What's the Plan this year?

I suppose now is a good time to compose a basic worklist for what I plan to do in 2014, assuming Griffith doesn't startle me out of the blue and tell me I can actually study that course I was interested in.


Originally I intended to begin using Unity this year but a thought came over me much alike it comes over your mum when she realizes you exist because I do... I want to tie up these older projects first, past me is a brilliant little bastard though for you see two were graciously done already this year.

Intelligence is so long now it's set to burst if I add another couple layers of content onto it and I feel it'd be better to rewrite it for its next iteration so it doesn't just end up being an act by act kill bad guy plot machine set to burst like a fat person at the buffet bar.

For a game birthed from a period of chaos in my life it also strikes me as a bit too formulaic for it to be an episodic linear progression of boss after boss especially considering you play as an aloof green dog, a psychotic red cat and a snarky sheila with enough intelligence quota to make most of our current geniuses look like feeble idiots.

So, plans for projects then? Well let's begin with the big cat in the room trying to be an elephant in the room, but what this cat fails to realize is that no one gave much of a shit about it when it first came around and they care even fucking less now.

Hellcat: Born Again is definitely going to be the most ambitious project. Thanks to being written back in a time where I hadn't stoneset the demigods and their motives and all that other shit a lot of it is going to be flat out retconned-- which I personally don't mind because
A. the plot was an edgy uneducated mess and
B. so was the fucking writing
In fact given the success of Perseverance and my appreciation for the engine that I built it on it's very possible it'll be not so much a remake as just making the whole fucking game again but actually finishing it this time instead of pulling a curtain over your eyes alike shareware Doom95.

Nola, Hellcat and most elements and other characters have gotten more deep or interesting and both characters have adopted much more endearing personalities since back in 2012 when Nola was just a slightly sassy brit and hellcat was a clueless chump.

Heldath, Galvana and the Necropolis have all gotten a significant expansion onto their lore as well, and you can see some semblance of this in Menagerie: Remastered. The Perseverance battle engine is what I will likely use for Hellcat: Born Again, and like with Perseverance all weapons will be designed in advance and then the tools will be copy pasted with each map unless I decide I could stand to stop being so eager to overwork myself and just get an event call script instead. We'll see.

Perseverance: Adherence (NNF) is going to be more of an expansion pack, containing the game I originally planned and not the half-complete rush to finish piece of shit that came out and still managed to be competent at what it did. There's no way currently to connect the dots from Pep's actions in Perseverance and his presence in Intelligence and that's because there's a lot more to the "Red Rapscallion"s plot that had to be cut out due to time constraints for the contest. Some changes are planned to the mechanics indeed and the cleaver demands overhaul the most, I'll also be reworking the Enemy HUD and the regular enemies.

I've also been heavily considering implementing some other additions to controls, currently the only invulnerability frames Pep has are when he gets hit, giving him a brief dash ability is planned for about 30 frames (half a second) of invulnerability, and giving him a stamina bar. My friend Mitch has provided me with scripts to help in this process. This command will likely not replace dash, however there's some Ambitious thoughts I've had for Perseverance and it's becoming more and more likely I'll just redo it and hellcat and maybe all three games in Unity. All three are action games and have left their RPG roots entirely behind, which begs the necessity of using RPGmaker at all, one thought occured to me when thinking of designing Perseverance, and it mainly came to the fact that assigning new keys is a nightmare in RPGmaker. I'd like to make weapon switching easy, and I've had some cool ideas for mechanics that in RPGmaker are clunky at best.

Using Unity is becoming more tempting as I close off the two big RPG projects.


Finally:
Exile is pretty solid as is, just needs its plot finished, and its plot that remains is so far up in the air, I've only storyboarded what you have seen so far but I have had some vague ideas of where it'll go and some suggestions from others I've intended to implement.

It's tempting to also use the Perseverance Engine for it, since as an engine it is so solid and I can fix fuckups easily by virtue of inventing them and it never has those problems all ABS's do of being about as well optomized for frame rate as your Dad is for discovering what you spent the last six months of your life doing.

Since most of the weapons in Exile so far are pretty simple, it's safe to assume this wouldn't be much of a stretch at all. I've even thought of a way to introduce environmental combat, such as throwing bins at enemies or smashing windows and doors down.

