Yes, it was kind of silly on some of them. I just learned to ignore the HP bars on the bosses and just go all out no matter how close I thought they were to death.

Have I ever mentioned that I have a pretty substantial RPG developed in RPG Maker that I've been working on for several years? You just got me thinking about tough boss fights, and some of the bosses in my game are downright mean.

Evening, Trisphites.
You're making a game?

Evening? It's noon here. :p

And, yeah, RPG Maker is really easy-to-use PC program for making classic RPGs, but it's also rather flexible and powerful for how easy it is to learn. I can't script for anything, and I'm still mostly able to get it to do what I want, just using that standard editor. Plus, it has a really large online community full of resources to use.

That sounds like fun, I have lots of unused ideas if you need inspiration on any parts there Suzerain.

@Sheol: Yeah, it's about 1:02 here. lol. Wrong word choice.

But the game thing interests me. How long have you been working on it?

Probably four or five years, now. All told, it's about four hours long if you do everything (which is a disgusting ratio when you consider the no-doubt thousands of hours I've put into designing it).

A lot of the work has been refining things. It's easy to get a skeleton of a town done, just so I can move the story along and whatnot. Actually mapping out all the houses and designing NPCs and giving them dialogue takes a ton of time.

And then, I just love messing around with the database, making new weapons and monsters and such. I have nearly two hundred weapons made for the game already, which is probably too many, but it's fun.

Come to think of it, I could probably let you guys play it if you wanted (though I'd need to finish the last thing I was working on.) I'm pretty sure you don't even need the program to play the games made on it, just the game file, though it might take a while to download. Something to think about, though.

I need to go take care of some stuff at the moment, though. I can go into more detail about it later on.

Well, I actually want to be a game tester some day. So, hit me up if you need someone to spend hours fooling with it. lol

Yes I wouldn't mind either :3 I've been game testing for friends before but they were action games not RPGs so I think I'd have more fun with this :3

Rpgs are my absolute favorite. The more options the better! lol

Well, that's encouraging to hear. I'll have to start working on it again. Luckily, I'm a lot more productive at game design than I am at writing; I can actually sit and do it for hours at a time.

I've never actually compressed it and tried to distribute it online. I'll have to test to see if that works after I'm ready.

As it stands, I need to finish up the flashback sequence I was working on, tie it into the rest of the events, and then play the whole thing through to make sure there no as few bugs as possible.

A guide of some sort might help, too, as the bosses are seriously nasty.

Ah the Game Maker! I found that thing years ago before they revamped the site and something or the other. I tried to do it, and it was fairly easy! But the moment they threw some minor scripting/coding stuff at me I felt daunted and just gave up. Things like that scare me... unsurprisingly. I'm sure intimidates a lot of people. I was one of the better folks as html & css in my class, but I hated it so much and only learned it so I could keep my grades up xD

But anyways I would like to test it! Please add me to a list if you got one xD

Sure thing. :)

It should take me maybe a week or so to get it ready to go, assuming all goes well.

I know there are a lot of tutorials for the scripting floating around online, but I've never had the patience to try and learn. I hear it isn't that hard to learn, but I have no experience at any kind of programming, so I figure I'd have a hard time picking it up.

Having some programming experience makes everything else a little easier, but I remember the last contest here with the coding puzzle and I was TOTALLY lost, and I do have some programming experience. I think I was just looking at how the variables worked wrong.

I'm kind of excited to try out your game Suzerain :3

I should probably point out that it's very heavy on story. Though, that's sort of a product of being, maybe, 40% finished at the moment. The random battles are really only place-holders at this point. Stuff like that won't be done until I'm finished with the story and everything else. It's playable, though. It just feels kind of shallow. I've been working on fleshing it out as I've gone along, but I have a long way to go.

The plot's also kind of weird, since, against my nature, I made it up as I went along and some of the things that come up stretch credibility a bit. I've done my best to make it work, though, and I think it does, for the most part.

Oh, and don't think I mentioned, the battle system is basically Dragon Quest's (the older ones where you can't see the party). I know there are scripts for other systems, but for one thing, I like that battle system, and also, those are a lot harder to get resources through, like attack animations and what not.

One thing I can do either tonight or tomorrow is get some screen-shots, since I do have parts I'm proud enough of to show off. :p

Hehe, I adore Dragon Quest so your battle system is fine by me. And remember it's best to test something as you go along, game mechanics break a game just as much as story does.

As for your story does that mean you get some of those "WTF?" moments in certain spots?

Don't get me wrong, it's roughly balanced as is, to the point where it's playable both without the need for excessive grinding or being able to become too strong too easily.

What's tough is trying to gauge how much people are going to grind. I have it balanced for like... 15 fights between areas (when traveling for story reasons) which is maybe twice as much as you'll trigger just walking to your destination.

Stuff like that is easy to tweak, though, since it's all in the database. Doesn't require any complicated functions, just changing numbers around.

Plus, the bosses don't rely so much on huge numbers to be difficult as tactics. They all have complex patterns that put the player at a severe disadvantage most of the time, and in some cases, a counter isn't readily available and you have to just tough it out. That's something else that only playtesting can perfect, but I've been working on those a lot since I have to fight through them every time I test the game to see if my event coding worked right.

