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Items Galore on Christmas

25/12/2010

Merry (belated) Christmas! I've been at a really crazy party yesterday, so I couldn't get online! Anyways, for those who care, I actually worked on that game for at least a bit... Like, adding some more silly/cliched cutscenes and making some more items. Better see that for yourself, m'yes?

As for the pic with all the water and the bridge- that map is only half-done. It'll (hopefully) look much better when it's actually done! And I'm also reworking the field tool bar, since it just didn't work properly! Sometimes it disappeared (you could still use the tools though) and othertimes the game just froze when you tried to use any of the tools. Oh man! Better get that fixed!
Have some nice holidays, hollow readers!

Rune Factory 3 Review!

22/12/2010

*crawls out of her dark hole* Hello peeeeoople! I'm back! And today I'm gonna review a game I spent a lot of time with:

Rune Factory 3 for the DS! As you might've guessed from the title, it's part of a series. The series is basically Harvest Moon (which is a farming sim) in a more medieval, fantasy-like setting. You don't only raise crops, but also fight monsters in a traditional dungeon crawler manier. But we're gonna cover that later.

The game starts up with a sheep... I mean, Wooly, lying in the rain in front of a girl's house. She takes the poor Wooly in, and the next day it's gone! It turns out that the Wooly turned into a human- the main character. The story itself is not all that great. and it just moves on while you're playing. What makes it special are all the characters! Everyone has his or her own backstory, some are silly, some are dead-serious and so on. The cast of the game is very likeable and diverse. There's your friendly-neighbourhood-dwarf-smith, a mermaid, a girl that wants to beat you and many, many more. You may not like them at the beginning, but they'll grown on you very soon. The character designs are also very nicely done, with richly detailed clothing and lots of expressions. The only character design I disliked was... the main character's.

No, it's a guy. Seriously. The protagonists of the previous games all had their feminine side, but this one gets the cake! I won't further dwell into this, only thing I can say is that I don't like it.

Anyways! In direction comparison with the other two games the overall speed has been raised. Your character walks faster, the story progresses at a higher pace and all that jazz.
You prepare your fields, plant seeds, water them, harvest them and put them into shipping bin. Go to bed. Repeat. But wait! Unlike the traditional HM games, you can explore dungeons and fight monsters here! There are four main dungeons which are divided in smaller sections. The monsters you fight vary from evil apples to giant raccoons to headscarfed goblins. You can use almost every tool to fight these critters (even your watering can works!) but you can stick with traditional weapons, too. I found myself using the dual daggers most of the time, even though they prevent you from using any shields. Which is one point: Your equipment is extremely important, since the stat boost you get when you level up is fairly low. Even if you're on level 10, enemies from the first dungeon can still decimate you if you don't equip your stuff with care. Also, speaking of levels, almost everything in this game has a level. Your watering skill has a level. Your hammering skill has a level. Even your running and sleeping skills have levels! How you gain these levels? Your running level raises if you run. Your fishing level rises as you fish! It's not a bad system, but so many levels at once can be and is quiet overhelming.
Later on you get to use spells, teleports, fireballs, etc. You can only equip two at once, and they draw from your exhaustion pool and take a rather long time to recite. That means: Awesome but impractical! The only spell I used more often was the Teleport one, since it costs nothing and warps you out of any dungeon. And to your house. And even into your house.
If you're not fighting monsters or planting seeds you can interact with your colorful neighbourhood.And boy, I highly recommend you to do that! They even get angry if you don't talk to them in a long time, and some missions only became available once you're friends with X and Y. There are also several potential brides, which you have to bribe with gifts and talk to, which'll earn you their affection. I haven't married yet, but this is most likely because of my X-chromosome hindering me at finding the right one!

Graphics-wise the game uses a sprite-polygon mix. Your environments are beautifully hand-drawn landscapes with tons and tons of details. The characters are fairly low-polygon models, but the camera never zooms in to show you how shabby they actually are. The game can get very laggy if there are too many characters on screen at the same time, and since they tend to crowd up at certain places this can get really annoying.
As for the music... the compositions are all fairly avergae, but that's okay, since you'll hear one song 30 days a season while you're on your farm, so I'm glad it didn't get stuck in my head. It's really just what you'd expect from a game like this. Nothing epic, but certainly not bad either. The voice acting is a mixed bag. There are some great performances, while others are plain grating. (The mermaid will tap on your nerves as soon as you meet her) But compared to its prequel, the voice acting is much better overall.

