A windy story game

[Otay]

 

[Valky]

This looks interesting. That you've managed to singlehandedly learn multiple skills to create all of the assets of the game shows a lot of skill and passion. I'll be monitoring the progress of this.

 

[Otay]

This looks interesting. That you've managed to singlehandedly learn multiple skills to create all of the assets of the game shows a lot of skill and passion. I'll be monitoring the progress of this.

Thanks, this is very encouraging.

 

[Otay]

today i will be embarking on a journey, doing my least favorite thing to do, translating old prototype code

writing from scratch is always my preference but i dont remember how my alchemy minigame works, so for the sake of exercise and nostalgia im doing it the hard way and translating bad code

heres the bad code (not safe for eyes): https://pastebin.com/UFu2jiQN

1305 lines hopefully i can cut that down by a thousand

wish me luck

 

[Otay]

Almost immediately after I made my previous post saying I wasnt going to rewrite this all from scratch, thats exactly what I ended up doing.

I took an art break to make all the assets from scratch, while the back of my brain designed the data structures and algorithms for the game

(Pic is completely unrelated to gameplay)

Just finished programming the patterns and graphics

Next I'll polish the visuals with some alpha lerping, then ill need to program the menu and gameover screen, then its done

estimated time for that: about 48 hours

 

[Otay]

Some alpha lerping makes it all look nice and smooth

The minigame instructions are "You must imbue each tile with magic while avoiding tiles that overheat"

I'm not planning on making a tutorial so hopefully thats enough lolz ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[Otay]

Progress pics of Haxlyn, pick your favorite

 

[Valky]

Something that immediately stuck out to me was the 2d combat screen backgrounds. Right now it's just a plain solid color gradient. A simple but effective way of making it vibrant and exciting would be if you made unique combat backgrounds themed after every area of the game and each would display when you are in combat in that respective world area.

 

[Otay]

Something that immediately stuck out to me was the 2d combat screen backgrounds. Right now it's just a plain solid color gradient. A simple but effective way of making it vibrant and exciting would be if you made unique combat backgrounds themed after every area of the game and each would display when you are in combat in that respective world area.

Yeah might be worth checking out how to spice things up like that as polish after we build the world out more

Right now the appeal relies on the player enjoying the gameplay mechanics and competitive aspect of speedrunning bosses, enough to ignore the various shortcomings of the project so far (whether they be inherent to solo development, or temporary until i start polishing)

 

[Otay]

1.3.0 will be released in a "QA Phase" state (so speedrunning wont be valid). Havent had a chance to polish up the citadel or balance anything, but the full alchemy minigame will be included, with all enchantments available, and the Haxlyn wilderness is ready to be explored.

I'm very happy with how this is turning out :]

I need to assemble a QA team, to be my loyal knights of the round tempest.

If you wanna help out join us on discord https://discord.gg/cmTyGgj otherwise its just gonna be me and Xeno playing the hell out of this until it feels right

 

[Valky]

Besides random encounters and some placed chests on the map, what is there to do in the world? What are the incentives to explore these beautiful locations? Are there environmental puzzles to solve? That would be a fantastic addition.

 

[Otay]

Besides random encounters and some placed chests on the map, what is there to do in the world? What are the incentives to explore these beautiful locations? Are there environmental puzzles to solve? That would be a fantastic addition.

The end game will be more filled out both in terms of narrative and gameplay, but currently the game is really all about speedrunning the bosses https://speedrun.com/rott

Haxlyn will have a new boss coming soon, I'm very hyped to find the best strategies to beat it. The alchemy minigame for getting stat boost enchantments is pretty sweet too.

