Dragonfly Dev

Health is wealth may as well be Olga’s motto as it’s what her skills and development system have been built around. Her main skill is called “HP Loan” which loans an enemy some HP (regardless of if he needs it) on the condition that the HP accumulates interest and that Olga can have it back anytime she wants. While it’s not really optimal to heal your enemies this does more damage in the end (usually – exception being enemies on low HP but why are you healing them?). An enemy’s debt is displayed on their health bar so you can easily see when they owe all their HP to you.

Compound interest for the win.

Well with that brief look at skills it’s time to look at how Olga gains stats and learns new skills. If Olga reaches full health or is already at full health when she cashes in a loan then the excess HP is converted into currency based on the enemy’s difficulty. She also gains a small/generous (I’m not sure which at this point in time) of currency at the end of battles. Outside of battles she can spend her currency on increasing stats and learning new skills.

The HP cost of skills isn’t implemented yet… Really I should only have got 40-50 Zinc from that battle.

As you can see there are eight currencies available through the game, at the moment it’s a currency for every five levels but that could change. Also as you might have spotted the smuggling option is a list of shops you’ve visited and means you don’t have to walk all the way back to a shop in an obscure location just to buy a weapon you couldn’t afford earlier (why you would want to do that will be revealed with the next character blog post), though there maybe be an additional fee if you are in a dungeon at the time.

Anyway I hope you liked this brief look at Olga, if played well she’ll be a valuable member to any team combination you use. I’m slightly behind where I hoped to be in terms of development but hopefully I can catch up a bit over the next week. My next entry will either be about Koren’s gameplay or about skill mechanics. See you soon!

So with real life finally settling down for hopefully a long while it’s time to get back into game development. When discussing the development of our next game, Maki and I thought blogging through the development process could be a fun thing so without further ado here’s the first of my entries.

Adalynne is the main character, very early on in the game she acquires the ability to shapeshift. For those of you who played Sunken Spire the system has been developed more, this time around you’ll be changing forms in the middle of battles automatically based on conditions. Let’s have a quick look.

She’s the daughter of Elsa and Gideon who accidentally fused with the shape shifting Ooze (oh wait that’s terrible fan fiction).

As you can hopefully see, Adalynn’s form changes as her HP gets lower. Now is probably a good time to mention that at this early stage nearly everything is place holder – though the human form sprite is actually Adalynne. Each form has varying stats, the first form is meant to be the Fox form and has a higher attack power and speed but lower defences. The final form is meant to be the Slime form which has lowered offensive stats but higher defensive stats. They also have varying access to skills which are handled in groups like so:

None of the characters in this game employ a traditional leveling system. Adalynne uses a system currently called the mastery system. Given the complexity of her form condition system the mastery system has been kept fairly straight forward, for Adalynne to get stronger she just has to defeat a quota of each enemy type, if she lands the killing blow then she gets triple the progress. In the event of potentially missing a skill all skills which are not on unavoidable enemies will be learnt by leveling up a few levels after you could have acquired them. Here’s a quick look:

With careful planning that HP could be your in 3 Slimes or 7 if you are less than optimal.

I should probably mention how levels work. Your level is calculated based on your stats, so as you gain stats your level will increase. For most characters gaining levels only really have the potential to grant skills you missed but Adalynne currently also gains access to new forms by level though that will probably change. For fun 40HP is roughly one third of a level.

I will do a second blog entry on Adalynne later when more of her forms are implemented and some general combat systems are completed but I’ll finish this up with a brief glance at the form system. As I previously mentioned form changes are automatic based on conditions, which you can change at will as long as you’re outside of battle.

You’ll unlock more conditions as you play.

My next entry will probably be the second main playable character whose skills are based around the idea that health is wealth…

Just yesterday we discussed and potentially finalized the skills for the entire party. I also ensured that all of the effects work. We’ve had most of these determined for the last couple weeks, but we filled in the last couple holes last night and tossed out a few that were a little iffy.

So with that said, I thought I’d share the lists and see if anyone has any comments, critiques, or questions.

Things of note:

• You can use as many skills in a turn as you have the AP for
• AP will range from 2 to 6, with the max requiring equipment sacrifices
• Under normal circumstances, no skill will miss
• Some skill effects can be improved with accessories
• All skills are single target unless otherwise stated
• Skill names not final. Any numbers mentioned are also not final
• The classes I list are just to give you a general idea of the character’s purpose

Gerda – Healer

• Gather – Gather resources based on the current map. Adds the resources to your current battle inventory, allowing you to use them right away.
• Nurse – Restores a small percentage (10?) of HP. Does not require any items.
• Cure – Removes all harmful status effects. Requires an item. The improved version of this will also grant immunity to some status effects for a few turns.
• Boost Potion – Improves the effects of any healing potion.
• Wide Potion – Allows a potion to affect the entire party.
• Restore AP – Sacrifices own AP to restore the AP of a friend. Target will gain Gerda’s current AP before using this skill, up to a maximum of 3. AP cannot exceed max.
• Poison – Deals damage and inflicts a poison state. This is Gerda’s only means of attack. Requires a flower-type item which can change the effectiveness of the attack and/or poison.

Removed:
Revive – An expensive skill that revives and restores HP to the entire party. Requires a late-game item that must be crafted. Wide potion + a good revive potion now takes the place of this.