For the story, it's actually remarkably cohesive, in my opinion (or will be, once I finish this sequence I'm working on). There's just one moment that isn't so much ridiculous and contrived as it is... out there. Even then, it only really comes to the fore if you scour the bookshelves and read up on the backstory of what's going on. (One of the few areas in the game where I went to the trouble to detail the bookshelves with text ahead of time. I have a long list of those to do yet.)

The bosses sound like the ones from Persona. So Suzerain, where do I preorder? Do I just send my soul to you? xD

No need for any kind of application, actually. I'm hoping to able to put it up on Megaupload or something and let anyone who wants to download it go ahead and do so.

As I said, I've never tried sharing it before, so fingers crossed that it all works.

Hearing some more details on the game....I'm ECSTATIC! 8D I know since it's still not complete by the time I get to trial test it (if I am) I'll be pissed xD But no worries that's normal for Juju. He's quite hateful towards machines when they don't obey his every whim haha ;;>w>

I'm so proud of you. Having stuck through making the game little by little for your own satisfaction. ^^

Honestly, I go back and forth between being ridiculously proud at how much I've managed to get done on it, and hating every second of it, thinking it's complete garbage. We'll see what everyone thinks.

The idea is to get the section I have produced (which ends at a pretty solid break in the story at the moment) as complete as possible. I'm giving myself until this weekend, since the stuff that actually *needs* to be done to make it playable should only take a day or two to sort out.

Your new avy looks nice, Suzerain :3 And if I did need a spear for my Etna cosplay now I know what I could use xD

Thanks, Serra. No black this time. Well, just a little black. :p

Oh, by the way, I found this earlier, it's the same spear her special DLC weapon is in Trinity Universe and I think it's what she uses in Cross Edge, too. I think the red Spirit of the Tribe looks the closest to it, out of the items on Trisphee.

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/im...1194638409.jpg

Well oki then, I'll go add that to my quest thread right now :P

On the other hand, Darberus has a red spear, too (and is probably easier to get your hands on.) Up to you which one you think would look better for your cosplay.

Mmm, no preview for Spirit of the Tribe from what I can find >< I'm not sure which would be easier, it was last months RDI, and Darberus was an event item. I'm not really sure either way.

I'd hazard a guess that Darberus would be easier, as it isn't a rune item. I'm sure if you quest for it and keep an eye out in the Merchant Square you'll be able to get one.

I'm still tempted to make a weaponless Etna cosplay. The really funny part is that I might have to use a male base at first to get the flat chest look xD

I'm sure she'd appreciate the irony.

Also, out of curiosity, which hair would you use for her?

Ugh, I didn't think about that >> I just took a look at the common hair and there's nothing that quite matches, I might have to look into MI's again ><

I'm not sure there are many rare hairs. Good luck coming up with something.

Maybe drop a request in the item request thread?

Yea that's a good idea, people already want more hair choices so maybe a particular suggestion will help some :3

Random question (game related).

What's your (anyone who cares to answer) tolerance for cutscene length? And is it any higher for multiple cutscenes in a row than it is for one long one?

That's what I'm working on in my RPG at the moment. I had this horrifically long scene where one of the characters relates a ton of backstory with the party just sitting around the table for pages and pages of dialogue.

Now, I'm re-telling it in flashbacks that cut back to the conversation periodically, so there's at least something going on on-screen. I'm planning to make one section playable (and it'll feature high level guest characters) so that should break it up a bit, I hope.

The only times I have a problem with long cutscenes is when they happen right before a boss fight with no room to save, thus making you read it all again if you happen to die... I have a very long tolerance otherwise.

I'm looking more at the Etna reference I have and thinking about all the stuff I'll have to find to pull off a close one, even with no weapon -.- We certainly don't have skull earrings from what I can tell and I'm not sure about chokers, as it was one of the suggestions of "more of" on the Item Suggestion thread. But we DO have the perfect boots and gloves, and the elven ears will work almost perfectly for her ears anyways :p I think the challenge of finding just the right items is half the fun of the cosplay xD

Ah, yes. I usually give a save before bosses for that exact reason, though... anyone playing my game should know to use a different file, as some of those bosses are damned tough and grinding can help, though it'll only get you so far.

And, yeah, I had more fun putting Hiro together than I did having her as my avatar. Hence me ditching her after two days. :p I saved a pic, though, in case I want to show her off again. Rebuilt all my old ones, too, and saved them for posterity.

I can't think of any girl characters that I want to cosplay as being any that I wouldn't mind staying on until my next one, but if I do any of the boy cosplays I'm thinking of I might not stay there long :p

I've been thinking of maybe cosplaying some of my original characters, but I haven't put that much thought into it yet. Plus, Trsiphee has a distinct lack of "eyes blazing with power" that a lot of my characters possess. :p

Yea we just have those bleeding eyes...maybe it's time for you to head on over to the Item Suggestion thread? xD

-pushes Suzerain over there-

Suggestion made. :)

Also, forgot to mention, by far my favorite part of designing my game is being able to import music. I have so many instrumental songs that really bring the scenes to life, in my opinion. They're a damned sight (sound?) better than the tracks that come with the editor. :p

Why oh why do you tell me this stuff when I won't get to even play it until this weekend probably? xD