September Life Update – Game Time

Hello, I thought I’d end up writing about the uncertainty of my job as my contract ended yesterday, but now I have good news. For those who haven’t kept up with my work situation, or forgot, I’d advise reading July & August before reading the next part.

My boss has presented his case about the future & value of my team (& my own role) to his own boss &, from what I can tell, he has no problem with me going part-time. Now we’re just waiting for those above him to approve. This could take a while since apparently there’s a backlog of matters they must see to first.

In the meantime, he has given me a 3 month extension on a part-time basis. I haven’t received any actual paperwork for this yet, but it’s agreed between us that my standard days for the rest of this year starting next week are Tuesday, Wednesday, & Thursday; with days changing to suit the needs of the team as they arise.

So yep, it’s kinda official now – I’m no longer working full-time. Yeays!!

Some RPG Maker notes

I’ve recently been thinking about how I could approach the default RPG Maker VX Ace system differently, particularly combat, to make things easier for me. What does the design suggest & what is the best way it could be utilized? I feel I’ve made some of these points before, so sorry if there’s a sense of deja vu here.

RM Hack’n Slash – Developing Concept 3.3

Progress at last! I’ve come up with some initial statistics for the player characters that I’m happy with. I haven’t done any playtesting yet so they’re prone to change.

Spreadsheet of initial class statistics.

I can’t believe I only thought to use Excel last week; made the process much clearer :P.

I’ve included the formulas I decided on, plus some initial stats for equipment to get an idea of how much they will affect attributes. I haven’t issued values for Ability Points since it depends on what abilities the classes have, which I’ve yet to figure out.

RM Hack’n Slash – Developing Concept Part 2

Hello, I was going to do this part about task analysis but I realized there’s a couple things I missed about the requirements in the last part I need to cover. I’ll save task analysis for the next part.

RM Hack’n Slash – Developing Concept, Part 1

Hello, I’ve done some more work on my first original RPG Maker project. I’ve setup a couple of project pages where I’ve put the below information for future reference (future steps will of course be recorded there as well). To remind you of what this is, here it is in a nutshell:

The game is a short hack’n slash RPG about a group of mercenaries sent to reclaim a haunted town. Gameplay will be typical of most turn-based JRPG & RPG Maker games. As they explore the town, they will have to survive random encounters with spirits & the odd special encounter.

Following the development framework I assembled, the most immediate process will go like this:

• Develop Concept
  1. User stories & requirements
  2. Tasks & analysis
  3. Design theme
  4. Dialogue Diagrams
• Physical Prototype

It is easy to put something together in RPG Maker & skip the physical prototype entirely, but I think it’s worth going through the process & getting some practise. I’ll explain each of these steps, & any new future ones, as I go.

Brainstorming the Next Project(s)

Hello, I’ve been thrown off a bit this week because WINZ has finally contacted me about my job hunt results & I need to prepare to see them next week (by the way, yes I’m still unemployed). I am making progress with the stretch goals for the Stealth Unity tutorial but that’s not what this post is about. I want to wait until I’ve tried them all before I do a post about my results.

So, with all of the tutorials technically done, now what?

Project Framework, Pt. 2

Hello, I’ve finally gotten around to combining the frameworks I described in a previous post.

I decided to use the Game Design Workshop process as the base since it’s designed specifically for game development. From there I tried to figure out where the steps from the Agile Development Framework might fit in. Here’s what I think the framework becomes when you combine the two:

Project Framework, Pt. 1

It’s been a while since I did any form of game development, & in my attempts at game development last year I didn’t get very far. One of my main issues was that I didn’t have much of a plan or process for my projects. Really it was just do whatever I felt needed to be done, which just left me feeling aimless.

So I’m endeavouring to come up with something I can reliably follow for most of my projects. First, I’m going to look at existing frameworks, in this case a process from a book Game Design Workshop: Designing, Prototyping, & Playtesting Games, & the framework I followed back in Polytech to develop a sex ed game up to the “beta stage”.

Charting Game Concepts (WIP)

I’ve been using diagramming software to make a start on flowcharting both of my projects & creating wireframes for Lost Isles. With Lost Isles, the flowchart so far only maps most of the pre-game stuff (menu navigation, etc) but will also include the in-game play cycle. For The Spirit Child I’ve focused more on the story side of things (only the first portion so far). I’ve made pages for each of these, which are found at their corresponding project pages.

New Project Pages

Hi, just wanting to say I’m creating some new pages about my projects: Lost Isles & The Spirit Child. Just like with Three Moons, these pages will act as segments of the game design document for their respective projects & they will change as I expand on them. I’m not doing them in any particular order, I’m just doing them as they come naturally to me.