The final Day an Easter Egg hunt and how to possibly find it!

If your still with me… You have probably got a lot of facts… But there is one more out there I didn’t say… An Easter egg that you will have to hunt for… So A riddle I give when the rocks are at 4 and the doors are at 5… then someone shall arrive! NOW FOR THE SPOILER! Hit Continue Reading to see!

The release!

So Today I am going over the release date!

On the 29th I spent all morning making sure the game was working and finely tuned. No bugs, no nasty secrets. Then I looked for a good place to stick it… I decided on Media fire (WRONG CHOICE!). So I went and hosted it then put it on the contest site! Then went to make a promo. It went well and smooth until the upload where the game existed… I went and looked at the tag and saw it was a real game… So after a quick re-pull and fix up (no one did anything to it in the hour) came the re-upload and fixes I said 2 ago. So after that everything was finished… A couple days after that I got a message from a friend pop ups were blocking some people from downloading the game… So I put the game up on rpgmaker.net and will be it’s hopefully permanent home after the contest!

Now I got some things I can give as it’s a short post today!

Mages are mostly useless to the final boss but can ride a party through the game.
Anything with a holy spell or ability can cause trouble… but ONLY when level 10 or above!
One of the graves mentions Cornshaq and ‘8 eyes” Refering to Taxan’s 8 eyes. Which he just lost the speed-run record again! Which is a joke to he will die for that record!
Another grave mentions Virlomi and Lord Cheesus. It’s a running joke in her channel.
These 2 have been supportive and have provided a lot of background noise so I could focus and both have the current version of the game!
A lot of the graves have references to video game characters but one… Elminster is big in the D&D community! This is a big one as Ed Greenwood is Judging the contest and he is creator of my favorite setting Forgotten Realms and Elminster himself! In fact I am a fan of the Harper plot in BG 2 because of that character showing up!
There are 31 different rock formations!
All beta testers who submitted a sheet (or did something special for the project) got a grave too.

I’ll save the final secret for Tomorrow! For now I got a lp to work on! Don’t forget I’m LPing this game in august you can check the lp on my channel or on the rmn site which was made for it.

~LWentworth8567

All About Sophia…

Sophia is well… One of those good and bad things… I had her idea sketched into my head at the start. She also has references to a future character if she I get that far. However, her existence was plagued with problems since the start…

Drawing the walking sprite…

I wish I could say it was hard… It wasn’t. I was given character maker hub for the humble bundle. After I fooled with it learning I went in and went to work. I looked at what I wanted and looked for the parts I wanted. It took 3 days and one redraw but She came out well…

I gave her all the directions in case I didn’t use them. Not a bad looking dancer and thanks to the char hub I didn’t have to do too much editing.

Drawing her Battle Sprite

THIS… THIS is where things went south… When I started her… I tried looking at a how to draw sketch…  and modifying it to my use… I also begin to have the beta tester problem here. I would ask Nancy if every part of her looked right… At the end of the first draft… she looked like this…

Scream real loud… then compose

So I wiped her and quickly tried again with a new artwork…

I didn’t even get past the base line… Then came disaster… yesterday’s blog post came in and happened. between that and other work I couldn’t work on Sophia for near 2 weeks and each time I did I just felt sick and stopped… Then on Monday… June 23 I tried again by that Thursday we struck something decent. We had Sophia’s base.I was a little ecstatic but then came the details… Shading, fine touches, perfecting. I was at a point where I didn’t have much time and I had to do one more sweep of the beta. So I made Sophia what she was. I wasn’t happy with her but she would do.

Now you ask why I couldn’t just hire someone? Partially the reason is… I can’t promise to pay someone to do good work. Two if you saw how my beta went… WHY SHOULD I! Would I even get a design back in time? Third no one I knew would be able to draw for me that I know of… (if they can they hide it well). Plus I wanted an art style that would be close to the RTP and that would be a chore. Finally…. It’s good to learn how to get better at things yourself. So the end result is now below…

The good part of it is… I did improve! If you ask what the beta fail could have been for Sophia… She probably could have been en pointe but instead we got her… Hopefully, if this game gets a remake or I make another in the series  we can do better or actually have someone to do this… Until then… I’ll let this sink in… Tomorrow will be me explaining the release date and a couple of secrets that I could show you!
~LWentworth8567

