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[2k3] [DEMO] Sore Losers: Riot Grrrl

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SORE LOSERS: RIOT GRRRL

NOMINATED "MOST PROMISING DEMO", 2010 MISAOS
NOMINATED "BEST INTERFACE", 2010 MISAOS


...::: What People Are Saying :::...

"Ever played an RPGMaker 2003 game where you almost forgot you were playing an RPGMaker 2003 game? Sore Losers: Riot Grrrl accomplishes just that!" - acknowledge101

"Notice how I'm saying unique a lot? That's probably because Sore Losers: Riot Grrrl isn't like any RPGMaker 2003 game I've ever played. It takes a lot of chances with most of the custom systems and the emphasis on gameplay (and minigames!) over story, but I feel that the game fairs pretty well." - Xanedil

"It has it's own unique play style that is very well thought out and balanced and great in a survival/sandbox/exploration kind of way." - Orphansmith

...::: Storyline and Setting :::...

"When the troubles first started in "Central Ferusia", the complex where all of our nation's criminals are sent to serve their punishment, nobody batted an eyelid. We thought that the government had everything under control because the strength of our military had been demonstrated multiple times in the past. Even when the walls of the complex were breached and criminals started to escape into the streets, we believed that the riots caused by common criminals and anti-government rebels would be quickly put down, and that future generations would only remember their efforts as a ridiculous, treacherous ploy.

We believed the government when they told us that the military had full control of the riots, and sat happily in our homes as the curfews and blockades dragged on and on and on. We didn't think for a moment that the government could possibly be wrong. After all, we had the most powerful military in the world protecting us! The idea that these riots would ever cause us problems sounded like a tasteless joke.

The joke was on us.

The streets seem dead where I live, but each night I hear the riots getting closer as the military's blockades get pushed further away from the walls that were supposed to keep these criminals contained. What am I supposed to do? I'm trapped in an apartment full of gadgets I can't eat, paid for by credits I can't drink, with a panoramic view of the violence making its way towards me.

I don't care what the government tells us anymore. I'm not safe here. I have to get out!"

...::: Gameplay, Features and Comments :::...

Sore Losers: Riot Grrrl is a highly experimental game where nearly everything you do involves some kind of minigame; from searching areas for items to lockpicking doors; from hotwiring electrical equipment to dodging rioters; from arguing with NPCs to hacking into computer systems; from breaking through barriers to sneaking around enemies. Why? Because I wanted to make an RPG where character abilities aren't reliant on a lifeless table of stats, and are instead reliant on the skill of the player. Hopefully my excessive use of minigame sequences is going to achieve just that.

Battles are also going to be more interactive than in a standard RPG. In Sore Losers: Riot Grrrl you'll be able to knock weapons out of your opponent's hands, kick bookcases over onto people, throw your enemies into electric fences, and use human shields to stop enemies from being able to attack you; you'll basically be able to use multiple elements of the battle environment to get your own way. Why settle for just the weapon in your hand? Use everything to your advantage!

Additionally, most of the graphics will be custom-made for the project in a purposefully high-contrast manner that will give the game a drastically different look. The game will also feature vibrant, abrasive chiptune soundtrack. As such, there will be a strong, stylistic element to this game that may well end up being divisive, but I believe it will also lead to a very unique gameplay experience!

...::: Reviews, Images and Downloads :::...

Read Reviews Here: http://rpgmaker.net/games/1158/reviews/
View The Image Gallery Here: http://rpgmaker.net/games/1158/images/
Download The Game Here: http://rpgmaker.net/games/1158/downloads/
« Last Edit: June 17, 2020, 05:46:52 PM by Sated »

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I've not written one of these for a while, so I thought I would just let people know where I am up to with this. The short answer is:



As you can see, the second level now has nine areas (if we don't count the vents as an area, which we probably should since they took me so long to put into action) and, if I were to make a guess, I would say it is probably 2/5 to 1/2 complete. Development is definitely moving slowly because I know, in my "heart of hearts", that I could've finished this by now if I'd had the time, but I'm not about to start regretting having a life just because my game is taking a little longer than it should be doing - shit will be ready when it is ready!

