeable and pixel fonts would lose their, for lack of better words, “crispness”.

It was a bit hard to give a specific name to the issue I was tackling, so google search wasn’t too effective at first. But after some digging, certain solutions and workarounds presented themselves.

Credit for this goes to the guys over at rpgmakerweb forums!

Of course for those curious, the entire thread is still up for research.  The issue isn’t permanently eliminated, but it allows for a more presentable format. Essentially the plugin removes the near-transparent pixels in the font, giving it an overall cleaner look closer to that of its appearance back in VX Ace. There was also the matter of adjusting the transparency tolerance somewhere in the general .js file too, but that applies to font that’s slightly more transparent- an unavailable option, for example.

Next subject on the dissection of the textbox is the mugshot.

Interesting thing about the mugshot is that it’s not always necessary and can be considered as purely a visual element. The mugshots in previous games however, have usually been able to change expression to make up for the lack of sprite animation during a cutscene. This primarily involved changing expression and the like. But to do so effectively, conventional artistic endeavors had to be done.

Honestly, I hear various opinions on the art style for the mugshots (some high, some not so…), but I chose to go with the kind that accentuates the expression the most.

The migration of these assets proved to be slightly more difficult when it came to MV, as mugshots are 144x144, thereby either leaving too much space around the head if the resolution was maintained, or too close up if the resolution was scaled appropriately. It was a bit of a dilemma, but to illustrate, here are Spike’s mugshots through out the games starting from Spike’s Day Off/Out to his look in Spike’s Time Off.

With the steady increase in resolution, the importance of how concise the mugshot must be to properly fit in with the textbox’s look and spacing. You can see how the attention went from the entire bust, to the head and all its features, and finally to zooming in to just the face, Granted, the resolution creep could be avoided if I just drew up new mugshots, but for the sake of visual accuracy to the game series and to keep with the pacing of development, older assets are used.

Next up, alternative presentation.

I’m deeply sorry for the profanity, but it’s an amazing game.

Textboxes can be situated in various places, and in the example above, Lisa the Painful and its other games utilize a unique approach with presenting text as it appears over whoever is talking, making it more definitive and closer to feeling like actual dialogue.

The example above is an experiment with how such dialogue can be established in rpgmaker MV, and while it’s probably not completely superior to the complete mugshot-textbox arrangement, it does have its benefit in conveying information or flavor text rather quickly without the need for additional assets. Basically, striking a balance when using both is what would be ideal for Spike’s Time Off.

Thanks for stopping by, if ya’ll made it through the blocks of text. Hope this gives an idea of the kind of obstacles that are tackled in game development. Interesting thing about everything mentioned is that it’s all research and information that was done some time earlier this month, which puts development pretty far ahead! But not too far, as there are still assets to be made and dialogue to be written.

It’s still a pretty good time though!

Deuces

Spike’s Time Off is the third installment of Spike’s mundane adventures coming Summer 2018!

Play the previous games here:

Spike's Day Off

Spike's Day Out

DISCLAIMER

Spike’s Time Off is an UNOFFICIAL fan-made game.

My Little Pony and its characters belong to their respective owners.

PROGRESS

COMPLETE!!!

PLAY IT NOW!

https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/714724

Want to download Spike's Time Off?
WINDOWS
http://www.mediafire.com/file/u9id0b830eng8ro/Spikes_Time_Off_WIN.zip
Mac OSX
http://www.mediafire.com/file/cbtip4zsbhaebdz/Spikes_Time_Off_OSX.zip

You can follow frequent development updates here and at DeviantArt | Tumblr | Twitter

Day Dreaming Derpy v1.0 is COMPLETE!!!

I’m glad to announce that Day Dreaming Derpy is now COMPLETE and available for download at rpgmaker.net!

After a year of juggling life, work, and responsibility- Day Dreaming Derpy is now complete and ready to be shared with the world.

I hope you enjoy what I have created.