Links:
A more professional playtest
Gameplay video

Of Drunkards and Scripts

20/12/2010

Hello again! After weeks and weeks of pure laziness I finally got around restoring all the scripts for Disillusioned Journey- and I think it's even a little better than before! Let's rejoice with a screenshot!

(^References that somebody who doesn't watch cheesy shows about desperate housewives like me won't understand FTW!) I think I also greatly improved my mapping skills ever since this project was started. I'm still not top-tier, but it's most definitely better than before. I'm currently in the process of polishing up and the battle system, and will show screenshots of that once it doesn't look nasty anymore. That's all I have to show today, catch you wonderful people later~♥

HAGSFDJ!!!

14/12/2010

Hello again! As it turns out, my life has gone the "You-Will-Experience-Panic-Everyday-Route". And what exactly happened? My game had a data file that it was unable to recognize! So I had to replace it with a fresh, empty file. Guess what file it was? No. Even worse. It's the whole script database that got wiped clean! Which is, for the unexperienced, the part where you modify the battle system and add custom stuff, like, new menus and stats.

You know, I'm totally about to--

Actually I'm not. The most important thing in such situations is not to flap out and jump outta the window. You have to keep cool and collected, and act like nothing happened. It will be a lot of hard work to restore this all, but it's okay- it was my own fault not to shut the editor down properly after all.

And before I take my leave for today, take a look at the blogpost of my friend's game! And at the game itself too, please♥ That's all for today, catch you some other time~

I Am Back Folks!

13/12/2010

*takes a deep breath*
HELLLLOOOOO PEOPLE
guess who's finally back from the dead? Yes? Yeeess? Right! It's me! After a terrible series of events involving packing all my precious stuff into bags, spending time on the airport in Tokyo and sleeping on the airplane I finally arrived in the United States and am full of enthusiasm to update this website regularly again! I haven't worked much on my game, so i don't have anything to show, naturally. So in short: This will be a non-game related blog post. Please leave if you don't care about anything else!

I recently got to rewatch some episodes of the Pretty Cure anime series. It's disguised as a magical girl series, but it's actually Dragonball Z with girls who transform. The very first series focuses on two girls, Nagisa and Honoka, who are black and white. One is the tomboy and the other one is the genius. They don'thave much in common, but then two cute mascots appear and tell them they're pretty Cure, the legendary warriors. And alá traditional Magical Girl they transform and fight the baddies. The real difference here is that Cure Black and Cure White aren't sissy girlies who completely rely on their sparkly magic- they actually fight! They use heavy punches, naughty kicks, and everything in-between. They save their magical attack for finishing off the enemy with a coup de grace. There's also a big emphasis on Nagisa's and Honoka's relation and how the villains evolve. They even get to sympathize with one of the baddies later on! Alas, the show lasted for 47 episodes, but was soon followed by a second season called Max♥Heart. It continues where season 1 left off and grants the team new outfits and a new member, Shiny Luminous. This series focuses a LOT more on Nagisa, in fact you could call the seaon Max Black instead. The fight scene choreagraphy is still very well done, and the special effects are even better now. What followed this 49-episode season were several alternate continuities.

The opinions on all of them are very mixed among fandom. The one that stays closest to the original is Pretty Cure Splash Star, which features two new girls who bear a very high resemblance to nagisa and Honoka, but has many different characters and a much more streamlined plot. The fight scenes aren't as epic as in the original, but it's still a show worth watching. I personally don't like any of the other alternate continuities, so don't ask me about them. There are also two (soon to be three) movies where all the Pretty Cures from all series appear and fight together. It's pretty interesting in theory, but the actual thing is just a mish-mash of dialog, transformations, fights, more transformations and dialog. They don't even really interact with each other, but it sure is a nice treat for fans of the series.

If you're looking for an anime that has cute girls, transformations, fight scenes, cool music, pretty visuals and midriffs then Pretty Cure is the right show for you! Even if you're a guy!
Aaaand that's all for now, Will update more tomorrow, bye peeeeeeeeeeoplleee~♥

Items Galore on Christmas

Rune Factory 3 Review!

Of Drunkards and Scripts

HAGSFDJ!!!

I Am Back Folks!

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