I'm pretty pleased that the visitor count for the game-page at RMN is currently at 13,652 because this puts it at over a quarter of the amount Sore Losers has (~41,000 if you count the people who viewed the original game-page). I didn't notice how much this statistic was ticking over and I think it is pretty amazing (even if the download number is a little low, but that's understandable for a demo!)

Oh...

We Were #1!

For quite a while, this game was either #1 or #2 at RRR* (based on ratings) and I was pretty proud of that (even if it was only based on 8 or so ratings and games like Three The Hard Way have many more ratings and are complete). The game has been knocked down to #8 now (one bad vote ruined the average, bad times...) but I still think we had a good run at the top. Besides, we're still in the top 10 and that can't be a bad thing!

*Shame RRR has a site that makes it hard to see this table, meaning it is fairly pointless...
« Last Edit: July 15, 2010, 10:46:21 PM by Griever »

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Thank you for moving this, whoever moved it!

---

A few people mentioned, when commenting on the demo, that the images that tell you about new weaponry didn't go into enough detail, so I have been working on improving them.

I think that the first problem was that skills weren't displayed (only the number of skills a weapon gives you was) and this meant that, in order to see whether one weapon was better than another, you had to equip it, open the menu, check your skills and then make a decision. This obviously takes longer than it actually should because you should just be able to glance at the weapon's image and make a decision. By displaying all the skills I hope that this problem is alleviated a little.

Another problem was that, because some weapons have several "main" skills (their "regular" damage dealing skills), it was inadequate to display a single type/value for the damage a weapon would deal. This is also fixed by showing all the skills available for a single weapon - a simple solution for both problems!

Here is how they look now. I think it is a lot better:


The speed statistic being there is a reference to the fact that heavier weapons will now punish you with a speed decrease. Of course, this being a "light weapon" there is no penalty, but heavier* weapons will have one. I realise that speed is a big issue in RM2K3, but I think I will be able to balance it right if I give it due care and attention!

Any thoughts, people? This is better, right?

*For the record, there will be three classes; "light", "medium" and "heavy".

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I actually really like the style of this game. It's kind of a refresher to have a game where extreme detail in the graphics wasn't the main focus. It almost looks like a sprite comic. I'll be downloading this as soon as possible. :D

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I actually really like the style of this game. It's kind of a refresher to have a game where extreme detail in the graphics wasn't the main focus. It almost looks like a sprite comic. I'll be downloading this as soon as possible. :D

well, i really love that spriting art, if you can call that "spriting art". I love imple graphics, in nice games. dont know why, makes me feel like they are better or something. Going to give a try on this.
My Puzzle/StandAlone game in a week:


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Added the link to the download page at the top of the topic... saves people a couple of clicks.

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I like it when people post nice reviews.

:)

http://rpgmaker.net/games/1158/reviews/1068/
« Last Edit: September 01, 2010, 03:23:32 PM by Griever »

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This looks strangely amusing.
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SL: Riot Grrrl GameJolt Page: http://gamejolt.com/freeware/games/rpg/sore-losers-riot-grrrl/3437/

Sore Losers: Riot Grrrl has now been uploaded over at GameJolt, an indie-gaming community that - unlike RMN, RRR, GamingW, RMRK, HBGames and all the other places I tend to update - doesn't focus so heavily on role-playing games.

However, GameJolt still managed to get Sore Losers another hundred or so downloads so I thought it was about time I put Sore Losers: Riot Grrrl up there with it! Besides, there are already a lot of decent RM games that have profiles there, with games like Hero's Realm and Visions & Voices really "leading the charge" (for want of a better phrase).

