What's up, RMers?

[DerVVulfman]

The thing is that it is the hardest thing to do since people may use many different battle systems nowadays and I am not used to this kind of scripts anyway.

Yep, I kinda did something like that with MrMo's ABS. Ya see, it can work with the default battlesystem too. Since my ABS lets you drop off party members, I had to come up with a way for it to track who was dropped off before entering your default batlesystem, and re-track them after exiting. It's basically handled in the Scene_Map 'call_battle' system and in the appropriate routines in Scene_Battle.

Still working on the rope/grapnel hook system, and it's calculating and drawing the climbable graphics just right. I had a problem with passables for the ends. Dumb passables. I could walk off the edge of a map cliff and show up behind a ledge!!! Had to fix that last night.

[Kain Nobel]

I'm still working on that flashlight/circle of light system, but I somehow got side-tracked while making the "generic tech demo," now it has grown into a full-on dungeon. This brought me to realize...

I miss actual game making guys! I spend day and night creating graphics, composing music, developing scripts and planning out various concepts, etc that I barely get to see the game itself. Once you go down the path of "fully custom or bust", you forget that [your engine of choice] is even a thing because there is a various set of meta-tasks that need to be done before you see it again. I think I spent nearly two years straight just working on tilesets and laying down tunes before asking myself "Hey, when's the last time you opened RPG Maker and actually did something with it?" It's all being done, I just have to transfer myself between different departments of development every few months or learn to better multi-task or something.

[KasperKalamity]

basically how i feel, and why i avoided learning how to script, or obsess over spriting or tilesetting.

[Kain Nobel]

I obsess over it all, I never avoid it! Whatever I work on drags me in until I either get it done or fail, but most things do get done :D

Alright, I'm no longer considering this the Circle of Light / Flashlight demo, it's now a project of its own! While I'm still going to do some work on the script here 'n there, I've been concentrating on making this dungeon, balancing the battles, properly distributing treasure and drops, eventing the puzzles, etc. What I currently have, it takes approximately 30 minutes from start to finish, and it's all about survival.

With that in mind, perhaps I might submit this to one or both of the contests. It's all in practice and fun, I don't really care about points, prizes or anything of that nature.

[KasperKalamity]

that'd be a fun 5 minute game, you have a flashlight, and have to find your keys or something xD

[Taylor]

Augh, inspiration. Can't I just work on the stuff I already have on my plate?

I want to make a game like Etrian Odyssey, but the classes are mythical creatures, dragons, an animals. (I'm willing to bet as a result the enemies would need to be strange and otherworldly.)

[Samven]

I'm just jotting down random notes for my VXAce test game. It won't be anything too flashy, methinks. Just something very short to be a demo of what I've learnt so far with it. Thinking of having an underwater modern-magipunk setting thus far.

[Kain Nobel]

Trying to break some more ground with animation, but nothing too serious yet, just basics. I've got roughly 80 or so still-framed battlers, I'm not sure how many of them I'll be able to put in motion, but at least I'm going to try. I'm curious of what the latest animated battlers is capable of out-of-the-box, but I'm holding off on really messing with the system until I get some more work done.

I've done some more scripting work! I'm currently working on a custom element ratings system for battlers, equipment, etc. I've got two others in progress, Enemy.SmartElement and Enemy.SmartState, which causes enemies to better evaluate their actions towards the allies. "Is he poisoned already? Use poison on somebody else. Oh, he absorbs fire? Don't use fire on him." I'm debating on tying this to the Intelligence stat; an enemy with low INT is probably stupid enough to use bad commands, whereas high INT wizard would never slip up.

I'm realizing that, regardless of the fact everything I'll be doing in 2D, I'll probably be using 3D quite a lot once I get Blender figured out more. The uses I see for it right now are the simple stuff, such as building a 3D shelf, viewing it from a 45 degree angle, capturing the object in different rotational directions, re-rendering it in 2D and putting it on a tileset. I've been fidgeting with it and not getting very far, but I'm not ready to give up yet.

Oh yeah, composed another track...

Wicked Underground
Wicked Underground

I'm probably going to slip into the shadows for the next week or so, I've got work to catch up on with this project!

[kyonides]

I just wanted to let you know that I'm planning to develop my first battle system for RPG Maker XP. Well, this would be my second attempt since my first project disappeared as well as my previous hard disk did. As a matter of fact I don't have the required experience and TIME to actually develop it so it's going to be pretty much like the standard battle system from a scripter's point of view but it will look different. It's all about making my own sideview battle system.

Proposed Features

• All battlers will be replaced by common characters for XP
  
• Icon based actor menu with 5 choices: fight, skill, guard, item and (individually) escape like a good coward (FFVI style?)
  
• No party command menu included, well, no window based menu at all
• Heroes may attack anybody in their own team, too (FF style?) Very useful if you hate one of your heroes or you want to remove any state
  
• For sure I'll be adding my KBlueMage script so there will be blue mages on the loose
• Monsters may be controlled by mages or psychics. Not sure if it is a good idea to let monsters control heroes
  
• Skills like HP or SP Regen will be included, not sure about Petrify and others
  
• Normal, preemptive and surprise attacks

I gotta admit I don't know how to fill the black empty space where the actor stats are located in default BS for XP, any useful ideas would be appreciated.

All 5 icons included in the icon menu will be located right in front of the heroes.

Other weird things have crossed my mind, too, like replacing a hero with a reserve like in any football or soccer or basketball match or enemies calling out their own Lazarus or calling for other monster's help to bully the heroes or allowing the player to fight with upto 8 heroes at the same time. Hero transformations don't convince me so it may be excluded for good. Any other unusual skills or features may be considered for possible inclusion.

Things I don't pretend to include or adapt would be making separate skills turn into superskills by combining them or allowing the player to make any combos. Those things might exceed my current abilities so I wouldn't like to offer you more than I can actually get working.

For now I could only make the BS allow you to pick fight command and add it to the commands stack for future processing in the main phase (actual combat). The good thing is that you should already be capable of hitting your own comrades. The bad thing about its current development stage is that I can't make the characters on screen move close to their targets and make custom animations to make you thing they're stricking them.

Anybody expecting to get Pokémon style battle system gotta be quite nuts!

Content Hidden

[DerVVulfman]

I gotta admit I don't know how to fill the black empty space where the actor stats are located in default BS for XP, any useful ideas would be appreciated.

A battleback stretching script. Probably found in the Battlesystem Addons or Visual Enhancements sections of the Forum Script Listings. Coding it, it would be the viewport code in Spriteset_Battle that is set to a (0,0,640,320) area rather than a full (0,0,640,480) that the full screen should be. Don't forget that contemporary XP battlebacks are 640x320. So either you'll use a battleback stretch script to alter the backgrounds or you'll be making your own.

If you're interested, there is a 'camera pan' script that makes a kind of 'rotation effect' even with animated battlers. But, it negates the custom line-up of the battlers in favor of its own pre-designed lineup system. PM me if interested.