It's also very likely that at least one, if not all three of the planned finish ups in this year are going to be artistically coherent for the most part. The styles may still vary for each, as an example Hellcat is likely going to use the more enigmatic heavy outline style I began working with around middle to late year. Such will match the tone and style of the game fairly well. Perseverance is likely going to be done entirely in MSpaint, originally it was going to be all Sai work but that became far too ambitious especially given that Pep's faceset grew a bit too... humane. Exile will be much more like a cartoon, given the 90's feel it emits and the plethora of cartoon vibes it carries. Whether I'll use my MSpaint style or Sai style is up in the air, but I'm leaning on my MSpaint style just because a lot of panels are already done to that effect and most of them look really fucking good.

Other Plans: I'm looking forward to seeing where this year takes me, first order is to add the content patch for Menagerie and finish it for good, then it's likely I'll give a good try out to Unity. One thing I'm growing incredibly ill-disposed towards are tilesets. As I've become better with art I've more or less decided I want to make cinematic <genre>s. Even Menagerie is referred to as a cinematic RPG. That does not at all mean I want to take away gameplay, in-fact the main reason I'm considering Unity is for the benefit of a smoother and more fast-paced gameplay experience. i could certainly do Cinematic games in RPGmaker if I wanted, the draw to using Unity is in impressing on gameplay.

That all said, I'm sick to death of working with tilesets, and I'd like to just start drawing everything in a pre-rendered way like how Oddworld is rendered. One of the factors and past hobbies that led to game design was my infatuation with designing levels and buildings. And you can see when looking at Planet haven that I can make truly beautiful maps when i put my mind to it, and Rensooi Tower was definitely one of the most fun "dungeons" I designed in Menagerie.

To that end, you may be surprised to hear that i've already mapped out (albeit, pretty roughly) all of The Equation Unsolved, in fact most of it was mapped in my head the moment I drew its first concept.

Another huge advantage to working with unity is the matter of layers, in RPGmaker you have a parallax, a tilemap and then a picture overlay if you want. In unity you have as many layers as you want and that's great. The other great pointer about pre-rendered maps is that transitions can be very creative and picture cutscenes can go to a whole new level with infinite layers.

This will mean a lot of pre-planning alike Exile, and I'm fine with that.

Rough Timetable

Jan 12, release Menagerie: Remastered finish coat and finally consign it to completion.
Jan 15, begin concepting (AND CONCEPTING A LOT) for what I'll be doing with whatever project of the three i do next. draw maps, charts, characters, the like. Write down lore, gameplay mechanics, etc.
Feb 16, move house, get settled in to new place.
March 14, release a demo of the re-calibrated project. Celebrate second year CCC Anniversary.
June 12, release a stable/complete build of what I was doing, begin on next planning and concepting phase. If game I first work on is Hellcat, extend release to July 11th.
December 12, release second re-calibrated project. Ready myself so I can get into Uni the next year, or sum up if such is even required.

This is incredibly brief, and no plans here are stone set. Just laying this out so I have them to look back on.

I suppose now is a good time to compose a basic worklist for what I plan to do in 2014, assuming Griffith doesn't startle me and tell me i can actually study that course I was interested in.

Originally I intended to begin using Unity this year but a thought came over me, I want to tie in and wrap up these older projects first, and of those two were graciously done this year. Intelligence is so long now it's set to burst if I add another couple layers of content onto it and I feel it'd be better to rewrite it for it's next iteration so it doesn't just end up being an act by act kill bad guy plot machine. That's just a bit too formulaic for a game in which you play as an aloof green dog, a psychotic red cat and a snarky sheila with enough intelligence quota to make most of our current geniuses look like feeble idiots.

Hellcat: Born Again is definitely going to be the most ambitious project and due to being written back in a time where i hadn't stoneset the demigods and their motives a lot of it is going to be flat out retconned, which i personally don't mind because A. the plot was an edgy uneducated mess and so was the fucking writing, some of the vets here can attest to that fact.

In fact given the success of Perseverance and my appreciation for the engine that i built it on it's very likely it'll be not so much a remake as just making the whole game again, Nola, Hellcat and most things have gotten more deep or interesting personalities since then and Heldath, galvana and the necropolis has all gotten a significant expansion onto the lore. The Perseverance battle engine is what i will likely use for Hellcat: Born again, like with Perseverance all weapons will be designed in advance and then the tools will be copy pasted with each map.

Alternatively I could stop being so eager to overwork myself and just get an event call script instead. We'll see.

Perseverance: Adherence is going to be more of an expansion pack, containing the game i originally imagined and not the half-assed rush to finish piece of shit that came out and still managed to be competent at what it did. There's no way currently to connect the dots from perseverance and Intelligence and that's because there's a lot more to the "Red Rapscallion"s plot that had to be cut due to time constraints for the contest. Some changes are planned to the mechanics indeed and the cleaver demands overhaul the most, frank said it himself, the Cleaver has no applicability to the game at all when you get it and he's right, it will be thought on the coming months.

