Pic of me using the level editor.

Map, Weapon, and Character tools are now all done. The Map tool was surprisingly easy, I was sort of dreading it and thought it was going to be a huge pain. Instead, it proved to take just a few days. Granted, if I wanted to spend a few weeks on it and make it less cumbersome, I could, but right now it’s entirely functional and damned if I’m going to write a whole new engine just for a map tool.

Up next are a lot of little things that are obviously necessary but less interesting. Saving/loading the game is first, lots of little data loaders I forgot about when I was doing loaders earlier, and then cutscene loading. Cutscene-loading will actually be a lot easier than I was anticipating since cutscenes basics can be designed with the map tool. After all this, the battle system will be feature complete and I’ll start work on the other user interfaces, such as the character/party screen, choosing missions/locations, etc.

Effect animations for attacks and spells are now working as is support for death animations and corpses left on the battlefield. Scenario tools are up next!

I’ve been a very busy bee the past few weeks, and am proud to announce some big results. First, the first version of the AI is done and implements all the features I planned for it (though some of it untested). Secondly, audio support via SFML’s audio library is done and it’s just a matter of making or obtaining the sounds and music and adding in all the sound commands where necessary. The latter will be an easy chore for me, the former will be a little more interesting. Lastly, I wrote more resource scripts that I was putting off because it’s tedious stuff.

Up next

1. • Support for effect animations (animation support is in but I haven’t written code that actually draws animation for weapons/spells/etc effects).
2. • Finishing resource loaders (there are little bits in some of them that I left until later when I knew how we were going to implement sound and stuff).
3. • Scenario/Character/Weapon Tools - the stuff we’ll use to actually make scenarios and shit. This is the next really big milestone and after that, all that will be left is inbetween-scenario stuff - map screens, character management for the user, etc.

Well, the skill scripts are done and I’ve begun work on the AI. Not much else very interesting to say but I’m hopeful that the AI is going to kick ass.

Been a couple weeks since I’ve updated since I’ve had some personal life drama but I’ve been getting a ton of work done updating the skill system and writing the main skill script. Meanwhile, Barry redid a couple main character concepts and Pinback has done a ton of work animating and creating character sprites and effect animations. Our newest team member Kevin has also been working on animations.

I know I said I’d post once a week, but I’ve been spending a lot of time working with all the tileset stuff Pinback has created. I’ve gotten a lot done and the engine is starting to actually look pretty.

• • Sprite and Doodad animations tested and working.
• • Sprite movement tested and working.
• • Attack animations tested and working.
• • Major bugs with the redesigned engine fixed (memory leaks, some interesting Doodad problems that I could write pages about).
• • Scenario loader tested and working. It’ll need some revisions, but it’s very promising at this point.



At this point, the engine is actually starting to resemble a real game. Crazy. Up next, plan to get skills working, some UI work done, and then comes that thing I’ve been pushing back because I know it’ll be a huge project: the AI.

Been a while since I’ve made an update since I was on vacation in Mexico during the latter part of August. Still, got a lot done this week when I’ve had time. I also designed the AI while in Mexico, which I’ll be implementing soon. Here are some recent updates:

• • First versions of all data loaders are now done, including the scenario loader.
• • Added a new GUI element - when you mouse over attack overlay locations, the % chance that you will hit something in that location is shown (basically accuracy) on the location. Note that this doesn’t take evasion into consideration.
• • Character skills are now fully implemented under the new engine.


It’s just a matter of time before Victor finishes the first tileset we’ll be testing in the engine. Going to be a lot of work for me but quite a bit more for him. Check around the same time next week!