Birthdays

I've been doing some work on the calendar system lately, since I haven't had time to sit down and write, or otherwise do anything...you know...productive. The "months" are still based on the seasons, but instead of four "months" of 45 days each, there will be eight "months" of 30 days each. I know, I know, it's just some technical mumbo-jumbo that doesn't really matter to anyone but me, but there it is.

To tie it in with the title of this post, one of the main things the calendar system will be used for is birthdays. There may be events of sorts that correspond to the boys' birthdays, but at the very least, you'll be able to get extra "approval" when you give one a gift on his birthday. But Zuleika's birthday will also play into it. There will definitely be an event for hers, and the boys (and perhaps even other characters) will give you gifts depending on how much affection they have for you.

So, since birthdays are kind of important, I decided to implement a system where you can choose the main character's birthday. I was going to have it in the beginning, during the opening scene with Osirus, but that didn't work out too well, so... I'll have to work it in some other way. I'll figure out something, I'm sure. But anyway, you'll be able to enter the date in our calendar and have it be translated into the equivalent date in theirs. It was way more complicated to code than I thought it would be; I ended up having to do something entirely different than I originally planned. Such is the life of a programmer, I suppose...

Besides for that, I received the last couple of loading screen art pieces. Here are the previews for your viewing pleasure:

Hey, it's November

It was brought to my attention today that I haven't posted since October, and it is now almost the middle of November. I haven't posted because I was waiting to make some progress on my battle system, but between all the tests and papers and mapping out my future, I just haven't had the time.

I'm happy to say that I have, indeed, made enough progress on it that I can at least show a quick preview. It took me a long time to figure out just how I wanted to go about doing it; I was torn between a static system, where you would just choose an attack from the list and go with it, or a grid system, where you would have to strategically map out the formation of your party and would have animated sprites (that I can't afford...). In the end, I found an online game that combined the two and pretty much copied the format.

The result is a grid of portraits, the placement of which makes up the formation. Attacks will have ranges within the grid, so that fighters in the front will take the brunt of physical attacks, while mages and archers can attack enemies from further away. The six gray slots to the left are your active attack slots. When a character learns a new skill/attack, you'll be able to add it to their active attack slots from the character menu, up to six slots. The three slots below that will be for general battle actions: transform (which will only be active when the rage meter is full), focus (which means you pass for a turn, which helps refill your stamina), and retreat. You'll also notice that all the fighters will attack in a certain order, based on some stat that will be equivalent to quickness. The order here is kind of inaccurate, as rogue types will generally have more quickness than warrior types.

With all this thought about the battle system, I started thinking about the original stats I had from the old game - Intelligence, Strength, Charm, and Kindness. They were meant to be part of the whole dating sim aspect, but this time around, there will be a lot more choices and therefore more opportunities to earn affection that don't involve raising stats. So these stats kind of became useless, except that the one you said you wanted in the beginning determines your class. But then I got to thinking "Hey, I could incorporate these stats into battle!" Strength would be melee attack power, while intelligence might be dexterity or something. Kindness would be changed to Divinity and would determine magic attack power. Not sure about Charm yet, but I'll figure it out.

And yet another addition with the battle system will be more characters you can add to your party. The biggest one is Ahzi, who will be able to join the fight as a mage, but many of the side characters I'll be adding throughout will also be able to fight alongside you. That can be seen in the example above, where Lilah is helping you in the fight against Kirile. They won't be companions in the same way that the love interests are (except Ahzi, of course),  but once you've recruited them within the main plot line, you'll be able to add them to your battle party at any time.

Suggestions? Critiques? Please leave a comment.

P.S.: Here are previews of the loading screens for Kirile and Duren. Yay. :)

Travel System

This weekend, I made great progress on town navigation and the travel system. You can now travel to any location on the map flawlessly, and each location is equipped with the proper facilities.

I actually put a lot of thought into what towns would have which of the facilities (because only the capital of each province has all six). All of them have at least a shop and an inn (though the shop items may vary depending on where you are), but for the rest, I had to do a bit of thinking about the provinces themselves - what makes them unique, how religious they are, etc. I might have mentioned that I'd been thinking about that before, but this is where that stuff starts to come into play.

Travel times have also been fully incorporated, which means that the further from your current location you're trying to go, the longer it will take to get there. When you choose a destination on the map, a pop-up will tell you how many days it will take to travel and ask for a confirmation, so if you decide you don't want to go there after seeing how long it'll take, you can cancel. The time component will probably be largely unimportant, but it may come into play with certain quests...none of the major plot quests, so it wouldn't ruin the entire game if you failed to make it in time, but perhaps some companion quests where it might hurt your relationship if you put it off for too long.

There will probably also be other things that will be related to the time factor, namely birthdays. If you give one of your companions a gift on or around their birthday (within a couple weeks), you'll get extra affection with them. On your birthday, if you have enough affection, they'll give you a gift. This will be how you receive the gift accessories mentioned in a previous post.

Anyway...point is, I did good stuff this weekend. If I can work out the background situation and do some writing and finish up the town navigation stuff (i.e. coding the individual locations), I may be ready to release a new, more substantial beta pretty soon. Yay. :)

P.S.: I finished the maid's sprite and named her Ange (might change to Angee later...we'll see).