The Dreamveil

Deserted Island

2011-09-22T18:10:00.000-07:00

I just played through the puzzle for this, and believe me when I say it's a challenge. A fair challenge, but a challenge nonetheless.

I've already done the NPCs. Not much were needed, just a few to give hints as to solving the puzzle on offer. I just need to figure out a few cutscenes.

1: The arrival. The characters should chatter amongst themselves before heading off.
2: Talking with the captain. He's unwilling to leave unless someone takes out the monster, but if the players reassure him that they can take it on then he'll get to going there and then. Probably offer to save the game before they leave, if that's the option they take. It's a hard fight.
3: Leaving while the monster is still alive. It will attack the ship.
4: Attacking the monster by the island. Not exactly the most exciting cutscene as the monster just attacks them, but it still needs to be set up.
5: Leaving the island after killing the monster.

I should probably have other things for the characters, but can't think of anything. Given that they're stuck on an island, I may have them each talk a little about themselves. Sernt can talk about how he's always wanted to see the world, Lyla can be annoyed at him for taking this so lightly, Gaita can be snippy at her because she looks just like the person that murdered his wife, Talon can try to keep them all from falling out... Yeah, have all that in the opening bit that sounds good. But outside of that... I don't think it fits to do that anywhere.

Return to Oblit's Island

2011-09-17T18:32:00.001-07:00

There are two towns for this part of the game. Oblit's Castle, and the freshly reconstructed Torris.

Oblit Castle would have to be set before Oblit's death, because the castle would be in lockdown after that. People will have their dialogue shifted around so that they're blaming magic for all the bad stuff we've seen occuring throughout the game.

Torris will be much the same. Though there will be one character that will trade an item found in the volcano for a thing the players can use to not be damaged by the lava.

Other topics of conversation can include:

Someone in Oblit mentioning Torris
Someone in Torris mentioning how the town was rebuilt

Volcanic Redesign

2011-09-02T19:45:00.000-07:00

I'm not entirely happy with the way the volcano/fire nexus dungeon came out, so I am expanding it slightly. I will be utilising a technique that will let me be more economical with regards to the maps.

As in, I'm using the same number of maps for this dungeon. I'm just using them in a smarter way than they were before. Rather than using different maps to illustrate the same room with different laval levels, I have a smarter way to do it involving events changing which tileset is being used.

Anyway, those new rooms!

What were formally rooms 3 and 4 are to be moved downstairs. The new room 3 will be a branching room, extending in two directions. One north, the other south. South is the new room 4, which will lead the player downstairs and in turn into the newer area.

The real trick now is figuring out what goes north of the new room 3. What sort of puzzle can I come up with? I think this is a prime opportunity to make use of the pillars from the earthen dungeon, though not in quite the same (ahem) convoluted manner. Just the one screen this time around, and their position will be represented by a boolean switch rather than an integer.

There will be a lava pool in the room as well, and the gate for that will also be represented by a switch. Within that pool will be the pillars. The real trick at this point would be figuring out how the hell the raised pillars are any use when there'd be lava filling the room. It's the same problem as for the escape route - what does the raised sand block off? In this case the answer would have to be access to something on the lower level. Either a treasure chest or a switch. This definitely needs to be carefully considered, without question.

The other puzzle I was considering was one that would make use of pushers, because I do seem to be rather fond of them. I need to think carefully about this, and what else could be in these rooms.

Thieves City, for the last time!

2011-08-21T20:23:00.000-07:00

This time, it is a very different party that visits the city. This time, there is no Gaita present. This will surely change the way things are run. After all, they are not exactly used to the place, now are they?

Here's what I currently know about the situation:

1: It can't progress until Death arrives from Sotop, thus the player needs to do something there first.
2: Death goes to the ice caves after a brief meeting with the party there.
3: Death intends to frame the situation on Oblit in some way.

Four Tasks

2011-07-29T09:06:00.000-07:00

The player must undertake four tasks.

The first is to try and raise the confidence of the person that was taken hostage before. The player can help them improve their fighting ability, and then spars with them. The intention here is to lose on purpose to boost their confidence.

The second isn't sure he trusts the former prisoners. This is a tricky one that requires me to think more carefully about what must be done.

The third is one I've already come up with the answer for. One of the people there is a demolitions expert, and helps Lerin blow up the mine entrance. For this one to work, I'll need to tweak things so that the trio find it demo'd either way.

The last needs the most work, I think. mediate a discussion between two friends... kind of tricky. I need more time to think about the even numbered ones, it seems.

Sotop, again

2011-07-28T16:25:00.000-07:00

The party must visit Sotop, and thus the NPC dialogue of both Ranol and Cerin will be altered to make clear that the party must go there. There are only two ways into the forest. The northern one isn't possible to access since Gaita isn't in the party and they need someone that can pick locks. As such, the party will enter the southern entrance and will surely see Lerin lying motionless near the entrance.

Attempts to enter Sotop will fail until they speak to her.

I was originally planning to make the party acquire a compass to enter the forest in the first place, but I do not believe it is truly necessary. Given what happens, the party shouldn't actually need it at all.

With that taken care of, I should focus my attention back on what transpires when the party enters this portion of the game.

Sotop's NPCs

To begin with, four of the NPCs are concerned about what has transpired. Where I previously discussed this.

That's a good place to start working from, I think.

Returning to Kron

2011-07-27T12:11:00.000-07:00

I've actually already managed the cutscene. All that remains is to make a few alterations to what people talk about.

There will likely be two different portions here. The first, before fighting the boss. The second, after fighting the boss.

The first thing that will change is that trust will become static. It no longer really matters, thus anything that changes it will no longer count for anything. This can be worked around quite easily.

As for the second part, there will be nine new characters introduced to the city. Additionally, the inn and the shop will open for business again.

In the new Kron, they will almost certainly dicuss:
Rumours of the resistance sending Disease in.
Disbelief about what happened.
Hatred aimed at resistance.
Thankful that the party stopped the plague.

Wormule

2011-07-24T11:24:00.000-07:00

The purpose of Wormule is largely to get the party to earn their way into the toxic cave in some manner. It also provides a resting place for travelling to the cave, given that it might well be necessary to grind a few levels out to complete it.

The first thing that comes to mind, is this. Rikav leaves the other two to talk to his old friend, while the other two have to do something to prove that they are capable of withstanding the toxic cave. Rikav knew they could pass the test, but was not sure about them.

The likeliest is that the party find themselves under mock attack from guards, who claim that they have evidence of magic use in Wormule. The party must fight the soldiers.

Alternatively, a mage can summon a monster that the party must fight.

Either way, it's all just a test.

As for the NPCs, there are two special ones here. The first is a "cauldron brewer," that can take several different items and make up something with them. I'll program this much later on, when I have a better handle of items, what they do and where they're gotten. The other is the elder, who is an old friend of Rikav's.

The other NPCs will likely discuss all manner of topics, it's really not all that important. Wormule is primarily secretly a mage hideout, and has resistance ties. They may discuss what they believe is causing the monsters to appear.

Kron NPCs

2011-07-17T20:38:00.000-07:00

And now things get complicated.

I want the answer given by the party initially to have some sort of consequence somewhere in Kron, so it's almost certain that the NPCs will all have different reactions to the party depending on what answer they gave.

On top of this is the nurse. I feel that she will be in a bar or something along those lines, unwinding after a hard day of work. The party should convince her that they know a little about medicine, and want to help. I still need to figure out how that works exactly.

Things to do:

1: Figure out how many NPCs there are.
2: Assign consequences to them based on the possible responses.
3:Also utilise the trust variable in some way, making the whole thing that much more complicated.

Additionally, I've figured out a cool trick. If the player does insist on opening chests he finds, then the trust value will drop. It can be pushed up in various ways, but that sort of activity won't help matters along all that much.

Kron NPCs and Cutscenes

2011-07-09T20:14:00.000-07:00

And we're back in Kron. Couple of cutscenes here. The first one has the party arriving and finding out about the quarantine. I'm considering giving the player options with consequences here, because... well, this is supposed to be an RPG. They'll be treated differently based on what they say, is what I'm thinking here.

The second cutscene would have to be Rikav realising what is causing the sickness in the first place. Naturally, I'll need to consider what goes in between these cutscenes. After that, the action shifts out of Kron for a bit. When it returns, it's for the showdown with Disease, which is not a hard cutscene to run.

The talk of the town will be the quarantine, naturally. People lamenting about lost love ones, or concern about someone that's fallen ill. That sort of thing. It shouldn't be too hard, and many of the people will have fallen sick themselves.

Elements that can be affected by responses:

Revealing medical experience will make it easier to get in to see the sick.
Implying that there is someone else up the mountain, or that there is another route out through the mountain will make it harder to get back up there.
Stealing the plank of wood will be a lot harder if they don't trust you.

I can think of three different ways that the party can sneak into the medical area.

Convincing the captain of the guard that they know something about medicine, or raising their trust level high enough will be sufficient.
Befriending the doctor.
Disguising as guards and walking in.

Once they're in, Rikav and Maih immediately notice what's going on, and Rikav explains that they need to break the quarantine so that he can reach the antidote. He tells Ray that spreading the illness won't be a problem. Maih tells them how they can escape.

The next problem is stealing the plank of wood which they need to escape.

State that they intend to use it to barricade the way they came in.
If they're not trusted very much, then it will be necessary to distract the guards

Both of these can be used to persuade the guards to let them use the western exit as well.

Path to Kron

2011-07-08T19:17:00.000-07:00

I'm kind of glossing over the Path NPCs for the moment, so that I can focus my attention on something I noticed that's kind of bugging me. Namely, the route down the mountain to Kron.

It's a fairly simple route, and I don't have any trouble with the main route itself. Leave it as it is. Let the player just go right down without having to worry about puzzles or any such thing. However, I do feel that offering the option to solve puzzles for access to treasure chests is an idea I really like.

There are three rooms, and two new toys I intend to introduce.

The first floor can introduce the "windmill switch," which activates when it's hit by a gust of wind. Easy enough. Have a statue near a windmill, facing the wrong way. This fits into just about any room. All that's needed is something preventing the player from getting to the treasure chest.

The second floor can introduce the heads. I was intending for the heads to be pushable items, but that would raise all sorts of complications. So - no.

Instead, the player can turn them around much like the statues can be turned. When a head is struck by a gust, the head blows out a gust (essentially changing the direction of the gust of wind). The second room can have a section where a statue is blowing a gust of wind along a corridor, hitting a statue that sends the gust at a ninety degree angle that manages to stop the player from progressing down it. The head can be turned by approaching it from another entrance, but the head prevents using that to progress through the corridor. Thus the player must turn the head, and head through the corridor while the gust is pre-occupied. There they will find chest(s).

The third room has a statue next to a windmill. The player will have to turn the statue and some heads to make certain that the gusts reach the windmill.

Espository cutscene

2011-07-04T20:17:00.000-07:00

This is kind of an important cutscene, which should tell the player quite a lot of information. Details on what the Dreamveil is, what the Nexus points are and why they are important, as well as what will happen if the Dreamveil is weakened or outright removed.

However, I'm of the firm belief that players should not have to sit through lengthy cutscenes unless it is absolutely vital to them knowing what the hell is going on. To that end, I'm offering the player the option to skip most of the exposition and get right to the last point: What they're going to do about the crisis.

The player will have the option between the following pieces of exposition:

1: The Dreamveil
2: The Epiphany
3: Nexus
4: Understand everything.

The last of these moves the plot along, the other three are optional pieces of information available to the player to help them gain an appreciation for what's going on in the world.

1: The Dreamveil
A demonstration of magic in action, and how the Dreamveil inhibits magic.

Show the "Final" map, with Maih healing a random NPC and Rikav melting ice. Explain that using magic exhausts the magic user, because they must push past the Dreamveil.

2: The Epiphany
Show events that occured during the epiphany, explaining what caused it.

Show the town in the final dungeon, with NPCs transforming into monsters, while others run around terrified. Rikav explains that without the Dreamveil, any and all thoughts can become reality, and people have less control over their thoughts than they truly believe. The Dream Lord believed the people could control all of this, and use their newfound ability to warp reality with ease to improve their lives but he was very badly mistaken!

3: Nexus
Show the four Nexus, and explain that they're all used for different purposes.

A brief shot showing the areas each of the Nexus are in, while Rikav explains that these are the areas where reality is most vulnerable to alteration. Some use that fact to maintain highly difficult local spells.If someone meddles with a Nexus unwisely, however, the results can be catastrophic: First for areas near the four Nexus, then for the entire world as the effect expands!

4: Plot Advancement
The player must journey to each Nexus and ensure that they're not unbalanced, to prevent the Dreamveil from weakening any further.

Back to Path and Kron

2011-07-02T16:58:00.000-07:00

For the next portion of the game, the player has to travel from Path to Kron with the original party of Maih, Ray and Rikav. The people in Path will have different dialogue, likely related to them leaving. There will only be one cutscene for this part.

Basically, Rikav will explain in much more detail what the Dreamveil is and what happened during that time so long ago. There will probably be some kind of flashback to the events in question. Other than that, I doubt this part would take more than two weeks to accomplish. Perhaps even a week, depending on how distracted I am.

Thieves City NPCs(again)

2011-05-21T16:19:00.000-07:00

The second visit to the thieves city. When the party first arrives, they are immediately taken to meet with boss, who has been expecting Gaita's arrival. After a brief scene, he agrees to let them do some work for him in exchange for Gaita's life.

The bar bit and the trading sequence to get in is already dealt with. However, the scene where Steve is found must still be done. After that, he would go off to meet with the boss in an attempt to kill him. The party confronts him, saves him, and then the boss gives them some useful information even if it's not what they came for. Namely, how to open the way Lyla left Oblit's castle. Boss also warns that people are getting restless the world over, and a fight may be brewing on the horizon.

Now, for the people. Many of them have dialogue already, and a lot of it is still applicable. However, I feel the need to tweak them a little to better demonstrate how the world is changing. In particular, Steve's attempts to take over the city.

One other idea I'm toying with is a dungeon. Let's say, Steve flees into an underground area that used to be a prison for thieves. Thus, the locks are all thief-proof and need special keys to open. May do this, may not. I'll think about it some more and get back to it once I've done everything else Thieves needs.

Lake Cutscene

2011-05-07T20:03:00.000-07:00

When Talon and Lyla get through the lake, and finally catch up to the guy they were looking for, there will have to be a series of conversations to move the plot onwards.

The first part will have them interrupted by the guards, who will attack Talon and Lyla for conspiring to keep him hidden (or something).

After that, the guy will disguise himself using his mastery of biological magic and accompany them to the resistance base in Cerin. Once there, he'll reveal that Lyla is almost certainly the real Lyla, and will reveal why he betrayed his fellow mages in the first place.

That done, they have to decide on what to do now. Kalibrand suggests they investigate the now abandoned mine, as there might be clues there... but before they can do anything, they encounter Sernt and Gaita, who tell them about the mine anyway, and they wind up heading to the thieves city instead after another conversation.

