So, you probably noticed I redesigned the blog. I don't really like the samey look everyone has. I'm looking at you, literally everyone else. Now that I made a jab at everyone, the blog still functions the same. Only that now it looks different and hopefully better. I haven't encountered a problem with this template so far, but lemme know if you encountered any. I made a backup so I can revert back to the old template in case something goes really wrong, but hopefully it won't come to that.
Update: I've started adding labels to the blog posts. If you hover over to the categories button, you'll be able to sort through the blog and find things that are relevant to your interest. Yay for sorting! Also, if you know me you should know that I dislike default looking things. I'll be tweaking the new blog template for awhile, so you might notice things being different the next day. I'll also have to decipher this whole html thingy though. Hopefully I won't break the blog in doing so.
Update 2: Yep, nope. I can't decipher this shit. I'm not sure if I'm just stupid or this is just written in such a way that it's impossible to figure out what's what. Granted, I have no idea what I'm doing to begin with, but eh.
Aug 30, 2016
Aug 29, 2016
Dynamic weather system
Ohai. I've been working on a weather system. It's just a proof of concept right now. There's still lots of values needed to be tweaked and tested and the event itself still need some more optimization before pushing it into the main build. Lots of math involved here, but the way it works is something like this, for every 60 frames or every second, a value will be randomly added or subtracted to what I call a rain threshold. When the rain threshold exceed a certain value (and increasing threshold level), the game will start calculating a rain chance. If the rain chance doesn't proc, the rain threshold will keep increasing or decreasing until it reaches another threshold level. The higher the rain threshold, the heavier the rain will be and the longer it'll continue to rain. If and when the rain chance procs, it'll start raining, and the rain threshold
will start decreasing at a random value. If the rain proc'd at threshold level 4 for example, it'll keep decreasing and when it reaches level 3, the rain will grow lighter and lighter. Once it goes down below threshold level 1, there's another chance for it to stop immediately or
until the rain threshold reaches 0.
This means that the rain value and rain chance is almost completely RNG based and fully dynamic. Since it calculates every 60 frames, save scumming will either be a hindrance or a benefit to you. And as I said, it's still a proof of concept. I still need to tweak the values so it doesn't either rain too quickly, rain chance proc too consistently or whatever. I also need to work thunderstorms, cloudy weather and fog into this system. So there's still lots of math involved.
Are there any other kinds of weather you'd like to see? Maybe an extremely sunny weather? That'll probably work well during the summer. But yeah, lemme know if there's any other kinds of weather you'd like to see in the comments! (Oh also, I disabled anonymous comments until the character submissions event is over to prevent spam. Check that out if you haven't yet.)
This means that the rain value and rain chance is almost completely RNG based and fully dynamic. Since it calculates every 60 frames, save scumming will either be a hindrance or a benefit to you. And as I said, it's still a proof of concept. I still need to tweak the values so it doesn't either rain too quickly, rain chance proc too consistently or whatever. I also need to work thunderstorms, cloudy weather and fog into this system. So there's still lots of math involved.
Are there any other kinds of weather you'd like to see? Maybe an extremely sunny weather? That'll probably work well during the summer. But yeah, lemme know if there's any other kinds of weather you'd like to see in the comments! (Oh also, I disabled anonymous comments until the character submissions event is over to prevent spam. Check that out if you haven't yet.)
Aug 28, 2016
PreFoundation manga and original character submissions!
I've ALSO made another new tab for CHARACTER SUBMISSIONS! This is your chance for you to create an original character for Captivity! They'll be put into the game and they'll mostly troll around Estal City and have dialogues and stuff. They also may or may not be a part of side quests or whatever, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. Right now these slots are limited to certain guilds, but in the future, I'll have events like these again for antagonistic slots. (The Patreon perk at 30$ for an OC is the same thing as this one. Except said Patreon perk isn't implemented right now and the OCs aren't limited to being Adventurers)
If you want to create an OC and be put into the game and the manga, go to the Character Submission tab nao!
Aug 25, 2016
Oops [Pre v0.1.0 build 4.4]
Fucked up royally. I re-added the missing h-scene from 4.3. I really should test my shit first before uploading and releasing them to the public.
Onwards to pre-build 5! [Pre v0.1.0 build 4.3]
Alright, I'm finally done updating the damn dialogues. I swear I will no longer touch any of the older dialogues ever again unless I made a huge fucking typo or something. You'll probably notice I've also start uploading mirrors. So if Mega isn't working for you, try the other two. For pre-build 5, I'll be advancing the story, hopefully for quite a bit.
