#3: Few words about story and endings

Yes, there will be story, lore and other shit. But it will work a little diferently from other games.

As you know, raising your stats will basicaly change the way you will play the game. Not much, since the overal goals of the game will be the same. Raise stats, so you can make money, raise them more so you can make more money, befriend people so they can raise your stats more so you can make better thigs to make more money.  Does that mean that it doesnt matter what job you choose? Will the game be the same no matter what you do?

No

That is where the story comes in. Your stats, time and other things you did will also work as triggers. Lets say. You spent three weeks in the game. You raised your cooking and farming to level 30. This will trigger an event. Old hungry man apears at your door and begs for some food. You can give him some food or not. The game will remember your choice and after some time, you will se the results of your decision. Decline giving the man some food and you will find him dead in the forrest. Give him some food and will come back next month and try to rob you. This is not actual thing that will happen, just an example.

To make things easier for me, there wont be whole bunch of “branching”. So if you save someone, he will apear after some time to thank you and that will be it for that character. But dont worry. There will be plenty of events that will have more of an impact on other events. And after eight years, the game will show you the outcomes of the more important decisions, fallout style. Then it will take in consideretion your stats and show you how you ended up.

So as you can see, it combines some elements from fallout and princess maker. This will be easy to do, but will take considerable amount of time.

So, the ending will have three parts. Results of your important decisions, How you ended up after spending eight years on the island, and the last thing, what you learned about the island itself.  But I will talk about that next week.

#2: Usable items

Today I implemented the item using system. It alows you to select and item and use iton something in the game world. This is really important part of the game, because it is the basis for multiple upcoming systems, like planting or giving stuff to other people. Here is a screenshot: This window shows when you press shift and closes when you press shift again. If you select some item and press the action button, which is usulaly spacebar or enter, your character uses said item on tile right infornt of her. And if there is something that is suposed to react to that item on this tile, than something will happen. This can be used for variety of things. Things like above mentioned farming, opening doors with keys, minig, woodcutting and so on. So, now I have the most important things finished. They still need some fleshing out, graphicaly speaking, but they seem to be bug free and easy to use as a foundation for future systems. So, now comes the more boring part of development. It is time to actualy sit down and do some spread sheets, Make list of all the usable items, crafting recipes, level requirements, design all characters, write all the dialog, prepare some basic maps and layouts for the game world,… There is shitload of things to do and most of it is not something I can take screenshot of and show you. This means that I will update this blog less regularily, but dont worry. I will still have things to say. I Will try to post some updates every sunday, so dont forget to check here from time to time. Well, thats it for now.

#1: Training / job window, Sprites changing with equipment and age.

Training / job window

Today, I spent some time working on the window that shows right before accepting job or training. It is still work in progress. I will change the formating a bit and play with the colors, but the entire thing already works quite well.

Also, All of the graphical assets are just placeholders. I am focusing on coding right now. I will focus on graphics after I finish most of the basic coding stuff.

So, with that out of the way, lets begin.

In the upper left corner you can see the name of the job. Below, there is window with resources you need to begin your training. Number on the left shows the amount of resources you need. Number on the right shows the amount of resources you have. Color of the right number changes if you have enough of them. Right window shows how will your stats change. Some jobs will even lover your stats. This will again change the color of the number shown.

So, your character has enough money, but not enough food. What will happen if you accept the job?

Yeah. Who would have thought, right? Same thing hapens if you dont have enough money or other items that your teacher / employer might need. So, now you have enough food and enough money. This hapens after accepting the job.

Also bear in mind that this text is there just for me to know if everything works as intended. Final game will have some short dialog between your character and your teacher instead.

So, this is how the job window looks, if you decide to take the training again.

As you can see, you lost some money and food. Everything works as it should. Now, lets look at the stats. These are your stats before training.

And after

Everything works as intended. Stats are changing correctly. Same thing goes for resources and other stuff. Again, keep in mind that these values are just for testing purposes. Same goes for skill names. I will be actualy removing some of them and renaming others so please bear that in mind.  And now for something a bit older.

Sprites changing with equipment and age

This is something I was working on before starting this blog, but I will put it here anyway. And again, All of the graphical assets are just placeholders. I am focusing on coding right now. I will focus on graphics after I finish most of the basic coding stuff. I cant stress that enough. Many people seem to not read this part and then they are all like “why are you using stock assests? This sucks” So now that I put it here in nice bold text, hopefuly everyone will see it.

Now for the main part. As you know, your character will spend eight years on the island. This means you will start game as ten years old and end it as eighteen years old. Your apearance will change with years spent on the island. Your apearance will change every year. This will make making sprites bearable and even then I will need to make shitload of them. I am using ripped Princess maker 2 sprites as placeholders. This is the basic look with the basic clothes

And now, seven years later

As you can see, sprite has changed depending on your age. Other parameters do not change your look. Yet.

Also, your sprite changes depending on the clothes / armor you equip. Lets equip something different.

This system is pretty easy to use. Adding new clothes takes like one minute. Drawing the sprites is entirely different matter though.

And lastly, your equiped clothes change your characters ingame sprite too. These are the basic clothes

And after equiping the green fancy dress

All those things are just cosmetic, but in my opinion, these little details make the game much better. As somene once said, details make the whole picture. And I really think that this is true.

So, that is all for now. I will post again after I do something.

About the project

This game is aiming to be combination of multiple games, like harvest moon, princess maker and animal crossing.  For now, the game has no name so I am calling it simply PMHMproject. Creative. Isnt it?

The game takes place in year 2020. Third world war ended and now is the right time for the winning side to dispose of some unwanted individuals. Those people are being sent to abandoned island far away from civilization.

You play as a ten years old girl. Her parents upset some really powerfull people so now they are being sent to this island full of convicts and you are coming with them.  Sadly, they die shortly after ariving because why not.

The main goal of the game is to survive for eight years. Thankfully, large portion of island inhabitants are friendly and willing to help you.

Game is focused on increasing your stats so you can do more dificult tasks and craft more expensive items, selling said items so you can aford buying food, crafting ingredients, new clothes, armor and other stuff. You can talk to other NPCs and make them your friends. People that are friends with you will offer you free stuff, tell you about hidden items, give you new crafting recipes and most importantly, htey will be able to teach you their trade. If you befriend a smith, he will be able to raise your smithing skill and allow you to use his forge, farmer will teach you how to farm and give you free seeds and so on.

Learning skills is heavily inspired by princess maker. You can explore the game world as long as you want. Time doesnt flow while you are exploring, fighting, selling / buing things. Only way to adwance time is by learning things from other people or crafting more complex items. This will advance time by one week and will consume some of your food and might even require some money and other items, depending on person teaching you and his friendlines towards you.

Fighting in this game will be mostly optional. You will be able to meet dangerous wild animals, bandits and other enemies, but most of them will have multiple ways of dealing with them. You can throw some food to a wild animal to distract it or pay some money to bandits so they will leave you alone for some time. Also, if you are rich enough, you will be able to hire bodyguards to protect you while you walk through dangerous territory. Some people might even be willing to folow you if you befriend them.

This is the original vision. Things might change as I progress with development. I might change things, add things or remove things, but the main theme of the game will stay the same. Walking around, talking to people, crafting and selling stuff, raising your stats, exploring the island and doing some fighting on the side.