Ranol NPCs (again)

2011-04-30T15:17:00.000-07:00

Now that the murder mystery distraction is dealt with, it's time for me to get back onto the Ranol NPCs.

There are certainly more local events for them to discuss. The murder at the museum, the monsters at the lake, and the guards looking for that local are certainly grounds for plenty of gossip throughout Ranol. Though I do count around 31 NPCs, not counting the museum guys. I may well just have the museum closed for renovations following the murder, though. It would certainly make things much simpler, and there's no reason for the player to go back in there. Though I must say that making statements like that kind of makes me want to make there a reason for the player to go back in.

Likely sources of conversation include:
1: The museum(including the murder)
2: The lake
3: The mining good being taken away by boat.
4: Monster attacks in the area.
5: Rumours of magic users in the area
6: The plague at Kron.

And I'm pretty sure I can make around 31 variations on them, possibly with throwing in a few things like item giveaways and requests for assistance. Hm, perhaps someone can hire the players to take a message somewhere? Yeah, something like that. Surprised I've not tried that sort of stuff before. It's a good opportunity for EXP and suchlike.

Mystery at the Museum

2011-03-10T21:25:00.000-08:00

An interesting idea was proposed to me regarding the museum. If the player was able to help solve a mystery regarding either a murder or a theft that occurs at the museum, they might be granted special permission to visit the lake by the authorities.

Of course, this leaves me asking waht exactly the mystery is and how it is to be solved.I can think of a couple of possibilities.

1: Alibi checking. Everybody gives an alibi accounting for their movements during the time the crime could have occured in. Some accounts may match up, while others would not.
2: Evidence gathering. This gets a little bit phoenix wright-ish, but the player could potentially examine items to check if there's evidence that contradicts a statement given by a suspect.

I'll need to think some more as to the nature of this mystery, because I think it's a pretty good thing to have at this point. It would make the section feel a lot more alive than it would otherwise.

One suggestion that I rather like, is that the guards are too busy to actually deal with the mystery themselves, and thus don't care all that much whether Talon or Lyla investigate or not. They correctly point out that this is very dubious (giving amateurs permission to perform their own investigation? That's actually really a bad thing. Despite what various mystery fictions will have us believe.) Lyla is rather shocked by their apathy towards (let's say it's a murder), while Talon feels that they can't let it lie like this. The two don't agree on much, but feel that this is something they can resolve by working together.

I feel that eight suspects is the right amount. I'll generate names for them later on, but the first thing I need to figure out is what exactly happened. A murder seems the likeliest course to take here, as it would get the right emotional responses. That being the case, I need to figure out the motive, opportunity and means. From that I can work backwards to figure out the rest of the case, and how the player can solve it.

Motive: Revenge. The killer discovered that the victim was responsible for the death of his/her brother/sister/other family member, and decided to exact revenge.

Opportunity: The two would be alone in the back room, when the crime was committed. The murderer lured the victim there, then snuck back through the central room to meet up with a friend from the other side of the room from the scene of the crime. They then discovered the body together, so that the friend could be sent off to fetch help while the killer made sure there was no evidence present on the scene. I may need to play around with alibis a little to make quite sure this works properly. But we'll see how that goes once I've figured out further details.

Means: The weapon could be something that was on display.

If there are eight suspects, they'll need names. That's not really important right now, though... So instead, I'll simply refer to them as A - H.

A is the killer.

A: Begins by talking with B in the kitchen, before both moved out towards the dinner area. A left the room to commit the murder in the room to the south of the central room, before returning to the dinner area. The body had been hidden in the central room, which was in turn locked by A who had the key. A returned to the scene of the crime and conversed with C for a time, and once C left, dragged the body out of the central room and left it in the room the murder was committed in. The central door was then locked again, and A left to talk to C until the body was discovered in the room north of the central room. A planted the key on D to make it seem as though they had committed the crime.

How is this crime solved?

A will tell the truth regarding who they were talking to, and when, but will rather crucially lie regarding where they went during the time the murder was committed. There will be a key clue discovered in the central room, something which fell from the pocket of the victim indicating that he was in that room. When the key is found on D's person, it will make it seem as though they are the guilty party... Except that testimony from E and F indicates that this is impossible. D didn't go down the side room necessary to reach the scene of the crime, according to E, and according to F nobody unlocked the northern door, which means it's impossible for D to have committed this crime. D was never there, meaning D has an airtight alibi.

The only people that were seen going down there were the victim, A, F and C. However, F came back up from there before the victim went down, and C left it before A did. While this is perhaps a little circumstantial, she'll probably confess to the crime if presented with the logical inevitability that she must have committed it. Nobody else had the opportunity to do it, and the witness testimony will back that up. If I can think of anything more definite as proof, I'll put it in.

I may also make it six suspects rather than eight. Might be simpler for me in the long run.

Ranol NPCs

2011-03-09T21:48:00.000-08:00

To be frank, I would really like to be able to have the Museum open to the public. This would actually be pretty straightforward to make happen, but I'd need to have a reason for the player to go in there aside from the great museum theft bit earlier on.

In any case, the Ranol part of the game. Lyla will have been treated with a disguise spell against her wishes for her own protection, and will likely be told that they're intending to visit someone that might know a lot more about duplicates than they do.

Ranol isn't far from Cerin. About two or three screens away, I think. On arrival, the lake should be blocked to prevent public access given that there's recently been a sharp increase in monsters attacking the area. Of course, the person they're intending to visit happens to have special permission to get out there and visit the lake.

This may well be the thing I need to give the player a reason to go into the museum. What if, somehow the museum would help Talon and the "disguised" Lyla get access to the lake? I think this would make this part of the game feel more like an RPG than just having them go off to the lake and be done with it.

I'll figure out what does happen later on. This post is supposed to be regarding the Ranol NPCs.

There are several things for them to discuss here, as it happens. The fact that boats aren't going out anymore, the museum (including the foiled breakin), the recently closed down mine, the nearby Sotop forest and how everybody tries to avoid it, the lake, the person they're there to meet, the fact that there are guards there to look for him...

But there will probably be other people there, talking about whatever quest I have the player go on to get access to the lake (or even the museum) to begin with.

After the retreat

2011-03-02T18:05:00.000-08:00

The resistance heads off to another base of theirs, intending to lie low for a while. There will need to be two cutscenes here. The first for the peninsula arrival, and the other for when they arrive at the base.

The purpose of these two cutscenes are as follows.

1: Establish that Lyla only came with because these guys aren't trying to kill her. She disagrees with their idealogy, but right now she needs their help. Kalibrand revels in this a little, and Talon asks him to keep it down because he needs to think.

2: Lyla goes to sleep in a bed while Talon and Kalibrand discuss the situation. Neither of them is particularly happy about this turn of events, though for slightly different reasons. Talon suspects this is the real Lyla, and Kalibrand is adamant that it is a fake sent to trick them. Talon asks him if there's a way they can be sure since he's their expert, and Kalibrand admits that there is one person that knows more on the subject. He lives in Ranol, and sided with Oblit when he started the magic purge. Kalibrand is weary of approaching him, but Talon thinks it might well be worth the attempt. They leave, and neither realises that Lyla was awake the entire time and is wondering whether she is the real Lyla after all.

Resistance Base Invasion

2011-02-22T15:05:00.000-08:00

Now I'm at a particularly tricky part of the game which always troubles me when I think about it. It's that part where Lyla's being held in the prison and Talon is controlled by the player. I feel that having the attack happen right away isn't quite dramatic enough, but can't think of any way to pad things out.

Obviously, there should be a conversation between the two through the cell bars. But where to go from there?

I feel that this part needs to be handled carefully, and there are a few requirements for it.

1: I would like the player to be able to save the game before the attack begins.

2: The strength of the soldiers will depend upon the level of the party. There is a good chance that Lyla wasn't levelled up at all, while Talon might have been. Or the other way around might be true. Probably the first because Lyla didn't have a mandatory boss fight at any point.

I'll probably just make it a conversation, a wipe with text that declares it a few weeks since Lyla was captured, then Talon goes to visit her and the attack starts. She's taken out of the cell so they can use her as a hostage more effectively while they escape, but the soldiers attack them anyway.

Lyla is flummoxed and winds up having to help her captors to save her own life. Then Desire shows up disguised as Lyla, cue one more fight against the soldiers.

There are a couple of ways to make sure the soldiers are balanced against the party levels. I'll probably put a conditional statement in the event that triggers the battles.

Lyla's Introduction

2011-02-13T19:54:00.000-08:00

I'll be looking over what I need to do for her introduction cutscene soon enough, but I've also decided on a few small changes. Partly for plot reasons, partly for gameplay.

First of all, I want Lyla to have to go out and talk to people in the castle. The minigames are still optional, but the idea is that she has to overhear about that training area Talon wrecked in the previous section was actually a new town. Once that's done, she'll find the key that unlocks the secret passageway, and when she goes back to her room, she'll find that it unlocks the door by herself and the player can go in whenever. I think this is a better way to manage this part of the game.

Now, as for the people. They'll be very courteous and polite, because this is the Princess they will be talking to. They'll be very heavily anti-magic and blame the monsters appearing on mages ignoring them and using magic anyway. Such reckless people.

Talon's Introduction

2011-02-09T20:49:00.000-08:00

I need to handle this part carefully. The transition from Gaita and Sernt to Talon and his resistance guys isn't exactly easily handled...

After all, the last we saw of Gaita and Sernt they are confronting Talon and Lyla in Certin. How should I best introduce Talon, then?

Well, to begin with it must be clear that he's the leader of the resistance. Then I should move on to his beginning plot. That he's waiting for a messenger to arrive, and he is late. Talon should then head out to find the missing man by himself. From there, he does just that, and things kind of go along the way I'd intended them to.

Cerin NPCs

2011-02-01T16:27:00.000-08:00

I've managed to set up the NPCs and cutscenes leading up to Sotop to my own satisfaction. I may change this opinion later on, but for now it seems to work.

Cerin is actually a little simpler than a lot of other places given that it doesn't change at all due to plot needs. Unfortunately this also limits the sort of "Local Events" they can be discussing a fair amount which makes it a little harder to write NPC dialogue.

What makes Cerin stand out? Well, it's got a hidden base for the resistance. Hardly something the people in town are likely to bring up to just about anyone, eh?

The more likely approach to take here is to have people discuss the state of the world in general. Use the place for generic chit-chat that establishes the setting better. I don't think there's much else for them to discuss.

It will also be necessary to do something for Ranol too, though that's a little easier given that there is the museum and the lake to talk about.

Sticking around Sotop

2011-01-01T12:55:00.000-08:00

I've been agonising about this off and on for the last two months, and I think I've got something good in mind. It occured to me that the spell on the forest will still be keeping the party trapped within Sotop, so what if they had to retrieve a method to leave at all? The townspeople could help out in such a quest, realising how important it is that the party is able to leave...

The details are a little sketchy right now, but I think that's a good place to start.

Edit the first:
Further ideas on this topic: The player must find a particular macguffin before being able to leave. The townspeople know a little on the subject matter, and will direct the party towards finding the item. It will be formed of four parts, though I have yet to develop a name for what it is.

Edit the second:
Suddenly it becomes obvious what the item should be. Get the player searching for a needle, a lodestone, a glass container and a spindle. Using these, a compass is formed. Seemed kind of obvious in hindsight.

Another thing I've been thinking about. Rather than having Gaita simply unlock anything he encounters, why not make a minigame out of it? I'm already considering possibilities for such a game...

Recruiting Gaita

2010-10-20T19:55:00.000-07:00

Given the way that he's introduced to the plot, it's entirely likely that Gaita will not be particularly friendly at first. I mean, he just woke up after breaking out of a prison, being forced to leave his wife behind in the process and finds himself in a village full of psychics. And two of them have been picking through his brain to find out what has been happening to him lately.

He might be a little bit hostile, is what I'm saying.

However, at the same time he might spot an opportunity to make allies, and bury that hostility.These people could surely help him rescue his wife, or at least help him acquire the resources to do so. They seem to not like the mine and think it is the root of their problems. Play along with that, whynot? Persuade them that the first step to shutting it down is to get the prisoners out of there. The real best way to get the mine shut down is to make it a venture that is not safe or not profitable. Not that they need to actually think much further than freeing the prisoners anyway, since the mine shuts down after they're freed. Desire was planning on having them and the guards killed in a tragic mine collapse, or perhaps savagely killed by a wild magical beast - which fits the later boss battle actually - since the mine has actually served its purpose by the time the prisoners are freed.

Anyway, part of me wants to make Gaita stick around Sotop for a little while. But I can't think of any justification for it to happen, so... let's just have him join the party, then they can head off to the mine.

Thieves City Rethoughts

2010-10-19T21:13:00.000-07:00

One of the major problems I have with Gaita's flashback portion is that he doesn't actually do much at the Thieves City. I'm thinking, a sequence should occur wherein the player sees more of how Gaita got conned out of money, so they sympathise with him more. Not sure how to do this quite yet, so until I get some better ideas, I'll progress to the next part of the game - the capture and escape sequence from the mine.

Gaita's Memories (NPCs and cutscenes)

2010-08-20T09:49:00.000-07:00

This first visit to the Thieves City should meet certain qualifications. To prohibit exposition being dumped on the player when they transition from Sernt and Lerin to Gaita, I intend to have the NPCs explain who he is and where he is when they are talked to. From this, the player can easily infer what they must do, and where to go. Though perhaps a brief "My name is Gaita... I am a thief..." to transition into the sequence would be helpful.

And what must the player do here? Simple enough. Find their "partner", discover that he's cheated them out of money Gaita was going to use to pay off The Boss. He attempts to explain to The Boss what happened, but has to flee anyway.

The museum sequence should be simple enough. Gaita and his wife discuss their plan to break in and get the diamond, then they break in. Simple enough.

When they're caught and put in the mine, that sequence is also pretty simple. Gaita's wife stages a fight between two other prisoners, distracting the guard long enough for the pair to flee. In fact, I believe I have already made this sequence in the game so no further work should be needed here.

The real problem is the Thieves City, then. Oh, and I should also make sure to put an event on the screens with save points to ensure it transitions the screen to a grey filter.

Elder's Exposition + Discovery of Gaita

2010-08-14T19:51:00.000-07:00

I feel confident in the way I've written the people in Sotop for the monster invasion section. Basically, surprised and terrified about the monsters that appeared out of nowhere.

The next piece involves Sernt and Lerin talking to the Elder, reporting on what has happened and how to best prepare Sotop for these sorts of events occuring in the future.

This should transition into them finding Gaita's unconscious body in the forest several weeks later. I'll need to spend a little time planning those scenes.

Monsters in Sotop!

2010-08-10T11:33:00.000-07:00

Now that the hostage situation has been dealt with, I must transition the player into the next gameplay moment. Four monsters have appeared in Sotop, and are terrorising the populace. Sernt must deal with them all, before dealing with an even bigger monster that appears afterwards.

There are two ways I can see this working.

