4/26/98
I just didn't know what to code this week, so I tore back into some artwork and created a new tile set. Featured this week is a shot of the compound the monks live in. I guess its a monistary or some such... I've still got some stuff to add to it but the basic look and feel is in place. This is one of four possible homes for Seth in the beginning of the game.
This weekend was Germanfest, aka drunkenfest! And I got BUSTED! Yeap, I thought I didn't have any problems now that I'm 21. I guess I was pretty much wrong.
I was at the fest. They wanted $2.25 for a beer. It was a complete outrage! I decided it would be best to visit the beer store. At the beer store, a good friend of mine came in with me when we made our purchase. He also helped carry it out. Unfortunately he wasn't 21. Neither were 4 other traveling in our vehicle. We took the beverages out of the store and placed them in the trunk of the car.
Thats when the LCB pulled up. Not just the cops, but the LCB. They grilled us for about half an hour. First they accused me of drinking as they claimed to have "seen" me drinking at the last stop we made. (They had followed us for a while) What they saw was me taking a drink of bottled water. From there it was kinda downhill for the LCB. There was less and less that they could nail us for. The alchohol was in the trunk for one thing (not in the car). Also, no one in the group had anything to drink yet. The other 4 minors hadn't touched the stuff at all so there could be no MIPs for them. But, one minor helped carry it out and he owned the car it was in... so they still had us by the nads.
To make sure I was totally humiliated they had me poor out my well spent 20 dollars right next to the main drag in town. Numerous people who knew me some how showed up. Even people I hadn't seen in years somehow drove by while I was dumping priceless fluid on the ground.
Once the rocks and dirt were completely drunk I wandered back over to the rest of the group and we all compaired our warnings. This is the part that got me. We were issued warning tickets and we all had to sign them. (none of us were issued an actual ticket) I have a copy of mine in my wallete right now. But, 4 memebers of the group were not given copies?! They specifically asked for them, but the LCB said they didn't need them.... I don't understand that one at all.
Regardless, we were all pretty shaken. I didn't like the countless threats of being tossed in jail. I didn't like seeing good booz go to waste. Worst of all, my hand hurt like hell from opening all those twist off bottle caps.
We got off with little more than 20 lost dollars, but this was suppose to be an enjoyable weekend and it was really screwed. On top of that, people who were drinking and driving by as I was pouring out beer didn't get into any trouble. Those are the people who KILL, those are the people who need to be stopped. Not a bunch of kids looking for a safe place to relax and have fun. Its sad when a person lets the law rule over morals and common since.
I have rarely met an individual wearing a badge who didn't have an ego trip. Those LCB were no exeption. Perhaps one of the will be in a wreck caused by a drunk driver on their way home tonight. A drunk driver they could have pulled over if they weren't busy harrassing a group of kids somewhere else.
Thats my story, on to other things. I just played the Quest For Glory 5 demo that came with my PC Gamer. It really is pretty cool. I didn't get into it enough to know if the game will be worth playing, but the demo is very interesting. It didn't take long to learn exactly how the engine works, but I don't think I could explain it here.... you'll just have to play it.
I've got some links for you. Miura Warrior Demo 5.25 is ready. This is a funny site for those over 18 *cough*. Seth Hopkins let me know about a very nice search engine. Here is an interesting bit about the name "Talibah". I've got a few more links bookmarked at work that I failed to send home, I'll get them up sometime.
I watched the first half of Merlin with my girlfriend tonight, not bad.. Its definately not as good as Excaliber, but its very enjoyable. Speaking of Aphrodite, she finally gave up on the last midi contest. Seems as though no one was going to figure the song out. So, she's re-started the constest with a new midi. You might wanna check that out.
Arg, thats about it this week. Too much personal content in this update, not enough Talibah content. Oh well, you'll survive.
4/19/98
This week I spent a lot of time programming. Mostly, I cleaned up a lot of loose ends. I didn't make any bold leaps forward. I have improved the way the treasure chests open. I re-design part of the menu so that it "remembers" what selection you were on when you return to a previous menu. I re-added an old overworld magic "effect" I made once (you can see this by clicking on this week's image). I also fixed the rain effect (it hasn't worked since I changed a few things a couple of months back). I added some debug keys so I could change the scrolling speed while I'm in the game. I've started coding the items structure but I'm not moving to quickly. Its strange how these little things can really slow you down. I had no idea treasure chests would take as long as they did... and now I'm trying to figure out the best way to carry stuff around. *shrug*
I haven't messed with any art in a while. This week's image is the third image Brian Crews sent me a while back. This is Eznick pulling the Rod from the stone.. But Brian drew it as a brick wall instead. Umm... oh well... Anyway, Eznick shoulda left that damn rod alone.
