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Aureus

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Everything posted by Aureus

  1. The game has grown tremendously, though I try to keep everything spoiler-free. : ) For now, how about a tune? We want our music to be subtle, not bluntly cheerful, nor overwhelming tense. The today’s example is on the “brighter” side, but we still tried to hide some uncertainty in it. Is “post rock folk” a thing?
  2. I took a little break from writing and drew some new areas. One of them is this abandoned fishing hamlet that I really like. Places like this one are somewhat common in this fantasy realm. No village can have access to all the goods it requires to prosper, but daily travels for additional resources can turn out to be fatally dangerous. If a village has enough working power and supplies, it will sometimes start a new, small settlement focused on a specific field of work. You can find among them mines, quarries, and brickworks, but also houses for hunters, lumberjacks, and charcoal burners, as well as temporary shelters for workers who build bridges or roadside inns. The fishing hamlet we see here allowed the locals to fish, and to preserve their meat by curing and smoking.
  3. For this ScreenshotSaturday, I have a rather large update. And a lot of pictures to show. Too many for a forum post. Oh dear, that must mean... It’s devlog time! And here it is! I wrote about the map updates, the new armor system, UI adjustments, the new Journal, the most recent WIPs, and recapped the stuff related to the game over screens and the new font.
  4. Roadwarden looks much better now, all thanks to the new font. : ) The text has more space to breathe, the letters have more personality, and thanks to the serifs, it’s going to be easier to keep track of the lines you read. Everybody wins. Other changes were introduced as well, such as the new addition to the inventory screen - when you now point at any icon, the item’s name is instantly displayed, so you don’t have to click anything if you try to quickly find something in your equipment. I currently write dialogues, quests and stores for the game’s largest area, it’s quite exhausting, and I try to avoid spoilers. : P However, you can expect more posts very soon.
  5. In the original “Roadwarden’s” Design Document, there were no game-overs. You could get significantly hurt during your journeys, but never to the point where you’d face a brick wall that would make the further progress impossible. You need to rest and heal your wounds to participate in some events, but you can always move forward. I’ve finally decided to change it. In most situations, reaching 0 HP won’t result in an instant death. But in some scripted encounters - usually when facing an overwhelming opponent while being completely unprepared - your character will be broken. Still, I hope to make it as player-friendly as possible. Did you forget to save your game? Was autosave ran in an inconvenient spot? You can jump back in time a bit, no strings attached. The game now also involves some new systems, like a redesigned “armor level”. I’ll talk more about it in the next devlog.
  6. I’ve reached a rough spot, since as I share more WIPs from my game, my posts get more and more spoilerish... I need to figure out a new approach. But here is something more casual that I’ve been working on this week! : )
  7. The development has recently encountered a couple of obstacles and pitfalls, but guess what. I *think* the new version of the demo is working. : ) It still needs some additional testing, would you like to help me with that? You can download it here! Does it start for you, can you play it? At one point, the Mac version was crushing out after saving. I hope it’s fixed. : P ---------------------------------- And if you wonder what has changed since the last version but you plan to wait for the full game, here are some highlights, just for context: the available content has tripled - you can visit four new areas (each one is significantly different) and engage in three complex dialogues that they involve a completely new music was introduced the in-game journal now includes a chapter that summarizes interesting clues related to various NPCs the inventory screen is completely redesigned and much more convenient area illustration and inventory icons were updated text parser that don’t need to support capital letters, like the one in the dolmen, don’t use them anymore various bits of dialogues and interactions were enhanced various spelling / phrasing fixes new menu screen bugs were eliminated - unless?
  8. Through this week, I wrote sooo many dialogue bits, made new items, designed new quests and broadened some older content... I’m in the flow, and it feels good. Here’s an example of how arriving to a new place looks like. My lizard brain tells me to stop overcomplicating things, but I’m more like... Nah, “how bout I do anyway”. ; ) And here are some examples of how do the later parts of the same conversation look like.
  9. I’ve been working a lot on the new title screen, and I think that after receiving a lot of very helpful feedback, it’s in a pretty good spot right now. : ) I’m also doing a whole bunch of minor things for the game, since I can hardly find enough time and patience to focus on writing dialogues. I’m adding quests, items, some new dialogue options... I had a really good flow with some ideas, like these two weapons: I’ve also realized that my original plan of “fitting every bit of dialogue in a single window” won’t work. Some NPCs will just have too many dialogue options available if you meet them for the first time in a very late part of the game. Because of that, I’ve decided to add the optional scrolling - it will show up only if there’s something to scroll through, so it won’t impact the major experience.