1: The two head back into town having dealt with the intruders and freed the hostage only to find a new problem waiting for them when they got back.
2: Transition them to the Elder's room, where they report on what happened... then word gets to them of the monsters above.

Hostage Situation

2010-08-04T08:24:00.000-07:00

In attempting to define the conversation leading into the battle with the intruders, I need to figure out one final piece of the puzzle before actually making or writing it.

Basically, I want to give the player a choice before heading into the battle - how to free the hostage. These should have consequences leading into the battle.

The first that I think is pretty obvious really is that Lerin uses her psychic abilities to distract the intruders, allowing the hostage to run off. This will result in Lerin having less MP than normal leading into the fight.

The second is that Sernt gets physically involved, resulting in him being slightly more damaged than he ought to be at the beginning of the fight.

I'm trying to figure out other approaches that could be taken here, and what the consequences could be.

Sotop Thoughts

2010-07-29T13:49:00.000-07:00

I've made a few alterations to the forest design, to deal with the problem of how to prevent the players from going into places they shouldn't go yet. It wasn't easy, but it seems to work. The forest now loops, top to bottom (and vice versa).

My main concern for now is the dialogue for the cutscenes and the NPCs. Once I have that figured out, I should be okay.

The cutscene I'll work on next will be the one where the party catches up to the intruders. In it, they should complain that they're lost, and will attempt to threaten to hurt their hostage until Lerin manages to use her abilities to distract the intruder holding her. She'll run off, and then the party fights them.

Sotop Problems

2010-07-15T09:18:00.000-07:00

There are a few here, which I've not really figured out yet. First of all, I need to set up Sotop a little more before it is revealed that the intruders are there. A little more interaction with the NPCs would do wonders here.

Another problem is that there's nothing physically there to prevent the players from leaving the forest before they are supposed to.

Other than that, the NPCs seem to largely have their standard dialogue set up. A few select cutscenes at certain parts need to be added to establish the flow of events. A start has been made at this, but there is some need to refine it a little.

One possible solution to the first problem has been suggested to me, actually. Put the forest on a loop. This would keep anyone from entering that wasn't supposed to. Similarly for later sections, the entrances to the forest that characters like Talon and Lyla might take could lead them right through to the other side, bypassing the forest completely. But that's getting ahead of myself a bit.

A good way to sort out the NPC dealie is to have Lerin at the crops for some reason. I think she should be talking to her friends, who are about to leave to gather in some food. The pair of them then head out to train, and discover the intruders. Perhaps an NPC is preventing Sernt from going to see Lerin until he does something else first... though what, I'm still working out. I'll edit something in here later on, after I've slept on it.

Path Transitions

2010-07-15T06:44:00.000-07:00

After sorting out a small problem with the Path Mountain problem, I'll now figure out the transition piece here.

There should be three scenes. In the first, there is the discovery of the bridge that would normally lead to the Nexus being out. The second has them discovering the monster, and the third transitions into the Sotop sequences.

I shall deal with Sotop starting tomorrow. This is where things get complicated.

Path Problems

2010-07-13T11:00:00.000-07:00

Aside from a few small problems with the gold gathering bit, this part seems okay.

However, there are two things I need to work out. The first is the transition from the piece at the end of the training session into the next one. That is, the cutscene where Rikav reveals he needs to go to the Nexus and intends to take Maih and Ray with him. I'd also like to add something in that prevents the party from leaving the town until Rikav joins. Perhaps he has cast an illusory spell on the exit, which only he can erase?

Once this is done, the party goes up the mountain and that's a whole other thing. I've already placed the NPC there - and I'll be dealing with the shops seperately from this, thanks. I'm content with just setting up their location and the fact that they are a shop for now.

After this, they enter the Nexus, which triggers a very brief cutscene establishing there's a boss encounter. After this fight, we transition to the next part of the game.

The majority of these problems are really solved at an intellectual level, and just need to be constructed. The only problem still to be designed is the restraining factor - you know how some parts of games prohobit the player from going where they're not meant to yet? I'll be needing a few of these in sections yet to come...

Problem Solving: Kron Intro

2010-07-09T08:52:00.000-07:00

The main problem I had with this sequence was an impression that I should have Rikav help some people get out of the town.

The first thought that occured to me was a parent looking for their children. If I have enough kids for this, it might be enough by itself.

Another possibility is that someone is injured and can't move by themselves, prompting the player to hand over a healing potion - which would require them first to find one.

I'd like to have another one, but let's operate of those two for now. There can be three kids missing. Their parent is at the middle of the town. The first kid is behind the house the game starts in. The second is down in the southeast part of town. The third is south of the parent. At least one of these kids should have a trigger condition, maybe they're looking for something? A lost toy?

Meanwhile, a couple won't shift because one of them is too ill to move and the other won't go. If the party hands over a healing item, they'll move. The healing item can be found to the north west part of town, while the sick person is in the north east part.

Helping these people out will result in the party getting rewarded in EXP, and either money or an item.

Endgame Sequences

2010-07-08T16:44:00.000-07:00

=====Scene=====
The party finally meets up in the prison. Maih reveals she knew all this would happen, but given all the options available this was the best one to let happen. She also reveals that they'll soon be breaking out to prevent the world from ending. Suddenly, the cell door opens. The party splits up, taking two different routes through the building to escape.

=====End Scene=====
The party gets through the prison, switching between the two groups of four as they go. They fight a boss, and then leave the prison.

=====Scene=====
The party discovers that boss has rallied forces together to free them from the prison. He takes them to the resistance base, where a stalemate of sorts is going on. A seige is brewing, and teh secret passageway is being very well guarded. It's also got restrictive access to prohibit armies coming through, and if the resistance wants to get in through it they're gonna have to fight for it. The first army to try and get through it will find themselves in the middle of a huge bottleneck, and - well, it's just not a viable option for anyone. Except the party, of course.

They split up - half will slog their way through Oblit's castle and get at Desire. The other half will find Kalibrand.

=====End Scene=====
The first party fights their way into the castle. It's not easy. Guards everywhere, though I've not set this up yet. Eventually, they get through to Desire...

====Scene=====
Desire taunts the party, stating that the inevitable is about to occur and there's nothing they can do now to stop it. Soon, more guards will pour into the room and killing her wouldn't stop any of it. But then, the party uses something that forces her to shift forms, and the guards run away in fright.

=====End Scene=====
Boss fight occurs now. The party find a secret passage in Oblit's room... Then we switch to the other party
Who make their way into Kalibrand's Laboratory, in an effort to get his help in stopping the conflict. The direct route is blocked by a force field, and the party has to take the long way around - which means fighting through his security system. Finally, they reach the end... and what do they find when they get there?

=====Scene=====
As the second party comes in through the other passageway, Kalibrand admits that he's orchestrated much of what has occured. All for the sake of getting everybody to fight each other, with their hatred helped out by the psychics that he's captured and attached to his machines. The party has the chance to re-unite and train up, since Kalibrand isn't interested in dealing with them until they become a direct threat... but when they do?

Boss fight occurs, then another one with the other party.

Kalibrand dies, the psychics are free and use their power boost to warn everybody about what's really going on. But it's not over yet, as a new threat emerges... the party must enter the realm of dreams by approaching any of the Nexus, or where Kalibrand's Cycle of Hate was.
=====Cutscene End=====
The final dungeon is long and hard.
=====Scene=====
Drekal reveals himself, gives backstory for himself, and so on. Then, boss battle.
With the boss battle done, we roll ending sequence.
=====End Scene=====
To Do: Virtually everything.

The Island - Capture sequences

2010-07-08T15:06:00.000-07:00

=====Scene=====
The party (Sernt, Gaita, Talon, Lyla) all wake up on an island along with their fellow passengers. They're told that repairs are finished, but the captain doesn't want to set sail quite yet.
=====End Scene=====
The party are allowed to explore the island, quickly discovering that there is a severe limit on where they can go at the moment. Eventually, they'll find the captain to the east....

=====Scene=====
Apparently, the captain doesn't want to set sail because the only way they can leave the island would take them plain into view of the monster that sunk them in the first place. The party has a choice now - do they think they can take the monster on the ship? Or can they reach the monster on land? The first way leads to a very hard boss fight, while the second requires the party to finish off a puzzle. The second one will also give the party some time to train a bit. Of course, if the player chooses the puzzle they can change their mind later on by returning to the captain.
=====Scene Ends=====
Assuming the party travels the island trying to get to the monster, they'll have to solve that puzzle... But then, as they travel across an unsteady portion of the island-
=====Scene=====
Gaita nearly falls off a cliff, and Lyla rescues him at the last moment. Gaita angrily pushes her away once he's safe, since he still associates his wife's death with Lyla... even though he knows it's not really her fault.
=====Scene Ends=====
The party manage to get off the island either way, and return to Cerin armed with a new approach - they can easily get inside Oblit castle now! The troops are rallied, and when the party is ready they leave and land at the resistance base - taking it back by dealing with one guard at a time. Once the last guard is dealt with, they can enter the secret passageway and get into the castle! As stated earlier, the way through the passage is more difficult this way through it - after all, whoever constructed it wanted to make it as difficult as possible for an invasion force to use it to enter the castle. Finally, they reach the top and find Oblit...

=====Scene=====
A simple conversation occurs here, as the party informs Oblit of what has been going on. They suspect he is being manipulated by some outside force, and call for a truce to figure out their common enemy. Unfortunately, once they are done Oblit reveals that he is really Desire in disguise - and reveals Oblit's dead body after calling for the guards! The party is overwhelmed and thrown into a dungeon.

=====Scene Ends=====

To Do: Not much, it turns out. Some very basic cutscenes, very little NPC interaction needs to be cleared.

Sotop Invasion - Lava Dungeon Sequences

2010-07-08T14:13:00.000-07:00

Things get a little bit.. vaguer here. Primarily because I'm not entirely sure how this part should go down.

Lerin has taken over the security of Sotop, and part of that involves hurrying along Sotop's psychic defence recovery. The elder will probably inform her of this in a cutscene that starts this part off... but whatever. Lerin deals with it, confronts a boss of some kind (that I appear to have forgotten to design).

=====Scene=====
Some time later, in spite of her best efforts invaders enter Sotop and appear to be immune to psychic attack. Lerin manages to get herself to safety, but everybody else she tries to help dies or is captured. Even so, she's badly hurt by the experience, and overhears Death and Desire plotting the next stage of their plan.

After they've left, Maih Ray and Rikav find her lying in the forest... Maih apparently already knows what happened, and filled the others in while Lerin was sleeping. They agree to head off to the Thieves City.

=====Scene Ends=====
Thanks to Lerin's mind reading abilities, she's able to figure out how to get to the Thieves City. When they arrive, the party must perform some investigation to determine that Death intends to undo the spell in the Nexus holding the cold back from the island the city is on. They pursue him into the caves, and deal with him there. The thieves are even more riled up against Oblit than they were before.

=====Scene=====
Rikav expresses some great concern that two of the Nexus they've encountered have been under threat lately, and maybe whoever is responsible is foolish enough to do something about the one on Oblit's Island. Boss gets them the passes they need to enter the island, and away they go!

=====Scene Ends=====
Rikav is able to open the entrance to the volcano. Other than that, the party can explore the island - but cannot reach the resistance base through any means. The party may hear rumours about Oblit's assassination about this time. After fighting their way through the volcano, the party will reach the Nexus...

=====Scene======
Unfortunately, there's a trap designed to catch anybody that tries to meddle with it. It also alerts some guards, who take the party away to prison.
=====Scene Ends=====
To Do: Like I said, there's a lot of things to do with this part of the game. So many small details need to be worked out... Which is largely why I'm doing this right now, so I'm aware at some level of problems yet to come, and can subconsciously work on them as the time approaches.

Kron Plague Sequences

2010-07-08T13:30:00.000-07:00

=====Scene=====
Cutting back to Rikav for a moment, he explains how the imbalance in the Nexus is the cause of the world's trouble, and that something must have happened to one (or maybe more) of them. He takes Maih and Ray out to investigate...

=====Scene Ends=====
The trio heads down the mountains, though I feel there should be a final look around Path to make sure the people there can look after themselves before they leave.
=====Scene=====
On arriving in Kron, they discover there is a curfew. They claim to be mountain climbers that got lost, and only just found their way back.
=====End Scene=====
Everybody in Kron is miserable. When Rikav examines the sick, he realises what's really going on... but can't prove it - or cure the illness - without them leaving Kron. But they have to get around the quarantine... So they steal a plank of wood and make a small bridge out of it, to cross a small gap up in the mountains. This leads them outside Kron, and from there they head to the other town on the island, Wormule.
=====Scene=====
In Wormule, Rikav is greeted by the person in charge - who is secretly a mage. The place has been a refuge for mages, and has been secretly assisting the resistance for some time. This has been made harder due to the quarantine - since nobody is coming to the island for reasons other than to drop off supplies. Rikav asks him for the key to the Toxic Cave, which is half way between Kron and Wormule. To get the key, Rikav has to demonstrate that he's not lost any of his touch by completing a challenge by himself.
=====End Scene=====
With key in hand, the trio head to the cave. It's not easy, since there are lots of poison based enemies around- and poison coats the floor too. At the bottom, Rikav finds what he was looking for...

=====Scene=====
But he also takes the time to say hello to a lone grave, found at the bottom of the cave. He pays his respects, and waves aside requests for information from his young travelling companions. The party returns to Kron (not through cutscene, but let's save a little time here) and give the cure to the sick. They recover immediately, and it's revealed that the doctor in charge here was really poisoning the people to simulate a plague. He blames the Resistance - though it doesn't fool the party it does fool the others - and a boss fight occurs.

The party are then sent off on a boat, and the captain is informed that their identities don't check out. The captain decides to let it slide.

=====End Scene=====
To Do: Lots of things to be done here. NPC dialogue, cutscenes, Rikav's challenge... And if I do decide to do something here, Path's "final check".

Thieves City Sequences

2010-07-08T13:20:00.000-07:00

=====Scene=====
Talon and Lyla come to blows with Sernt and Talon. After a while, they work out their differences - in part due to Kalibrand, who wants to at least retain the appearance of being with the resistance - and decide they should head to the thieves city. Sernt is surprised, knowing that Gaita is not welcome there - on revealing this, Lyla offers to sell something she'd taken with her to the boss to help make up the cost.

The party heads to the thieves city, and meets the boss. I may want to make this part a little trickier than just going into the port and having Gaita do some "secret sign" that gets them there... But the point is, they get there and meet boss. He agrees to the trade, but wants Gaita to find the guy that betrayed him since boss suspects he's up to something.

=====Scene Ends=====
Cue talking to people throughout the city, in an attempt to locate the guy. Eventually, the party finds him, but he throws a minion at them and runs off to deal with the boss. They catch up to him just before he can kill the boss, and finish him off.

=====Scene======
The boss agrees that Oblit is partly responsible for the attack on him, and agrees to help the party out. His research reveals that the secret entrance Lyla used can be opened from the outside - but only by someone with the jewelry that she offered to barter boss with. He gives it back, and tells them that the resistance has the support of the Thieves City. Kalibrand offers to stay behind so that he can discuss matters with the boss.

