Untitled RPG Project

[Hugues Ross]

The year’s wrapping up quickly, but I finally have some good news for this year’s progress. No more intro, let’s get into some real progress:

The Reconstruction
I’ve finished remaking the portions of the first dungeon that I had to throw out back in the spring. Well, that was basically finished last time. But now it’s completely done.

Moving On…
With the 1st floor ‘gameplay-complete’, I moved on. And now, the 3rd floor is almost entirely ‘gameplay complete’ as well! There’s one small part that needs work, but overall it’s playable.

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So how about that 2nd floor? That one will take a little longer, the 3rd floor mostly exists as a way to transition the mood of the dungeon prior to the boss fight–so it’s a pretty short floor. The 2nd is where the real meat of this dungeon lives, and it might be a little while before it’s done. There are a few more mechanics I need to implement in order to complete it, so it definitely won’t happen this year. Still, I’ve begun the layout process for it as well!

Moving Up…
I’ve also implemented a minor mechanic: Ladders! I know, I spent so long on those stairs…but it had to be done. Stairs aren’t super compact, so while they can be fun they’re not always the most convenient from a level design perspective. Of course, with new movement mechanics come exciting new movement bugs! I posted a fine pair on Mastodon a couple weeks ago:

• Launched into the stratosphere…
• …or glued to the floor?

Take your pick–or maybe pick the current code where the ladders work right

Lookin’ Good…
Level design isn’t the only thing I’ve been busy with. I’ve also begun gradually making art assets for the game.

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I know it’s not much too look at yet, and there’s still quite a bit of work to be done… it’s gonna take a while. Still, it’s a good start!

Bonus!
Nope, that’s not all! We’ve got more to cover. I’ve been gradually working on the script for some time, though I don’t bring it up very often. But today, we’ve hit a fine milestone: The 1st draft script for Act 1 is officially complete! To be clear–when I talk about the script, I’m only including the mandatory dialogue and cutscenes. Of course, this isn’t everything–there’s quite a bit of incidental dialogue needed for a complete RPG, but it’s hard to write NPCs when you don’t have a place for them to go. Thus, that sort of writing doesn’t go in the main script.

In total, Act 1’s script weighs roughly 16,000 words. There are 6 acts planned, I’ll leave the math as an exercise to the reader. RPGs have a lot of text, who knew???

Alright, that's all for now. I'm probably going to be taking a break for the holidays, so don't expect anything out of me for a couple months. This last burst of progress is nice though, makes me feel like we're actually getting somewhere with this project. Hopefully we can build on that momentum in 2025--I'd love to finally have a demo out for folks to play!

[Hugues Ross]

After a nice extended break, I'm mostly back in the swing of things.

I've started working on something new--that is to say, a new piece of tech for this game, not another game! But it's not quite ready to show off yet, so that'll have to wait until next month. Instead, I wanted to talk about my plans for this year's dev work.

Back to the Combat System
First of all, I want this year's initial push to be back on the combat-side of things. Last year, I reworked and updated a lot of map-related stuff. At this point, making maps is a lot easier and there's a less work left on that end of things. In the meantime, the combat & progression code hasn't changed at all. So! I'm switching gears to get the crunchy bits of the RPG up to speed.

Formations
The first thing I wanted to try was a nicer-looking UI and 'layout' for fights. I'm pretty fond of how Valkyrie Profile arranges units in fights, and I wanted to see how that would look with my own game. It's hard to gauge with a bunch of rectangles, but it already feels more natural to me than a flat line of dudes:

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Granted, I'll need to re-align things a bit...

This has gameplay implications, though--the Final Fantasy-style rows don't really work with a diamond-shaped team. So I'm trying a slightly simplified approach that I'm referring to as 'formations'. You pick a formation for your party members to occupy, with each position within offering its own buffs/debuffs. This slightly reduces the player's options, but I think it could be interesting. I'll have to play with it for a while.

Abilities & Customization
The next big thing I want to tackle is vertical & horizontal progression. I already prototyped some of this, with a system close to FFV's job system. My game's planned system is pretty similar, but there are still some missing pieces to try:

First, because my game's party is larger and more 'specialized' than FFV's I think it makes sense for the characters to be more specialized in gameplay as well. Part of that is access to jobs, but I also want some characters' unique skills to be, well, real skills in a gameplay sense. These are what I'm calling 'Personal Abilities', and since they exist outside of normal jobs they'll take some extra work to implement. At the same time, I also want to play around with different options for ability slots. My goal isn't just to copy my inspiration--it's merely a starting point.

And on that note, let's talk about legally-distinct Djinn. Similar to what I said above, the goal is not to copy Golden Sun either. I like the idea of little hidden puzzle & combat challenges that reward the player with combat skills, but I don't really like how Golden Sun's combat system handles them. Instead, my current plan is to have the little guys you collect provide you with spells and other job-specific combat techniques.

This is taking another note of sorts from Final Fantasy...VI, I think? They're not quite Espers either, though--you can't summon them, but rather than buying spells or getting them by leveling up you find them in the world and equip them.

That's the general plan for stuff I'm trying on the combat side. Whether or not these ideas pan out remains to be seen, all of this needs proper prototyping and testing.

Migrating the Codebase
Another thing I plan to do this year is to start open-sourcing bits of the codebase. I've been thinking about that for a long time, but so far I'd kept the code to myself because, well...with a game like this, you want to keep some of the cards close to your chest.