If you support this project (or any of the other RM projects that are currently hosted there - there aren't that many RPGs on the site so it shouldn't be too hard to find the RM games!) then pleasepleaseplease leave some comments and ratings so that the RM community's better games get a chance to shine outside of the RM community!

Thanks guys, and expect a more Riot Grrrl related progress update very soon!

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I played through the game today and I have to say that it's just awesome. I noticed the gameplay is more or less the same as baroque (salvaging items and using/trashing them as you go) which did add some challenge to the game. The only complaint i have so far is the whole pick up a weapon and tras the one you already have. Sometimes i lost track of the stats of one weapon and after i did a search, and got a new one,m i only found out later the one i had before was better. Maybe you could add in a secondary inventory for weapons?

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Yeah, how weapons are displayed in the demo is a little bit lacklustre so I have changed things a little. First of all, when you picking weapons up you now get an image like this:



Second of all, I am probably going to make it so you can carry more than one weapon at once, which will give battles a little bit more variety (since certain enemies are more/less resistant to different weapon types) and will also make it so your weapons appear on the item list (meaning you can check their stats if needs be).

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I got a bunch of emails today telling me that my game profiles had been accepted on the Softpedia website and that downloads for them were now available. Needless to say, this confused me greatly since I hadn't bothered to upload them there, but then I remembered that this had happened before and felt good about myself for a couple of seconds.

Anyway, Sore Losers: Riot Grrrl, Sore Losers, Frog, The Collector and Befuddle Quest 2 (which I only developed one level for and even that was the simplest of all the levels in the game; I am not even trying to claim that I made the whole of that game!) are up on that site now. I'm not too happy about the profiles because someone has taken screenshots with the RM2K/3 font-patch and they look retarded, but it's not a massive problem...

(Funnily enough, Frog, The Collector is currently leading in the downloads chart, which is a bit weird.)

The pages are here, for reference...

Sore Losers: http://games.softpedia.com/get/Freeware-Games/Sore-Losers.shtml
Sore Losers: Riot Grrrl (Demo): http://games.softpedia.com/get/Freeware-Games/Sore-Losers-Riot-Grrrl.shtml
Frog, The Collector: http://games.softpedia.com/get/Freeware-Games/Frog-The-Collector.shtml
Befuddle Quest 2: http://games.softpedia.com/get/Freeware-Games/Befuddle-Quest-2-Charmed-and-Dangerous.shtml

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In between testing (possibly) the best amateur role-playing game ever (Alter A.I.L.A Genesis, for those who haven't seen me ranting about it all over the forums), playing far too much Football Manager 2010 in preperation for the new release (I just have to get FC United to win a Champion's League trophy before I make the move over), trying to finally finish Final Fantasy XIII (so much optional content in such a short space of time, what the fuck!?), winning football tournaments (okay, this was a while ago, but it did get in the way!) and... well... working (that chemistry PhD thing I do on the side and all the stuff that comes attached with that) I have finally managed to get the second level of this game finished!

Spoiler for:
Now to prettify the battle-animations; all these default animations are really bugging the shit out of me!

So far I only have a few of Cheska's animations finished and, to be honest, squeezing them all in is going to be a hassle (so many skills, so few slots!)... Blerg. Give it a year and I might be near finishing (the whole thing, that is; not just the animations!)

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I'll try it out this weekend, and Omg you're a tester for alter aila :O? So this means you've actually seen the ending? Or what happens after the demo ends?

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Not to teast too much, but I don't plan on releasing any more demos of this game. I might release an updated version of the original demo once I am done upgrading the graphics, but a totally new demo is out of the question.

As for AA:G, I haven't finished beta-testing it yet so I don't know what happens... but I do know that it is completely finished. The full release is supposed to happen sometime in October. People are going to be amazed by it, I swear :)

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After 150 downloads, I've decided that the current demo is so horribly outdated that it's not worth having up anymore. A multitude of things have changed since it was uploaded and seeing it being played made me realise this. I may upload an updated version of the demo in the future but I couldn't possibly say when I'd get around to doing so.