As the party leaves the city, Death does... something, and a monster sinks the ship...

=====End Scene=====
To Do: A lot of the stuff for this part is finished, and what really needs done are the cutscenes and the NPC dialogue. Oh, and a little bit of padding in the "getting to the city" bit.

Talon and Lyla's Introduction Sequences

2010-07-08T12:01:00.000-07:00

=====Scene=====
An impatient Talon is waiting for a spy to arrive - but he's late, and Talon is getting worried.
=====Scene Ends=====
I believe there should be a sequence involving Talon having to walk around the base, talking to the various people. I'm not sure yet what this should involve.
Talon should ultimately decide to go looking for the spy. He finds him, cornered by monsters and fights them off... I'm dithering over whether to make this Kalibrand or not.

=====Scene=====
The briefing surrounds a training facility being set up to the west. Talon agrees that they should destroy it with a firebomb - custom made by Kalibrand. Any damage they can inflict to Oblit's constructions will help their cause, though Talon insists there should be no loss of life if possible.
=====Scene Ends=====
Whenever Talon is ready, the mission will begin. All he has to do is talk to the person by the raft, and they'll head off to the objective. Talon will sneak into the area with the bombs, and plant them in the basements of the buildings present - one each ought to do it. Another stealth mission, and again success isn't necessary to continue the game. It just gets you better rewards the better you do. Whatever happens, Talon and the others leave, and return to base...

=====Scene=====
Talon returns to the base, and finds an extremely agitated Kalibrand. It turns out that they captured a very important intruder while he was gone... scene fades out.

Fade in to see Lyla and her father Oblit having an argument. Lyla is bored, and her father is being overprotective (in her eyes). After he leaves, Lyla discovers a secret passageway in her room - but thinks that before she explores it she should make her father less suspicious by going to her "lessons", and wandering around the castle... It may also be a good idea to discretely gather a few items just to be safe.
=====Scene End=====
Player controls Lyla as she goes around the castle. They can take her to her "lessons" which are really just minigames, talk to people, and when they are done can progress the story further by entering the secret route. When she gets through the short dungeon (it's longer going the other way, it's designed that way) -

=====Scene=====
Lyla emerges in the corner of the resistance base, and is immediately spotted by a flustered Kalibrand. He calls for others, and she's taken prisoner... fade out and in, we see she's in a prison cell with Talon talking to her. She's defiant, and refuses to help them...
====Scene End=====
I feel that something should go here, to serve a number of purposes. The first is to give Talon and Lyla an excuse to gain EXP. The second is to raise the tension between the two a little bit - one possibility is a battle of wits between the two as Talon attempts to get information out of Lyla that could be useful (without having to hurt her), or possibly demonstrate exactly why they are fighting Oblit. Meanwhile, Lyla could attempt to explain her father's position, and defend it from Talon's attacks. Neither is completely in the right, or wrong in their beliefs and this may be the best time to explore that theme in the game.

Once it's finished, though, some considerable time should have passed.
=====Scene=====
The base is under attack! Talon flees to the rafts, intending to use Lyla as a hostage... until he sees that she's also apparently leading the attack! Desire has taken on Lyla's form, and is leading the charge- and orders the real Lyla to be killed! They escape regardless - possibly after being forced to work together and fight off the enemy.
=====Scene Ends=====
The resistance arrives to the northwest of Cerin, and make their way there. Just outside Cerin, Talon and Lyla encounter a monster. After defeating it, Lyla talks about how this helps demonstrate how right it is to fear magic - since clearly, this is a creature that wouldn't exist otherwise. Talon disagrees, and states that something else is likely at fault. They arrive in town...

=====Scene======
While Lyla rests, Talon and Kalibrand have a heated argument about what to do with her. Kalibrand believes her to be a spy (actually, he just wants rid of her so that Desire can get on with her job without the resistance questioning things too much) while Talon is suspicious of what's really happening. He wears Kalibrand down and gets him to admit that there is a man that can help figure out whether this is the real Lyla or not - he lives in Ranol. After they leave, Lyla rolls over and ponders her own existance, and questions the reality of her memories.
=====Scene Ends=====
The next morning, they're off to Ranol! On arrival, they discover through discussion with the NPCs that Oblit has soldiers searching for the scientist they're looking for. It also becomes apparent he's doing research at the lake. They catch up to him on the lake, though he doesn't make himself easy to find.

=====Scene=====
The scientist concludes that Lyla is real, and requests the resistance helps him hide. They agree, and return to their base in Cerin... Word comes through that Desire has been spotted, and they head out to investigate... only to run into Gaita and Sernt.

To Do: Lots. So very much. The cutscenes need to be done, the stealth bit isn't quite finished either, and then there's the NPC dialogue for the resistance base, Oblit's Castle, Cerin and Ranol. Lyla's minigames are mostly done, but I really need to figure out some padding for the bit between Lyla being revealed as the prisoner and the attack on the base. That part progresses far too quickly.

Rest of this chapter sequences

2010-07-08T11:18:00.000-07:00

=====Scene=====
Gaita tells Sernt and Lerin about the mine, and the elder agrees they should do something about it.
=====Scene End=====
The party becomes Sernt, Lerin and Gaita. The southern route out of the forest is cleared, allowing them to enter the mine.

=====Scene=====
When the party finds the prison, they see Gaita's wife get executed by Desire(posing as Lyla). Lerin psychically restrains Gaita, realising that if they went down there right now not only would they get killed, but the other prisoners would fare pretty poorly too. Sernt promises to help Gaita get his revenge if he'll stay his hand for the time being.
=====End Scene=====
The party takls to the prisoners, and they all agree that the only way they'll be able to get out is to fight their way out. But they don't have anything to fight with for the time being, so the party will have to head off and find something. They do, and use the mine tracks and pulleys to get it to the prisoners. On handing them over, the prisoners leave...

=====Scene=====
As they leave, the party runs into Desire who was about to leave. She takes the opportunity to taunt them, then leaves... just as a giant plant monster appears, and attacks!
Boss fight!
Back in Sotop, some of the prisoners elect to stay in the village while the others intend to head to Cerin and join the resistance group. Gaita intends to go with them, and Sernt goes with him. Lerin remains behind, to help ensure the safety of Sotop.
=====End Scene=====
The route to Cerin from Sotop isn't too long. The northern route must be taken as the other way out is currently blocked.

=====Scene=====
On reaching Cerin, the pair discover Lyla pretty quickly as she's leaving a building with Talon... Gaita prepares to attack...
======Scene End=====

To Do: I feel there should be a little more interactivity between Gaita and the NPCs in Sotop here. Again, a start has been made on the cutscenes, but there is definite room for improvement in them. The description of the mine here may be a brief one, but it's not what I would call a small dungeon. I'm even giving the player three locations inside to rest and recover! Perhaps because I'm too generous. As this is another Nexus dungeon there is a spirit floating around in one of the rooms - that's one of the resting areas.

Gaita's Flashback

2010-07-08T09:35:00.000-07:00

=====Scene=====
Gaita learns that his former thieving partner has double crossed him and taken the loot from their latest heist. Worse yet, the boss was expecting a cut from Gaita for resources he borrowed to make the heist... And he wants to talk to him.

=====Scene Ends====
The player can now explore the Thieves City. The way out of the city is blocked by a guard, keeping an eye on Gaita. There are infrequent random battles in the area, and there's also an NPC that will take Gaita on in "tests of strength" which won't result in a game over. The "test" is played for money, but Gaita will also get a little EXP out of it. A lot of the city is currently unexplorable, unfortunately. Though the shop is available.

Gaita is able to rest, for free, in his own house.

=====Scene=====
The boss is not happy with Gaita, blaming him for things going so badly wrong. Before Gaita gets beat up, his wife interferes and saves him...
=====Scene End=====
The pair flee across the rooftops of the city, being pursued by thieves. These are not hard fights by any means, but they are infinite in number so they will wear Gaita down eventually. When they reach the edge of the city, the couple charter a boat and sail off...
=====Scene=====
Later, we see the pair break into a museum. They discuss paying off the boss with something in the museum - though this is a highly risky job as they don't have quite the same level of gear that they usually do. They enter the museum, silently...
=====Scene End=====
What we have here is a stealth section, but it doesn't matter if the player succeeds or not. The plot railroads them into the next area anyway. The only reason it matters how well they do is for the EXP given to Gaita, and there's an event triggered here that can get Gaita his best weapon later on...
=====Scene=====
Assuming they are succesful at reaching the central room, the pair head over to their target - and are swiftly surrounded by guards. Otherwise, if they are seen the building enters lockdown and the scene progresses as normal.
We're told that the pair were sent to work in a mine. One day, they managed to distract the guard and took the opportunity to flee...
====Scene End=====
Only Gaita is playable for this part. His wife serves a slightly different role - randomly damaging enemies with skills and items or healing Gaita with items. They'll fight their way through the mine, and quickly find the exit...

=====Scene=====
But then they are seperated by falling rocks. Both are unharmed - but Gaita's wife urges him to flee as she can see guards coming for her and she's caught in a dead end. After a moment of great regret and guilt, he flees while promising to come back for her. He gets out of the mine, and runs into the nearby forest where he collapses from the emotional and physical strain... And then he wakes up in unfamiliar territory, with strange people looking sorry for him.
=====Scene End=====

To Do: Quite a lot, but not as much as other bits. I'd set up some of these cutscenes already, but they still need to be tweaked. The stealth bit is workable, but probably needs a few more tweaks as well. The escape sequence is all done, but I still need to add the wife's roles in the battle. I can see how to do it. Shouldn't be too difficult. The Thieves City bit is mostly done, and only really needs me to add dialogue to the NPCs.

Sotop Sequences (1)

2010-07-07T18:02:00.000-07:00

=====Scene=====
We transition to a forest town, where we see Sernt and Lerin training. This could easily become a humerous exchange, with one of them perhaps pretending to be a villain for dramatic effect and doing so very badly (with the other making small corrections as appropriate). The two head back into town once they are finished, and hear that some intruders (referred to as "normals") have attacked and kidnapped someone outside the town.
=====Scene End=====

Sernt and Lerin can now investigate the town - but not many people will be around. Most will be out in the forest, searching for the intruders. By following a muddy trail, the intruders can be found pretty quickly.

Boss fight occurs.

Wipe back to the town, as we learn that the elder wants to speak to them
=====Scene=====
On approaching the elder, he discusses with them the rise in monsters throughout the forest of late. He also finds the intrusion of these two drunken thieves to be of great concern, since the forest is supposed to be protected by a psychic detterent that prohibits people from entering. But before he can finish, another emergency has begun - monsters have appeared in town!

=====Scene End=====
The town has a number of monsters scattered around it. The people have all run inside a house to hide, as they're unsure of how to deal with this threat. Once all these monsters are dealt with, another one will appear. This is a much stronger one than the others, though.

=====Scene=====
With the monsters dealt with, the elder expresses even deeper concerns than before. Something is very wrong in the forest, but they can't risk a full investigation quite yet. He appoints Sernt and Lerin to take charge of another layer of security, which Sernt is quick to agree on due to his sense of adventure. Lerin is wary, as she's a lot more cautious out of the two of them... but she recognises the need for her to take on this new job. Just having psychic abilities isn't enough to protect Sotop if the people panic at the idea of prospective combat...

Months pass, or so the text that will appear onscreen will say. One day, they find an exhausted man lying out in the forest... He's brought into the town, and the elder decides they shall read his mind in an attempt to gleam any information they can about what's going on...
=====Scene End=====

To Do: I feel there isn't enough of a necessity to interact with the NPCs in this section. In fact, there was a little of that in the Path bit too - at least between the two dungeons. I could go into more detail about that here, but I'd rather focus on Sotop for now.

I think that in the investigation for the intruders, there should be some conversation occuring between Sernt and the NPCs. I'm not entirely sure what right now, though. It might be a good point to get some background.

The cutscenes will also need to be made up. In fact, pretty much everything needs to be made - aside from the monsters and the characters, which just need to be tested. Other than that, I think I have a pretty good idea for what needs to be done for this part of the game.

Path Sequences

2010-07-07T16:45:00.000-07:00

=====Scene=====
Maih wakes up ten years later, and realises she can't wake Ray up - which means he'll be late for Rikav's class.
=====Scene End=====
She scrapes some money together, by helping people out around town and buys some "Smelling Salts" which is an item which awakens the sleepy. The way into Rikav's house is barred, as is the route out into the mountain.

Smelling Salts in hand, she wakes Ray up and the pair head off to Rikav's house.

=====Scene=====
Rikav explains to the latecomers that they will be performing a test in the underground cave beneath his house. He instructs them to find marked pebbles hidden there, and will reward the first pair to give him one.

Wipe to the cave.

=====Scene End=====
Battles occur in this area, and the other trainees are all scattered around the cave. They will offer various bits and pieces of advice. After fighting their way through to the end of the cave, the treasure chest is found near the entrance (though blocked off by a boulder that they couldn't move out of the way from that entrance... it can be moved from this new position, though). They take a pebble, and soon find themselves confronted with the boss battle for this section.

Boss fight occurs.

=====Scene=====
Whether the boss killls them or not, Maih and Rikav return to Rikav and tell him about what happened. He had heard the commotion, but couldn't see what was causing it from where he was... and is rather frightened by the prospect that it was a new monster that had attacked them. Maih and Ray had believed it to be part of the test.

Rikav declares that he shall be investigating the nexus to see if something is wrong - and asks to be accompanied by Maih and Ray, since they are his best pupils.

=====Scene End=====
The trio leave and head out into the mountain. Along the way, they will encounter a Wind Spirit who will offer to recover their health and magic, but for a price. Probably seperate prices for both. The spirit also functions as a shop... one of these will be at each of the "Nexus Dungeons" in the game.

At the nexus, the party will encounter another strange and powerful creature which will attack them on sight. A boss fight will ensue.

=====Scene=====
Rikav will express great concern as he examines the nexus. He's pretty vague for now, but it is responsible for the monsters they've encountered so far. He fears that something terrible is about to happen...

=====Scene End=====

To Do: Most of this is actually already in place. The main points still needing to be done are balance testing (monsters, the party, various skills, armour and weapons) and the shops. Though I already know what I'm wanting to sell them at the moment, this could change later on.

Escaping Kron

2010-07-07T16:23:00.000-07:00

The beginning moments of the game. I'm not certain how much background information to give at this point, before the first cutscene begins... or if I should just dump the player into the opening sequence and let them figure it out as they go.

=====Scene=====
In either case, we're introduced to Rikav and his two friends (Cassie and Alex) and their children Ray and Maih. There is a great urgency to leave the town expressed during this sequence, and it is agreed that Rikav shall take the lead.

=====Scene=====
The town should be in the midst of evacuating, but some people should be having trouble. If Rikav helps these people (keeping in mind there is a very generous time limit) then he gets experience points for helping them. Possibly an item, or money as well. I shall need to consider how these people need to be helped out for this sequence to work properly.