The Beta that broke the project…

Today i’m going to go over what nearly killed the whole game… Beta testing… I was done early morning Jun 8th felt it was ready to be sent for beta. So I put the game on mediafire and got the link. I sent the link to an “expectant” couple of people that claimed they would and then posted it on Facebook. I kept posting it on Facebook because that’s where I had the most people. I did mention throughout High School I wanted to be a game designer… I fooled around with 2000/2003 of RPG maker and made a very shoddy version of an idea I had back then. People KNEW I wanted this… My yearbook somewhere senior year mentions it. So out came the beta knowing people would expect and help? I mean I even experimented with RPG Maker a lot and was given RPG Maker 2 and 3 for PS2 by my friends.

So I pimped out the link for a part of the week and also worked on another part of the plan that i’ll REALLY go over tomorrow.  Well… I checked my E-mail for it 4 times a day for a small form I asked people who tried the game to fill out.  There were 2 one being if there was an error the other for their thoughts after 1 hour. No E-mails came by the end of the week. At this point it began to slide. Week 3 was going to be HORRIBLE for working. Saturday I was helping someone move, Sunday getting ready to install a new fridge at home, Monday new fridge, Tuesday pick up a used TV that someone we knew was getting rid of as my mom’s just died…. Wednesday clean up old fridge and by the end of the week…Friday the kitchen would be happy and set up… So I made a small tech demo and unlisted it on Facebook and pushed that.It took 7 days where one of my final testers (and the ONLY one to finish) got the game… As soon as he did… I had an E-mail… The installer didn’t fully install…

I asked the personal friends who would test it… “oh it’s fine!”,  “Yea, I played it… it was good.” all the generic answers… I asked them about the installer as I KNEW they didn’t have RPG maker… They had no trouble… I asked Nancy to install the game… You need the RTP from RPG maker’s site… I looked into why it wasn’t inside the installer by default… No one told me the installer didn’t work… they didn’t fill a form. In fact I checked media fire… 2 Downloads.The other tester and I put it on Nancy’s so I KNOW one download was me! I went up to each one and confronted them… then proceeded to MASS FIRE all of them. Now I was at a point I was working on something and beta testing on the final week. The night before I was to upload June 29th (so it would be up on time) I prepped it and all nighter pulled it to set it up. I get the file up and go to Youtube the release trailer… Did you know your game title already has a tag…  NO ONE FACT CHECKED IT! So I had to pull it down… fix it… put it back. Then my pro beta tester told me that the file was broken again. So I fixed the file one more time and he told me fixed and that’s the game that sits up there now.

Those 3 weeks were very impressionable on the project. At this point I can say after pouring my heart and soul in the game… If the game fails I know who to blame and if I release GT Mythra: The Beginning of the epic (Past)… I have a huge list of people kicked out of beta testing EVER again!

Tomorrow… I talk about Sophia and how her design got cursed from lack of development time.

~LWentworth8567

Much Ado about bosses…

This episode we go over a little bit about monsters and bosses. When I first designed the dungeon I was thinking 3-4 types per floor each having a different weakness set up. You can see this on the first floor with the water, electric, ice set up (among other elements). I did this so each char had a chance to shine and the parties were balanced. Now having 12 basic enemies was not to bad. The problem was how do we make bosses and make them stick out. The first one wasn’t much… but on the concept of vengeance… we made the second one the mother. There diving a small conflict hopefully of “was it really dangerous?” Meanwhile the 4th character is losing sanity… When you meet Wingnut you find out a lot more about the cave and that the “object” you desire is beyond him and that he caused the chaos a couple of days ago. Or you would have… I’ll explain why it may not have happened in tomorrow’s post but to go on…

The final boss is a piece I set up not telling the beta testers why i “ignored” one change. When you get to him… you’ll get why. Once I had them thought and written out though it came down to “attacking”. That was easy… once we had everything checked… the database cleared we put them into groups… Now came the “fun” part… Battle testing! At a proper level I wanted regular battles to end in 2 turns the average for most RPGs I play. Now once we set that up… the bosses… How do I make an interesting boss that is different that won’t party wipe… First of all we all should know a boss would suit up and buff itself asap to be ready for the onslaught. Unless your brain dead like Wingnut who is working on planning his next meal which is foil wrapped adventurer under hammer…  Second I made them at a stronger level so they wouldn’t wipe the intended party in a turn but gave enough where if you were playing blind or badly… I feel sad for you… But we also made sure that they would have the same. The final boss though… Again I can’t say anything but… if your a mage… I feel bad for you… He probably knows how you just horde clean and is ready to stop you.