 

[Otay]

1.3.0 is out in QA phase now, and I'm looking for help testing for bugs and balancing.

https://www.realmofthetempest.com

Here's the remaining checklist for 1.3.0 to reach speedrun eligibility on the leaderboards (https://www.speedrun.com/rott)
- Draw Migmas sprite
- Make haxlyn shrine rituals work
- Complete Haxlyn citadel
--- Redesign the citadel entrance
--- Redesign the citadel exit & boss area
--- Reorganize the geometry for a world map perspective
--- Setup chest loot
--- Populate enemies
- Thoroughly check builds for balanced gameplay

 

[Otay]

Haven't made any progress in more than 2 weeks. My nerve pain that has been progressing for many years has gotten to the point where most of the time I can't function at all. I've lost my job and my favorite hobby, but I hope to find treatment soon and return to game dev. Wish me luck, I'll be back to finish Haxlyn as soon as I can.

Here's some silly promo art I threw together for when I finally make my return.

 

[Valky]

I hope you're putting this one man effort on your resume, I don't know why you wouldn't be very hire-able if employers knew about this.

 

[Otay]

Happy new year my gamers

In a few months I'll be flying to minnesota to work with a team of neurologists for a week to try to identify the disease causing my neuropathy. I have nerve damage in my eyes, ears, hands, and feet, and its impacting my lungs, heart, and brain. There's a high likelihood that the disease is idiopathic, meaning they wont know how to treat the disease. I'm currently treating the symptoms with exercise for better blood and oxygen flow to the nerves, and vitamin b complex supplements to repair the nerves. I dont know how much free time I have left in my life, my vision is blurry and my hands shake and hurt, I'm always getting dizzy and loud fluttering sounds in my ear prevent me from sleeping. My bladder is also effected, so I wake up 3-5 times a night to use the bathroom. I somehow graduated magna cum laude like this, and survived with a work from home job part time on my own schedule, and I believe I can still do something with this game. So whatever time I have left in my life, I've decided to dedicate to kindness. My family is supporting me, I've accepted the nature of my relationship to the universe, and am no longer panicked while fighting to survive. The only burden I have now is physical, which is much easier than always blaming myself, and feeling excluded from normal society.

Here's the average night with my condition

You can follow my health updates on twitter if you're interested.
https://twitter.com/Otaykins/status/1208960068617691137


Now for the good stuff, I've drawn a new sprite

They're basically evil power rangers

And, the mountain shrine! Main quest line will start here. (Not implemented yet, wont be for a long while im sure)

A placeholder map called "Mystery path". If I ever get to a point where I complete the first narrative arc and want to transfer the player to a whole new world, this path could basically take you to "disc 2" of the game.

We have the Talonovia Backlands! A cute little area next to the town with an item donation shrine and an npc house hanging out on the edge of the cliff

There's a seperate island within this same map that the player can only access through a portal in Haxlyn

The mountain side here is where you ascend to the Aksalom Skygate

New world map! I'm trying to outline my ideas in case anyone else ends up adopting the project later, if I dont get the chance to do it myself. I used to rush toward updates because I was hoping this project would help me survive, but now that my family is helping me survive I've shifted my focus toward listening within. I get lots of ideas and shift between different moods a lot, sometimes I love making music and sometimes I love writing, and sometimes I feel logical and focused, and sometimes I feel chill and artistic. There have been times where I get in the zone with my work, but have had to force myself to move on to what the update needs rather than what I want to do. Development is going to be a bit more chill now.

A few more preview maps with new music have been snuck in to the most recent update, theres more than 5 new songs!

Download

https://otay.itch.io/realm-of-the-tempest


Filesize is getting closer and closer to the 1 gb mark. If it ever gets that high I'll do my best to cut it down.

Some tasks I'm looking forward to doing:
- Making a lot of books to decorate the world with (currently just have 1 book with 3 colors)
- Making a lot of new enemy sprites (currently have 7 designs roughed out)
- Filling in the new worlds outlined on the map above
- Adding new music for the new worlds
- Making NPC sprites and implementing NPC services
- Making a lot of new foliage (Currenly recycling the same 3 trees, 2 mushrooms, and some bamboo)
- Implementing all the item ritual shrines
- Designing and drawing tons of item graphics
- Implementing enemy abilities (Designs are ready!)
- Improving the code under the hood, im very proud of most of my work but some of it is rushed and confusing, and this project needs to be adoptable once I cant work on it anymore

Hoping 2020 is my year to make this game shine

 

[Abu Antar]

Godspeed to you, man. I hope that you find the help that you need, so that you can have a "normal" life, free from the disease that you have. It's good to see that you at least have a positive attitude, which probably isn't easy. I admire that. Good luck to you and I hope that you get to release your game and people get to play it. I'll keep following your progress in both game development and progress in health.

