ID:111950
 
Keywords: devlog
Greetings all, Fugsnarf here. I'm the lead programmer for the up-and-coming Twilight Herald game. Today I'll be talking to you all about what's been going on lately in terms of programming and overall development of Twilight Herald.

Lately, what I've been doing is working on a short and simple mock-up demo to show all of you the basic concept and game-play of Twilight Herald. The demo has a lot done and I actually hope to release it to all of you next Tuesday. Because of that, I won't be giving any sneak previews just yet. I will, however, explain what you should expect to see in the demo I'll be releasing.

The world of Twilight Herald is all isometric. One nice thing about the game is that it features pixelized movement for smooth game-play.

The battle system I'll be showcasing is a bit of a cross between a tactical isometric RPG and a real-time hack-and-slash. This is done by giving both sides turns with time limits. During each time limit the team in control has the ability to move around freely while the other team must sit paralyzed in agony. The team in control must move around at will and attack freely anything they wish as if it was real-time combat. Once the time limit runs out, the team in control freezes in place. This allows for some unique strategy as you must constantly be thinking about not only who to attack, but with whom and where. This is because where ever you end up when the time runs out is where you stay. The enemies will obviously attack the people closer to them.

What you can expect in the demo is two classes, a fighter and a magician, and two enemy monsters to fight. Your fighter is able to slash with combos and your magician can fire magic and heal. Very simple, but it works to show off the battle system's concept.

Everything you'll see graphically is all mock-up stuff. I'm not an exceptional pixel artist, and we have no pixel art, so I drew out very simple sprites and tiles which consist of boxes and stick figures.

Almost everything I've laid out above has already been done. I'm currently finishing up some additions to the battle system which include a HUD and attacks for your characters. Expect me to release the demo next Tuesday. I'm sure you'll enjoy it!

-Fugsnarf
It's been agreed since around Preview 2 or 3 (before you even left) that we wouldn't even be swapping battle systems anymore, but rather all 4 systems exist at the same time in the game, and which system you get in a non-boss encounter is decided by chance and which chapter you're in.

The system that will be Demo'd is a preview of the 3rd chapter System, which is my original creation, wark.

-Katoma
Occasionally, yes. I believe it's a nice and new way to do things. It keeps battles fresh and interesting. We're working on fine-tuning just how our system of different battle types will affect your game-play, but I think most players will find it enjoyable.
Excuse me?
It adds depth towards certain boss fights to begin with. A depth you yourself didn't want to accept. The reason there's multiple systems is not just because of this, but because of the fact that each world's supposed to feel distinctly different, and "every battle shouldn't feel the same or be resolveable the same".

By shuffling up the battle systems it invokes a greater depth to the battle system than is normally possible.

And then there's the 2-5 bosses who make full advantage of this as part of their plot armors.
We'll see what everyone thinks when it's done, but you may have the wrong idea as to how I intend to go about it. Have you ever played Suikoden 4? That actually had four different battle systems that were used at strategic points within the game. The main turn-based fights were how battle was usually done, however. You can think of it in that sense.
Yut Put wrote:
Latoma wrote:
It adds depth towards certain boss fights to begin with. A depth you yourself didn't want to accept. The reason there's multiple systems is not just because of this, but because of the fact that each world's supposed to feel distinctly different, and "every battle shouldn't feel the same or be resolveable the same".

By shuffling up the battle systems it invokes a greater depth to the battle system than is normally possible.

And then there's the 2-5 bosses who make full advantage of this as part of their plot armors.

No need to insult me, I didn't wrong you. This is my opinion.

Depends on Point of View.

You quit the team and didn't say it to my face, did it behind my back and told Fug. That's insulting in itself.

You also say that multiple battle systems don't work, but it's well known a good number of popular games do have multiple battle systems. True, some people don't like some, but it is fleshed out in a way where it can be liked by far more people.
Fugsnarf wrote:
It keeps battles fresh and interesting.

Latoma wrote:
It adds depth towards certain boss fights to begin with ... each world's supposed to feel distinctly different, and "every battle shouldn't feel the same or be resolveable the same"

You're basically saying: "We can't make one interesting combat system, so we'll make four boring ones and hope it's ok." Instead of thinking of ways to add variety to combat within the constraints of one system, you're using four different systems to achieve variety. If you can't achieve variety players will get bored, it doesn't matter how many combat systems there are. If you can create interesting content (enemies, abilities, settings, etc.) then players will be happy with just a single combat system.
Forum_account wrote:
Fugsnarf wrote:
It keeps battles fresh and interesting.

Latoma wrote:
It adds depth towards certain boss fights to begin with ... each world's supposed to feel distinctly different, and "every battle shouldn't feel the same or be resolveable the same"

You're basically saying: "We can't make one interesting combat system, so we'll make four boring ones and hope it's ok." Instead of thinking of ways to add variety to combat within the constraints of one system, you're using four different systems to achieve variety. If you can't achieve variety players will get bored, it doesn't matter how many combat systems there are. If you can create interesting content (enemies, abilities, settings, etc.) then players will be happy with just a single combat system.

I'm sorry, what?

I can't make 4 original systems, there's next to nothing that can be considered "Original". The fact I thought up 1 was a bit of a miracle itself.