==========TO PLAY, JUST DOWNLOAD THE NEW .ZIP FILE============ 

*** SAVE FILES FROM PREVIOUS VERSIONS ARE NOT GUARANTEED TO WORK WITH v1.0  ***
*** I DO NOT RECOMMEND USING SAVE FILES FROM PREVIOUS VERSIONS WITH v1.0  ***
*** BUT IF YOU DO, BE WARY OF POTENTIAL RIFTS IN THE SPACE-TIME CONTINUUM  ***

==========DOWNLOAD THE ORIGINAL OST ON BANDCAMP ===========

https://oates.bandcamp.com/album/day-dreaming-derpy-ost

==============================================================

===BE SURE TO DOWNLOAD THE RTP FOR VX ACE BEFORE RUNNING===

http://www.rpgmakerweb.com/download/additional/run-time-packages

==============================================================

The following is v1.0 completed version of Day Dreaming Derpy.
If you find any glitches or bugs, feel free to let me know!

Thank you for letting me share this with you all!

Day Dreaming Derpy Trailer (v1.0 Early 2018)

It’s gonna happen everyone! The full game (v1.0)  of Day Dreaming Derpy will hit your computer screens early 2018! It’s been quite a year, but I’m glad to be bringing this to ya’ll soon!

Special Thanks for Music:

CassettePone (Joel Basar)

https://thengvirus.newgrounds.com/

https://www.youtube.com/user/KaminaKat/

15 hours ago, Rikifive said:

The scaling is actually the problem I've bumped into when working in pixelated environment.
All the different resolutions and what's worse- all these aspect ratios are what blow my mind. A game with really low resolution would look good when upscaled, where at higher base resolutions there are troubles, as upscaling pixel art by, for example, 1.5 makes it all look broken. On smaller resolutions, scaling up by, let's say, 6.5 would be, or at least should be unnoticeable. I'll try few things and see how it turns out later.  

 

~Each opinion & information always helps, thanks!  

I recommend scaling by whole numbers like x2 or x6 so the pixel proportions and image would be preserved. Doing it by decimals often transforms the pixels in unfavorable ways

Good luck!

I could give my two cents on the pros and cons for the pixel art side of things if it would help!

Depending on the resolution, it would be beneficial to use pixels because of their simplicity and the variety of tools out there to get smooth and mathematically appealing curves, which would help with creating assets and speed up your pipeline, but there is the issue of clean pixel resizing and considering the (static?) resolution, you would also need to consider the size of the pixels (2x2, 3x3, etc) which may affect how certain objects and characters are animated. Pixel art is good for modular assets too if you needed to build areas quickly too!

Mode 7 in the SNES is a good example of how certain pixel maps can be manipulated to achieve animation, but that is primarily for dynamic backgrounds and visual effects. Animation for the player characters would probably (if you use pixel art) look visually best if done sprite-sheet style/frame by frame, unless you could emulate the show by using symbols in a rig. A large part of "cheating" with pixel animation could be achieved by resizing certain sections of a sprite (ala Knuckle Sandwich or how Pokemon Black and White animated the battle sprites), which is closer to the MLP's style but hasn't been experimented with too much as far as I heard.

Another game to look to for HD-looking pixel art is Owlboy, which does cheat by pulling the camera back and resizing the pixels to give the vistas a near-HD look; though it does have a larger resolution than most pixel art games which usually use consistent pixel proportions.

Hope this helps!

Day Dreaming Derpy Dev Log #17 Pretty Darn Close and Youtube Channel

Greetings everyone, been down with the sickness recently but I wanted to get this out when I had the time.

First thing’s first! I’ve been lucky enough to receive a hefty amount of support in the form of original music from 2 more volunteers!

TheNGVirus

KaminaKat

We’ve been shooting messages back and forth for a bit and it’s been awesome of them to compose for the game so far! I’ll be sure to post some of their tracks soon!

So lately I’ve been working on a lot of minor kinks in the Uniform system, chief among them is the implementation of a new feature- changing Uniforms during battle!