He’s also the biggest shock in the game… When you meet him I hope you REALLY enjoy him.

After came the easy clean up and early bug testing really it was just make sure all the set pieces worked and people would move/ vanish on cue then make it pretty…

TOMORROW I will bring up the part that went wrong and nearly (and possibly did) destroy GT Mythra… The first beta…

~LWentworth8567

P.S. I’m writing these in a very hot room and my brain is scrambled so if some doesn’t make sense until you play the game well… I’m sorry blame the humidity!

Data Monkeys to your post!

Today I’m going over the database and all the changes I did…

First of all was making each Character… I wanted the player to experience their game in their own eyes. Some people like magic some like swords… So I wanted to make sure the player could be satisfied with any choice they made. So I wrote down the classes and made sure each class had a strength and a weakness. For instance the Mage… Strong magic but when resisted has no defense and barely a means of attack. Now This means that a couple of monsters could be trouble… So if someone tried an all Mage party… There would be trouble and possible riots!

Sophia is one of my 2 road blocks on that. She has a special Bard class and is explained in the story why. This means there is always some form of minor healing in the party. She also guarantees that later on she becomes a huge factor in buffing and de-buffing bosses! (YES the buffs and De-buffs work on bosses! Some if you don’t de-buff in play testing would just rip you in half). I made sure no matter what before you entered the mine she would be in the party.  She has decent attack and defense so she is more of a balanced player to suit anyone playing the game. We also added two more characters.

One to be the old woman at the start of the game. The other to be the relationship. It’s just a placeholder to call you a brother when referenced. They are just there for the story and nothing else.

The second and one play testers complained a little about but I have my reasons is the final member to join the party. I can’t explain WHY that char will be random each game (that would give away the story!) However, I made sure by silently monitoring the beta reports that parties could not have 2-3 the same member. This member should switch to an unused class before pick up.

Now there are 10 listed classes in-game. Miner is an unused default class. It’s there just to be a fill in the blank at the start until you actually get a formal class. I made sure you can never enter the mines as a miner and cause a huge bug. The other class is a duplicate bard class JUST for Sophia. It is the same as a regular bard except for 1 big difference. She does not learn the blade or barrage dance at level 1 but has a cure spell. She also does no’t learn Sabic dance but learns a revive spell instead! Other than that the remaining 8 classes are playable by the hero. The bard class though because of Sophia makes the chars a wild card. So if you put 2 bards in as your main characters your fourth char could be any of the other 7!

Next comes the skills. All skills have their flavor text explain their function! Element names are interesting though. I looked at common words for the element and created a mix of 2 to create them. (example cure + heal = cueal) Some words actually use a different language!  Items were a little just random naming but trying to be different.

Weapons remain relatively unchanged using the 4 levels (in fact I designed the mine around those elements!) I only added the pickaxes to be a placeholder for mining in game! Armor works the same way only adding at the end what I needed. I’ll save enemies and troops for later. For the status effects DOWN is pretty much another way for out, ko or whatever. Same with the other statuses you can pretty much guess the effect.

Common events were the big item. Having it was the way that we could make the mine work. For each floor a switch would turn on when you mine a rock. It calls that floor’s “Script” to run and pick an item. Then after it ran if it found something you would have a chance for a bonus. Then the script would self turn off, Meanwhile, the rock would be “mined” with it’s own script and change to a new form. That is how the mine worked!

Finally the system… First we made sure the lady at the start was the ONLY actor in the party and also the leader so she would show. Then we just used commands to make your team. Currency was an interesting idea for the name. I was watching a Red Sox Game (Shut up I live in Massachusetts) and Nancy asked what happened to Saltalamacchia (he played last year for them). At that moment… I got Sal and then birth of another ore and the coin of the town. Everything else is just another word for the category.

Tomorrow i’ll go over the foe making and everything left  on the first week of the beta!

~LWentworth8567

Finally an update! Also Project G has dropped!

