Silverain Development

New S&S Build up finally. More development details within.

Sat, 03 Oct 2009 19:25:33 GMT

- Items have been implemented at long last.

- You can see, check, equip, and unequip items through the character menu.

- Some items have a chance to have randomized bonuses, from extra defense/attack, to bonus stats, to special effects in battle*

- Until I get the shopmenu interface going, players start with 2 free weapons and a free armor piece.

- A few very minor bugs have been fixed

- Fixed a bug with ranged weapons maxing out at the user's movement.

- Fixed a bug with long range weaponry's range overlay not removing properly

Pre-alpha progress has gone slower than expected, but I'm still holding out hope that I can get this into Beta before year's end. Here's the current Pre-Alpha development schedule:

Pre-alpha(Open)
Engine Build *Complete*
Unit Build *Complete*
Interface Build *Complete*
Item Build *Complete*
Skill Build *Eta 1-2 weeks*
Effect Build *Eta less than a week*
AI Build *Eta 1-2 weeks*

After that, we're in Alpha (Closed, sign up as a tester on the Silverain forums).

As always, I am still looking for staff and testers, so feel free to apply!

Bit of a snag...

Sun, 27 Sep 2009 01:36:01 GMT

I apologize for not releasing the next build of S&S, I've gotten everything down that I wanted for this build, except an efficient solution to a certain problem is eluding me. The current public build will be the longest online due to the current problem, and me coding the item system so I don't have to redo it later on when I add the various effects in the game.

Anyway, what you [can] look forward to Today or Monday at the latest:

Item system : You have weapons, fighting isn't nearly as tedious now that you are dealing slightly less than twice the damage as before.

Randomized stat system: Items can come in more effective forms (Eg: more attack/defense), can boost stats, and can even produce effects such as dealing fire damage on hit. Randomizations are weapon-specific too, so you'll never see a sharpened hammer or serrated longbow.

A fix to the Full-instance bug

Each enemy has a chance to drop any of their items when you win a map.

A small tweak to the AI to make it slightly smarter.

More designed Maps: The Alpha maps may not be the greatest example of whats in store in the future, but no more flat grasslands!

ACT notification: A small overlay above the current unit's head.

S&S Up again tonight + Silverrain forums up. + Build notes

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 21:14:24 GMT

S&S has been updated, and while I wasn't able to get the PvP arena working just right, I'm going to keep the server up and public for a week barring any major bugs.

The Silverrain development team forum has also launched at: http://z6.invisionfree.com/Silverain

The following changes have been made:

- The allotted time to finish your turn has been increased from 20 seconds to a minute

- Slightly updated help file

- Fixed a bug where the movement/attack effects would not be cleaned up after a turn ended by time-out

- Enemy/Ally speed gains fixed.

- Different enemy level options when fighting
Level 1 enemies
Level 5 enemies
Level 10 enemies
Scaling enemies (Their level is your level)

- Moved the chat input/output to a seperate, closable window.

- Fixed a bug that slowed down player unit movement.

- Fixed the maps that didn't have enough Unit starting positions.

- Fixed units being able to attack themselves (Note that Teammates are still fair game)

- Randomized turns of all units with the same TIMER stat, no more having the player's units go first in the case of all units having the same speed.

- Fixed the AI attack doing less damage

- Bound Skip turn to Escape instead of 'D', to make it harder to accidentally skip a turn.

S&S Server down now.

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 12:41:13 GMT

Thanks to those people who've tried it, and the few who've given feedback, The game will be down until I fix the bugs that were reported, and then it will be up again.

S&S Server up for the next 24 hours for testing

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 22:44:16 GMT

I spent most of my free time today programming the user interface in, but really don't have the time to test it in full due to needing to sleep and having many classes tomorrow.

So if you are interested, Log in, read the helpfile, play a round or two, and simply report any bugs via the Envelope button that is at the bottom of your Hub when not in combat.

...and yes, I know the AI isn't too bright, it's on my list of things to do/change.

SS Screenshot 3 and Alpha testing info!