  10. I have just this little thing to share, a hidden in-game detail. Not every character starts the game with this item, and I’m sure some players won’t notice its hidden interaction. If you wear it, various NPCs react to your presence in new ways. So, are you going to wear it all the time, proud of your beliefs? Are you going to keep it hidden, hoping to avoid quarrels? Is it just a tool for you, something that you hide or show depending on who’s around you? How do you play your role?
  11. Today’s illustration has a little story behind it. The oldest design document for Roadwarden was written in the first months of 2018. I knew from the beginning that I wanted to make a game with a place like this one - an isolated dwelling, in which the magic crafter stays away from other people, obsessed with her trade, surrounded by her creations. Originally, I planned to place the game’s prototype among these walls. I prepared my software, but I barely even started. I “realized” I *won’t* be able to make pixel art, maybe even ever. I had to postpone the project anyway, so I accepted that I failed and moved on. When I started working on the game in January 2019, I knew that I still wanted this place to be a part of my fantasy realm. I was slowly learning the basics, and focused on some other areas - those that the player sees in the first stages of the actual game. Most of these areas are going to be available in the new demo. But I finally decided to give it another shot. And now, here it is. The residence of magic crafter. The exterior went from “impossible,” to “finished in two days.” The interior took another day. I’m not gonna lie - I’m moved.For now, enough of drawing. Recently, I’m focused on programming and writing. And it’s going pretty well. ^^
  12. I’m too sick to write dialogues, but I still have enough patience to draw, and drawing is fun. Here are some new areas that I’ve been working on - some of them are meant to be memorable and interacted with... while others are going to be used more like loading / transition screens. Creating one of those takes me much less time than it used to, but still, it’s so great that podcasts exist. Also, I’ve decided to return to some of my older pictures and update them to the new style that I’ve adapted through the months of learning. My military camp, one of the oldest pictures I’ve ever made (in February), has changed so many times, and it’s all thanks to the feedback and criticism that kind people share with me on-line. The new version of the Roadwarden’s demo is going to be available in November. The introduced changes are going to be huge, so I personally recommend to not play the older demo - though it’s still available on Itch.io.
  13. October is moving forward really well. The major part of the watchtower scenes is already in to the game. There’s so much content already, and it seems to be almost bug-free so far (...though it involved fixing hundreds of mistakes), and the music works so well! There’s a good chance I’ll update the demo sometime next week, just to give you a chance to see how much has everything changed since the release of the old version. : ) During the last couple of days I’ve drawn a couple of new areas that are going to be used as minor stops and the “loading screens” - small bits of narration that precede arriving to a new area. And also, I’ve added two new tracks to the game’s Soundcloud. They’re worth checking out. ^^
  14. I’m back! My health is fine now, and I finally had a good week in the realm of Roadwarden. I’ve drawn a new area, the abandoned watchtower, and I’m really proud of it. Originally, it was meant to be a destroyed tower, but once I’ve drawn it, I haven’t have the heart to turn it into ruins. xD I’ve also laid the foundations for a new area, the road blocked by a fallen tree. The player can investigate this place for clues, trying to figure out what happened in this place. The later part of the quest is not written down yet, mostly because the NPCs related to it are not yet in the game, but it’s a fun little side-activity, that requires a bit of deduction. The game’s world keeps growing... And it makes me super happy. ^^
  15. I'm so glad to hear that! We still have to make various improvements, but I hope to start posting more tracks starting in October. : )
  16. It’s time to share something larger than a picture. The music presented in Roadwarden’s demo was waiting for replacement. Now we have quite a massive list of original tracks that still need a couple of adjustments, yet are already very close to the game’s heart. It’s difficult to select and highlight a single track, but here’s the one that I love the most. It immediately takes me to a wild, dangerous forest. I want to keep the sounds a bit anxious, emotionally vague, without directly telling the players what they are supposed to feel. I really like it when fantasy video games don’t sink into the usual epic orchestras. So, do you love it, do you hate it? Let me know, I’m so excited to upload it today!
  17. I apologize for the late response, Czero, I was quite sick. The entire coding is made in Ren'Py. I use PyxelEdit for drawing and some freeware software like GIMP and Audacity.