Thanks to everyone who played and commented on the demo!

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DEMO VERSION 1.3 NOW RELEASED! CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD!

Updates:

- Now able to carry two weapons at once.
- Minor graphical tweaks.
- Minor tutorial and dialogue tweaks.
- Redesigned ConvoBattle and Battle sequences.
- You can now "retry" battles if you lose them
- Other minor stuff that needed fixing.

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I've added two new videos to the gamepage.

One of them is an updated version of the (really) old battle-system video, which means that people can now see how the "Interact" skill has replaced directly damaging environmental objects, see how (some of) the new battle-animations look, see how (some of) Cheska's new character-animations look, see how much better the battles look when they don't use the gauge system and... see whatever else I have changed since July 2009.

The other video both showcases and explains the ConvoBattle system, which will hopefully give people some insight into how you should approach those types of battle. I don't want people thinking that you should just choose an option randomly and hope for the best; there is some reasoning behind the choices you have to make. I just hope that my limited writing skills don't get in the way of this system working out for the best.

For the latest video updates you can subscribe to my YouTube channel but, if I'm being honest, I don't really expect to make that many videos. Having a full version of Fraps at hand does help, though...

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New screenshots? Let's do it!


It's a shame currency is useless in a riot because the till looks pretty unguarded.


*Insert Linkin Park Joke Here*


"So, I go to the shops to get some milk and this, like, lunatic in a fucking FORKLIFT TRUCK comes out of nowhere..."

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Definitly not going to get milk there.
Deceased, the memories of time flow ever lasting. Let the passion of the living and the dead touch you, and give you their wisdom.

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I've put up a new blog/review site on Blogger. I'm probably going to update it more often than I would this page because I'll probably update it with stuff that isn't really about my game (kinda like this post isn't!). I know it is just a bunch of old reviews right now but I will add more stuff in the future (honest!), so if you're interested then feel free to add me and if you have a similar blog then let me know so I can follow you back;

Also, in case you didn't already know, I have a YouTube account too and I try update it with relevant stuff as often as I can. Add me if you have an account there!

As for the game itself, I'm up to ~Level 3-18 (out of 30ish) so things are coming along nicely. Erm, when I have something more than "lol i mayd mre maps" I will write a proper update!

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So the game was on hiatus for a bit, but I'm (kinda) working on it again now. I was gonna try and get this done by Easter but, even though Easter is late this year, I doubt that will happen.

Errrrrrrrrm... Have a new screenshot?


:)

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Visit JAG Illustrations for more awesome artwork!
(Alternatively, go here to see even more awesome artwork!)

So, I've started working on this game again as you all probably know by now. The game's coming along really well and I'd like to think people want to see it finished but... that's not really what this blog's about.

What this blog is about is some awesome custom art my friend James did for the project. Working from a single 16-bit sprite and this drunken instruction, "Dude, just draw whatever you want!", he managed to turn out this portrait of Riot Grrrl's main character, Cheska...


CLICK FOR A LARGER ZOOMABLE VERSION!

... and it is basically amazing!

So, yeah, I'm pretty freakin' happy with it. Maybe I can coerce him into drawing more stuff with the promise of more beer (as I definitely owe him a couple of pints after this)!

Don't forget: Make sure you check out his blog!

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Hey, guys.

As you may or may not know, WIP is planning on closing RMN in the near future. Because of this, I just wanted to make sure everyone knew that the best place to follow progress of this game (or to find any of my other games) would be the Gamejolt profile for this game.

I'll change the links in the opening post to reflect this. Thanks!

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I've (pretty much) finished all the areas needed for the third level of the game, which leaves me with two more to make (although the last level will have a different format and so shouldn't take as long as the fourth). Admittedly, I need to add a couple more lock-picking minigames and a couple more battles, but you can play the whole way through the level without incident now.