When the eastern town entrance is attempted, soldiers will begin to march across the bridge it leads to. Or maybe it's just in a state of disrepair. Meanwhile, the port is out because the boats have already gone. The only viable escape route is through the western exit which leads into the mountains. When this route is attemped:

=====Scene=====
Soldiers start coming out of the port, so Cassie and Alex instruct Rikav to take the kids and hide while they hold the soldiers back. Rikav hesitates, but does so.

But then, he runs into a lone soldier that wound up getting seperated from the others. A fight ensues, that Rikav couldn't normally win if it wasn't a scripted event. When his health dips below a certain point, Maih automatically heals him. After the battle, he wonders at how young she is to learn a curative spell... And we fade out to the tune of ten years.

=====Scene=====

To Do: Determine how people need Rikav's help. The cutscenes themselves are already in place, though some text may need tweaking here and there.

Returning to the NPCs

2010-07-07T15:04:00.000-07:00

I think I've figured out my problem with this part - helped along by the sheer scale of complexity of what Sotop needs to function properly. I'm not quite developing things naturally in the towns. I need to pull back a little further than I had been, and dive in using a very different approach to before. In fact, the more I consider it, the likelier it seems that this process will be much, much more organic if I start putting in the cutscenes, build the conversations around the town, and then move on to the next cutscene. This will scale down on the rational side of the development a bit, but increase the creative side a lot more. It'll also probably be a lot faster to get through, and leave me with dialogue that is crisp, plot appropriate, and informative to the player.

Unfortunately, I've already made starts on Path and Sotop's NPCs... so I'll just have to redo those bits after I've gotten the cutscenes done.

Final Boss Considerations

2010-06-30T14:44:00.000-07:00

It's not exactly simple to test a final boss. Here is the very last thing between the player and the ending sequence. Here is the final test, save for secret dungeons. This should be the ultimate test of skill, strategy or problem solving that the player has to contend with. There have been many truly epic final boss sequences in the RPG genre - Giygas, The Shadow Queen, Cloud of Darkness, Zeromus, The Dragon Lord... These and so many more have earned their place in history as the final - truly ultimate challenge of their game.

Aside from secret bosses, of course. But that's an entirely different issue altogether.

Drekal's stats will need to excel. The skills available to him must be at the absolute zenith of power and challenge. The events triggered throughout the battle must be considered with great care, consideration and planning.

There are many possibilities for how this could play out. Out of those I mentioned above: Giygas requires the constant use of a specific skill to defeat, and will heal any other damage inflicted to him every turn. The Shadow Queen shifts through multiple forms throughout the battle, changing how the player must attack her. Cloud of Darkness has three seperate, yet powerful sections to her body that must all be overcome to defeat her. Zeromus simply goes all out, and can easily crush an unprepared party through sheer strength. The Dragon Lord shifts from a single, slightly challenging form to a monstrously powerful one. Any of these could work, as could combinations of them all.

But what fits Drekal's personality the best? To begin with, his mind is formed of the fragments of Kalibrand's filtered and combined with the former Lord of Dreams. His memories of what "killed" Kalibrand have driven him mad, and the only way he could cope was to accept the idea that life needs pain. Without pain, life doesn't mean anything. And he intends to share that realisation, that madness, with the world. And he'll start with the party.

How would such a being fight? To start with, he might try to inflict pain on the party. I can imagine him using poison moves, or stat debuffs to begin with. Make the party suffer. Then when he realises they fully intend to oppose him (for example, when half his health is gone) he might start mixing things up a bit. He'll likely start throwing out much more powerful attacks, desperately trying to kill the players... but then, when that won't work either, he'll start throwing out the really powerful attacks twice a turn. Alternatively, he might summon "assistance" who will help him assault the party.

Whatever the case is, I think I'm going to leave programming and testing the final boss until I've gone through a proper playthrough. My next task is to go back to the NPCs and set them and their non-cutscene dialogue into place.

Boss Test: Recurring Fight, Lord of Dreams

2010-06-30T14:20:00.000-07:00

No, not The Doctor's dark side... Different Dream Lord here.

To progress through the final dungeon, the player must locate and battle four bosses. I intend to make them the same boss, with differences in the troop code that will drastically alter how the battle is fought. I would like to make each fight have an interesting theme, related to the story or the characters therein.

The way the troop events are set up, they are triggered based on a turn counter, the enemy HP, or the HP of a particular party member. There's also a boolean switch which can activate events, but I'm ignoring that in this case.

What I can actually do is fairly limitless, but primarily involves either forcing a battle to make a particular attack (including those not in their moveset), transforming it into a different monster, inflicting damage or healing it, inflicting or removing status effects, summoning reinforcements and causing text or animations to appear onscreen. Now taking suggestions!

Final Dungeon Testing

2010-06-30T10:59:00.000-07:00

This is going to be a tricky dungeon to test. There are eighteen monsters, all new, found in this dungeon. Not only that, but five different boss fights will occur on the way through.

To make things a little more... tolerable for myself, there will be eight troops for this dungeon. Rather than spreading the monsters throughout the dungeon, instead a feeling of "progression of difficulty" will be present throughout the dungeon. Near the beginning will be all the easier monsters, while the later rooms have all the hard monsters. I'm thinking the spread will be like this.

1: AB
2: AC
3: BC
4: AD
5: BD
6:CD

And so on. As such, I'll need to take a slightly different approach this time. Assuming that the party is about level 45-47 on entering the dungeon, and that it is composed of four different pairs of troops...

Area 1: 45-47
Area 2: 58-51
Area 3: 52-55
Area 4: 55+

This is gonna take a while to test... maybe I should split it into multiple posts?

Area 1 enemies: Vampire Bate, Anaconda, Hellhound, Hedgehog, Defense System, Warlock, Polar Bear, Nightshade.

Area 2: enemies: Defense System, Warlock, Polar Bear, Nightshade and Amoeba.

Area 3: Lobster, Tombstone, Fossil, Queen Bee, Drone.

Area 4: Manticore, Fire Spout, Giant Armour, Dragon, Fossil and Lobster.

Any party is possible in this dungeon, and once I am done with it I'll deal with the bosses.

A few minor tweaks to some stats were needed - particularly for the opening monsters which were far too powerful for my needs. I also reprogrammed certain parts of the troop generation section to make "swarm" type battles easier. There are two of these in this dungeon, after all.

The monsters are hard fights, but far from overwhelming. Particularly if the party is wearing good enough equipment. A single fight isn't likely to kill them at a sufficient level, but a couple more might manage it if they're not careful.

Cycle of Hate Boss Test

2010-06-29T16:58:00.000-07:00

I'm of the opinion that this should be an... unusual boss, in the sense that each turn, it will heal back to full strength and then inflict damage on the entire party dependant on how much damage was inflicted on it. The real target will be the pillars surrounding it. If the player is able to take out all four within, let's say, six turns, the boss fight will end.

The pillars themselves will, at random intervals, randomly perform an electrical attack. this will prevent the battle from becoming too easy.

Cycle of Hate: 5000 HP, 0 defense, 0 evasion Nothing else really matters.

Pillar:
HP: 1000
AP: 100
DP: 40
SP: 10
MA: 200
MD: 50
ACC: 200
EVA: 1

Four was too much. Two is much more reasonable.

There are a number of things that trip up the player in this battle. First of all, Thunder. Wow. That move is like a slap in the face in this fight. Secondly, paralysis is a big problem which can hurt the player pretty badly if it doesn't wear off quickly. This is an incredibly strategic battle, and is a very challenging one. But it's winnable. Definitely winnable. It'll be hard fought, but it can be won.

Kalibrand Boss Encounter

2010-06-29T16:14:00.000-07:00

Kalibrand, I feel, will be a tricky boss to program. I think each turn, he's going to randomly use a "potion" to produce a specific effect, rather than performing an attack.

Healing Potion: Does what it says on the tin. Recovers 200HP
Spawning Potion: Summons monster.
Mutate: Transforms him into a different monster. Turns him back to normal when drunk again.
Stamina: Boosts strength and then attacks single party member.
Firebomb: Throws firebomb, which is an area fire attack.
Ice Breath: Breaths icey attack that strikes front column.
Lightning Finger: Electric attack strikes party row.

That should be enough.

Kalibrand won't have great physical stats. His magic stats, meanwhile, are going to be very good.

HP: 6000
AP: 70
DP: 34
SP: N/A, all attacks are performed at beginning of turn.
MP: 500
MA: 200
MD: 100
ACC: 10
EVA: 78

Kalibrand seems like a pretty reasonable boss fight. His individual attacks don't seem too bad... the only trouble is that if he's drunk the transformation potion he suddenly has an additional attack a turn.

The swarm doesn't seem to go very far, hitting two additional enemies on the field at one time. But other than that, I don't really see anything wrong with this battle.

Monster Test: Kalibrand's Laboratory

2010-06-28T15:19:00.000-07:00

I've decided that instead of using the monsters I listed for this area here, I'll put them in at the beginning of the Final Dungeon. This is, of course, the penultimate dungeon in the game - and there are two very difficult boss fights at its conclusion.

In any case, I'll be creating new monsters here. These are they, and there will be three troops for this area.

Black Widow, Deadly Nightsade, Ooze, Leech, Trout and Falcon.

Black Widow
HP: 400
AP: 230
DP: 43
SP: 119
MP: 130
MA: 300
MD: 43
ACC: 75
EVA: 65
Attack: No
Guard: No
Skills: Bite, Glare, Web, Acid Spit

Deadly Nightshade
HP: 430
AP: 189
DP: 37
SP: 87
MP: 101
MA: 280
MD: 50
ACC: 80
EVA: 42
Attack: No
Guard: No
Skills: Bite, Root, Poison Sting, Photosynthesis(if hp<50%)OozeHP: 100AP: 147DP: 89SP: 1MP: 10MA: 20MD: 70ACC: 10EVA: 200Attack: YesGuard: YesSkills: Barrier, Flame, Spark, ShadowLeechHP: 360AP: 210DP: 22SP: 241MP: 142MA: 190MD: 54ACC: 99EVA: 87Attack: NoGuard: NoSkills: Drain, Cocoon, ThrustFalconHP: 353AP: 188DP: 27SP: 300MP: 50MA: 176MD: 87ACC: 190EVA: 120Attack: YesGuard: NoSkills: Peck, Feather Shot, Dive Bomb.TroutHP: 313AP: 174DP: 19SP: 112MP: 230MA: 190MD: 65ACC: 170EVA: 150Attack: NoGuard: YesSkills: Fin Slap, Spray, Dive, Douse

I think the monsters are slightly too effective at dealing out damage, but other than this seem perfectly reasonable.

On another note... I need to raise Lyla's health points. Badly.

Boss Fight: Desire

2010-06-27T18:25:00.000-07:00

This should be another tricky boss fight, as Desire's skills will depend entirely on what form she is taking at the time. The trigger for the transformation should be randomly selected, rather than taking place at a set point. Or better yet, there could be multiple triggers occuring, with different conditions. Health, turns, random selection each turn, all are possible in this case.

But what forms shall she take? I believe that four forms will suffice, with each taking on very different and unique traits. Physical, Magical, Psychic and Restorative forms should be used. Each will have different emphasis for their skills and stats. Particularly, I suspect the following will be the case.

Physical: Strong physical attacks, but weak on magic.
Magical: Strong magical attacks, but weak physically and very slow.
Psychic: Strong magical defenses, and uses psychic attacks. Attacks twice a turn.
Restorative: Focuses on having strong restorative and defensive abilities.

I may need some suggestions for this boss fight, as it will be a very difficult one to program. Obviously, there will be four seperate stats and skill lists for it, when I do get around to editing that into this post. There is a lot of work to do for this particular boss encounter.

Desire's HP and MP must remain the same for all four forms, as they are shared by the system.

HP: 6000
MP: 200

Desire: Physical
Strong physical stats, depends on physical strength. No magic attack or defense to speak of.
AP: 340
DP: 45
SP: 65
MA: 0
MD: 0
ACC: 90
EVA: 84
Attack: Yes
Guard: No
Skills: Sword Dance, Swipe, Stab, Skewer

Desire: Intelligence
AP: 40
DP: 10
SP: 100
MA: 299
MD: 54
ACC: 120
EVA: 43
Attack: No
Guard: No
Skills: Blizzard, Raindrop, Flame, Earthquake, Hurricane, Shadowbolt, Spark, Laser

Desire: Control
AP: 190
DP: 27
SP: 82
MA: 150
MD: 27
ACC: 105
EVA: 63
Attack: Yes
Guard: Yes
Skills: Pain, Crush, Hypnosis, Betrayal, Depression, Barrier

Desire: Preservation
AP: 10
DP: 30
SP: 150
MA: 340
MD: 100
ACC: 120
EVA: 43
Attack:No
Guard: Yes
Skills: Cure, Regen, Drain, Consume.

Every two turns, a random number is generated between one and ten. If it comes up more than another variable, then the variable is increased by one. If it's less or equal to the variable, then the game randomly selects one of the forms and turns Desire into that. The variable is dropped back to one. Once a battle, Desire will randomly shift forms to "Preservation" if her health drops below 40%.

While the boss largely seems random, it is a very powerful boss fight. Its inconsistency is both a strength and a weakness here. I expect that a party about level 45 should be able to defeat this boss, after a long and trying battle.

Monster Tests: Castle Guards

2010-06-27T17:57:00.000-07:00

The next part of the game involves the party travelling back to the resistance base, and splitting up again. One group will re-enter the secret passageway (which is crawling with guards... these will be event encounters rather than random encounters). There will be two new enemies for this area, as well as the older enemies of the previous one. The party should be around level 40 by this time.

Since these are both new enemies, without any stats to call their own... here they are.

Castle Guard
HP: 300
AP: 210
DP: 35
SP: 160
MP: 120
MA: 120
MD: 43
ACC: 170
EVA: 43
Attack: No
Guard: Yes
Skills: Sword Dance, Skewer, Barrier.

Castle Patroller
HP: 300
AP: 170
DP: 43
SP: 120
MP: 160
MA: 210
MD: 35
ACC: 210
EVA: 43
Attack: Yes
Guard: No
Skills: Anger, Counter.

The party is variable, and should be at least level 40 by this point.

These stats do seem pretty reasonable, so I'll go with them for now.

Prison Boss Test

2010-06-26T20:16:00.000-07:00

This will be a very strange boss battle, because I intend for him to periodically switch the party. Keep in mind that the player has to split the party for this dungeon, and therefore there are two parties of four people each. I was thinking of making it based on turns, but I think a health percentage might work better in this instance. When he hits 50% of his health, switch parties.

Warden
HP 5000
AP: 500
DP: 34
SP: 150
MP: 100
MA: 150
MD: 13
ACC: 74
EVA: 58
Attack: Yes
Skills: Stab, Swipe, Throw Net, Swarm, Diffuse

While I've not had the opportunity yet to try out the party switching, this is definitely a boss worthy of this stage of the game. The only trouble was the attack points, which are way too high. Drew them back to about 300 instead. Five hundred is just plain daft. No monster should be that strong, save any optional bosses I decide to put in the game.