Full changelog for build 4.3:
==========================================================
Additions:
- Added a second dialogue for Kyle after the first scene for consistency
Changes:
- Updated RPG Maker MV engine to 1.3.1
- House scene dialogue fully updated
- Main menu tweaks:
* Optimized main menu (should no longer stutter randomly after the disclaimer)
* Pressing X/cancel now also advances the disclaimer
* Quit Game button is now less sudden and fadeout slightly before closing the game
- Text bubbles animation tweaks
- "Guard" during combat is renamed to "Defend"
Bug fixes:
- Fixed h-scene 1 dialogue using the wrong text bubble
- No longer able to press T to wait or ~ to enter the debug room in the main menu
Debug room changes:
- Re-added the missing sex stat crystal
Implemented scripts:
*Updated some scripts*
Full changelog for build 4.3:
==========================================================
Additions:
- Added a second dialogue for Kyle after the first scene for consistency
Changes:
- Updated RPG Maker MV engine to 1.3.1
- House scene dialogue fully updated
- Main menu tweaks:
* Optimized main menu (should no longer stutter randomly after the disclaimer)
* Pressing X/cancel now also advances the disclaimer
* Quit Game button is now less sudden and fadeout slightly before closing the game
- Text bubbles animation tweaks
- "Guard" during combat is renamed to "Defend"
Bug fixes:
- Fixed h-scene 1 dialogue using the wrong text bubble
- No longer able to press T to wait or ~ to enter the debug room in the main menu
Debug room changes:
- Re-added the missing sex stat crystal
Implemented scripts:
*Updated some scripts*
Aug 20, 2016
Cover art almost done?!
Welp. I'm still drawing the cover art for the manga. It's pretty much done, all that's left is the lineart and painting. I should REALLY be working on the game instead, but just going through the old dialogues is driving me nuts. WHY IS THERE SO MUCH DIALOGUE?!
Anyway, a little note on how I'm gonna run the manga alongside the game: It'll be worked on concurrently alongside the game, and every page that's done will be uploaded to imgur or whatever and will be free for everyone to read. BUT, I'll also upload the original resolution (2480 x 3508) versions for patrons on my Patreon, while the free/public version will be at around 40% of the original resolution to maintain readability. Trust me, it's not a big deal for the public version. As far as I can tell, there's no artifacts or whatever from downsizing. It's just a bonus for the patrons. So if you wanna print it or whatever, drop me a dollar and grab the original versions.
EDIT: Added the WIP art. Also, yes, this is how I do my linearts. I sketch something first, then do the lineart over it.
Anyway, a little note on how I'm gonna run the manga alongside the game: It'll be worked on concurrently alongside the game, and every page that's done will be uploaded to imgur or whatever and will be free for everyone to read. BUT, I'll also upload the original resolution (2480 x 3508) versions for patrons on my Patreon, while the free/public version will be at around 40% of the original resolution to maintain readability. Trust me, it's not a big deal for the public version. As far as I can tell, there's no artifacts or whatever from downsizing. It's just a bonus for the patrons. So if you wanna print it or whatever, drop me a dollar and grab the original versions.EDIT: Added the WIP art. Also, yes, this is how I do my linearts. I sketch something first, then do the lineart over it.
Aug 15, 2016
Captivity manga?!
 |
| Cover Art (WIP) |
With that in mind, I'm drawing a short one off manga of Captivity! The story will mainly focus on two major characters that plays a huge role in Estal's politics, who you'll see a lot in the game. Player will also make a couple cameo appearance, but since she's not the focus in this manga, don't expect to see her much. I'll release more details once I've got something more substantial to show. For now, here's an incomplete storyboard/sketch of page 1.
 |
| Pg 1 (WIP) |
Aug 9, 2016
Progress update!
 |
| An unintended pun |
Aug 7, 2016
Dev talk~ Intro
Yes, this is a dev blog. You should've expected articles/posts about game development from me by now. I'll be talking/ranting about intros in games in this post. More specifically, the design choices behind the intro of Captivity.
But a few things to talk about first. I'm still updating the dialogue of the house scene. (Bolded and underlined for the impatient.) It's a very meticulous and repetitive process. So it's still taking awhile for me to fully update it. Two, I'm looking for help! Specifically a programmer proficient in JavaScript with the know-how of coding UI elements. While I can't compensate anyone yet, I'd love to have a talk about commissioning your help with coding UI elements with Captivity. Either drop me an email at x3Darkie@gmail.com or send me a pm on LoK if you're interested. Finally, I'll be resuming monthly charging on Patreon at the beginning of September. I thought about it for a bit, and I thought, the whole point of running a Patreon campaign is for people to support me financially if they like what I'm doing. I've also been feeling more productive for the past month or so. It's alright if you're an existing patron and want to remove your pledge. So just a heads up, if you wish to continue your support, please do so, if you don't, please remove your pledge.
