It's been awhile since I've updated, but plenty of progress is happening behind the scenes. Up for demonstration today is character creation.

tenkuu has been invaluable in moving the game forward over the past couple months. I've been able to give him some basic outlines for things that are on the to-do list, and he's taken them and run with it. Thus what you see here with character creation is all tenkuu's work, and he did an amazing job!



Creating a character is incredibly simple and pretty self explanatory. You can customize the colors of your hair and clothing, and select between different hairstyles and body types. Each class has a different set of bodies and heads to choose from, not to mention both male and female variations.

For your viewing pleasure, I've recorded a quick video of the system in action:



I'm happy to answer any and all question, or even to take requests if there is a specific part of the game you want me to capture some video of.

More NEStalgia news to come soon!

All of my projects start out as solo endeavors, but one way or another they eventually turn into a team effort. Thanks to an excellent group of private testers and some new additions to the design team, NEStalgia is coming along extremely well.

tenkuu (SpSpiff) has been helping out on my projects for a long time; at one point he pretty much took over the original Proelium, spending months refining the gameplay and optimizing the code base. More recently, tenkuu took on the challenge of integrating his Proelium map editor into Proelium II and cleaning up/adding several more features that players were pining for. Apart from his coding and design help, he's a relentless 'bug hunter', and is invaluable to the testing process.

...So it was awesome when tenkuu not only volunteered to help with NEStalgia, but agreed to take on coding many of the remaining "systems" that I haven't got around to yet. I've been able to spend the last couple weeks focusing on game content while tenkuu has been tackling stuff like this:


A classic NES-style naming system and an item bank/gold vault just to name a few. The funny thing is that although he is working off of my existing code base, tenkuu is a much better coder than I am. Luckily he's kind enough to explain/comment pretty much everything he does so that I don't go back and get confused later on.

Jared (who many of you know as Jaredoggy or Balzack) is always there to help with mapping as well. He's also the source of many of the awesome in-game events that used to make DWO a blast; and I'm sure that the Balzackians will rise again upon NEStalgia's release.

Last but not least, the excellent group of people who having been testing NEStalgia have been writing up detailed bug reports and thoughtful suggestions for improvement. Most of these players are "DWO Oldbies", and they know a thing or two about old school RPGs. Scar has been kind enough to run the private testing server so far, which has been a huge help.

If you were to compare the original private testing compile of NEStalgia to what we have on our hands less than a month later, you'd barely recognize it. Thanks to the Silk Games team, NEStalgia will be taking BYOND by storm in the near future.

This afternoon I realized that I never got around to fixing the broken BYOND skin in Proelium v2.00. Oops.

Proelium v2.05 fixes the interface issues, and that's about it. If you're looking for something new, perhaps you should give Proelium II a spin :)


Why mess with a classic?

To give people a better sense of NEStalgia, I've recorded a bit of footage from the first few minutes of the game. The footage has been cut up, but it is presented in order.



What you see is the opening title screen along with a quick look at the loading/class selection menus. From there the video jumps right into NEStalgia's opening cut scene, along with the player navigating his way through the small beginning cave.

The video ends with a short battle. NEStalgia features a 3-person party battle system along with tons of monsters that use different tactics... but what you see here is the opening one-on-one "tutorial fight" with a vanilla opponent.

Due to Youtube compression framerate differences the image is a little jumpy, and effects like the screen flashes are off. In the game all effects are smooth. If you'd like to view the video in higher quality, I've also uploaded a quicktime version (10 mb)

I've always loved searching for hidden treasure and secret passages in videogames. Anyone who spent hours using their candle on every bush in the Legend of Zelda or bombing hundreds of suspicious looking tiles in Metroid knows just how thrilling the hunt for secrets could be back in the NES days. Needless to say, it would be a travesty to give this project the title NEStalgia without including these types of secrets!


Notice the out-of-place wall?


Oh snap!

Taking a page from the FF3 NES playbook, false walls and hidden passages play a major role in NEStalgia. Early in the game anyone with a sharp eye can spot these false walls... but later areas will require trial-by-error.


While in town I spot a treasure chest. After searching for a way to get to it, I discover some "fake trees" and walk through them to claim my prize!

Talking to every single towns person that you come across is important for two reasons, 1.) They may have a quest for you to take on, and 2.) They will occasionally drop hints/clues about potential secrets. Does anyone remember playing through Who Framed Roger Rabbit (NES) where at one point a character tells you to call a real phone number for more information? While I'm certainly not going to be giving out my cell phone number, you'll definitely want to pay close attention every scrap of text and dialogue that you can find.



In terms of development news, I'm happy to report that NEStalgia is coming along very well. Thanks to the tireless efforts of people like tenkuu and the rest of the private testing team, NEStalgia is on the fast track to completion, and you'll be treated to balanced, bug-free game from day one.