Prison Monster Tests

2010-06-26T09:52:00.000-07:00

Unlike other areas of the game, there are only two new monsters found here. Which will be found will depend entirely on which area the player is in at the time.

However, to spice things up a little, I've decided to add a couple of other monsters from earlier in the game to this area... There are, as such, two troops here. Both of which shall randomly generate monsters between 1 and 8 (favouring the new to the area monsters in the selection process).

The first troop will be the "Thieves" group. This will have all the thief type encounters in the game, including "Prisoner".

The second troop will be the "Guards" group. This will have most of the soldier type encounters in the game, including "Prison Guard".

This shall require extensive testing, as I've no real way to know what party combinations will be selected by the player. For now, I'll continue using Maih, Ray, Rikav and Lerin and I'll switch to the other four in a later test.

I found that the new monsters weren't quite inflicting enough damage, so I significantly improved their strength and their health points. Of course, this is after the first test... the second may reveal different results.

Testing the second half reveals that I may need to improve the effectiveness or stats of these characters. While they were able to take the enemy down, their overall damage took far longer than it should have to kill any enemies. Talon and Sernt in particular should be inflicting more damage.

Monster Test: Lava Dungeon Boss

2010-06-24T18:32:00.000-07:00

This will be a pallette swap on the fire guy boss in Sotop earlier. He'll use a similar moveset, but with much better stats to back them up. I also figure, every five turns or so he'll cast Erupt. As he'll absorb fire damage, this will cause him to recover health.

HP: 5000
AP: 180
DP: 35
SP: 104
MA: 189
MD: 32
ACC: 120
EVA: 54
Attack: Yes
Skills: Flame, Flamethrower, Heat Up (if HP<40%), Side Kick, Roundhouse

The boss fight that results from this is very tense, but definitely beatable. If the party goes all out, and makes sure Maih keeps healing. I may still need to tweak stats slightly, based on a proper playthrough (adjusting for appropriate levels, etc) but this does seem appropriately difficult.

The next part of the game will be a nightmare to figure out. There's no single party combination possible for it, and it would be nearly impossible to test all of them.

Monster Test: Oblit Island and Lava Cave

2010-06-24T17:11:00.000-07:00

Doing both of these at once, for now. There's a little overlap between these areas anyway.

Oblit Island: Leapords, Medusa, Sand Golem, Ogre, Skeleton Knight, Invader, Demon, Phoenix, Stone Golem and Wolf. Phew, lots of enemies to check out here. I'm thinking of making four troops for different combinations of them.

Lava Cave: Lava Fish, Flame Hand, Phoenix, Magma Golem, Demon, Skeleton Knight, Leapords and Wyverns. This dungeon will have four troop combinations of these enemies.

Player should be approaching level 30 by this point. And we're getting close to the best armour and weapons available in the game... but not quite there yet.

To the question "do these enemies hit hard enough for this point in the game?" the answer is an emphatic yes. They probably could stand to have a little more HP, but other than that I'm very happy with them.

Boss Fight: Death

2010-06-21T16:34:00.000-07:00

This is an odd fight, as it's really more of a countdown. Kill Death before he ten turns are out. The party should be around level 26 by this point, to make the fight doable. This will require some careful experimentation. I don't want Death killed too quickly, nor do I want it to be impossible for the player to kill him. Offensive stats don't matter for Death - only his defensive ones. Each turn a counter will appear onscreen. This will count a variable down, and when it reaches zero it's Game Over.

HP: 4000
DP: 30
MD: 60
EVA: 30

Death has no attacks or skills.

After the experimentation, I decided that 5000 was far, far too much and 1000 was really not enough. 4000 seems like a good place to set the health points. This will force the player to go all-out, but it's definitely manageable.

I just wish Maih was good for something in this fight...Her strength stat sucks and nobody needs to be healed.

Monster Test: Ice Caves

2010-06-21T15:17:00.000-07:00

I have checked the relative effectiveness of the party against the Stop, surrounding area, and Thieves troops already set up, and I can safely conclude: They're of a sufficient level of difficulty for this part of the game. As such, I shall instead focus on the ice caves. The party should be about level 20 - 25 for now.

Enemies include Snowmen, Mammoths, Ice Giants and Ghosts. There will be four troops patrolling these areas, based on combinations of these.

The enemy is too easily killed here. I need to increase their health points to make them anything like a viable threat. Other than this, they seem capable of inflicting reasonable damage... this opinion may alter once I increase their health.

Okay, I've changed my mind. They need to increase their damage stat slightly. They seem spot on, now. Of course, that thought may change when I do a "proper run through" later. But that'll hardly be confined to this area, I'd bet.

Boss Test: Disease

2010-06-18T10:08:00.000-07:00

Disease works differently than other bosses in the game. Rather than trying to overwhelm the player with strength, this one will attack with a very different style. He'll summon "Germs" to subdue the player. They'll do most of his work for him, inflicting status effects and the like. When he's not summoning Germs, he'll attack the players with regular attacks. He won't be particularly strong, and will probably use healing spells as well.

Disease
HP: 500
AP: 54
DP: 28
SP: 65
MP: 100
MA: 52
MD: 34
ACC: 43
EVA: 48
Attack: Yes.
Guard: Only when health <50%Skills: Reinforcements, Cure, Ink Jet, Intimidate, Glare, Bite, Slumber, Pollen,.GermHP: 100AP: 32DP: 1SP: 39MP: 50MA: 43MD: 21ACC: 47EVA: 27Attack: No.Skills: Stinger, Slimey Coating, Acid Spit, Consume, Drain.

Interestingly, when the boss has only 500 HP he's not too difficult. But when I raise his health points to 1000, he becomes a lot harder. And I do mean a *lot* harder. The strategy of choice in this case appears to be "focus on Disease and then take out the Germs."

I felt that a few of the techniques being used by the enemies here did next to nothing. Intimidate and Glare, for example, seemed to add nothing to the battle.

It's a very doable fight and its length makes it worthy of being called a boss fight. However, I do feel that there should be more damage inflicted during the battle. For a boss, Disease inflicts relatively small amounts of damage.

Monster Tests: Toxic Cave

2010-06-18T09:28:00.000-07:00

The toxic cave is filled primarily with enemies that will, surprisingly enough, use status effects to attack the player. As such, they will be slightly weaker than enemies outside the cave to compensate for the damaging effect of the poisons, confusions, paralysis and so on. Enemies include Cobra, Lamia, Tarantula, Mould and Spore. There will be four troops for this area, one for each room in the dungeon. The player should be around level 15 or so by this point, if not well on their way towards level 20.

I keep underestimating how much of an effect accuracy has on calculating damage. I've had to lower the accuracy of almost every enemy, and the evasion of the tarantula was just simply too much. The strength has also been lowered to compensate for the monsters being a little stronger than I had been expecting.

Monster Tests: Path to Kron

2010-06-16T14:26:00.000-07:00

This area uses the same monsters that are found at the top of the mountain, but there are also stronger creatures appearing in the caves. They will be Warthog, Crocodile (why it's up a mountain I have no idea), Centipede, Arachnid and Worm. There will be five troops made up of them, and the monsters from the top of the mountain.

The party should be about level 8-11 about this point.

First of all, Rikav is essential to getting through this part of the game. Ray is more than capable of taking down the monsters, but Rikav's magic makes things so much faster. I can't help but feel there should be one monster coming up soon that requires no magic to kill, only brute strength.

The damage inflicted by the monsters can add up pretty quickly. This means that Maih is not entirely useless - she doesn't seem to be capable of doing anywhere near the amount of damage to the enemy to make her attacks worth doing. She's better off on defense until someone needs healed.

My only concern is that the player will possibly run out of Rikav's magic long before they reach Kron. This is something I will have to properly playtest to the fullest to ascertain. The player should stock up on MP recovery items before setting off.

Boss Battle: Path Mountain

2010-06-15T19:19:00.000-07:00

Some form of flying creature would be advisable here, I think. Whatever sprite I end up using for it, I shall call it the "Condor".

The player will likely be somewhere in the region of level 8 to level 10 when confronting this boss. Again, it is likely that they will be a higher level than this.

The party consists of Maih, Ray and Rikav.

The boss itself will be possesed of the following stats.

HP: 300
AP: 50
DP: 25
SP: 50
MP: 50
MA: 30
MD: 23
ACC: 30
EVA: 25
Attack: Yes.
Skills:
Feather Shot
Peck
Gust

I was going to make this 500, but I quickly realised this would take too long to kill. To that end, I reduced the HP of this boss significantly. Given the abilities of Rikav and Ray, this will make the fight a great deal shorter.

I also noticed that Rikav's magic wasn't doing damage sufficient to make it worth the MP cost relative to Ray's attacks. I shall need to increase the effectiveness of Rikav's spells. This will take some very careful consideration to keep balanced.

Path Mountain: Monster Tests

2010-06-15T16:08:00.000-07:00

This next part is actually very difficult to keep balanced for a number of reasons. The party consists of a healer a black mage and a fighter, which is a fairly-though-not-quite-balanced party. The abilities of Maih and Rikav are what will drive the survival of the party here, coupled with Ray's strength.

The enemies here are as follows.

Hawk, Fly, Boulder, Grass, Spider, Bat and Dust Storm. Originally it was just going to be the first four but I decided to add the others for a little variety.

There will be four troops composed of combinations of the above seven monsters. I expect the party to be around level 5 on reaching this point, though they will likely be higher than this.

The primary difficulty with the stats that I have noticed is that the defensive stats are all far too high. Strength could also tend to be worth lowering, but the defensive stats are too high to be realistically considered. I believe that the defensive abilities of the enemies should not undergo any significant improvement - only the health needs to really improve much over the course of the game. By allowing the player to inflict more damage as the game progresses, they get to feel as though the characters are becoming more powerful.

Boss Battle for Training Area

2010-06-14T16:08:00.000-07:00

My original intention for this boss battle was that the player would have to face three of the same boss at a later point. However, I now feel that it would work better if the player faces a different adversary atop Path Mountain. Some form of winged creature, perhaps.

But for now, a low level Maih and Ray will face the first true boss battle of the game. The Crabtoise. I have a sprite already set up for this water based enemy - though I should point out that it matters little that it is water based. It would have later on, but there you go.

The boss has the following stats:

HP: 100
AP: 50
DP: 15
SP: 43
MP: 40
MA: 35
MD: 21
ACC: 25
EVA: 20
Attack: Yes
Guard: Yes
Skills: Spray, Claw, Barrier

This is a tricky boss, though he doesn't take long to actually defeat. So long as the player uses Maih to ensure the party is at full health and keeps on attacking with Ray, it will be over fairly quickly. The only problem that I can see is if Ray happens to die. If this happens, the player will lose the fight. This isn't too much of a problem, since Rikav's spell should teleport them back to the entrance of the dungeon at that point. The plot can then progress as normal, whether the player wins or not. I should have the boss drop something rare as a reward for defeating it.

Lerin's Forest Adventure: Monster testing

2010-06-03T12:32:00.000-07:00

This is kind of tricky, because much like a starting area there's nowhere else for the player to gain experience.

Flytrap, Mud Golem, Eagle for the first part.

They will appear in the following troop combinations.
1: All new monsters between total party size and total party size.
2: Flytrap, Mud Golem, enemies from initial Sotop troops. Between 2 and 3.
3: Mud Golem, Eagle, enemies from initial Sotop troops. Between 2 and 3.
4: Flytrap, Eagle, enemies from initial Sotop troops. Between 2 and 3.

The second part will be the Invader. They will appear in troops of 1 or 2, and are unlikely to come up again.

I will assume that Lerin will be about level 15 by the time this part begins, and I'm hoping she'll be about level 20 by the time it finishes.

Initially, the stats for the first three enemies were pretty silly and far too heavily in favour of the player. An attempt to rectify this may have pushed the issue too far on the other side, and I intend to balance things out by having limitations on the special abilities of the newer monsters. They won't use the more advanced skills unless the party level is 20. Though I won't know if this is sufficient until after I try out the game "properly".

So, when the Intruder uses Stab, it takes off half of Lerin's health. Ouch. A standard attack doesn't do anything near that bad, but Stab is a killer. Especially since it's a single player party. I think I'd better limit that one on levels too. I want the game to be difficult, not impossible!

Retaking the Resistance Base + Secret Passage

2010-05-31T14:50:00.000-07:00

This area comes in two parts, and I expect the party to be around level 32ish when they arrive. The first is a set number of battles against a randomly generated group of Sergeants and Corporals - immediately followed by a fight against a group of Sergeants and two Lieutenants. I forgo the Privates because frankly, by this stage they completely suck and can't do any damage worth a damn.

The other set of troops include Medusa, Ogres and Sand Golems. I'll have three different troops for this, each with different combinations of two of the three enemies available. In addition, each will have slightly different numbers for their occurance. The Medusa and the Ogres will have troop sizes between 3 and 7, the Medusa and Sand Golem will have troop sizes between 4 and 6, while the Sand Golem and the Ogres will have troop sizes between 2 and 8.

I found the enemies to be largely satisfactory - to the point that simply waging an all out mindless assault upon the troops will yield failure, while fighting smarter yields battles that - while still challenging - are still very much possible. I had to decrease the physical defense of most of the enemies in this instance, and increased their health to compensate for the resulting sudden drop in difficulty. It's odd how higher defense seems to make an enemy more difficult instead of higher health, but then again the metal slimes from Dragon Quest should have taught me that lesson long ago.

Ogres are brutal. Seriously brutal. Their high attack power, and ability to hit an entire careless party in a single attack makes them a significant challenge to overcome. The other enemies aren't quite as deadly. Whether the Ogre is too hard or not I'll have to leave up to when I properly play through the game at a later point.

Deserted Island Boss Battle

2010-05-29T10:48:00.000-07:00

There's a reason I put some ground themed enemies on the island, you know. It's because electric attacks will be looking extremely useful and powerful for this party, given the lakeside and island areas.

This boss battle can go two ways. It depends on whether or not the player wants to solve a puzzle sequence. If not, the boss is a bit harder - he'll get an extra attack a turn. In this case, the player should probably spend a little time grinding out levels...

The boss fight will be up against a Sea Serpent. I choose this one because I have sprites I can use for a map.

The player should be about level 30-32ish when they take this creature on.

HP: 2000
AP: 100
DP: 32
SP: 85
MP: 100
MA: 90
MD: 43
ACC: 90
EVA: 50
Attack: Yes
Skills: Whirlpool, Spray, Roar, Bite, Dive

The extra attack performed in the other possible battle will be one of the listed skills or a regular attack and will be selected at random.

Deserted Island Monster Encounters

2010-05-27T14:38:00.000-07:00

This is a bit trickier, since I'd decided on this section of the game after I'd done the monster lists for all the other locations.

To that end, I'll use a few other monsters I'd intended for other areas here as well. Pirates, Octopus, Squid, Piranha, Sand Golem, and three new additions, all based on monsters found on Oblit's island. Much harder, of course.
The Cyclone, Pirate Skeleton and the Emperor Scorpion.

