Bleh!

About 30% done with the Halloween game.  In other words, I'm not going to make it.  Sigh.  I like the design, but it's taking longer than expected to debug all the code and making sure the inner workings are correct.  I'll revisit this for next year's Halloween.

On some plus side, while doing some inner work on the Halloween game, I figured out how to implement something I wanted in Seraphim's Javelin for the very beginning.  Some details after the jump.

Halloween Update

Sigh.  I grossly underestimated how much I need to do.  Drastically behind schedule.  I thought it was going to be close but I could put in the time to finish it all.  Turns out I was completely wrong.

Progress: I completed 1 part of 4 in 1 part of 3 before the end of the game.  At the same time, I worry it isn't very compelling gameplay.  As such, I decided to scrap my current design and go back to an earlier design that's more scalable.

I do want to keep the schedule so I'll see how much I can get done by then and then scale up or down accordingly.

Getting better at coding Rags

While I'm working on the Halloween game, I can't help but notice how I'm doing things a bit more effectively than in SJ.  This is usually due to me exploring parts of Rags I was too scared to mess with previously.  Or me mixing ideas with other areas.

This made me realize, it's been a while since I did any Rags Tips and Tricks.  Are people interested in those?  And if you're interested, what would you like to hear about?

I have a few ideas about what I can do: Clothing, Equipment, Combat, In-game Debugger (easily change any variable you want when using the Player client, not Designer), why you might want a Text variable holding "True", ...

A bit more about Victoria

While Victoria is the skeptic in the group, she's actually a Mystic.  She has the ability to interact with the supernatural.  Victoria stays with the group to find out sources of spirit activity and to keep the rest of the group safe (and blissfully unaware).

Halloween Update 10/14

Think I'm about settled on the gameplay.  Finally found something that gives a decent balance between player choices and enough info to make informed choices without giving away the answer.

Previous iterations either railroaded the player or is a crap shoot for the player.

Halloween Schedule

Gonna try to commit myself to a schedule... Aiming for Open Beta around 28th or 29th-ish and Release 1 on Halloween.

I have some stretch goals for this game.  Though, at this point, I don't think I'll get to it in time... we'll see.  Stretch goal involves some music/sfx.  I know for some (like myself) am not a fan of music or sound in Rags games.  Honestly, there's very little engine support on it.  BUT!  I think it'll add a level of ambiance this game warrants and I have a few ideas on how to make it more player friendly.

In the meanwhile, don't worry too much about it.  It is a stretch goal.  If I have the free time to mess around on it, that's a good thing for you (in terms of game completion).

Character Intro

I'm back.

While I was away, I've been a bit busy.  Not as busy as I'd like, didn't have as much free time as I hoped.  But nonetheless, I made some leeway.

One thing I try for nearly every year is make a game for Halloween.  This year is no different.

I played around on the gameplay and it definitely evolved over time.  It started as an action game which changed to a more strategic style game.  Gameplay still seems to change with a few tweaks here and there to more major changes.  I plan to keep working on it until I get something that I'm happy with.

Something that hasn't changed much are the characters involved.  Names might change but personality and their role look very set.  Something very major would need to come up for me to change it now.  Without further ado, character intros inside