4/26/97
Well how about that.. Last week I make rain in TLOT and this weekend it rains.. and it rains a lot! Its Germanfest weekend and its suppose to be bright and sunny! I'm suppose to enjoy this weekend with my girlfriend at the fest. Today marks 1 year and 4 months... cool eh? Anyway...
The image this week is one of many title screens that I've made. I keep changing my mind and playing with this and that. I doubt I'll use this one, I just don't like lense flares that much now that EVERYONE uses them. Its also jpg, if you reduce that image down to 256 colors, it just doesn't look real good anymore.
I did some coding this week and I think I got together some good sound code. I wrote a sound set util that will allow you to setup the sound external to the game and save the config in a file. After writing this I realized I needed to run it on an assortmant of machines. I've finally decided to accept some beta testing. I figured that if I was going to start beta testing, I might as well do it right, so I will now start screening people for beta testers. If you are interested in beta testing TLOT (now and in the future) then download this form and fill in the blanks. Then mail it back to me. My address is in the form.
I started to update the character list and I didn't get to far. I might get those updated in a week or ten. I'm right at finals time now... This next week is dead week and finals are the week after that. Then summer. I hope to do lots of TLOT programming this summer, but with my bad luck... I've got another web site to build as soon as I get done with finals. I've got alot of bills to pay this summer and I'm going to have to work really hard.
4/19/97
Tonight is Prom and I'm very busy. I don't have time to mess with much mail or any more code. This week I didn't do very much art but I did alot of coding. I've gotten rid of all reference to the crt unit and now have a keyboard handler thanx to Scott Earnest. The engine scrolls a bit nicer now. I tried putting in some music to see how the code is going to work and I ran into some problems there but I think I can iron them out. I only put the music code in to see how it was going to work, just a temporary thing. I also coded in some rain effects that I may or may not use. I am considering using them near the beginning of the game. I want to have a dark and stormy night when Seth is born. This screen shot shows what a dark and stormy night may look like. If you have a dark monitor, you may not be able to see the shot very well. I put a 640x480 version up also, just clik on the image... I stayed up till 3:00 am last nigh working on the rain. I would really like to put some lightning into it as well, but with the Prom I'm running out of time!!!
I've got my tux and I've got my flowers. I'm still mad cause I wasn't able to get a limo :( I hope tonight goes well. I want to take some pictures and make a Prom 97 page later. I'm not sure why, just something I felt inspired to do... I may not be so inspired when the time comes.. you never know..
Also, I noticed I forgot to do something very important. I forgot to put a link to another great RPG somewhere on my site, Telen! I was told that they may be moving servers soon so this link might me outdated soon... If it works, check it out.. BTW, last I heard, they need a tilest...
4/13/97
Well, this week I got alot of tiles done. I got inspired near the beginning of the week to do some cave tiles and I decided to go ahead and have a little animation via color cycles in the game. I now have some animated water falls and drips of water seaping out of the cave walls. I got another burst of inspiration and did a desert tile set also. The dester town set has some domes on the houses and cracks in the adobe. Its coming along ok. I have to have all of the stuff inside the houses (tables, walls, pictures, rugs...) in the same tiles set for the outside. So far, I've only been doing tiles for outside the houses. The image on the right is the first thing I did inside of a house. I also coded a little bit so that you can walk up to one of the houses on the map and actually enter it. I knew all along how I wanted to do it, but when I put it into pratice I was shocked at just how well it did work. I am very proud of the effect and I think it will go good in the game. When you walk in the front door, instandly the roof disapears and you can see stuff in the house.. and when you walk out of the house, the roof goes back.. Anyway, I updated the Screen Shots page with some of the new tiles. I really am very happy with my new cave tiles.
I also thought I should ad some kind of Map function to the game so you don't get lost to easily. I'm not sure yet though. I might not add one.. I might add a very vague one, or I might just get kinky and add an automap kinda thing that will only diplay where you have been... but, thats for consideration much later..
You can click on the image this week to see an image of my girlfriend. This was a photo I took of her under a black light in my room with my hand over the flash. I thought it had a very interesting effect. I hope she doesn't mind me showing it to the world.... I know, its not relavent to the game, but hey, this is my page!
I got into the tiles this week and I have things I need to do to my Bob 2 editor. I will try to spend tomorrow working on just the editor, but I also have several hours of reading to do for Monday... Why must I always have so much to do. I have this theory.. I know I can't work on TLOT as much as I would like, but as long as I am doing weekly updates and I am actually doing SOMETHING each week, even if its very little, then the project will actually get completed some day.... Who knows....
4/6/97
I've had a couple people talk to me about doing full screen scrolling in the game. I've considered it before, but I really donno if I want to go through the work of coding it in just to find out that it won't scroll fast enough for my needs or something. I was just asked about it again the other night while chatting with the Indigo Games folks and I though maybe I'd fabricate a screen shot to see what it would look like. I did kinda a quick job in PSP on it, but here's the basic idea... The more I think about it, I think I am happy with my smaller window for this game. I know a bigger scrolling area would be nice, but I'll deal with that in TLOT 2.. I just want to finish this one!
Prom is coming up on April 19th... Then right around the corner is May... and then I am out of school till next fall! This summer will mean lots of ground for TLOT... I don't care what tries to get in the way this summer, I have to follow my dream and I have to get this game written. That means I will be shooting for a release date somewhere around late this summer..
There is a new RPG under development on the scene now.. Its called Neophyte. I haven't downloaded it yet, but I will probably look at it soon. I hear its pretty good. I was really impressed with Albion and I was told that it pales in comparison... You should also go get a demo of Miura Warrior. Its being devloped completely by one person. Just think, if he finishes and sales the game, thats gonna mean he doesn't have to split the cash with anyone!
You may have noticed the "Get Splat Now" button over on the menu this time around. Ronny over at FarieSoft asked for one so now there it is! He is also at work on an RPG, but I don't know when he will have a demo available.
There are so many of us out there who are at work on cRPGs that we should really start a cult. There is a rpg ring and lots of RPG Designer sites out there, but I gave up on tracking them all down. It makes me realize that I'm not the only person out there who dreams of designing cRPGs. In fact, I'm one of VERY many. The funny thing is, very few of these groups/people are actually able to finish a game up.... and boy I can see why! I will try very hard to break the mold by finishing TLOT... and maybe if Bob 2 goes well I will have more drive and more money come this summer.... Some of the links I have in this week's updates are those people that I think have a very strong chance of having a finished product someday, so check it out.