Finally:

Exile is pretty solid as is, just needs its plot finished, and its plot so far is up in the air, I've only story-boarded what you have seen so far but i have had ideas of where it'll go. It's tempting to also use the Perseverance Engine for it, since as an engine it is so solid and i can fix fuckups easily by virtue of inventing them. Since most of the weapons in Exile are pretty simple, it's safe to assume this wouldn't be much of a stretch at all. I've even thought of a way to introduce environmental combat, such as throwing bins at enemies or smashing windows.

It's also very likely that at least one, if not all three of the planned finish ups in this year are going to be artistically cohorent for the most part. The styles may vary between each, for Example Hellcat is likely going to use the more enigmatic heavy outline style i began working with around middle to late year. Such will match the tone and style of the game fairly well. Perseverance is likely going to be done entirely in MSpaint, originally it was going to be all Sai work but that became far too ambitious especially given that Pep's faceset grew a bit too... humane. Exile will be much more like a cartoon, given the 90's feel it emits and the plethora of cartoon vibes it carries. Whether I'll use my MSpaint style or Sai style is up in the air, but I'm leaning on my MSpaint style just because a lot of panels are already done to that effect.

Guess it's a bit late, huh?

Well, I got more ambitious with the trailer than intended, and in my avarice for wavepad copped a pretty nasty adware, it's dead now, I'm used to dealing with that scum, and you needn't worried, as the games was uploaded and ready to go before I made the trailer at all!

So yes, a lot of shit has happened to make this trailer what it was, before I address you all with a download link, let me first give commendation to MoneyMenace and RavenBlueIndigo for the music pieces.

Then, I'd like to extend special thanks to the VA's, this trailer wouldn't be as awesome without you!

ToTeM as the voice of Fatty
Adoxographist as the voice of Fyori
BasilMeer as the voice of Gerald
Xzygon as the voice of Spooky
Kate Holden as the Voice of Tac
Felicity Pantera as the voice of Mayeena
Apoc as the voices of Orsa and Zardari
UsagiShinobi as the voice of Asarath
Andinator as the voice of Safael
NickytheRat as the voice of Seradath

Sidebar is updated, but because I'm happy about finding how to do lightning effects really shittily with gimp, here's a garish link.

Okay so yes...

I know! I haven't been updating my thing, but now it's at the point where I feel doing so would almost be detrimental to the flow of production, when i have a big update I'll just say it in a new post.

So, here's one thing.

The Heldath section is almost complete, it's a lot bigger than just this. I've also begun some work on mapping out The Equation Unsolved.

You can click to enlarge, pro tip! :o

If you look at the teleporter behind fatty, it's a circle captured in a square...
or CIRCLE-SQUARED! Bahaha, oh I'm too good.

This certainly isn't all, but it's what I'm gonna show for now. See you later, folks!

Bosses Galore

Contrary to the title, some Tier 5 and 6 bosses are being cut, mostly because a few changes are being implemented for those tier weapons and the tier 7 weapons.

First off, tier 7 weapons will no longer require Materials that drop coversely from bosses of the previous tiers.

The same with Tier 8 weapons.

Getting a full set of tier 5 and 6 weapons will now be doable via the maximum amount you get from the progressive arc. There is no longer a splitting arc, this was a cool idea, certainly, but had some glaring issues, such as backpedaling to content that by that stage should be easy.

Galvana will not be visited in the Remastered edition.

Heldath and the Necropolis will, and both already have plans drawn.

Bosses tier 6 and beyond will rely little on giving players states that can be dispelled, usually because these states are horrifically imbalanced or unforgiving. Doing nothing or watching the gameplay for you isn't fun gameplay.

As states, berserk, villain, sleep, confusion and stun might get the chop all together.

Silence has been reworked to be significantly less powerful.

To ease people in a little to the optional content, the Space Pirates of tekerlek will assist in the first few battles.

