So, might as well post what I've done before Thanksgiving comes.

I'm currently working on a tutorial level. This will take you through the various things you can do in each level, what enemies and allies are, and some helpful knowledge and tips.

Most of the level has been designed, and will add the scripting in soon.

It seems I always enjoy level designing, and that's my favorite part of making these games. Just thought I'd point that out.

Is the tutorial mandatory?

I kid, I'm also a fan of level design.

Been doing other things lately, but I had some time to work on this. Watching Dray's LPs helped motivate me to start working again. viewtopic.php?f=3&t=7499

I got some of the tutorial level done. You basically go through a level that points out the basics of how to play the game. I wanted it to be a bit more interactive than the text of Donkey Kong, and I also wanted visual examples since this is a more complicated game than DK.

What I really need to do is begin some concept work on World 2. I have at least one good idea I'll likely follow up on, a world that has many paths and bushes. You can't pass these bushes on your own, but there's a horse somewhere in the level that will eat the bushes and clear a path. In order to get the horse to obey you, you'll need to find a carrot somewhere in the level and feed the horse to have it help you.

Will post more progress as it develops.

Today I attempted to make a new level called Horizontal. The level was going to be completely straight right and left, with the only vertical movement being going up ladders to avoid enemies. Unfortunately trying to make the level work didn't turn out so well, because there's too many enemies to try and balance out. It becomes one big waiting game sometimes, since there are so many enemies walking around. I may alter the level to make it work, but as it is now it's too cumbersome.

And I've got the plans for the next world, number 2, and it's called Kentucky Bluegrasslands. Here you'll need to mainly use a horse you find in the level to eat through bushes to pass the level. There are some restrictions, though. You have to find a carrot to convince the horse to help you, and the horse cannot jump on jumping tiles. I don't yet have a boss planned for this level.

I've got an idea I could use some feedback on. What do you think of the game showing you the weakness to an enemy right before you fight them? I got the idea from playing House of the Dead 2&3. In that game, right before you fight the boss, you are shown the enemy weakness, so going into the fight you know what to do, and it's just a matter of doing it.

Here's an example, just watch the beginning part of it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qX0DhhFJ ... re=related

So, is this a feature you'd like to see in this game?

Well, it looks like in that game, knowing the weakness was pretty much required in order to beat it.

For the most part, yes, it was required. It also takes out any guesswork of what you're supposed to do. Good idea, or no?

I almost have a level finished today. I learned that one strip of land for a bunch of monsters wasn't going to work, so I expanded it to three and have a ton of monsters infest each one. I playtested it and the level actually works pretty well. It's called level 2-1, March.

I also have a new avatar that I put up, and it's just a basic idea of what I'd like to do with it. I'd like to add text in the blank open space it has, but my current editor doesn't do transparent at all, which kinda ruins the effect I wanted. I also plan to have a signature and work on this avatar a bit more in the coming days.

I take it you mean you want to dim it out so text would be easier to read. In that case, I recommend The Gimp.

Worked on the game a bit more yesterday. Working on a new level called 2-2, Wild Green.

In this particular level, the exit is nearby, but you can't reach it because grass is in the way. So you have to go find the horse on the end of the level, and bring it back to open the exit so you can pass the level. The horse can't jump, so you have to find a way to open ramps to let the horse through.

Not much else to report. Have a good day!

I decided to get some more work today.

And I think for the first time in this project, I can finally see things coming together. Level design, ideas, the flow of the game, it's all coming together. What a great feeling. I know I won't have this out anytime soon, so I don't have to stress over a release date (which is TBA, by the way). And while we're talking about the game, it's currently using 45 different switches, which is the most I've ever used for a game. Then again, I can't remember how many Usuru used, but that's besides the point. Things are going well!

More work was made on level 2-2, adding some new events and working some minor things. I also went back to some previous levels and edited some older code, namely I made sure lives are all taken away upon returning to the hubworld. I still have much to fix up in the older levels; not so much because they're broken, but it'll streamline things. I'd love to begin working on custom sprites soon, something simple like direction arrows. Something so simple, yet it can be ever so effective when used right.

I was in the mood for rpgmaking, so I continued with my progress.

I did more work in level 2-2. This level is taking quite a bit of time, partly because it's complex and partly because I haven't been working on it daily.

I did fix up some events concerning the horse. Now you can return to the stable and return the horse so you can walk around again. The drawbridges to connect platforms is also up and running. I have only run into one big problem so far, and that concerns the bushes found in the level. You simply can't eat them. They disappear and reappear so quickly that it's completely useless to do so. The only solution I can think of is to assign each bush a switch so each one disappears for good, then reset the switches for use in some later levels for the same purpose. Other than that and enemies, this level is nearly complete.

