What's up, RMers?

[Remi-chan]

The complaint isn't against any engine, this is an issue I have with developers who make games using retro-fitted assets when there is no need.

I also never said the one making the time fantasy DLC's is lazy, sorry if that seemed like my point. Granted, he has to do half the work he would if he were making a 32bit tileset, and that's objectively true. There is no argument to say there is less work involved because by complete mathematical edict, drawing twice as much is twice the work.

I DO definitely see the utilization of time fantasy tilesets as a very sloppy design practice unless you're committed to it and its part of the game's thematic.

Nostalgia is the only reason things like Time Fantasy ARE bankable though. That is not a debate, it's a fact. Nostalgia is powerful, it's the vast reason why you still swear by XP despite it having one singular thing it does better than the more modern engines. Likewise I haven't changed to MZ because I've grown comfortable with MV, and while MZ has made some silly blunders, it does have some huge advantages I wouldn't mind taking advantage of, I even own the engine so it's not hard for me to use it whenever I like!

I very well might in the future, depending!

Even if I have to concede that it isn't lazy to create a tileset in the NES Chrono style, it is less work. Half the work, in fact! Or a quarter if you're eight-bitting.

That's not really an argument, it's just fact. Twice the pixels to fill means twice the work on a purely objective mathematical basis.

Now if it was lazy by intent or not isn't really a thing that matters, is it? it's factually half the work, but its also more affordable because of this. Or should be.

Of course, I am going under the basis that every pixel is utilized in a 32bit chipset compared to a 16bit one, which may not always be the case. My tilesets are guilty especially of having a lot of blank area, but I'm not pretending my stuff is worth money so that's a non-argument, anyway.

Is it a lazy excuse for art? Yes. It's pandering to nostalgia. You could still do that with 32bit, because it wasn't the retrograde aesthetic of having larger pixels that makes people nostalgic, it's the vibe. The easiest way to replicate that vibe is to utilize the same technological limitations of the era.

It's putting in the least effort possible to replicate the feel people are after. Genuinely speaking, it's a genius move financially, but I won't pretend for a second it looks good.

It looks like a game from 15 years ago, because that is what it is replicating. There's charm, yes, but its not exactly hard to find that charm. I'm sick to death of seeing it praised over more modern styles who have had more work put in due to the ignorance nostalgia creates.

It is not impressive, it's been done before and been done far better. If people wanna pay for it, that's their choice. But I will never advocate for bringing us back to the 1990s or 1980's when we can be so much more.

I grew up on Playstation one games and 1990s PC games, I understand the appeal, and ultimately, if the game is fun or well executed, it doesn't matter what art you use. Minecraft became a hit sensation and I can guarantee very little of that was because of its pixel art. There's a reason most minecraft players use a custom texturepack.

In minecraft's defense, it was made by an indie company with next to no budget when they started, the graphics were there purely to serve a visual purpose of informing, it didn't have to look good, and the game was so ambitious otherwise that it was a forigveable sleight.

I was probably harsher than I needed to be, in regards to the whole thing of using 8bit/16bit graphics, my main message was if you must do it, make it thematically accurate. Don't just use time fantasy because MUH RETRO FEELS BEEN TOUCHED then slam it together with things entirely nonsensical to the era.

Axial went hard on the retrograde aesthetic, and it was the one thing that game nailed. It felt like I was booting up a game from 1994, and the dev actually put the time into making the chipsets himself, the music he commissioned was chiptune stuff, and its what made the games vibe the one thing it really nailed.

Unfortunately, because the game focused so hard on its aesthetic, it entirely lacked much else for substance. It might have been improved now, I haven't played it in over a year and the dev has been doing updates.

Hopefully that answers all the inquiries regarding this topic. I don't have anything to show because I've been in a bit of burnout and my artists haven't been able to get me files yet. So I'm just chilling and playing games mostly.

[DerVVulfman]

When kyonides asked whether or not the Time Fantasy Steampunk asset was worth it, I first judged that he saw from images the style of graphics in which he was inquiring. He would have to have seen the style when he saw the advertisement for the asset package, else he would not have brought up the question on its value. And screenshots made the style of art quite clear. The images within the page did not contain NPCs, whether chibi-esque or not, as I do have a marked distain for that style.