There will be three troops for this area.
The first will consist of all enemies available to the area, which will appear in groups between 3 and 5.
The second will consist of Pirates, Octopus, Squid and the Piranha, which will appear in groups between 3 and 8.
The third will consist of the other monsters, which will appear in groups between 1 and 4.

Thieves City Bosses

2010-05-26T11:17:00.000-07:00

There are two boss fights to consider here. A mini-boss that the player may encounter once or twice, and a full on boss fight.

The first fight will begin as a normal battle with two Crooks. However, once their HP hits a particular point, they transform into something new. I can do this because setting off a transformation is best done by setting it up in the Troops part of the RPGMaker XP database than in the enemy. Anyway, the two of them will transform into much larger and more powerful monsters.

I speculate that for this miniboss, the party should be at least level 23 to take it on.

HP: 500
AP: 70
DP: 32
SP: 50
MP: 50
MA: 50
MD: 25
ACC:46
EVA: 25
Attack: Yes
Skills:
Roar
Claw

As for the boss fight... It shall be a more difficult version of the previous battle and will begin without the transformation sequence. It will be the same stats as above, but with the following modifications.
HP: 1000
Skills
Roar
Claw
Bite

Both of these boss fights are very difficult, but very doable. The player should be relying increasingly on strategy over power by this point, and these fights should help hammer that home.

Thieves City, Second Visit Monster Testing

2010-05-25T15:12:00.000-07:00

The party now consists of four - Gaita, Sernt, Talon and Lyla. They should all be somewhere in the range of level 15 - 20, which means that the fights here should be a lot harder than they were previously.

To this end, the player will have to deal with new enemies here. Namely, Bandits Pirates and Crooks.

There will be only one troop for this area - comprised of all four enemies that can appear in the area, which will randomly appear between 2 and 8. Given that the party has four members in it, that shouldn't be too much of a problem for them to take on.

And, of course, the thieves city shops are open and available to the party.

First of all, Chop is god-damn lethal. I'll be severely reducing the frequency of that move, because good god.

Secondly, the heavier armour gives way too much of a defensive boost. Sure, that makes sense in that the heavier armour naturally ought to offer better protection, but it's way too much. If I boost the attack points of the enemies to compensate, they'd be just about able to kill the lighter armoured characters within two hits. I had to take it back a little bit... Honestly, the defense stat is what is giving me the most trouble keeping balanced. Less so for magical defense, but I've not had to test that as rigorously quite yet.

Lakeside Boss

2010-05-25T12:36:00.000-07:00

I've been trying to figure out the exact angle I want to take with this one. My intitial thoughts went towards the Corporal and Privates being used to swarm the party. But then, I realised Lyla learns Landscape... which completely slaughters the Privates outright. This resulted in me making a few changes, like making Lyla's magic attack and magic defense a lot less... overwhelming. I also pushed Landscape back a little bit, so she'll learn it later on.

Trying the boss battle again resulted in a completely easy fight, though not quite as easy as the one I described above. I believe the problem lies in the overall stats of these enemies. Quite frankly, they're walkovers. They do virtually no damage, and seem to spend a lot of time defending rather than attacking. I improved their stats, and soon found that I had improved them too much. I scaled their attack back a little bit, and gave them another try. This seems like a much more acceptable level of strength for this fight. They are not overwhelming, but they're not exactly pushovers either.

Lakeside Monster Testing

2010-05-24T13:20:00.000-07:00

I'll be adding a new monster to the game for this new section. It'll be appearing alongside a bunch of other water enemies already introduced to the game at this point (except the first boss). The four troops will have numbers ranging between 2 and 4, and will feature Toads, Flounders, Lizards, Slimes, Privates and the new enemy, Octopus. Or is that Octopi? Whatever.

1: Toad, Flounder, Lizard, Slime.
2: Toad, Private, Flounder.
3: Octopus, Lizard, Private, Flounder
4: Octopus, Toad, Slime, Private

The boss will be a two Corporals with six Privates... The Privates are, to be anything but delicate about this, rather pathetic. I'll deal with that shortly. But first, the Octopus.

HP: 50
AP: 50
DP: 31
SP: 45
MP: 20
MA: 53
MD: 22
ACC: 24
EVA: 32
Attack: Yes
Guard: No
Skills:
Tentacle Slap HP<30
Spray:

As for the party. They will be Talon and Lyla, possibly about level 10-14. They will have had access to Cerin and Ranol's shops before this dungeon, so that will have to be taken into account.

Escape from Resistance Base

2010-05-21T09:15:00.000-07:00

I intend to use the same enemies that Sernt and Gaita encounter en route to Cerin. However, they will encounter them in much smaller numbers.

I expect the pair to be approximately level 7 at the very minimum. Maybe I should make this a little easier for them, still? I mean, that's gonna be pretty tough to get through...

It's kind of rough, but it's very possible to get some training done in the area even if the player hasn't purchased any equipment - so long as they are level 7 or above.

Meanwhile, I found the equipment available at the shops to be inadequate for this part of the game. In fact, the only worthwhile equipment the player can get is the Glove, which boosts Talon's strength and the Jacket, which improves their defense - but only if I allow them to equip it, since it does technically count as light armour. I may also have to improve the quality of headgear available to them at this stage, since it seems rather lacking.

Lyla's Skills: Dancer

2010-05-20T21:08:00.000-07:00

Waltz: Randomly hits enemies with slow spell.
MP: 2
Learned: 1

Tango: Randomly hits enemies with stun move.
MP: 2
Learned: 6

Rain Dance: Water damage to single enemy target.
MP: 5
Learned: 11

Morris Dance: Attacks in a row, causes confusion.
MP: 5
Learned: 15

Jig: Recovers own HP and MP.
MP: 10
Learned: 19

Breakdance: Hits area around targetted enemy with agility based damage.
MP: 10
Base: 30
SP: 90
EVA: 90
Learned: 23

Ice Dancing: Hits entire field with ice attack.
MP: 20
Base: 40
MA: 50
SP: 50
MD: 100
Learned: 26

Sword-Dance: Randomly attacks with swords.
MP: 6
Base: 5
Strength: 89%
Defense: 100%
Accuracy: 50%
Evasion: 50%
Learned: 30

Lyla's Skills: Leader

2010-05-20T20:51:00.000-07:00

War Cry: Increase all party member's attack and accuracy.
MP: 3
Learned: 1

Motivation: The party's Intelligence, Wisdom and Speed increase.
MP: 3
Learned: 4

Guard Up: All allies automatically raise their guard. If the character has had a turn already, they may still raise their guard. If not, they take new orders.
MP: 3
Learned: 8

Retreat: All allies attempt to escape the battle
MP: 3
Learned: 8

Intimidate: Inflicts Stun on target enemy.
MP: 5
Learned: 11

Valour: All party members gain a small amount of Magic.
MP: 10
Learned: 15

Last Gasp: All dead party members are raised at one Health.
MP: 10
Learned: 20

Inspiration: Affected party member gains additional experience at the end of the battle.
MP: 15
Learned: 25

Rally call: All allies automatically attack a random enemy. If the character has had a turn already, they may attack again. If not, they take new orders.
MP: 20
Learned: 30

Lyla's Skills: Actor

2010-05-20T20:38:00.000-07:00

Beast: Gain the movelist of a beast!
MP: 10

Learned: 1

Plant: Gain the skills of a plant!
MP: 10
Learned: 6

Undead: Gain the movelist of the undead!
MP: 10
Learned: 12

Elemental: Gain the movelist of an elemental!
MP: 10
Learned: 18

Ally: Gain access to the same skillslist as a selected party member for the rest of the battle.
MP: 10
Learned: 24

Enemy: Copies a selected enemy on the field's skills list for the rest of the battle.
MP: 10
Learned: 30

Lyla's Skills: Singer

2010-05-20T20:35:00.000-07:00

Lullaby: Hits entire field with a sleep spell.
MP: 7
Learned: 2

Whistle: Used outside battle. Causes enemy to appear.
Learned: 6

Blues: Heals entire field, decreases speed and defense of entire field. Removes fury and confusion.
MP: 5
Base:15
MA: 90
MD: 30
Learned: 10

Opera: Heals entire field. Raises attack of entire field.
MP: 5
Base: -10
MA: 100
MD: 20
Learned: 14

Dissonance: Damages entire field with song spell.
MP: 5
Base: 34
MA: 100
MD: 100
Learned: 17

Requiem: Raises deceased party members.
MP: 9
Base: -4
MA: 100
MD:1
Learned: 21

Harmony: Casts Regen on entire field.
MP: 7
Learned: 24

Aria: Removes all status effects on field, returns all stats to normal.
MP: 5
Learned: 27

Encore: Inflicts damage, then casts the spell once again. Spell only hits twice.
MP: 10
Base: 29
MA: 59
MD: 70
Learned: 30

Lyla's Skills: Artist

2010-05-20T20:04:00.000-07:00

Portrait: Heals ally target.
MP: 6
Base: -5
MA: 80
MD: 10
Learned: 1

Abstract: Confuses front column of enemy.
MP: 8
Learned: 7

Impressionism: Cuts opponent's speed and evasion.
MP: 2
Learned: 11

Landscapes: Inflicts random weather effects.
MP: 8
Learned: 17

Still Life: Paralyses area around enemy target.
MP: 5
Learned: 20

Monochrome: Reduces target opponent's MP.
MP: 7
Base: (hits MP) 10
MA: 100
MD: 100
Learned: 23

Expressionism: Revives ally target.
MP: 10
Base: -10
Learned: 27

Cubism: Restore party's MP
MP: 20
Base:10
MA: 50
MD: 50
Learned: 30

Talon's Skills: Kickboxer

2010-05-20T16:28:00.000-07:00

Block: Increases defense even more than a regular guard.
MP: 4
Learned: 1

Jab: Attack to single opponent. Reliant on speed more than strength.
MP: 4
Base: 19
AP: 50
SP: 90
DP: 100
EVA: 100
Learned: 6

Uppercut: Attack to single opponent. More reliant on strength than speed.
MP: 4
Base: 19
AP: 90
SP: 50
DP: 100
EVA: 100
Learned: 11

Roundhouse: Attack to column. Reliant on speed over strength.
MP: 4
Base: 15
AP: 40
SP: 80
DP: 100
EVA: 100
Learned: 17

Frontkick: Attack to row, more reliant on speed over strength.
MP: 4
Base: 15
AP: 35
SP: 75
DP: 100
EVA: 100
Learned: 22

Hook: Attack to column, more reliant on strength than speed.
MP: 4
Base: 15
AP: 80
SP: 40
DP: 100
EVA: 100
Learned: 25

Sidekick: Attack to row, more reliant on strength over speed.
MP: 4
Base: 15
AP: 75
SP: 35
DP: 100
EVA: 100Learned: 30

Talon's Skills: Kung Fu

2010-05-20T16:21:00.000-07:00

Counter: When struck, strikes back.
MP: 8
Learned: 2
Meditate: Recover MP and increase wisdom and intelligence.
MP: 12
Base: -5
MA: 50
Learned: 8

Preparation: Improves defense, and sets up a counter attack.
MP: 16
Learned: 13

Lightning Kick: Kicks row of enemy with electric damage.
MP: 15
Base: 20
AP: 75
DP: 65
MA: 40
MD: 40
Learned: 18

Focus: Raise accuracy of self, and recover a small amount of health.
MP: 7
Base: -1
MA: 25
Learned: 22

Humility: Hits column with dark damage.
MP: 9
Base: 23
MA: 90
MD: 87
Learned: 25

Brick Break: An armour piercing attack on a single enemy.
MP: 15
Base: 21
AP: 90
ACC: 50
EVA: 100
Learned: 30

Talon's Skills: Karate

2010-05-20T15:39:00.000-07:00

Hachiji-dachi: Standard attack, stats are reset to normal.
MP: 5
Base: 10
AP: 80
DP: 80
ACC: 50
EVA: 50
Learned: 1

Renoji-dachi: Focuses largely on evasion and accuracy. Power is decreased as is defense. A column attack is then performed.
MP: 8
Base: 10

AP: 75
DP: 75
ACC:75
EVA:75
Learned: 6

Fudō dachi: Focus on attack and accuracy over speed and evasion. A row attack is then performed.
MP: 8
Base: 10
AP: 100
DP: 80
ACC: 75
EVA: 50
Learned: 12

Moto-dachi: Focus on defense and attack, while speed and accuracy are lowered. An area of enemies are attacked.
MP: 10
Base: 10
AP: 100
DP: 100
ACC: 25
EVA: 50
Learned: 18

Hangetsu dachi: Focus on evasion and speed while defense and accuracy are decreased. All enemies are attacked.
MP: 10
Base: 10
AP: 80
DP: 50
SP: 50
EVA: 75
Learned: 24

Kosa dachi: Defense and speed over attack and evasion. Randomly attacks enemies.
MP:15
Base: 5
AP:25
DP: 50

SP:40
EVA: 50 Learned: 30

Talon's Skills: Judo

2010-05-20T15:26:00.000-07:00

Hane Goshi: Throws opponent up the battlefield. (towards the top of the screen)
MP: 5

Base: 23
AP: 90

DP: 90

Acc: 65

Eva: 65
Learned: 1

Ashi guruma: Throws opponent down the battlefield. (towards the bottom of the screen)
MP: 5

Base: 23
AP: 90

DP: 90

Acc: 65

Eva: 65Learned: 5

Seoi Nage: Throws opponent closer to party.
MP: 5
Base: 20
AP: 90
DP: 90
Acc: 65
Eva: 65
Learned: 10

Daki wakare: Throws opponent away from party.
MP: 5

Base: 20
AP: 90

DP: 90

Acc: 65

Eva: 65
Learned: 15

Uki-Gatame: Submission hold, will inflict continual damage for a brief time, and lower the speed and evasion of the target until then.
MP: 8
Learned 20

Rear Naked Choke: Damages single opponent. May send opponent to sleep.
MP: 7
Base: 10
AP:100
DP:90
Learned: 25

Cerin to Ranol concerns

2010-05-18T17:30:00.000-07:00

This is a little bit trickier, because I suspect that Talon and Lyla will not be at quite the same level as Gaita and Sernt - and there is a little bit of overlap between their areas here. For that reason, I'm considering having another area for the pair to get through before this point. Without that, they're probably going to be underlevelled. In fact, I'd place good odds on them being underlevelled.

The method I'm proposing is simple enough. The raft they used to escape from the base probably didn't travel that far across the ocean. So, I feel they may have landed on a peninsula - just to get themselves back onto dry land. From there, they trek on out towards Cerin, which is their base. I feel it may be possible for me to set up such an area, possibly as a temporary camp they'd set aside as part of an escape route.

Such an area will need new enemies as well, which would need to confront Talon and Lyla at about level 10. I may well sneak in a boss fight for this section, possibly the monster I had originally planned to lie in wait en route between Ranol and Cerin. This seems a little more appropriate.