 

[santino27]

Good luck to you. I hope everything works out with your health, but whatever happens, it sounds like you've learned to approach it with the right perspective. Family first, game dev when you have time.

 

[Valky]

Thank goodness, I half thought you died. Visual style looks fantastic. As far as the 1GB filesize is concerned, it's good to make efficient use of space and optimize where possible but if you just have so much game content despite that, and it's gotta be over 1GB, that's not a problem.

 

[Otay]

Godspeed to you, man. I hope that you find the help that you need, so that you can have a "normal" life, free from the disease that you have. It's good to see that you at least have a positive attitude, which probably isn't easy. I admire that. Good luck to you and I hope that you get to release your game and people get to play it. I'll keep following your progress in both game development and progress in health.

Love that gif, my friend used to draw krillins dots on my bald ass forehead :D Thanks for the support my friend

Good luck to you. I hope everything works out with your health, but whatever happens, it sounds like you've learned to approach it with the right perspective. Family first, game dev when you have time.

Thank you so much <3
:D

Thank goodness, I half thought you died. Visual style looks fantastic. As far as the 1GB filesize is concerned, it's good to make efficient use of space and optimize where possible but if you just have so much game content despite that, and it's gotta be over 1GB, that's not a problem.

I'm not dead yet! Neuropathy shouldnt be fatal if I understand correctly, but I also dont know anything about the underlying disease. I'm not at all expecting to drop dead, but it wouldn't be a big surprise either. My heart certainly beats erratically, and the top of my head gets cold and tingly in a horrible way when I stand up.

The 1 GB filesize goal is mostly just a self imposed rock lee sort of thing. I could postpone organizing assets and improving efficiency, but by aiming for tidiness I'll be preparing the project to be one day adopted, and improving my workflow by staying organized.

 

[AdolfSatan]

You have my deepest admiration not just for staying strong where most would fall and wallow in self-pity, but also keeping on with such a huge project at the same time. Frail and broken, no Atlas could carry such a burden as well.

Finally got my xbox controller yesterday, but can't seem to start the game. I've tried every button at the starting screen but nothing happens. Running on win 10 x64. The controller's a knock-off but every other game and the OS itself recognize it as an original.

 

[Otay]

You have my deepest admiration not just for staying strong where most would fall and wallow in self-pity, but also keeping on with such a huge project at the same time. Frail and broken, no Atlas could carry such a burden as well.

Finally got my xbox controller yesterday, but can't seem to start the game. I've tried every button at the starting screen but nothing happens. Running on win 10 x64. The controller's a knock-off but every other game and the OS itself recognize it as an original.

Ty

For the controls, I'd try restarting the game, and check that the controller is recognized as player 1 (the green light on the controller), replug it in maybe, and if none of that helps I may need to compile a special debug build that will output the input codes for the controller to figure out if its sending different codes or none at all

One of the next things on the to do list is spice up the front end, add game modes, options on title screen, save game manager, and maybe controller options would be good in there too, sorry for the inconvenience until then

 

[AdolfSatan]

That did it, must have had the controller set as something else.
Played for about 1h. Here are my first impressions:

Fucking A T M O S P H E R I C. You nailed it, man. Graphics, music, text, everything fits together so well. It feels like the kind of world where you can get lost in for hours, taking it all slowly and enjoying the weirdness of it.

Only played up to lvl 2 Valkyrie so naturally I haven't had the chance to try many of the skills, but so far it seems fun. As a general rule I'm not too fond of speed/reaction based games because I suck, but I'm enjoying it nonetheless. Had a very close call against a team of reaper girls that had a lvl 5 boss. Nice moment.