Now, let's talk intros! Intros are what introduces us to the universe of whatever we're playing, reading or watching. It's an integral part of narrative. And for a video game, an intro can also serve as a tutorial of the game mechanics. There are multiple ways of doing intros. Naturally, some are better than others in context. A common way of creating an intro is in medias res, or "into the middle of things." As the name implies, the narrative starts off in the middle of something, and everything (the motive, exposition, past events) the audience needs to know is commonly conveyed through dialogue and/or flashbacks. A good example is Final Fantasy 7. After the FMV opening, the game puts the player in the middle of an assault by an unknown group with no exposition whatsoever to keep the player wondering, then they're shortly prompted to a tutorial-esque fight. This gives the player a taste of the game's combat system and keeps them interested. When the player proceed to the next area, they'll finally be treated to some tasty exposition and the names of the characters. On a side note, if I had to nitpick something, it's the forth wall breaking tutorial message. It breaks immersion. Barret shouldn't have to tell me to press X. Let a popup window do that.
While Captivity's intro isn't that much different, aside from the lack of combat at the beginning (I'll tell you why in a bit), I came across a couple challenges and had to make a few compromise in order to make the intro "work." First, the lack of a tutorial combat during the intro. While I'd love to put the player directly into a combat scenario at the start, I can't do that as I don't know the Player's class. Each class have a different weapon, and I can't just make the Player have a default "preferred" weapon. And so to compromise, I had to make the player start out without a class and without a tutorial combat.
The other problem is the lengthy intro. There's only so many way to do in medias res and include a h-scene in the intro. One of the reasons I didn't want to start the game chronologically is because that'll only increase the length further. And I don't want to give the player the option to "create" a character only to be genderbended into a busty white haired woman later in the intro. Imagine creating your character in Skyrim and Alduin didn't appear and you got your head chopped off and died just to play as the default canon character or the game have you create a new character? That'd be pretty funny and trollish. The other reason is that it'll break the immersion and narrative slightly. The main menu of the game? You click New Game and bam, you're in the game. You're in Captivity. That's the narrative and gimmick of the game. The only "real life" segment is the flashback scene in abandon house. And I doubt there's going to be any more flashbacks aside from that one scene.
I've pretty much only talked about the challenges I've faced creating the intro, so let's change it up and talk about the good parts! Like I mentioned, an intro also serves as a tutorial to the game mechanics. After the lengthy dialogue at the start, you get to roam around, you get to save and you also get to talk to Kyle and Kerry. Talking to Kerry for the second time gives you a slightly different dialogue. This tells you that dialogue changes the second time. Nothing new here, a lot of games does this. I also included 2 h-scenes in the intro, each with two choices for the player. This lets the player know two things. First, if it isn't made clear enough, there's going to be porn in the game. Second, the notification after selecting one of the choices tells the player there's an inhibition meter in the game. And naturally, choosing the "perverted" or "uninhibited" actions lowers your inhibition. Which when low enough, you can do more and more depraved scenes later in the game. And you might also notice there's no penetration scenes in either of them. Like normal porn, it doesn't start with the humping, it starts with foreplay. And that's what it is. It's to keep you invested in the game and makes you want to play more to get to the good part.
And here ends my talk about intros! It actually turned into more of a rant at the end instead. I just wrote whatever was on my mind. I put no thought into creating a cohesive article. I'm too lazy for that. But bye! I'll see you in pre-build 4.3!
But a few things to talk about first. I'm still updating the dialogue of the house scene. (Bolded and underlined for the impatient.) It's a very meticulous and repetitive process. So it's still taking awhile for me to fully update it. Two, I'm looking for help! Specifically a programmer proficient in JavaScript with the know-how of coding UI elements. While I can't compensate anyone yet, I'd love to have a talk about commissioning your help with coding UI elements with Captivity. Either drop me an email at x3Darkie@gmail.com or send me a pm on LoK if you're interested. Finally, I'll be resuming monthly charging on Patreon at the beginning of September. I thought about it for a bit, and I thought, the whole point of running a Patreon campaign is for people to support me financially if they like what I'm doing. I've also been feeling more productive for the past month or so. It's alright if you're an existing patron and want to remove your pledge. So just a heads up, if you wish to continue your support, please do so, if you don't, please remove your pledge.