Semi-interesting story with this, I was looking at the battle options, which before had the options Bop, Skills, Guard, and Items. The least used among those options, pretty obviously was Guard, as it functioned much like a ‘Skip Turn’ button with the state it gives the character doing nothing much beside boosting defense. I didn’t have any mechanics connecting to that so I thought it was best to either leave it alone or get rid of it. Removing the command altogether resulted in an asymmetric-looking box with an empty space while leaving it meant keeping a command of no consequence.

Then I started experimenting. Considering the game’s inspirations, the Persona series’ switching between personas and movesets largely mirrored Derpy’s Uniforms so I set out to see if it was possible to implement it.

The good news: it works! Selecting the Uniforms is essentially selecting a secondary skill type with the skills’ functions acting as options for each Uniform. It works completely as intended.

The bad news: it took an entire day to implement. It’s a pretty significant trade off considering the fact that I was creating assets for the final areas, it was probably something I could have done after the area was physically completed, but sometimes going down that rabbit hole will take you somewhere.

So where does this leave Day Dreaming Derpy’s progress? 

I’d say pretty darn close to the completion of the base game. Granted, that doesn’t include polish, some additional areas and dialogue but functionally on its way to v1.0.

Next item on the list is how jobs will work. Rather than explain it, take a gander at this:

On the the topic of videos- I made a Youtube Channel!

Content I plan to post there would largely be stuff that’s too bandwidth-heavy for tumblr or twitter, things like my process for pixel art or things similar to the above video.

Feel free to check it out!

Gonna try to regain my health soon so I could get back to work and get this out to the world.

Thanks everyone.

Hey, thanks for your feedback! And don't worry, I definitely read almost all feedback and commentary for the game and keep it in mind during development.

I admit, much of the combat was largely a struggle to design; there were many ways to fall into old game design ditches in turn-based JRPG combat. This, combined with using only a rough idea of what simple rpg combat should be like really stretched my game-design-muscles in ways I didn't know I could.

I actually played Steven Universe: Attack the Light, which going from their dev blogs was inspired by Paper Mario's simplification of rpg mechanics. So further studying led me to analyzing the mechanics and seeing what works and what doesn't. Granted, sometimes the combat had to be put on the back-burner so I could focus on the story, scenarios, and experience. 

So it's really helpful when someone can take apart my combat system and highlight what's wrong with it. Thanks a bunch!  

It's actually pretty awesome that you (the dev behind MLP: The Game) would take the time post an elaborate commentary on my demo! I am extremely honored.

On 10/7/2017 at 2:58 PM, Rikifive said:

Just finished the demo (0.4) and all I can say is, that this game is awesome!  

First of all, I love the effort you're putting into this. This game really looks unique and well polished, compared to typical Ace games, that is.  

I really like the idea of traveling through dream world - it's like watching different episodes, where each one brings something new. There's no main storyline to comment (yet?), but the events are really interesting. Generally it's a well made game and I really liked it.  

 

What I loved:

VISUALS ~ PIXEL ART

---

Well, duh! OBVIOUSLY!  It all looks really nice AWESOME! The style, level design - it all created a magical adventure, that I loved!   It was a really great experience and you're a great pixel artist. There's sooooo much effort and love put into this! Great job!  

 

THE DREAMS (levels)

---

I'm not hiding, some of these were really interesting. The events and dialogues were nice and even touching sometimes. It kinda felt like watching some (fan-made) episodes, that were pretty 'legit'!  The idea itself is really nice!

 

If I'd have to point out things, that weren't perfect, these would be:

COMBAT BALANCING

---

To be honest I think it's the biggest issue for me. While the battle system looks and works great, it was kind of random sometimes. Many skills were pretty much useless, because one was dealing more than 100 damage, where the others barely could get to 40. There were many classes ('uniforms') to pick from, but choosing the better one was too easy. The best combination was a normal high dmg skill and a healing one. The rest didn't matter. With that being said, there were uniforms, that had many skills with low damage, that apply status effects, that in general weren't performing well. If I was able to take down enemy with a single attack, why should I bother using low-dmg skills to apply debuffs on them? Allies on the other hand, didn't have many uniforms to choose from, so most of the time I had to deal with what I got, but there still was the same issue. Derpy could easily deal more than 100 damage in a single turn, where allies either were capable to more or less catch up with that or were too weak, due to dealing max 30 dmg. There was no way to improve their performance, because their skills were just bad- if they were bad in the first place, that is; Some allies did have these typical attacks with higher dmg or useful healing abilities, so not everypony were bad. Leveling up didn't change much and it was impossible to grind, as enemies were gone foreverrrrrrrr. There's not much happening with the equipment either - I literally bought the best equipment somewhere at the beginning and stayed with that to the very end, as nothing better was available. That suggests me, that the battle system isn't one of the main points of the game~ it's more like an additional thingie, as we don't have to pay much attention to things we choose there. Just use what we got and done.

The same applies to enemies. Some of them could barely do anything, where the others would wreck the whole team if lucky enough. It is visible even in the real world when doing the part-time jobs. All of these were pretty much easy, but the one in the post office was really tough, as it all depended on luck. There were three bags, that had a skill, that could deal around 40-60 damage and stun our lovely Derpy, that had around 150 HP. If you were lucky- and they kept using their default attack, you could easily beat them, as they barely could deal any damage- but if they started throwing these packages- well, RIP. With that being said, most of the enemies and bosses in game were generally extremely easy, but sometimes there was that one, that could cause unexpected troubles. It would be understandable, if that unexpected performance drop would be our fault (for example using elements, that enemies are resistant to), but as I have mentioned before, there weren't many ways to change tactics and I think, that there weren't even any elements, so the changes were pretty much irrelevant. This is a bad design for the combat, personally I dislike when something is OP / useless like this. At least there wasn't a huge wall of awesome, yet useless skills, like some other RPG's tend to offer.

Sadly, not only most of skills were useless, items in general weren't any better.  There weren't many battles and the save points were all over the place, so I didn't even bother to prepare myself and organize my inventory, as I knew, that after few easy battles there'll be that save point, that will completely heal and recharge MP of my party. During the whole gameplay, I didn't use many items. Even dying doesn't punish players- we're just being 'teleported' back, all the progress, including beaten enemies stays, so we can just come back and continue. The only punishment are these ~20 seconds, to get to the point where we got defeated.  

 

NOT MUCH IS HAPPENING IN THE REAL WORLD

---

That's understandable, as the action happens in the Dream World. However, due to pretty useless items and such, there was no point in getting out of the house after some time. When I bought the best equipment and some healing items right away, there was absolutely nothing to do there, which was kinda sad. It would be nice if new, better equipment would be available after completing dreams- perhaps even 'unlocking' some events once for a while after some nights? Basically, at the moment the time is 'stuck' in the real world. Everybody stays in place, even after 10 days!  A nice addition would be the weather, for example - one day it's sunny, the other one it rains and ponies are in different places. Connecting these two worlds would be nice, because at the moment the real world is... just a shop, that we go to sometimes.

 

MUSIC

---

It kinda sounds awkward when they don't loop.  It's not a big issue, but I just tend to pay attention to details. (Same as I've noticed some deformed shapes here and there in sprites and such) I'm not sure if you know, but it is possible to nicely loop the soundtracks, so that the beginning plays once, then it seamlessly loops between 0:10 to 1:24, for example.  

 

INTERFACE

---

Heh, as a menu-lover, I'd love to see custom menus full of your amazing pixel art.  Soft and fluffy like clouds in the Dream World, that's how I imagine it.  The default one feels kinda empty and... defaultish (out of place), heh.  

 

And that's all I think -- unless I forgot about something.  

Don't get me wrong please, I was just thinking, that you'd like to hear some detailed feedback, that perhaps could help you improve the game, rather than "aww it looks nice" kind of feedback.  And of course I know, that it is just a demo, so many things may be changed/improved in future, so I'm looking forward for seeing it getting even better. Generally the game is really well made, I'm impressed by what you did in that engine.  

 

I'm looking forward for updates!
Good luck with the development!  