Let's also change the subject, but stay with the rpgmaking topic. I feel this should be my last big rpgmaker 1 game. Simply put, I'm rather tired with this system, and I'm running out of creative ways to manipulate it. After all, I've been playing with it for about 5 years, so that's not a huge surprise. I'm trying to use every trick I can think of to populate this last big release.

Now, this doesn't mean I'm done with rpgmaker, and it doesn't mean I'll never release another rpgm1 game. I think a switch of platforms is a good idea after the release of this game. Maybe start working on rpgmaker 2 or 3. I've never gien them the amount of time or attenion they really deserve. But who knows, it's all a little early to say right now. But it's something interesting to discuss, at the very least.

Thanks to a tip from Draygone to use the Unable to Execute command, I've saved myself a lot of time, memory and headaches. So, thanks Dray. Level 2-2 is almost finished.

I also fiddled around with a new option today. I made a new counter for the game, something you can open in the item menu and look up just like points. Death Count will track how many times you've died in the game. This will be for two reasons; one, to see how many times you've died playing this game, and also for a new feature; the easy difficulty mode. On Normal difficulty, I set the lives you start with to 5, and on Easy, you start with 10. No enemies change, you just start with a nice boost of extra lives. There is a drawback to this mode, however; you cannot unlock new worlds or features in Easy mode. I did this so players can't just breeze through the whole game on Easy. It removes a bit of challenge to the game. If you can't unlock anything with it, it's still useful as a way to practice levels that are tricky or to view new worlds.

I lately haven't felt motivated to work on the actual game itself, so today I worked on custom graphics for the title. I mentioned earlier that I wanted to make arrows for several purposes in the game, and I managed to create them without too much trouble. This IS my first time working with anime maker and custom character graphics, so hopefully I don't screw up too much.

Let's talk about the setup I'm using. I'm personally not using RPGC for this particular game, for mutliple reasons. It's tough to work with, my computer use is shaky. No really good reasons really, but since I already own the playstation mouse, it's not worth my trouble to do it on paint and figure out how to export it, when I can do it right on the program and have no extra hassles. The only thing that bugs me is I have no mouse pad, but a game case solves that easily.

And my god, are those sprites ever small! I'm very nearsighted, so I like my text zoomed in so I can read no problem. And even worse, I've been working with multiple colors that are slighty different, so telling colors apart is tough as well.

But it's going well nonetheless. Other than finishing arrows, I'm also working on drawing letters. With any luck, I'd like to have custom graphics so I can spell out "Josh's Adventure" (and if there was any doubt, this WILL be the final title). I have J, o, and s finished. S was particulary tricky, and I had to restart since it began to more closely resemble a 5. Consistancy is going to be my biggest enemy making these letters. But hopefully it'll be all worth it when you boot up the game for the first time and see them lined up, all nice and beautiful.

BIG PROGRESS UPDATE.

I put my nose to the grindstone today and finished all of the letters and arrows custom graphics today. Man, does it look good! It's a little tough arranging them, but seeing my work come together so well is an outstanding feeling. And it doesn't look half bad either. I was particulary careful with the color scheme; since Josh's Adventure takes more than 9 letters (13, to be exact) to complete, I had to spread out the letters beyond two custom graphic sheets, and color consisentacy was very tough to do, but I think I nailed it. It does look a little silly how some letters are better than others (The letter E in particular was hell, because you have to have enough room to have that little o spot open enough to make it readable).

All in all, this is a pretty big step forward for me, and it's the first time I'll have used my own custom character sprites in a game (while Donkey Kong technically had custom sprites before JA, I didn't make those). And hopefully I'll be able to get on epsxe or something to get a screencap to show you all.

This game will be completed. It will be awesome. That is all.

You know that there is a zoom function, right?

Also, I'm not sure which button on the PS1 mouse would do it (I assume the right one), but there is a button that will automatically select the color you're currently moused over. I've worked with similar-looking colors, as well, and I found the feature pretty helpful.

Yes Dray, I'm fully aware there's a zoom function. My problem is, it's still too damn small! I want like something similiar to the x16 zoom function of MS Paint, which rpgmaker doesn't provide. I can still work at it, but there's a bit of squinting involved at times. And as for your other post, I'll see if that works with the mouse. Usually the right button brings up the info lady, which is extremely helpful.

Back on topic. My recent sprite drawing I detailed in my last post gave me such a motivational boost that I worked some more on the game itself. Since 2-2 is complete, I began work on a new level, 2-3 Risk. It's all about risk and reward here. Right off the bat you can go two ways; one will take you to the end goal. No challenge at all. The second path will take you through a monster nightmare, a straight path with multiple monsters. It's tougher, but there will be many more treasures to find. After the path of monsters, you jump into a swimming tank. What I plan to do here is fill this thing to the brim with lots of randomly wandering monsters, and moving treasures as well. You can get chests, and even a carrot you can use later. Once out of the tank, you can feed the carrot to the horse and continue onward, with or without the horse. There will be more baddies to avoid (terrible time clocks; touch them, and your time is up), and then you reach the end of the maze. You have one chest that has a nice item inside, and behind the bushes is a super great item if you grabbed the carrot and brought the horse with you.