Also, and somewhat luckily, I picked up on a bug that was occurring when using the "Flail" skill against the last enemy in a three-enemy battle, which is a good thing since it was replicated in all the other three-enemy battles the game already had! I need to remember to test my battle-events more thoroughly when I am going to be copy-pasting them into other enemy groups, even though I am pretty sure I'd tested that skill quite heavily already. Oh well, it's fixed now, no need to worry about it!

So, what now? Well, unfortunately, I'm now turning my mind towards a bunch of tedious stuff that I need/want to do before starting on the fourth level. Some of it is just a case of going through the database and messing with values, which isn't that hard to do so long as I am paying attention. The rest is more cosmetic, which means it'll probably take more effort to complete, especially since I no longer get to use old MS Paint for my images (I'm not going to lie; I really miss it!). I guess it's mostly a case of repeating repetitive tasks over and over, so as long as I can deal with the tedium there won't be any major dramas:

1) If you read the instruction manual (look at the tabs at the top of the page), you'll see that different types of attack are effective against different enemy classes, but IMO these classes are pretty ill-defined. They're also pretty skewed towards carrying at least one blunt-type weapon since they're never negatively effective, which isn't what I was aiming for. What I want to do, therefore, is two things:

a) re-define the enemy classes so that they make a little more sense.
b) re-balance the weapons based on the new definitions.

The differences to how the battle-system works and how difficult the battles are will be minimal, I hope. The only real effect should be that things are clearer. Clarity is important when you are aiming for a simple system!

2) The second and third levels of the game have a number of areas where you are moving to the left instead of to the right or where you need to backtrack through areas you've already visited. This makes the current layout of the GUI seem silly as it uses the terms "Previous" and "Next", which aren't always going to be applicable. Because of this, I'm going to replace these labels with "Left" and "Right" so that their use is never ambiguous, which will take a bit of time since I have a lot of different GUI overlays.

"Why do you need so many overlays?", you might be asking. The answer is simple: I'm fucking stupid. Basically, I use a single picture for all 5 commands that are on the screen at any one time, which means that every time I want a "unique" combination of 5 commands it requires a new image. I thought it would be easier to edit a single picture a few times than to position 5 separate pictures on each map, but the sheer number of unique commands I have come up with has made that an incorrect assumption. I'm not going to go back and change how this works now since it's heavily built into the way I go about creating and eventing each area, but it's still something I should remember for any future project I might make.

3) Cutscene graphics. They're currently terrible and disorganised. I really want to have image-based cutscenes (think Alter A.I.L.A Genesis) and that's something I am aiming for at the end of development, although it is not something that I'm going to do right now (because it will get in the way of "proper" development continuing). However, what I am going to do is streamline the way the cutscenes look. From now on, the organisation of each cutscene will be consistent with the others, which will make it easier for me to replace my shitty images with something custom made later on, should I choose to do so. Perhaps I can convince a certain someone to draw some cutscene images for me?*

*Probably not /sadface

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First of all:Great Game! I enjoyed all that I got to play. (Explained below) When Breaking down doors or looking for junk I felt that it never was too fast,so I was able to beat it,and not slow so its boring. Now onto the next thing...

Second:After I left (A Dog is harder than two thugs?! Damn steroids!) the game,I soon tryed to run it when a error came up,saying: DirectDraw Error
                                                                   (DDERR_UNSUPPORTED)

Has anyone else had this problem,and has anyone solved it?

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I've never heard of that problem before. It certainly doesn't happen when I exit and re-enter the game on my own computer. Is it only happening at a specific save-point?

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I just wanted to say that this game isn't dead, even if it has been years since I posted here. Development is still progressing after a couple of RL-imposed hiatuses, and a lot has happened since I last posted in this topic. You can read more about my progress here, and I've also updated the original post to include a screenshot gallery so that you can see some of the progress I've been making (especially in the aesthetics department); some of the better screenshots are included as thumbnails!