IK, IK, it’s been a while but I have been well having no news. However I finally got something to at least talk about. Then I got MORE stuff to talk about. Then I got even MORE… Then I let some Procrastination in. So now I come back to post. Some people may know I am an anime fan and well… I finally got off my butt and found some new ones as recommended by my girlfriend and one I saw and said why not…

Recent anime list

Fairy Tail

Kuroshitsuji 1 & 2

Panty & Stocking Feat. Garterbelt

Deadman Wonderland

Cashern Sins

Soul Eater

Sword Art Online

Gunslinger

And some non anime

Solitary

The Chase

and that’s all i have been watching but now…

Project G has been dropped! what is project G? It’s my first let’s play/ walkthrough/ playthrough whatever and it’s The legend of Zelda A Link to the Past! The G stands for Ganon apparently :P. Anyway now that I have updated I will link drop then post this which got delayed HEAVILY due to someone I know playing through then having some derps waiting for audio but we are starting on time!

 

 

Have a nice day and i’ll see you on the next one!

~LWentworth8567

Bonus Stage Marathon Upcomming

Nothing  in the way of news has happened since my last post (except a bill being knocked out). I have been around just buisy with all the norm… I did get to be with someone special on the 14th and well besides playing through RE 5 I also got a wii points card I spent on two games I never got to own… Ocarina of time and Majora’s mask. As some of you may know I am a Zelda Fan so these were must gets. I did play both games before but I never OWNED them in my collection so now I can happily play them and enjoy them for who knows how long.

Now for business… Tommorow at 7:00 PM Bonus stage Marathons is hosting a Metal Gear solid marathon for Alzheimer’s. As per usual I will be in the chat hanging out watching another favorite series. Hopefully you can join in and have some fun too! Also donations are welcome and I think there is still a raffle like usual and each $5 dollars is a ticket into it. If there is the prizes are still unknown to me. However the game list that I know right now is as follows.

Games to be played
Metal Gear NES
Snakes Revenge
Metal Gear Solid
Metal Gear Solid 2
Metal Gear Solid 3
Metal Gear Solid 4
Metal Gear Peace Walker

So if you want to see some good games come on in at around 7:00 tomorrow and the stream is 72 hours so you won’t miss out.

~LWentworth8567

Link list

http://bonusstagemarathons.blogspot.com/ (site for the marathon chip in IS up already. This Link is also on the RIGHT side of the page under the blogroll)

http://www.facebook.com/events/345180038839037/ (the Facebook event page)

http://www.facebook.com/groups/105116876190729/ (Bonus Stage marathon’s Facebook group)

http://www.alzfdn.org/ (the charity they are playing for)

HHNNNNNGG!

It’s been a while late Happy “Insert holiday here”. I would have posted sooner but I got sidetracked with helping out with Skilling peeps and other RS matters, new gifts, old gifts, Madden, Football, you-tube and upgrading my computer. I have a dell still one of the 1500 series and well… it being a replacement for the breakdown prone 1200 I used to have… (we remember that well) did have only 1 GB of ram… When I saw that I said to myself that this was going to have a hard time so I had to spend cash and wait for ram to come in which to be honest 2GB runs quite well for me right now and I can go up to 8GB even though my processor would need to be replaced before that. However that took a while to get the cash it was well worth it plus I could get by on one just… took SO LONG. One of my other new gifts I got was a nice mug from my aunt with the emoticon 😉 which I am drinking out of right now as we speak. I also got the usual mundane expected stuff but we all know what that is.

If you couldn’t tell by the title… I am going to be talking about Katawa Shoujo in this post and is why I waited so long to make my second post. Now you might say Dating sim eeeewww why creepy gross… my response? Go Pick up persona 3 or Persona 4. There is dating sim elements in that RPG that just work SOOO well. I couldn’t put Persona 3 FES down when my nephew got it as I became attached to the game. I admit though getting back on topic… I almost never play dating sims (see above). DISCLAMER: the views below are from someone with a steady relationship with a woman for five years now and may not be to your liking.

Katawa Shoujo is loosely translated to Disability Girls. (Not going to get into why). You might say something on how it’s wrong to make a game about trying to romance girls with disabilities like no arms, no legs, blind, mute/deaf or others but stop to think about it before you say that. I went in to the game an empty mind expecting probably something not great as I did look at some games on the Ren’py  game engine from sub-par to just plain terrible. However, this one blew my mind. The text itself is well written explaining what happened with the main Character Hisao Nakai. He has a condition called arrhythmia which makes his heart beat irregular and a good chest shot could be lethal. On one winter day he meets his High School crush who confesses his love for him and then… he starts to have a heart attack. Fast forward to a few months later to when he has been in the hospital since. It seems he is going to be released and about to go back to school and see his frie… wait this isn’t a fairy tale! Actually his friends… Stopped visiting him the last one to leave was his high school crush. To make it worse… he is being transferred to a new school with a 24/7 med staff and also a dorm so someone can look after him for the last year of schooling.