Before the roster for optional bosses was sketchy, now it is simply...
-Tier 5 has three encounters, two of which host 2 enemies. (5 enemies all up... Saarkrell & Bonesworth, Twin Exarchs)
-Tier 6 has six encounters, one having a "slave and master" boss.
-Tier 7 has 4 encounters based off our other IPs (Intelligence = Dislocated Remnants (Roll,y Pep Tristy and Limbo boss fight), Hellcat = Entropic Hellions (Hellcat + Nola), Exile = Exiled Echo (Lyza on her own.), Perseverance = Esperia (multi-formed boss).
-Tier 8 is host to 16 unique battles, each with a member of corporation XVI, the first is the evented battle with Impetuous Susurration (He who came twelfth), then in numbered order until Member XVI is defeated (skipping 12)
-Tier 9 has a so far undecided amount of bosses. Mostly they will be ideas that foreshadow possible future projects. The estimate currently is 4 female bosses and four male bosses and one boss group, but plans could change.

-Tier 9 is very likely to have some evented bosses.
-Upon defeat all optional bosses drop items that are otherwise obtainable, the rare crafted materials are now given through event commands after the bosses are saying their piece to avoid over-abundance early on with thanks to an item like Lyza's Sleight of Hand.
-Killing each optional boss tier 6 and up should feel like an achievement, tier 5 is more or less a weening tutorial stage.
-The developer definitely wants to do more things like He who came twelfth.

Also to note, I got the battler for Esperia's human form done today.

Dual Lightclaws

 All of the dragons also were updated and look far better now.

Six-winged Elder

Of all the optional bosses, only the art for those in Tier 9 and one in Tier 6 remain.

Two Week Type-a-thon

Or maybe dev-a-thon, or yeah.

This two weeks will be fully-fledged development progress on Menagerie, the progress log for Week 1 will be maintained below, week two will be a new post. The most recent changes documented highest on the list. Let's just say development is gonna be unreal these next two weeks, and I'd hope so, as that's the time i have to FINISH what remains, which is a lot, but we'll do it guys, I promise! In fact, I have already begun!

12/08/2014
 -Zinyi's sprite was missing the mask/scarf on his face, this has been corrected.
-Did dialogue, maps and setup / mechanics for two bosses. The White Wyrm and Dual Exarchs.
-Began work on Tekerlek Tier 5-6 legendary quest chain. All space pirates now have a face and sprite.
-Updated the intro on tekerlek, will begin now on writing out more of that and making maps for the shenanigans involved, etc.
-Made a Tier-progression chart through the dual split narratives, the Byteopian/Spriteopian questline and the Tekerlek/Draik questline, the former firstly by Cid and Kyu, then later a Mysterious Questant whom will remain ominous and spoooky for now, oooOOOOoooooOOO!!!
-These will both land on Tier 7's  branch beginning with either the Dislocated Legends > Entropic Hellions or Exiled Echo > Esperia, both paths will lead into Highlord Naxon, once he is defeated that will lead into Tier 8, beginning with the 12th Dimensional Phantom... He who came Twelfth.
-After this you are sent to Galaxia and enter the PORT4L there, where in you fight the first real Corporation XVI (Tier 8) boss, Cerebral Inflection, after bypassing him you will then fight each member in order, Farcast Seraph, (Member II), Umbral Mirage (Member III) etc. until you reach he who is 16th. LORD SPANISH will be the ultimate guardian and final boss to dispatch of before a full set of Tier 8 weapons are yours.
-You can then enter Tier 9 through an ominous gateway in Corporation XVI's splintered reality that leads to an unfortunate alternate timeline demonstrating how much the galaxy may have been fucked up had the Corporation not taken the correct procedures to attain their selves back. This will be a very unsettling and eerie part of the game and will be host to the most difficult and terrifying optional bosses, but whom will drop rewards that can be acquired nowhere else. Unlocking Tier 9 will also unlock Zardari's HARDMODE in which he is phenomenally more difficult and hits far harder than he does prior to Tier 8 completion.
-More to come!

Intelligence: Net-Ready! Released a little early.

It was 50% Accidental, 50% What am I making you wait for!?

So yes... that happened.

You can check it out here or here.

Or even here.

Intelligence: Ready for return? Yes. Hell yes! You can't imagine the amount of motherfucking yes.

To celebrate my re-integration on VXace.net and give them more alleged "dope" games, I am-- and have been for two straight days already, fixing up Intel 1.1.9 to the newest slew of graphics, better sound effects, audio and performance, and finally some tuning changes and a bit of writing rework. Overall, most of that is already done, all that remains is updating Hellcat's art (which means actually doing some from-scratch art instead of stapling old shit together), fixing up a few event graphics with Blu, giving the spell "Angel of Death" an icon, and fixing bugs, hunting down bugs again, and fixing those bugs too.

But for now, I'm gonna sleep. Two days of all work (enjoyable as it is) is taxing on one's brain, even one with a brain as superb and creative as mine! I'm going to therefore refresh, get my shit together, and release this game on the 13th of November this year. That's only two days from now.