*
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Good luck with your game.
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This is still awesome, please keep going.
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Good luck with your game.

Thanks :) I'm pretty confident I'll finish, it's just a case of "when" I'll finish >_<

This is still awesome, please keep going.

It's very unlikely I'll give up on this; I'm just working a lot slower than I anticipated due to RL stuff :)

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I dig it, man. My main project is still on the back burner for now.

But anyway, this look pretty good. I'm not really hip on 2k, but I'm definitely going to give this a try.
:tinysmile:

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So I'm finally working on this game again. Unfortunately, the way that I see it, there is a lot to do to get the levels that have already been made up to scratch. On one hand, this is very frustrating since it means that I'm not really working on "new" stuff. But on the other hand, it's also satisfying in that I can visibly see things that I'd already deemed "complete" becoming a lot better than they were.

The Item System and "Key Items"

One of the first things on my target list was the item system. Previously, Cheska could only carry six items and two weapons at once, and this included key items/weapons that are near-constantly required such as the Screwdriver (in relation to the "hotwire" minigame) and the Sledgehammer (in relation to the "smashing" minigame). Over the course of the game, there are four such items/weapons that can be collected and this essentially meant that four out of the eight slots available (50%!) were being taken up by items that you had little choice but to keep with you. This was obviously not good design as it would only serve to frustrate players and limit their options.

To fix this, I've introduced the concept of "key items" to the game. Items such as the Screwdriver no longer take up item slots, can no longer be dropped and appear separate from "normal items" in the item system. In line with this, "key item" elements relating to weapons such as the Sledgehammer have been moved onto newly created items instead. In the case of the Sledgehammer, the item that has replaced it is the Battering Ram, which you can see in the screenshot below:


It took me longer than I would've liked to work these changes into the system since a large chunk of the item system eventing needed to be redone in order to accommodate, not to mention the fact that new item system overlays needed to be drawn up! By far the most tedious part was going through every single item drop in the game to make sure that they weren't dropping additional key items, since that would pretty badly break the system! However, I do think this was something worth doing (as boring as it was) and I'm glad that I was able to get it working. The game is much better off for it!

Cutscenes... Again!

Another thing I've been working on is updating the look of the cutscenes, which is something that I've mentioned working on before. I've updated several of the cutscene images on this gamepage to reflect the work that's being done and I personally think things are looking a lot better now. I won't link all of them here since you can find them under the "images" tab, but here is a taster:


I said this previously, but the best part about working on these is that I've been able to draw up a set of templates that allow me to streamline how I work on producing cutscenes, so doing this will help me to be much more consistent going forward.

Consistency

Speaking of consistency, I've noticed a lot of inconsistency with how I've gone about some things in the game, most likely related to how many large breaks I've taken in development. A very basic example is the way that option dialogues look. Sometimes, option dialogues will look like this and pressing escape whilst in them won't do a thing:

Quote
What do you want to do?
>Do the first thing!
>Do the second thing!
>Don't do either thing.

Whilst others will look like this, with cancellation being achieved by pressing escape:

Quote
What do you want to do?
>Do the first thing!
>Do the second thing!

It's a minor thing, but now that I've noticed it I'm going to try and fix it.

Another thing that I need to fix in relation to this kind of thing is my massive overuse of ellipses (...) in the text, something that I personally dislike people doing in RM* games and something that I hadn't even realised I'd been doing to such a massive extent.

Finally, I've also been rooting out the use of \| (which pauses text) in message boxes and replacing it with \! (which waits until the player presses something), again because the use of the former it is something that I personally dislike and something that I hadn't realised I'd been doing.

Again, these are all minor things, but they're things that should be consistent so that the game plays more smoothly than it does at the moment.

Conclusions?