I have been thinking about the battle scenes a lot. Its going to be tough due to lack of memory. I don't think I'll be able to have more than maybe three different types of monsters on the screen at once. I'll probably have something like 7 or 9 possible monsters, but they'll have to be groups of similar type monsters. I also won't have much RAM left for magic effects. Not sure how I'm gonna cope with that.
Arg, I don't have much more to say this week so I'll cut this update short.
4/11/98
Ok, you've probably seen the menu before but I put up a screen shot of it anyway. I'm fairly certain that the options listed here will be the options listed on the final main menu. I'll take them one at a time:
Anyway, thats what I'm working on right now...
Wow, Starcraft is amazingly addictive! I've spent so damn much time playing that game this week. The single player is the BEST single player game I've seen in any RTS. The problem is, I'm still getting my butt kicked on Battle.Net... If you are new to RTS games, this one might not be for you. It just feels like it was designed with RTS vets in mind. If you are looking for your first RTS I'd say Age of Empires is your best bet. (Yes, AoE still rocks)..
While I'm talking about RTS games, I want to use this chance to mention something I feel pretty strongly about. The Dominion demo recently released by Ion Storm is really a poor sign of things to come. The game was perhaps the worst RTS demo I've ever taken the time to download. I was VERY let down. I mean, come on! You can't scroll the map with the keyboard! You can't do much of anything with the keyboard! The only place I found to use it was on the stat screen where there is NO OTHER WAY to get out of the screen than to hit escape. I played this demo on a pII266 w/64 megs of RAM, well over the recommended machine. There's no f_cking way that game was running 30fps in all resolutions as the documentation said it would. One of the menus was almost unuseable because the mouse updated so slowly! Go put Win95 on a 386 and try to use Microsoft Office 97 and you'll see what I mean.
Ok, now that I got that off my chest I've got a little bit of news. For those of you who don't know, sqaure.net is gone. The site has changed a great deal and has changed owners. It is now located at www.rpgamer.com. Another major WWW change occured at Red Dragon Review. They've totally redone the site. It will not display very well in 3.X versions of Netscape. If you've got a browser that will display the page, it is very well laid out and easy to navigate.
My girlfriend just picked up a new CD I've been after. She said we could "share" it.. meaning I have to give it back. =( Its Loreena McKennit: the book of secrets. Its all celtic with female vocals and its fantastic. You can find more info at the website.
Tom Hall (Anachronox) mentioned putting together an RPG libarary for his team. I wrote him and recommended some RPGs for his "libarary". I listed all the games that have inspired me that I coud think of off the top of my head (about 2 screens full). I asked him how many of these games he'd played. Here's the responce I got back:
Some of the RPGs he'd never played included the Dragon Warrior series,
Breath of Fire series, Lunar series, Lufia series and 7th Saga. I also
listed some Adventure games wich included Illusian of Gia and Secret of
Mana. There were lots more games but I can't remember. It just worries me
that a group of programmers are claiming to be creating a "console style
RPG" and all they've spent much time playing are Chrono Trigger and
Final Fantasy 7. Atleast now I know they've seen FF3 and PS3..
I better close a rather lengthy weekly update. Until next time.
4/5/98
Well, the treasure chests are complete and fully functional. It wasn't too tough I guess. I ended up having to modify my map editor more than I wanted to but it ended up being the best way to do it. So thats done.
After the treasure chests I tore into the status screen shots (re-scaling them down and stuff) and I found out that PSP4's resample is much cleaner than 3's was. I was very happy with the results. I got the status screen coming up and a menu to select wich character's stats you want to view. Its smart enough to go striaght into Seth's stats if you've only got one character in the part. I've got to implement an inventory system and an equipment system. Things are starting to get more fun.
There is code in the game right now to allow for simple modifications to the menu background. You'll be able to adjust the red, green and blue values of the menu to get the shade you want and you'll get to select from various backgrounds (most of my regular readers already know this). This screenshot looks particularly attractive to my eye.
I found someone who is willing to publish TLOT but I'm not sure if I'll want to go with them as a publisher. Xtreme games publishes a number of titles about the same caliber as my game but apparently my game with be distributed electronically thus no CD-music.. and I don't think I can sacrafice something like that. In the same note, I might talk with Mike Wilson at Gathering and see if he can tell me whats involved if I publish the game myself. I found an investor who might could spring for as much as $10k for publishing costs. Hmm... definately going to have to research this one.
I bought Starcraft yesterday and played it on battle.net a bit last night (until 6:30 am). This game rocks. Its late and the time change has me all screwed up (that and the all night Starcraft), I gotta go to bed now. Good night.