Now this is where the game officially begins Act 1. At the start you meet your class… Sitting in the back I saw a really shy girl with scars on her face and at that moment I decided if she was a romance option I am aiming for her! (I went into this blind… sorry lilly but I only saw on cheeseburger the name and how it was promoted didn’t read the chars or anything as the site was down except for a torrent link). Well… short story is as I start playing I met the girls and not ONE felt sorry about their disability but actually Really worked around it. Rin being an example having no arms but uses her feet and mouth to paint with dexterity or Rin her friend being a Track and field star especially sprinting but having no legs using leg springs in lieu (if you saw the new American Gladiators when Brick was on he uses the same principal).

I need to stop and explain the girls for a sec
Lilly Satou: blind since birth. the motherly gentle giant of the cast and also Hanako’s friend.
Hanako Ikezawa: the scars on her face and hand tell more than you know for a 3rd of the game her family died in a fire when she was young and was saved because her mom covered her daughter leaving hanako with her burn marks.
Rin Tezuka: Her birth defect left her with stubs for arms after they had to be amputated. She is an avid painter and the head in the clouds persona of the game. She is also the other half of Eri.
Eri Ibarazaki: “the fastest runner on no legs”. She lost her legs from below the knees in a car accident allways happy allways 100% energetic and hides a secret throughout her game.
Shizune hakamichi: Deaf/mute combo only able to be talked to by sign, notes, or her translator Shiina. very competitive and a harsh taskmaster to the point she pushed most of student counsel away except for Shiina (who waste no time getting you to join). She is also the Student Counsel president.
Shiina “Misha” Mikado: the pink hair anime standard is her trademark and her other being her laugh. She is Shizune’s translator and other student counsel member. Get used to them quick they never go away.

I went along and saw Hanako reading a book. She was who I saw at the begining and at that point my goal was set for my first run. She is really timid sure the scars don’t help but she is cute. (though emi is just bubbling cuteness she’s a little much for my tastes). I met her blind friend Lilly just before and from there it was just hoping to pick right to get her to be my choice. When it came down to the day of the festival (act 1 end) I was told to find Hanako by Lilly (each girl has a paring shizune/misha, Lilly, Hanako, and rin and emi) and then my goal was achieved.

The rest of the game was getting to know her but… she would never let me get close to her. It seems each character has an internal struggle. This internal struggle makes you feel closer to the character than you would think. At one point I was feeling so bad I wanted to wait for a cue to hug her and tell her everything is ok… However once the one adult scene came up (yes there’s a scene where you know… man + woman BUT YOU CAN turn it off if you don’t like it or are too young and NONE of it is rape which would probably stop me playing right away) I felt so bad for her as I saw the amount of scars and it’s alot.  However, I also saw her maturity too and smiled at the same time. The next scene was pure wow seeing her cry and I get my big wish. The ending was really happy and I was hoping for more but the game ended (no happy wedding? Hanako as a blushing bride would be nice with hisao giving her a ring having conquered her fear would be nice). However, I was satisfied with it. So I went and looked for ALL the paths and all the endings for 100% and all I can say is WOW at the amount of work the game took.

In all I can say katawa is a great game. Definitely was above my expectations and I just couldn’t put it down. It’s like a book you just want to read more you wanna see if emi can get off her chair or if Hanako can finally say I love you without showing signs of fear.  I don’t often recommend a Dating sim but… this one I liked and I am playing Hanako’s story again just to see her warm happy smile. Plus… It’s free! I would include screens but a google search will give you PLENTY.

until next time

~L-LWentworth8567

P.S. Yes Hanako I did enjoy your ending

Links to peruse if you want to:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardiac_dysrhythmia about Arrythmia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katawa_Shoujo Katawa Shoujo on wikipedia
http://katawa-shoujo.com/ link to katawa incase you want to try I am seeding the torrent
http://shimmie.katawa-shoujo.com/post/view/2392 reference to my P.S.