It's good to be working on the game again. It's good to be making obvious improvements. It's good that I haven't forgotten so much about how the game works that I'm unable to mess with/fix/improve key eventing-based systems that the game 100% relies on being perfect. But there is a lot of work to do to get this game finished to the standard I want and that fact doesn't escape me. I've said before that, "I constantly worry that people are going to be incredibly underwhelmed when they realise this isn't all that different from most RPG games" and that hasn't changed. Hopefully I can prove myself wrong.

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Sometimes* I like to give my skills punny names:



Skills that inflict a status effect (in this case Blind) always have the same animation after them as a visual indicator, so that's what the darkness thing is.

*Read: At every possible opportunity.

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I finished re-doing all the animations for Sore Losers: Riot Grrrl... but in the process I worked out that some of the skills could be coded a lot more realiably, so I'm going to work on doing that next.

I'm so far down the development hell rabbit hole that I'm going to find that development hell rabbit and choke the bitch out.

EDIT:

Here are the Chainsaw and Taser animation sequences*. Both have a skill that needs "charging up" before it can be used:

Spoiler for:
Spoiler for:
*I should point out that I'm rebalancing enemy/skill stats and haven't gotten around to the enemy side yet; that's why enemies appear to do no damage and die so quickly. That won't happen normally!

*
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GIAW 14: 2nd Place (Hard Mode)2013 Biggest Drama Whore2013 Zero to HeroParticipant - GIAW 11Secret Santa 2013 ParticipantFor taking arms in the name of your breakfast.
(Still) looking cool. B)
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Thanks!



I've been doing some bug-testing and I forgot how much I liked some of the areas in the second level of Sore Losers: Riot Grrrl.
« Last Edit: August 09, 2015, 07:33:02 PM by Sated »

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So the current demo has 666 downloads, which I think is pretty neat. It wasn't a landmark that I was looking out for, I just happened to load the page and there it was, but dumb luck is sometimes pretty cool.

This is also a heads up that I will be taking down the current demo in the near future. The current demo no longer reflects the current state of this project, what with all its graphical placeholders and all the recent gameplay updates I've been making, so it won't be around much longer. I'd estimate that it will be gone sometime over the weekend, so grab it while you can because there's no telling when (or even if) an updated demo will appear!

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Lockpicking

It wouldn't be a Sore Losers game without a lockpicking minigame... right? Well here it is, and I'm sure people who played the original Sore Losers will recognise most of the graphical assets used.


I originally only made the control overlay at the bottom, but it thought it looked kinda silly since it covered up parts of the puzzle being attempted. That's when I decided that intentionally cutting off a significant portion of the puzzle would probably look more aesthetically pleasing, whilst also making the minigame more difficult without me really having to change anything!

The chipset needs updating to fit the Riot Grrrl style a little more (it's still the same as it was in Sore Losers so it does need a change) and I'll probably do that next. Then I'll need to apply the changes to all the other lockpicking puzzles in the game, as well as adding more of them since the game definitely doesn't have enough of them.

... workworkwork.

Hotwiring

Some people said they didn't like the hotwiring minigame from the Sore Losers: Riot Grrrl demo so I decided to modify it. I didn't want to take a completely different direction with the minigame because I still wanted to keep the key element (picking "wires" from one side and matching them to another side) and so I went with something that should be a familiar concept to people:


I think it speaks for itself. The game lets you pick a tile from the left and then lets you try to match it with one on the right. The tiles on each side are completely randomised each time you attempt (or re-attempt!) the minigame in a given area, and the process repeats until you've either matched all the tiles or you've ran out of attempts (attempts only deplete if you give a wrong answer!). The game will give you 12 attempts initially, but this will be reduced as the game goes on. It's basically a memory test, I guess :)

*You have no idea how many lines of eventing it takes to randomise the bloody tiles. Holy fuck. I'm glad it's completely copy-pastable now it works else I might've had to shoot myself.