Day Dreaming Derpy Dev Log #15 Useful Feedback

Evening guys, things have gotten a lot busier around here but I wanted to drop some info on how progress is going.

I decided to make some additions to Scootaloo’s section of dreams as, after giving some thought to their feedback, both dreams could use more substance to help with their brevity.

It was an interesting process to create these additions as both required a reevaluation of what both dreams were to reveal about the ponies having them; good or bad.

Take Scootaloo’s Rainbow Factory Dream. Issues players ran into could be summarized in the lack of context for the things present in the dream and their connection to Scootaloo; rather it is the sense that it is not immediately or obviously a product of Scootaloo’s character.

I’m going to be using a slightly tangential example to avoid spoilers.

A good example would be Moondancer’s raggedy house in Amending Fences. Firstly, it is a piece of environment that wouldn’t be immediately associated with the yet-to-be-introduced Moondancer. If anything, it served as the first piece of characterization for her- the lack of dialogue or the slight mention of the state of her own abode leaves enough room for the audience or characters to fill in the gaps of Moondancer’s character, and those pieces of information we are given in the beginning of the episode don’t exactly give us the best impression of her. But that is only one of many stories we, as observers, can make up to better flesh out this character.

Basically, it isn’t really so curious that Scootaloo would have multiple portraits of Rainbow Dash in her dreams.

And so, essentially the same is being done for the other dream in Scootaloo’s section. Reworking, seeing what to keep and what to re-contextualize. There isn’t too much that will be changed as I’m probably adding content than removing.

As for the rest of the game, assets are coming along at slower pace as most efforts are on tweaking what’s already implemented, but work will pick up soon as I get to the bigger, more plot-intensive areas.

Thanks for your time and until next update!

Deuces

Day Dreaming Derpy Demo v0.4 The Scootaloo Update is available for download!

Day Dreaming Derpy Demo v0.4 The Scootaloo Update is done and available for download at rpgmaker.net!

Admittedly, the update is a little smaller this time, with 2 new dreams to scoot around in with ya gurl- Scootaloo!

It is also important to announce that v0.4 will be the last (forseeable) major update to the Day Dreaming Derpy Demo as the full release is just on the horizon (v1.0, the complete game).

===========TO PLAY, JUST DOWNLOAD THE NEW .ZIP FILE============

SAVE FILES FROM PREVIOUS VERSIONS ARE NOT GUARANTEED TO WORK WITH v0.4

===============HOW TO ACCESS THE NEW DREAMS================

For those who have played v0.11 and before.

To directly access the new dream area, Once you get the Dreamworld for the first time(Sea of Clouds), talk to the owl on the bottom-left and receive the Update Balloon. Then talk to Dinky on the top of the area to get the “travel” option. The new area is on the right of the overworld map.
==============================================================

If there’s any bugs/glitches feel free to report to me here or on the other outlets!

Thanks ya’ll!

It’s gonna happen guys!

Day Dreaming Derpy v0.4 The Scootaloo Update is coming sometime early, this Summer!

The Update will feature more areas to explore in the Dream World, new additions to the Real World, and more friends to make along the way with err-body’s favorite fan girl!

More info will come soon once things simmer down here.

Again, thanks for showing support for the game so far!

Patch v0.32 Minor Fixes

Just added a small patch fixing some small bugs; available for download now.
Hopefully it'll make the ride smoother for ya'll!


** v0.32 Fixes **
- Using "Wake Up" with Dinky in Applebloom area, Applebloom follows into real world fixed.
- Stamp shop visual bug
- Big Mac Dream, quest collects 4 Zap Apples. Originally took 5 and made the next quest impossible. Fixed.
- Fixed certain moves that decreased HP to a decimal (hopefully)

Thanks!

Patch v0.31 (…My bad)

Here’s small patch that fixes a small, potentially game-breaking bug.

The download is available at rpgmaker.net

Apologies for the oversight ya’ll.

** v0.31 Fixes **
- Using “Wake Up” with Dinky in Applebloom area, Applebloom follows into real world fixed.

Thanks