Now, let's talk intros! Intros are what introduces us to the universe of whatever we're playing, reading or watching. It's an integral part of narrative. And for a video game, an intro can also serve as a tutorial of the game mechanics. There are multiple ways of doing intros. Naturally, some are better than others in context. A common way of creating an intro is in medias res, or "into the middle of things." As the name implies, the narrative starts off in the middle of something, and everything (the motive, exposition, past events) the audience needs to know is commonly conveyed through dialogue and/or flashbacks. A good example is Final Fantasy 7. After the FMV opening, the game puts the player in the middle of an assault by an unknown group with no exposition whatsoever to keep the player wondering, then they're shortly prompted to a tutorial-esque fight. This gives the player a taste of the game's combat system and keeps them interested. When the player proceed to the next area, they'll finally be treated to some tasty exposition and the names of the characters. On a side note, if I had to nitpick something, it's the forth wall breaking tutorial message. It breaks immersion. Barret shouldn't have to tell me to press X. Let a popup window do that.
While Captivity's intro isn't that much different, aside from the lack of combat at the beginning (I'll tell you why in a bit), I came across a couple challenges and had to make a few compromise in order to make the intro "work." First, the lack of a tutorial combat during the intro. While I'd love to put the player directly into a combat scenario at the start, I can't do that as I don't know the Player's class. Each class have a different weapon, and I can't just make the Player have a default "preferred" weapon. And so to compromise, I had to make the player start out without a class and without a tutorial combat.
The other problem is the lengthy intro. There's only so many way to do in medias res and include a h-scene in the intro. One of the reasons I didn't want to start the game chronologically is because that'll only increase the length further. And I don't want to give the player the option to "create" a character only to be genderbended into a busty white haired woman later in the intro. Imagine creating your character in Skyrim and Alduin didn't appear and you got your head chopped off and died just to play as the default canon character or the game have you create a new character? That'd be pretty funny and trollish. The other reason is that it'll break the immersion and narrative slightly. The main menu of the game? You click New Game and bam, you're in the game. You're in Captivity. That's the narrative and gimmick of the game. The only "real life" segment is the flashback scene in abandon house. And I doubt there's going to be any more flashbacks aside from that one scene.
I've pretty much only talked about the challenges I've faced creating the intro, so let's change it up and talk about the good parts! Like I mentioned, an intro also serves as a tutorial to the game mechanics. After the lengthy dialogue at the start, you get to roam around, you get to save and you also get to talk to Kyle and Kerry. Talking to Kerry for the second time gives you a slightly different dialogue. This tells you that dialogue changes the second time. Nothing new here, a lot of games does this. I also included 2 h-scenes in the intro, each with two choices for the player. This lets the player know two things. First, if it isn't made clear enough, there's going to be porn in the game. Second, the notification after selecting one of the choices tells the player there's an inhibition meter in the game. And naturally, choosing the "perverted" or "uninhibited" actions lowers your inhibition. Which when low enough, you can do more and more depraved scenes later in the game. And you might also notice there's no penetration scenes in either of them. Like normal porn, it doesn't start with the humping, it starts with foreplay. And that's what it is. It's to keep you invested in the game and makes you want to play more to get to the good part.
And here ends my talk about intros! It actually turned into more of a rant at the end instead. I just wrote whatever was on my mind. I put no thought into creating a cohesive article. I'm too lazy for that. But bye! I'll see you in pre-build 4.3!
Aug 1, 2016
The joke got old now [Pre v0.1.0 build 4.2]
Some things were tweaked and added, much bugs were fixed. I believe I fixed most major bugs I could find. I didn't exactly document every changes I made this time. Also something to note is that I found out fast forwarding causes some of the events to not run properly. While mechanically this doesn't break anything (all switches and stuffs still runs properly), it'll sometimes make an NPC or two invisible. So just something to note, don't fast forward if you want to watch the cutscenes play out visually as they're supposed to.
Bugs galore!
If you're not reading the thread on LoK, I've basically been fixing bugs for a bit and doing some tweaks here and there. After a thorough playtest, I realized it has more bugs than I initially thought. This is what happens when you release anything without testing. But I did say I wanted to upload it as soon as possible before my PC explodes.
In any case, still fixing bugs and doing tweaks. If there's something that doesn't make sense in pre-build 4.1, it's because it's bugged. The first choice (excluding the skip choice) is the one that gives you 2 dialogue choice which determines your sex. In 4.1 HOWEVER, it shows up as a Yes and No choice. Which made no sense obviously. So, yeah, sorry for all the confusion I caused in one of my previous replies. If you absolutely need to know what the unbugged choice was, download pre-build 3. Otherwise, wait for 4.2.
In any case, still fixing bugs and doing tweaks. If there's something that doesn't make sense in pre-build 4.1, it's because it's bugged. The first choice (excluding the skip choice) is the one that gives you 2 dialogue choice which determines your sex. In 4.1 HOWEVER, it shows up as a Yes and No choice. Which made no sense obviously. So, yeah, sorry for all the confusion I caused in one of my previous replies. If you absolutely need to know what the unbugged choice was, download pre-build 3. Otherwise, wait for 4.2.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)