  18. Hi there! I’m currently editing some of the older scenes in the game, including the tutorial-prologue scenes, preparing to share the current version of the game with some testers. There’s so much new content that needs some additional feedback, and I keep finding (and fixing) annoying bugs... I’m both excited and terrified. : P
  19. After over 3 weeks of writing new dialogues, events, items, interactions and one large side quest for Roadwarden, all of this content is finally a part of the actual game. Here are some of the latest advancements: 1. An example of how combat looks in the game. As well as the “escorting” quests. No grinding for XP, no following a character for 5-10 minutes. A couple of simple clicks, decision making and if you can, you prepare yourself before the encounter happens. Nice and sweat, with an open field for role-playing. 2. Time is going to matter, just as intended. If you postpone the quest for too long, you can still complete it - but it won’t be a happy end for the quest giver. Also, you can express how your character is perceiving this situation. 3. My English improves with practice, and I have in plans taking a huge step back and editing the entire tutorial section. Yikes. 4. IDK, I just really like this NPC. : P So far, I like all of my NPCs. You will be able to recognize which ones I don’t like by measuring how little to do and dialogues they have attached to them. 5. New inventory section! It still requires some improvements, but it’s not too bad! I’m really getting better at adding the content to the game files - in the beginning, I was spending days fixing broken code and trying to figure out how it should be actually organized. Now? A couple of mistakes, some oversights, a couple of hours and bam, everything works just fine.
  20. It’s difficult to decide what to showcase today, I hope it’s fine if I drop a whole bunch of pics: Here are some of the latest advancements: 1. The Roadwarden's world is growing! New areas are now also visible on the traveling map. 2. I'm currently writing a detailed scene for the ruined village that I've shared here before. The overall "exploration" system of this area is all set and done, and works completely fine. My later edits will surely change various areas and add some new content, but I'm happy about where this is going. 3. The shop screen is now much easier to comprehend and simply prettier. Thanks to the "Trade" button in the quick menu, you can also open the shop without having to choose a specific dialog option during a conversation. 4. The new section of the journal will now include NPC descriptions and, even more importantly, names. It's a solution born from necessity - I can't expect that everyone is going to remember all the character names and detailed information about them. 5. The dialogue I'm currently working on... Is referencing Scottish accents too cliche for fantasy writing in 2019? : P And, of course, new rewrites, bug fixes, new content, quests...
  21. I’ve made a huge progress as far as the graphics go. I now have enough material to spend a couple of weeks writing dialogues, encounters and modifying the game’s features. I need to make some large changes, and all of them are going to be great. Here are some examples of the latest advancements: 1. The druids’ cave, locked behind a metal door. What can be found inside? Is it just a shelter, a prison, a treasure chamber? After all the first things you see when you get nearby, are the garden patches with herbs and veggies. And you can see how much your feedback can impact the picture. 2. The shop screen is looking much better now, though it still needs some work. Next stop - adding a separate icon to display the money in player’s possession, replacing parts of the item descriptions. 3. A camp in a destroyed building, a part of the ruined village presented here last week. Iron and steel are rare and valuable resources, no wonder that someone would try to scavenge for them in an old, abandoned settlement. I don’t have enough time to take care of all the ideas I want to pursue right now, but there’s a good chance that a new version of the demo is going to be available in August, Though maybe not, maybe I should focus on developing all of the core areas that the player can visit and quests they can be a part of. I would love to know what you think! (Bonus devlog!)
  22. What a fruitful week this was. The dialogues for the tavern that I’ve been working on for weeks are now finished. Adding all the conversations for the guards increased the volume by a third, but the more I wrote, the more I was sure it was a good idea. The throw-away NPC now has a lot of personality, and I’ve added a lot of new things which will impact the game even in the later stages. After finishing with this place, I took some time to draw. Two completely different areas: 1. A ruined village. The Imperial forests are dangerous and unfriendly, forcing the hamlets and villages to grow as slowly, as they can. If humankind affects the nature too much, too fast - the monsters arrive to take back what belongs to them. 2. At the edge of the swamp, a large tree stands for as long as anyone remembers. It has no leaves, yet slowly grows. To stay alive, however, it has to be fed by the locals, who put their offerings on an ancient altar. Drawing still consumes a lot of time, but what now takes me a day or two, just half a year ago would be literally impossible for me. Or would require two weeks and dozens of redraws. Feels good to grow.
  23. Hi, I'm Aureus and I love dialogues. But seriously, how much can you do in a single tavern? And yes, you still are going to be able to beat the game without ever going to this area.
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