Kai – Nuker/”Blue Mage”

• Bash – Hits the enemy with your staff. Does not require an item
• Experiment – Requires a monster-type item. Deals damage and possibly an effect based on the chosen item.
• Icy Glare – Freezes the enemy and deals small damage. Does not require an item.
• Reflect – Reflects all skills, both good and bad. Items still work. Does not require an item.
• Toss Potion – Tosses a potion made of enemy parts that creates an effect related to said enemy. Basically blue magic with items.
• Swipe Parts – Deals damage and rips a part off of the enemy.

Possibly removed:
Large Experiment – Same as Experiment but with an Area of Effect and improved damage. Since some Experiement effects will already be AoE, this seems a little redundant.

Hansel – Tank/Damage

Hansel does not require items for any skill. As a result, his TP costs will be higher.

• Axe Swing – Basic melee attack.
• Big Attack – Melee attack with an area of effect.
• Mend – A small healing ability.
• Lullaby – Puts the enemy to sleep.
• Cover – Takes hits for allies.
• Provoke – Provokes a single enemy into attacking him.
• Counter – Gains the ability to counter attacks.

Gretal – Buffer/Damage

• Punch – Basic melee attack.
• Launch Arrow – All of Gretal’s bow and arrow-based skills require an arrow to use. The arrow you choose will have an effect on the attack. This one is the most basic of the three.
• Eye Shot – Same as Launch Arrow, but with increased damage(?) and the ability to blind.
• Arrow Barrage – Area of Effect arrow attack. Requires a Bundle of Arrows. The amount of arrows in the bundle affects the damage.
• Lock On – Removes the enemy’s ability to dodge.
• Swift – Gives self the ability to dodge.
• Pump Up – Attack and defence buff.

In addition to the above, each party member will have a “pass”-type skill and a Use Item command. The pass-type skill will vary by character and can be improved with accessories. Restoring HP, TP, or increasing defence are all options. The strength of these effects is based on the amount of AP used.

If you made it through that wall of text, then good job. Here’s the recently completed bust portraits for the party’s parents to help add some pictures.

So posting updates alongside the GMD posts on one of the RPG Maker websites I frequent didn’t really work out. It ended up feeling redundant and I got behind here, so they just kind of stopped. What I am going to try to do to give this site a purpose minus being an archive of our work is to post about some of the features of our upcoming game Winter Blossoms. I don’t have any particular plans on what aspects to talk about or how often I will make posts, so this will just kind of be major aspects of the game as I think of them or as a comment inspires me to write about them. With that intro taken care of, let’s get to actually talking about the game.

It became apparent quite early in the design process that gold/money had very little purpose in this game. Fairly early on, Hansel and Gretal start working for a blacksmith and gain the ability to craft new weapons, armour, and accessories for the party. In fact, with the exception of possibly some treasure chests, this is the only way in which you get new equipment. To top if all off, a large portion of your items for use are going to come from either Gerda’s Botany and Kai’s Chemistry, so there is even less incentive to buy. Gather spots are frequent and renewable, so there is no lack of resources you can acquire for yourself.

Combine the above reasons with the fact that your party consists of teenagers, a game with no currency makes sense. That’s not to say there aren’t “shops.” The town features a lively marketplace right in the center of town. Here you can make trades for items that maybe are not as readily available with those that you have loads of. This isn’t the only location you can make trades, however. Perhaps that neighbour of yours really wants that perfect flower for their garden, and they are willing to part with their favourite ring to get it. You might find that the stock and trades available in this town change with time, so that once smoking deal for healing potions is no longer what it once was.

You might be wondering what happens if you’ve completely exhausted your supply of basic items and can no longer take on the monsters required to replenish them. Fear not! Your parents will gladly give you a stockpile if you run yourself completely dry, but not before admonishing you for getting yourself into dangerous situations of course.

Like I mentioned in the opening, I have no plan currently for what I’m going to write about, so let me know if there’s anything you are curious about or want a deeper explanation of.

The day started off much the same as the last couple days, itty bitty things like refining colours and taking care of little annoyance bugs. But then we got into a couple fun things.

I finally tackled a script that was scaring me a little bit (since it was the first major-ish script I was making for the project and there are a number of non-default scripts I am working with now) but was excited for because it’s a fairly important aspect to the game. So I don’t think I’ve mentioned before, but a core mechanic to the game is the gathering, refining, and use of items. There are renewable gather spots on the maps, a crafting system to refine what you gather, and most skills, particularly for Gerda and Kai, will use items.

An important aspect of this is skills that have more than one option for items that you can use. We could just have “regular arrow,” “winter arrow,” “poison arrow” as skill options, but it is preferable to just have a “shoot arrow” and then select from whatever arrows you currently have. This also allows for various possibly unforeseen combinations of skills and items. Generally how it works is you have a skill with basic stats, and the arrow you pick will add various effects, be it extra damage, a status effect, or a new element. You can also have skills that take the item as the base and just enhance it. Which items are available for the skill can be limited on a skill-by-skill basis.

The other exciting work completed today was some sketches and designs for the town and a rough layout for the areas around it. This also resulted ina first draft of the map for Gerda and Kai’s homes. They will need editing and new items to complete them, but the basic structure is more or less in place.