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 21:39:30 GMT

Original:

My Notes:

So, with the completion of the Unit menu system, I only have one major item on my checklist to work on before I put it up in the first phase of Alpha, which should be sometime between Tomorrow and Thursday.

First Phase Alpha testing information:

* Will last a week before the game goes into Closed Alpha. Closed Alpha testers are on a first-come first-serve basis, if the server becomes full on peak times, I won't be adding any more testers.

* Items and Unitbuying will be disabled, you will be stuck with your naked rookies, as will everyone else.

* Saving will be disabled.

* 4 Maplists will be enabled, a PvP arena, a Grassland, a Ruin, and a Canyon. The enemies will be scaled to match your level. Each maplist will accommodate up to 10 players, so if the playerlimit is raised, the possibility of being locked out of a mapset exists.

* The Silverain Development team forums will launch at the same time

Teaser shot 2 and SS update.

Sun, 20 Sep 2009 21:00:53 GMT

The game is getting closer to a point where I'll actually need testers, I worked around on the AI mostly today, and while it's nowhere near the caliber of FFT or similar games, it's passable, and the quirks of the system will be less apparent when I actually work on the AI modules so they can do something other than move/attack.

On another note, I've figured out an easier way of putting in user input than the method I was going to use, so expect that to come sooner rather than later.

Thanks to those who showed up and took a peek at the game when it was hosted today, I don't plan on starting to host until the demo is put out

Edit: If anyone has any questions I'll be glad to answer them

Teaser shot of S&S and a bit more info

Sun, 20 Sep 2009 01:31:01 GMT

This picture is of the Debug room of the game, (I made all the NPCS invisible here, due to my horrible spriting ability), and I just felt like posting the picture to get some feedback on the early art of the game.

Currently I'm trucking ahead of schedule on the Demo version, and will get it done between Monday and next Sunday. (Realistically I will probably do it on a Tuesday or Thursday as my off-days for classes)

When I do release the Demo I will be simultaneously be putting up the game server, releasing the main website, and be recruiting team members, so busy day for me ahead.

Looking for a group - With a twist

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 20:21:05 GMT

This isn't the first time I've looked to get a group together to make a game, but I'm hoping this is the first time that a group effort can be made and a quality game published.

The twist is, is that while I want to scout and talk with interested people, I'm not making any decisions, nor am I asking for help, until a working demo of the game is made. This is to keep interest among the team high, since the last teams I've worked with fell apart before even a working framework was developed.

For now, the only information I'm giving is that the game is a Strategy RPG, and that I've already cranked out the design documents for it, so the programming will go fairly fast.

If you are skilled in the following areas, feel free to contact me at "Tech_Deki (at) hotmail.com" and say that you're interested.:

Pixel Art
Non-pixel graphics
Music Composition
Sound effects
Writing

Hopefully the demo will be up within a week, I really hope we can pull off a great game.

My GIAD project.

Sun, 13 Sep 2009 18:33:26 GMT

http://www.byond.com/games/Techgamer/Ace

The game, based around the Flight theme of the contest, and to a lesser extent mechanics, has a simple purpose. To bomb the crap out of everything!

Playing as an American/British/Japanese/German WWII pilot; (the choices simply change your plane icon) you have an infinite amount of bombs, and your mission is to blow apart AA installations; enemy bunkers, and civilian targets. Mountains and AA guns can ruin your day though.

-Changes from start to release-

The game was originally based around bombing naval targets, but I liked the idea of actually seeing the damage you cause.

Similar to the first, I originally had a camera object so your plane would be at the bottom of the screen, I took it out due to wanting to show the user the "Boom" if you will.

The plane had a one-per-level "Cluster-bomb" attack that was taken out due to it really only being eye-candy and not being effective at all.

I had planes that would take off from the opposite side of the level to try to take you out. The ones that simply flew south were too easy to dodge, the homing/shooting ones were too hard, so I took them out and implemented stationary AA guns. I liked the change enough that I decided not to reimplement them later on in the project.