When you walk into a house or get any kind of text to read, music can be distracting, specially if it's a long convo.
Or perhaps I'm just too much of an autist and feel overwhelmed. Better ask others for their opinions on this.
But in any case, some possible fixes for that:
-Fade music into something less intrusive like ambient noises
-Apply a low-pass filter to the track while chatting with other beings

Game is clearly focused around combat, which means I'll be seeing the post-battle screen a lot of times. Is there some way you can reduce those three steps to one?
Perhaps show in a vertically divided screen XP and loot, and have the statistics screens triggered by pressing a button (say B), otherwise it being hidden. Perhaps build-conscious players appreciate such info, but I suppose most will find it rather useless.
Also, is there a downside to amassing as much loot/items as I possibly can? If not, then remove the selection/take all part.

 

[Otay]

That did it, must have had the controller set as something else.
Played for about 1h. Here are my first impressions:

Fucking A T M O S P H E R I C. You nailed it, man. Graphics, music, text, everything fits together so well. It feels like the kind of world where you can get lost in for hours, taking it all slowly and enjoying the weirdness of it.

Only played up to lvl 2 Valkyrie so naturally I haven't had the chance to try many of the skills, but so far it seems fun. As a general rule I'm not too fond of speed/reaction based games because I suck, but I'm enjoying it nonetheless. Had a very close call against a team of reaper girls that had a lvl 5 boss. Nice moment.

Oh man you have so much more game to see :D

When you walk into a house or get any kind of text to read, music can be distracting, specially if it's a long convo.
Or perhaps I'm just too much of an autist and feel overwhelmed. Better ask others for their opinions on this.
But in any case, some possible fixes for that:
-Fade music into something less intrusive like ambient noises
-Apply a low-pass filter to the track while chatting with other beings

This is an interesting thought. On the pros side, it could add to the immersion to the conversation. On the cons side, a lot of wilderness NPCs are just one line of text, which may be so quick of a transition that its jarring. I might look into this idea or something similar eventually but its goin in the polish pile under the other 2000 things i wanna do before then

Game is clearly focused around combat, which means I'll be seeing the post-battle screen a lot of times. Is there some way you can reduce those three steps to one?
Perhaps show in a vertically divided screen XP and loot, and have the statistics screens triggered by pressing a button (say B), otherwise it being hidden. Perhaps build-conscious players appreciate such info, but I suppose most will find it rather useless.

Adding some convenience to the post battle process sounds like a good idea to look into, its tedious to me too but I tolerate it because I can think while I wait so its kind of like a break on my brain while I just mash "A". If you weren't praying, I'd recommend turning it on. You can walk twice as far before your next battle while praying (but the monsters are harder.) Playing without prayer in Rhunia is basically tutorial mode, and can quickly start feeling very tedious.

Also, is there a downside to amassing as much loot/items as I possibly can? If not, then remove the selection/take all part.

Right so items are totally a work in progress right now, first I'll be working on ritual items that you donate at shrines (the only one working right now is herbs) and then I'll be working on equipment once we move on to the 1.4.0 build. The idea for that final screen is to be able to inspect each item, take or trash it, or take all. However there are downsides to this design already, a major downside being if you accidentally tap right and hit cancel you forfeit all the loot (LMAO.)

The design for item interfaces is definitely subject to change as the needs properly develop. It's one of the hundred things in the back of my mind that im waiting to have an "aha" moment about, and for now just daydream imagining what it should feel like once all the features come together.

Thanks for the feedback glad you got a chance to play. Were you able to control your turning movements with the knockoff controller? Mine was rocketing my camera around and had no sensitivity between 0 and full blast.

 

[AdolfSatan]

It does feel cheap, but works greatly.

I actually began playing with singing activated because I wanted to see some monsters, ha. Deactivated it later on, but didn't think of praying. I'll try that tomorrow.