Whew, that felt good to post in-detail about a level. It feels like forever since I did that! (Technically, it's only been a week, but that feels like a long time to me, anyway.) I also went back to previous levels and fixed up some coding. The main hubworld intro event removes any lives you have, should you quit and return there, so I removed the command to remove lives from individual enemies in earlier levels. I was still figuring out how I was going to structure the game, so I still had some cleanup to do.

Since I feel like it, let's talk more about the game itself. My god, this game is going to be one heck of a mutterclucker to playtest. Thankfully I usually check things out before I move on, but I've had to go back to previous levels several times to fix stuff up. Soon I think I'll go back and throughly playtest all the levels made up till now. I could wait until the game gets closer to completion, but it would take a load off my mind to know that some things are all taken care of, especially as the game continues to evolve and grow.

I also plan on advertising here pretty soon. Since I have all my letters done in custom graphics, I plan to assemble them in a presentable way and get myself a new signature. Isn't that exciting!? Maybe, maybe not, but advertising has always been one of my strong points in the rpgmaker community, and with how big and expansive JA is going to be, this really isn't a game that should be missed, and I'll make sure that I try to get that across to everyone.

Whew, it's been a while since I've made a post that's as large as this one. But I hope that you guys will continue to support me as I march forward with this exciting new game, and hopefully this will be complete sometime in 2010.

A bit more progress today. I finished up all the coding for 2-3, and playtested it as well. That little sweep revealed a couple mistakes I left behind. But it's done!

I also went back to previous levels to sweep for more bugs, and there were some particulary nasty ones in there. Ones that warped you to completely different areas if you're prompted to continue after losing a life. So I naturally checked every level to make sure none of those were left, and also cleaned out some unneeded code. So things are looking good.

One big thing I managed to do today is something you might have noticed before this post....I've switched out my old DK signature for a brand new Josh's Adventure sig. It looks like this:



It also showcases the custom letters I made for the title. It's not perfect, I know...some of the letters are too big or too small, and it looks a little barebones right now. I couldn't figure out how to get a transparent color either with paint or photosuite, so that accounts for the lack of more text. All in all though, I'm pretty happy with it, and hopefully it'll get some people's attention.

If you've been keeping up with the media I've released, you might notice the girl next to Josh, and realize she hasn't been in any prior screenshots. Well, I didn't just throw her in there for no good reason; she plays a part in a feature I haven't mentioned yet. The feature I haven't talked about yet is co-op mode. Yep, you and a friend can go and try to beat the game together, and she'll be controlled by the second player. This is something I've wanted to include in a game for a long time now, because if done right, it'll help add so much more enjoyment to the game.

The reason I haven't mentioned this until now is I'm still not sure if I can do it. I've already got 2 system blocks, 4 secnario blocks and 2 graphic blocks, so whether I have any room left for this feature is still up in the air. I also haven't coded a 2 player co-op mode before, so trying to figure out how would be tough as well. Basically there's still much about it to think about, including whether the feature will make it in. But I figure I'd let the cat out of the bag since I decided to put her in there.

Level 2-4 will begin soon, and onwards after that.

I'm now trying to shoot for a winter 2010 release. Let's see if I can make it happen.

The last two days, I've been working on a new level called 2-4 Trial. It's a long course where you basically have to get your horse, clear an area, then jump ahead without the horse, and find a way to allow the horse to pass through. The whole level took all the events it could (120ish), and I even had to cut back my ideas quite a bit simply because I didn't have enough events to use. But it's almost all up and running, and I got about 80% of the level running. My biggest gripe is that at several points where you ditch your horse, horses appear in every other stall, including the one you left behind. I'll have to find a workaround for that.

This level was pretty tough to make, and it absolutely ate through the scenario. I have one new block thanks to this game. I'm going to have to decide whether I want to shorten the length of the game, or jump to a new scenario to keep going.

Call me crazy.....but I made a RPGMaker Wiki page for Josh's Adventure. I was somewhat bored one afternoon, so I've been spending some time pulling information from several different sources into this one wiki page.

2-4 was finished tonight. Seperate switches fixed the horse problem I had earlier. This level is the first I've made that uses all events. It also uses 24 switches to make everything work. It's a big level. Pretty happy with how it turned out.

Now I'll need to plan out a boss battle to finish up this world....Which I haven't thought about at all. Oh well, I'll think of something. Hope you guys are looking forward to this.