11/13/14...

There again I go with 3/14, except instead of being 03/14/yr this time, it's da/y3/14.

There's no method to my madness, only madness to my methods... in fact I invented that release date just now, and it is an AWESOME release date, not only because I can yet again use 314 in a date, but because at 6PM that same day (my time) I'll be gone... for you see the lusty maiden of a game will be calling for me with its alluring new swansong. I cannot just neglect that teasing skank, she has my money and my credit card details and also definitely my love and interest.

In case that insufferable and obnoxious poetry was too much for you to decode, I'm speaking of World of Warcraft, its Warlords of Draenor expansion launches on 11/13/14, so while I drop this game hot off the presses mere minutes before this titan falls, I'll then be quickly absolved by that exact titan, and will check out the slews of feedback over on vxace.net when I return.

I'll be a while, but that shouldn't matter, as a lot of feedback will likely be delayed due to this game having its prongs in everyone's minds. That's fine, I'll check the thread at least once every 12 hours or so for game-breaking bug reports, and other bug reports. I'll fix those since those people who are wise enough not to be ensnared by the throes of this woeful self-sabotage-inducing monstergame may want to actually play my game beyond the breakpoint. I will respect that, in fact if some fucker is loyal to that degree, I am downright HONORED to devote to that dude.

The kid gloves are coming off, now... not just off in a smug catwomen way where you just remove them like some half-breed of badass. I'm talking they are downright shooting off, on rockets of nitro-imaginatrine. Those velvet feelers jetted off and crashed through the kitchen window, glass is everywhere, Mother will ask what happened, and I will say the only true answer: 'I materialized imaginary fuel'. I go to raise my hand up as if to give a lecture about it like some pompous sensei elder-sage, but then realize I didn't have much else to say on that and just sort of stutter a little before turning back around to the window in defeat, then I start perspiring again because I realized that there's still glass all over the fucking floor and a good chance moving one inch might mean an annoying piece of glass in my bare foot.

While I'm cleaning up the pieces, feel free to salivate on the idea of a fresh build of Intelligence, boasting the same hideous palette that you got through the first time, but with a bunch of new shit, updated art, planets that don't look like they were generated in Gimp sphere designer and a slew of other shit I have already forgotten about.

One big thing though, is that you'll have access to what is there of the toted "Content Patch 1.2", this includes the Skybridge assault, which to this day no lucky fella has had a chance to try out; and I keep linking that video and showing it off like the unbelievable tease I am, whilst selfishly hogging it and its secrets all to myself like some scaly old dragon with his hoard of princesses, gold, gems and half-digested farmer hats.

Well that selfish dragon is getting some lawyers together and having a tea party with Hitler in his bachelor pad down there in hell, because by my good graces his treasure will soon be your treasure, too. I like to think i'm a pretty generous guy! Unlike that shitty whore of a dragon.

As for Menagerie, it'll resume progress on about the 21st of November (that's the hope for now, anyway!), leaving just over a month to get it rolling.

I suppose now I should unveil that Menagerie:Remastered does have a planned release date... I talked about this somewhat during the grand reveal, but it was an earlier time then, and I still won't release it if it isn't ready by it's time. So far and until this day all you have gotten is 'coming soon' and some sketchy dates that meant practically nothing, so given I'm only resuming on the 21st of THIS month and said there's just over a month until the planned time, that leaves us with the release date below, though if you're clever, you'll have figured it out already.

12/23/14

So, why this day?

Well it has both 12 and 3/14 in it, it also is two days before Christmas, you know...? that thing people celebrate about a big red jolly fatman who hands out gifts like Opera Winfrey?

Holy shit do those two have a lot in common.

Well, having a two day breakpoint will be beneficial to most, for me, it'll give me at least a week to enjoy Christmas and get all that shit sorted out, get my University confirmation and all that palooka, it'll also mean people who want to play it at release can do so without cutting into valuable Christmas time.

It'll also make it like a sort of christmas gift. Which I guess is cool? Yes, I'll let that land on "cool" for now, speaking of now, and what I'm going to do the right of now... I'm going to shatter this hypothetical glassy mess illusion metaphor-thing, turn my PC off, and rock my hurt butt off to sleep.

I'm not actually butthurt in the typical sense, my butt is literally aching from sitting in my chair for near two straight days. Straight being the choice 'irony' word here.

Fare thee well distant nerds, I am become Banan', yellow-cored bentman of butt-hurted.