So I took 3 distinguished, confirmed entertaining systems, and am utilizing 'em (It's not like Square-Based Turn Based RPGs are illegal to make for example). It's not like this wasn't the original plan to begin with.

All 3 are confirmed entertaining.
I never said anything about originality. I'm not sure what part confused you because you quoted the whole comment.

Latoma wrote:
So I took 3 distinguished, confirmed entertaining systems

Combat systems are typically boring. The system is just the set of rules for what's possible. The fact that enemies exist doesn't make it entertaining. The fact that you can attack doesn't make it entertaining. The fact that you can use items doesn't make it entertaining. The system is the same every fight, there's not much interesting about it. What makes it interesting/entertaining is the content you've created within the system - the specific attacks and enemies.

The reason that was given for having multiple combat systems was to keep battles "fresh and interesting". What should be making the combat interesting is the content, not the combat systems. If you're relying on the novelty of having three combat systems to keep things interesting, you're missing the point and will likely end up with three boring combat systems that don't become any more fun when combined.
Content only keeps things new for so long, and often that content is similar to old content or things you've already seen. I disagree with your logic there, I believe new battles systems are very important to games, especially RPGs. You seem to think that because we have multiple battles systems, we'll end up with three sub-par battle systems and not one good one. It doesn't have to be this way, and you're assuming it will be. I suggest you wait and see. I don't plan to skip out on content just because there are more battle systems.
Content only keeps things new for so long, and often that content is similar to old content or things you've already seen. I disagree with your logic there, I believe new battles systems are very important to games

An interesting combat system is a rare thing. Chess is one of the few examples I can think of where people are entertained by the system and not the content (though you could argue that your opponents, which vary, are part of the content). In most cases its the content that makes things interesting. Look at Warcraft 3 (or starcraft 2), using the level editor you can make maps that play nothing like the original game. These maps are still within the same system but feel like completely different games.

You seem to think that because we have multiple battles systems, we'll end up with three sub-par battle systems and not one good one. It doesn't have to be this way

I can think of good examples where having multiple combat systems would be interesting but you haven't given much of an explanation. It sounds like you have a rough idea for the game that is a lot of fun in your mind, but you don't actually have details planned out, which is why you can only offer explanations like: "It keeps battles fresh and interesting", "it's a nice and new way to do things", or "It adds depth". If you could give a more detailed explanation of why/how it will be fun I'd be less skeptical.
I have explained that there will be a main battle system with other battle systems in place at strategic points within the game. If you've never played Suikoden 4, I suggest you look into it. It's a very similar idea as to what I'm going for.
Holy shit, Yut Put, I litterally said these exact same things!

If I like -one- aspect of battle, and see it only 25% of the time, I will hate the game. I didn't play Mario and Luigi Partners in Time for overworld action to occasionally happen, I played because I liked jumping on things and making them disappear; as boring as that sounds, it kept me occupied for a week, until I approached the end, and my savefile corrupted.

These ideas of keeping battle 'fresh' are bad ideas. This may be a bad analogy, but I think it's good enough: If I order a double cheeseburger from restaurant, I don't expect a 25% chance of receiving toasted buns, a 25% chance of receiving cheese on both patties, a 25% chance of receiving sour dough bread, and a 25% chance of getting chicken or beef. When I play a game, I play it because it has a consistent, fun, playstyle that has its own variety. I liked Pokemon; same thing over and over litterally, there was usually a -very- small variety in pokemon in areas where I'd spend at least 15 minutes. I liked Final Fantasy; even when I had to grind on the same group of monsters for countless hours just to beat a boss. It doesn't need refreshing; eventually at one point in time, the player will leave, and hopefully come back, having a desire of the same gameplay, rekindled by absence ("Absence makes the heart grow fonder", I always wanted to apply that to a game)

As for Suikoden, I've played three and four, the battle system only switches for special battles; and even then, I didn't really like it. I just wanted to get that ish over with so I could get back to the main battle system.

Those are hardly relatable; they had ship battles, duels, and turn-based battles (I don't even remember a fourth); ship battles cannot be treated as the normal turn-based ones, obviously, and duels were for dramatic affect when fighting important characters.

Suikoden did it for the dramatic effect, not for variety..

No offense but this reminds me of a game on newgrounds, where the game was that you had to play as many different games simultaneously, without losing, as long as possible. Because it was intended to be a funny experience, I humored it for an additional 5 minutes; but switching gameplay was really boring.

EDIT: Any time you actually anticipate the intended audience to dislike a certain portion of your game is just... pointless. You're anticipating players indefinitely liking one system best, and you anticipate occasionally putting a chance on whether or like they'll like the game?

I'm certain any time you anticipate them disliking a certain part of the game you're doing it wrong. I'm not the best game designer, nor do I boast myself to be, but it's apparent that there are some flaws in the game design going on, if you -already- anticipating players disliking a choice you're making.
Fugsnarf wrote:
The demo has a lot done and I actually hope to release it to all of you next Tuesday.

Has this demo been posted?
If it was, I would have told you about it here. Let's just say there were some serious complications and I've been working through them. There'll be a demo out soon, that much I can promise. People that know me well know to never trust me when I give them dates though ;)