With that said, I've been meaning to switch git hosts for a while. Knowing that, I figure it's a good opportunity to set up a project on Codeberg and put some things out into the public eye. Initially, it'll just be code from the 'core' module. Over time, I intend bring out more: The higher level code, the devtools, scripts, etc.

As for the assets, my plan is to keep these private until they're in a build. I've got vague idea of cascading branches representing releases, with each progressive slice of content being updated in public once it's been in a public release.

EDIT: One small addendum, since I think some folks will be slightly disappointed not to see more art and map progress after a couple of months. I am drawing more these days, hopefully some of that will translate into game-side work. In particular, I've started sketching some random ideas targeted at nailing down what I want from monster designs. So don't despair! There should be some more flashy stuff coming down the pipeline once that's figured out

[Hugues Ross]

Alrighty, it’s that time of the month again and…I still don’t have much to share on my big project. I’ll talk about it anyway: I’m finally making that FX Editor I’ve been wanting for so long!

Let’s return to the past for a moment. All the way back in 2022 when I revamped the game’s FX system, I left things off with the following note:

I also really need to make some kind of editor for these, as the animation data can get really complex and verbose. But again, health issues… we’ll get there eventually.

What I neglected to mention at the time was just how complex and verbose this data can get–That little fireball animation in the demo I showed off at the time was 80 lines of nested Lua tables. That’s the downside of making complex / reactive stuff 100% data-driven: The data gets gross as heck very quickly. Thankfully, I spent the next few years not having to write much more FX and instead focusing on other parts of the game. But of course, as I turn my attention back to the combat system that’s about to change. And that means I have to make a proper tool for all this.

So, what’s done so far? Let’s go down the list:

• Data conversion - The original FX system was written before the type system I wrote to complement my map editor. I didn’t want to tie FX to that completely though, so I spent some time setting up the game to “inject” type information into FX assets. This allows me to re-use the FX system in other games while also benefiting from type information in this one. Figuring out how to do this cleanly too some time, but it worked and all of my existing assets survived the process.
• Previewing - This is the easiest part, but the editor has a nice functional viewport for seeing the final FX animation in motion. It updates properly in response to data changes as well.
• Creating & editing strips - Strips (the things that represent individual visual elements in the FX) can be created and their initial properties edited without too much fuss.

You might notice a distinct lack of keyframes in that list. Indeed, the last thing needed for a basic functional prototype is perhaps the most critical: I can make strips, and mess with their properties…but I can’t actually animate anything. Until that’s done, I won’t have much fun stuff to show off. Still, a couple weeks ago I recorded a video showing the process of making a particle system. Bugs aside, it went well for a single take!

As you can see, there’s still a ton of room for improvement in the property grid. A good color picker and a way to adjust numbers more smoothly would be great, but I’ve held off for now since I have many more things to do if I ever want to ship the game itself

But Wait! There’s More!
At the end of the month, I wanted to have a little more to show off. So implemented shops!


It wasn’t too bad, there are a few features that I’ll want to add later but the core functionality of “buy and sell stuff” works. The shopkeep will even complain if you can’t afford something!

I was planning to put a little shop…somewhere…in the dungeon I’m working on. Not sure exactly where that’ll wind up yet, but now it’s possible.

The 3rd anniversary of this thread is coming up in a month or so. I’m probably going to skip writing an update though, since between taxes and the love game jam I’m not expecting too much progress! In the meantime though, I might manage to slip in keyframe creation.

[zingo]

Lots of interesting stuff going on there I really like those staggered menues for the battle system... actually, "asymmetry" in general is more visually appealing (to me, at least), and placing the character actions and information closer to the actual characters, just seems like a good idea.

It's also amusing to think that one could simply purchase explosives in a random shop on the shelf right next to some ointment or firewood ... and seeing that description "legitimate goods", one has to wonder what sort of "illegitimate goods" may be available (and where to find those...)

Animations were actually one of the first things I implimented in my own project... at least, on a very rudimentary scale, along with a bare-bones music/sound manager. Luckily, love2d handles a lot of the nuances of graphics and audio already (including "spatial" properties, like gain, position, velocity, etc. none of which I've messed with...yet.) Honestly, I was just tired of seeing motionless "placeholders" everywhere, and listening to the sound of silence...

It's also wonderful to see some more of your art. Naturally, no RPG is complete without a few floating fish monsters (land-sharks, in particular). It seems like you're going full-steam ahead on this now, and could even have something playable within the year (fingers crossed).

Speaking of "placeholders", have you had any luck nailing down the final "look" you're going for yet, or are you still sort of experimenting with that. I'm also intrigued about the whole "job" system. To be honest, that's never been my personal cup of tea, but I understand the appeal. A lot of people want to have as many options/much customization as possible (I'm sort of the opposite. I like characters more pre-defined or "fleshed out" in accordance with the world and story... but that's mostly to do with my growing up on 16-bit console RPGs, where developers had to work within rather strict hardware/software limitations.)

Thanks for the updates. I'm really excited about where this is going. Keep at it

[Hugues Ross]

Art wise...I haven't made too much progress, though I have made some. February & March are the time of year where most of the birthdays I care about land, so most my art time is taken up making gifts for folks instead of doing stuff for myself. I think I'm starting to get a feel for what I want though, I just need to follow through on some more test assets before I can say for sure.