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I haven't really done any work on this game since Fallout 4 came out back in November. Fallout 4 took up most of my free-time throughout November and December, with the rest being taken up by all the shopping and parties and dinners and general-get-togethers that Christmas brings with it. It's been a fun couple of months (some random bouts of nausea aside, but I'm taking medication for that now!) but it's really time that I start working on this project again. Not that I don't find working on this game fun, it's just that I've really saddled myself with a lot of tedious tasks to do. In any case, I really want to get this project finished by the end of this year. It's been going on for far too long now, it's actually kinda ridiculous!

Crawling Through Vents

I was working on the vent-crawling minigame back at the start of November. These sections are handled in a style similar to the dungeons in the first Phantasy Star game, in that you're shown a first-person view of what's immediately in front of you and then get to choose which direction you want to travel in. It's really easy to get lost in these areas, so it's really up to the player to keep careful track of where they're going so that they don't end up going in circles, and that's where the challenge in these sections comes from. Hopefully people aren't too put-off by what is a fairly old-school approach to labyrinthine puzzle design, but I've always liked dungeons that are set up in this kind of manner.

What I've basically done is update the graphics for the vent-crawling minigame so that it has an overlay like all the other minigames do. This means that I don't need a message-box based tutorial, since those are kinda boring and also feel pretty damn cheap. I also needed to tweak how the images were displayed because the wait-time between them was far too long, and I've also updated how the vents look since they were pretty ugly previously. It was never going to be something that would take a long time but I'm happy that it's done. Here's are some images that I hope is self-explanatory, with the second image showing an example of a new sewer-tunnel minigame that works in exactly the same manner:


Fighting With Words

Another thing that I've been doing is bringing the "convobattles" (which are basically rock-paper-scissors in how they work) in line with the aesthetic applied to all the other minigames. This actually entailed a lot of work, more than I was originally expecting when I set out to make these improvements. When the "convobattles" were first implemented, only dialogue from the opponent that continued the "convobattle" was shown as an image. All other text was shown using a normal message box, including all instances of Cheska's speech during these "convobattles". This meant that each "convobattle" only needed 3-5 images producing. When I started updating the graphics, I quickly decided that all the dialogue should be shown in speech bubbles so that the same aesthetic was maintained throughout the course of the whole "convobattle", which meant that loads of new images needed to be created. It ended up being pretty tedious work, but I'm happy with the results!


I'm also happy to say that all the "convobattles" in the game have now been updated, which was something I only just finished doing on New Year's Day. The ability to avoid combat by getting these minigames right is going to play a big role in how different players end up experiencing this game, because many battles can be avoided if you get the associated "convobattle" right. I'm not currently planning to have your success rate in "convobattles" have an affect on the ending, but it's something that has come to mind in the past. Definitely something for me to think about as I come to implement the closing scenes of the game!

Taking Stock

All the blog posts I've made since starting to work on development of this game again have been about updating things that were already implemented. Whether that meant replacing minigames with whole new minigames, updating graphics or simply adding more instances of under-utilised minigames, I've essentially done a lot of work without getting any closer to finishing this game. But that's okay! Why? Because this game is a hell of a lot better now than it was when I came back to developing it!

I'm pretty happy with where the project stands at the moment, but my next target is probably my most important since my next target is the battle-system. Frankly, the "interaction" system I've implemented needs to work a hell of a lot smoother and I'm sure that it can. It seems a long time ago that I was updating all the battle-animations, but I'm pretty damn happy with them and there's definitely nothing wrong with how the battle-system works from a traditional RPG stand-point. It's just that the "interaction" mechanic is the one mechanic that's meant to differentiate Sore Losers: Riot Grrrl from other RPGs with turn-based battle-systems. It's supposed to reward you for being inquisitive a lot more than it currently does. The mechanic is severely under-utilised and, if I'm being perfectly honest, it's implemented in a very cheap manner. Simply put...

MUST. DO. BETTER.
« Last Edit: January 03, 2016, 03:16:13 PM by Sated »