The areas that will be needed:-
1: Landing area.
2: Resting area. Possibly a shop which sells the same things that were available at the resistance base.
3: South of 1, overworld section.
4: Cave section, connects 3 with port.

Sotop to Cerin Route

2010-05-18T07:04:00.000-07:00

I expect Gaita and Sernt to be about level 15 on entering this area. Since they take a different route to Cerin that all other parties wind up going on, I don't need to worry about balancing these two against those.

The new enemies on this route are the Toad, Porcupine and Flounder. I will have a few enemies from the mine in this route as well.

As the screen progress from the forest towards Cerin, they shall become more focused on the newer enemies.

There will be four troops. The first will entirely use enemies from the forest and the mine. The second will use monsters from the forest and the new ones. The third will use enemies from the mine and the new ones, while the last will only use the new enemies. All will have encounters between 3 and 5 in the troop at a time.

Screen 1: Will use 1 and 2
Screen 2: Will use 2 and 3
Screen 3: Will use 4 and 3

Mine Boss Test

2010-05-13T14:05:00.000-07:00

When the party escapes the Mine with prisoners in tow, they run into Lyla and she sets a beast of some sort upon them.

The party should be about level 15 by this point - the mine is far from easy and will certainly require a fair number of levels to get through. There's a good reason I'm letting the "Spirit of the mine" act as both a shop and a healing point. It's just daft without that.

I would like this boss to have two forms, which it will switch between during the course of the fight.

Flowra: Form 1
HP: 1000
AP: 75
DP: 30
SP: 40
MP: 100
MA: 30
MD: 30
Acc: 30
Eva: 24

Can Attack.

Skills: Vines, Pollen, Poison Dart

Flowra: Form 2
HP: Tied to above.
AP: 50
DP: 50
SP: 10
MP: Tied to above.
MA: 25
MD: 25
ACC: 10
Eva: 5

Can Defend
Skills: Tremor, Photosynthesis

Monster Tests: Mine

2010-05-11T17:44:00.000-07:00

This is a little bit tricky, because there are two aspects that need to be tested for this area. Gaita's brief escape, and later on when he's back in the mine with Sernt and Lerin.

The escape rooms will be made a slight bit easier than the rest of the mine - I'll look into making them one on one fights, perhaps by setting the maximum number of randomly generated enemies equal to the number in the party (rather than that number + 1)

When Gaita makes his escape, I expect him to be at least level three. I'm being very generous about that, because the player may not have levelled up at all in his previous sections and I'm going to need to be creative in the method the player can use to heal. He will have the same armour as before, but will also be able to equip a pickaxe.

For the second portion of the game, I expect Sernt and Lerin to be at least level 8 or 9. If Gaita didn't level up in the previous part of the game he's likely to be very far behind these two. In this instance, Gaita will get access to a number of new items from the Sotop shop, and overall the party will have access to even newer equipment in the Mine Shop.

Sotop Shop:
Jacket
Camo-Suit
Wooden Helmet
Cap
Headband
Leather Cap
Wooden Shield
Copper Sword
Flint

Mine Shop:
Rock shield
Wooden Mask
Iron Chestplate
Sharpened Bone

The enemies available are; Mine guard, Zombie, Goblins. For Gaita's escape areas, they will appear in numbers between one and the number of party members. In the other areas, they will appear in numbers between two and five.

It's not an easy dungeon, but so long as the player is of a reasonable level (ie: At least 8) and has some decent equipment on them, it's possible to make it through. The encounter rate is low for this one, because it's a bit of a puzzle dungeon. Whether or not the damage rate inflicted is too high (as I suspect it might be) I can only tell be actually playing the game. I intend to do this - but only once I have the rest of the game dealt with.

Gaita's Skills: Brute

2010-05-07T08:55:00.000-07:00

Intimidate: Inflicts Stun on target, may steal money.
MP: 7
Learned: 1

Shakedown: Steals money from target, and lowers their defence.
MP: 6

Learned: 8

Uppercut: Attack to single opponent. More reliant on strength than speed.
MP: 5
Base: 15
Attack: 75%
Defense: 75%
Accuracy: 75%
Evasion: 75%
Learned: 14

Brawl: Attacks area around target.
MP: 7
Base: 20
Attack: 100%
Defense: 40%
Speed: 40%
Evasion: 100%
Learned: 19

Mug: Steals money from target, while damaging them in the process.
MP: 10
Base: 10
Attack: 50%
Defense: 50%
Accuracy: 50%
Evasion: 50%
Learned: 24

Rampage: Randomly attacks.

MP: 10
Base: 9
Attack: 100%
Defense: 75%

Learned: 30

Gaita's Skills: Assassin

2010-05-07T08:50:00.000-07:00

Hide: Entire field is struck by a smoke bomb, decreasing accuracy and increasing evasion. Uses smoke bomb instead of MP
Learned: 1

Smoke-Bomb: Use up a smoke bomb to escape battle.
Learned: 5

Stab: Hits one target with sword attack
MP: 4
Base: 1
Strength: 100%
Defense: 100%
Accuracy: 100%
Evasion: 100%
Learned: 11

Backstab: Dexterity based attack. Uses a smoke bomb to activate.
MP: 9
Base: 1
Speed: 100%
Defense: 50%
Learned: 18

Poison: Use a medical kit to inflict poison damage to the enemy.
Base: 5
Accuracy: 100%
Defense: 60%
Learned: 23

Sword Dance: Randomly strikes enemies.
MP: 6
Base: 5
Strength: 89%
Defense: 100%
Accuracy: 50%
Evasion: 50%
Learned: 30

Gaita's Skills: Grifter

2010-05-07T08:25:00.000-07:00

Probably not one of the better classes... I'm considering giving him a special ability that lets him drain a little extra EXP of an enemy. Possibly replace Motivation or Fast Talk.

Scheme: Increases wisdom and intelligence of all allies.
MP:2
Learned: 1

Motivation: The party's Intelligence, Wisdom and Speed increase.
MP: 3
Learned: 4

Fast Talk: Lowers wisdom and intelligence of all enemies.
MP: 2
Learned: 9

Swindle: Inflicts confusion status and steals money from target.
MP: 5
Learned: 14

Scam: Steals MP from target.
MP: 6 (not that it matters much)
MA: 100
MD: 100
Learned: 19

Con: Inflicts recurring GP drain on enemy target.
MP: 5
Learned: 24

Gaita's Skills: Pickpocket

2010-05-07T08:16:00.000-07:00

I'm looking over these techniques, and I can't help but wonder if there's something I should change to make Gaita better...

Steal: Steals either gold or an item from the enemy.
MP: 5
Learned: 1

Misdirect: Lower accuracy and speed of all enemies. May also put a status effect on them, but I've not yet decided what.
MP: 4
Learned: 5

Sprint: Increase speed, evasion and accuracy of self. May cause normal attack immediately following. That last sentence is a new addition, because I've already got other moves in the game that do something similar.
MP: 6
Learned: 10

Escape: Party automatically escapes from battle, unless boss encounter. May lose coins in the process.
MP: 5
Learned: 15

Drain: Steals health from enemy. Interesting how this is also an undead technique.
MP: 8
Base: 1
AP:80
DP: 100
Learned: 20
Sneak: Used on map only, lowers encounter rate for a brief period.
MP: 8
Learned: 25

Only you can prevent forest fires! AKA: Sotop Boss the Second

2010-05-06T15:33:00.000-07:00

I figure having firey enemies show up in the middle of a forest town is a pretty good indicator that things are just not right at all.

This part of the game occurs after defeating the intruders. Monsters appear in Sotop, and Sernt and Lerin must deal with them.

Ember Imp
HP: 200
AP: 40
DP: 15
SP: 30
MP: 60
MA: 30
MD: 20
ACC: 10
EVA: 0

Flame
Heat Up: If HP <30

After all of these are overcome, another monster appears... though this one is a bit tougher than the others.

Flame Golem

HP: 300
AP: 40
DP: 15
SP: 20
MP: 100
MA: 30
MD: 20
ACC: 15
EVA: 0
Flame
Heat Up: If HP <30
Scorch: If HP<50
If Level>7 Inferno

The HP may seem high, but really it's not. Compared to how much damage the player will be able to manage a turn, it's really not. Especially since these are all one on two fights.

Testing revealed a few interesting things. Each fight is very damaging by itself, though each of them can be taken down pretty quickly even with basic equipment. This seems to be a bit of a trend with boss fights involving these two. I had to sort out some minor programming errors, as Inferno should heal the Flame Golem when it's used. It's a particularly nasty move, so it's reserved for when his health is low. I tested the boss with the starting equipment at level 5. With that equipment, at that level, it's very likely that the player can take the boss down - depending slightly on how smart the player and the boss fight. AI being AI, the golem is probably doomed.

That said, the testing was performed with the party at full HP and MP. While it's likely anybody would attempt the boss only after getting up to full strength like that, any party that doesn't is likely to get their heads kicked in. Or burned off.

However, there's a psychological aspect at work as well. After all, how often do players find themselves not attacking with the entire party if someone is at low HP? Instead preferring not to chance having that party member perish at the next attack? That aspect, wherein the player is unaware of the health points of a given enemy, will make them much more wary and defensive. Especially since the sprite used to represent the Flame Golem looks like a man on fire. Or made of it. Depends on how you look at it.

As such, I'm on the fence as to whether or not to increase the HP of this boss. I may increase his evasion, come to think...

A quick test with an evasion increase (22) indicates that the Flame Golem boss is now at a suitable level of difficulty. This is largely due to taking a lower level of damage, combined with concentrated fire on Lerin. She died a few turns into the battle (as I intentionally neglect healing on an initial boss test), and Sernt fell a few turns after. I suspect I may have raised the evasion slightly too high, however.

The Ember Imp is at a suitable level of difficulty. That is, it's a challenging fight but not at a boss level standard.

Proper Testing Procedure

2010-05-03T13:04:00.000-07:00

I've decided to take a much more careful look at things from now on...

There are many aspects to test in each area. The monsters that inhabit the area. The classes for the characters in that area. The new equipment available to those characters. I'll be taking a slightly different approach to testing than I did previously.

1: Who is in the party. Obviously for the final dungeon, a seperate issue will need to be developed to deal with this. Alongside the list of who is in the party should be an approximate level range.

2: New equipment, by which I mean equipment the characters in the party had no access to in prior areas. This could be from a shop they could now visit, or from treasure chests found in the area I'm testing. Next to each new equipment should be the names of all party members for which the equipment is new. I should also list what kind of equipment it is as well.

3: Monsters. For this, I list the names of the monster and the skills it can use.

4: Troops. The different combinations of monsters available for the area.

With all those set up, I shall test each area according to a simple aesthetic. How easy or difficult is the area? How likely is it, in my opinion, that a skilled player could get through the area? Of course, there's a couple of problems with that - two, in fact. The first is the usual tester's dilemma. The more I play the game, the better I'll get at it. This usually applies specifically to games that require dexterity rather than strategy, but still... The other problem is that I'm only one person. I cannot realistically test each possible strategic combination. For that reason, I don't want to spend more than a day on each area. Just get the aesthetic to the point where I'm happy with it, then let whoever wants to do the difficulty testing work things out. Whenever that will be.

Boss fights, now that's an entirely different problem altogether. These are usually one on many affairs, meaning that different rules and aesthetics will apply to the above.

1: Same as before.

2: Boss + skills.

The trick with bosses is that they must be much, much harder to kill than standard enemies. For that reason, they're being sorted seperately.

Misc Skills

2010-05-02T14:27:00.000-07:00

Explosion: Kills self, then damages entire field for a lot of damage.
MP: 10
Base: 30
AP: 100
DP: 100

Nut Shower: Hits front column with a nutty assault.
MP: 9
Base: 10
Acc: 100
Def: 100

Hibernate: Send self to sleep. Regen, and gain a little health.
MP: 1
Base: -10

Tri-Strike: Strikes area with fire, ice and lightning based attack.
MP: 20
Base: 15
AP: 20
DP:20
MA: 100
MD: 100

Slimey Coating: Increase own defense.
MP: 2

Hop: Strikes random targets.

MP: 10
Base: 5
AP: 50
DP: 100

Curl: Increases defense and attack.
MP: 2

Rolling Strike: Hits row
MP: 4
Base: 8
AP: 65
DP: 100

Pin Release: Hits column
MP: 4
Base: 8
AP: 64
DP: 100

Sandstorm: Hits entire field with earth/wind attack.
MP: 6
Base: 8
AP: 65
DP: 100
MA: 30
MD: 25

Eruption: Hits entire field with fire/earth attack.
MP: 6
Base: 8
AP: 65
DP: 100
MA: 30
MD: 25

Throw Net: Hits enemy area with attack that decreases speed and evasion. May paralyse.
MP: 5

Reptile Skills

2010-05-02T13:48:00.000-07:00

Camoflage: Increases evasion.

MP: 5

Screech: Strikes row, and decreases evasion. Does mental based damage.
MP: 4
Base: 5
MA: 100
MD: 100

Snakedance: Inflicts confusion in target, and lowers their evasion and their defense.

MP: 6

Coil: Increases accuracy and defense.
MP: 3

Glare: Inflict paralysis in target.
MP: 7

Hiss: Increases accuracy and attack.
MP: 3

Fish Skills

2010-05-02T13:43:00.000-07:00

Fin Slap: Basic attack, hits single target.
MP: 1
Base: 5
AP: 50
DP: 100
Acc: 50
Eva: 20

Clam Up: Improves own defense, but decreases own accuracy.
MP: 4

Tentacle Slap: Attacks random party members.
MP: 10
Base: 1
AP: 40
DP: 100
Acc: 20
Eva: 10

Ink Spray: Blinds front column.
MP: 4

Ink Jet: Blinds row.
MP: 4

Stinger: Poisons target.
MP: 4

Dive: Casts Douse on self.
MP: 3

2010-05-02T13:31:00.000-07:00

Vines: Strikes row with basic attack.
MP: 6
Base: 7
AP: 85
DP: 100

Spore: Strikes area with poison attack.

MP: 6

Photosynthesis: Recovers health
MP: 9
Base: -5
AP: 50
MA: 10

Thorn: Increases own defense and attack.

MP: 5

Seed-Shot: Hits single target
MP: 7
Base: 10
AP: 20
DP: 100
Acc: 100
Eva: 30

Pollen: May send target to sleep.
MP: 6

Insect Skills

2010-05-02T12:53:00.000-07:00

Web: Strikes front column, decreases speed and evasion.

MP: 4

Bite: Again, mentioned for the sake of Actor

Sting: Basic damage to single target, may inflict stun.

MP 6
Base: 1
AP: 10
DP: 100
Acc: 10
Eva: 100

Cocoon: Increases own defense, but lowers evasion.
MP: 2

Buzz: Increase evasion of all allies.
MP: 3

Swarm: Summons reinforcements. Actor won't get this.

MP: 8

Acid-Spit: Lowers defense of all enemies.

MP: 5

Burrow: An earth based defensive move, recovers health
MP: 7
Base: -1
MA: 30
MD: 1