I have learned that when one makes a judgment call, they must take themselves out of the equation. It is never fair to use your own personal tastes when making such, otherwise almost nothing would be graded properly. If one were to ask me if a Star Trek movie was worth it, I would try to consider the direction and acting, not flashy special effects or explosions that draw people into blockbusters. I would tend to question things like "wasn't the Klingon in the third movie just a generic villain?" or "the very first Trek movie was plodding along... the guy who directed it made musicals?" And I would ask them what type of films they preferred to view.

No. I attempted to take my preferences out and made critique about physical content. His query was whether it was worth purchasing recognizing that it could be "fixed / altered / improved easily" as he stated. I admit that I gave a disapproval towards the appearance of the Victorian house interior and made a light comment that the trains were fine, but that being the only unobjective comment based on personal taste.

Previous comments about purchased resources have pertained to overall content. Melana had made a statement about a purchase whereby the author merely made one of icons and mixed with one of five background objects and advertised hundreds of objects, something rather disingenuous. And kyonides noted displeasure in another resource advertised, though the content description was correct if poorly phrased and rather obscure. So I knew this was not about artwork style but content.

Had kyonides asked if they thought the art in this resource was good quality, then of course it would be about the style. Then I would note that this did not fit the RTP narrative for any of the engines, talk about whether anything was over-saturated or under-saturated, whether the characters or objects had used too vivid or dark an outline color, whether character faces had too much definition to make them appear aged or appeared to be MS-Paint derived. However, that was not the case.

I discussed the metal-reinforced wooden crates, Victorian styled railings and other objects that are not seen in most other tilesets. I also suggested that some content were novel, the actual appearance of street clocks, which still exist to this day, but are more used outside of some banks or schools in LED format as some today are now unable to understand an analog clock. I gave my critique on the fact there was indeed plenty of content, content and consistency of an art style which kyonides would have already seen.

[Remi-chan]

Kyonides' question had nothing to do with my assessment. I was simply asserting my opinion, he merely brought it up.

Because yes, my response would seem utterly illogical if approached from a context of responding to Kyonides, as a general rule I don't engage with him.

I was simply stating my personal thoughts on the time fantasy sets, and when pushed for further reasoning, elaborated further.

Does my response make more sense now that we don't have the overhanging bugbear of that assumption in the way?

I was hijacking Kyonides' post to make a point of my own, and I think your response to him adequately answered his inquiry. Far as I saw it, the kyonides saga ended there. I might have done this because I have no content to show lately but still wanna talk about gamedev. :0

The menus I'm trying to make are making me procrastinate wayyy harder than I thought. No point forcing it, though.

[AVGB-KBGaming]

I once had PK8's self data suite, but that was on my other PC. That's gone, so yeah.

No archive on the internet exists, as far as I can find.

[DerVVulfman]

A partial archive exists, and I found it. But you know since I sent it to ya. I'm gonna have to take a closer look at it to see if it is XP, VX or VXAce unless you get back to me on that first.

[Remi-chan]

So! Some good news, Coyotecraft, the stand in for Xiie, has managed to get quite some work done, and so in celebration of this, I made a video to showcase but a few of the sprites he finished.

Harsh Power // Humane Terror

Old scene, new appearances~! Tac Talismina, Spooky Schema / The Wizard and other characters have updated sprites.

We also have an updated sprite for the Yamayoji; Ashe.

The Enma

Complete with sipping tea animation. Massive thanks to Coyotecraft for this one~!

Here's a couple images of the Enma in game!


Still got some work to do implementing it, but no rush there.

[KasperKalamity]

just one question: are you using a plugin? The last time I checked, max map size in MV was about 256x256 and your map looks much bigger than that.

It's 256x256, i started at max size so I could properly determine how big to remake the other towns

[kyonides]

Months ago somebody told me on the official forums that one as a game developer should take a peek on existing games for "research purposes" and other stuff. Well, I don't blame you if you ever call it a poor excuse to keep gaming.

Anyway, I just wanted to pay a visit to GOG.com to check out new games, offers, and any recent news or plans. Guess what? It failed to load or it simply told me I had no authorization to access that website or it simply showed a brown teddy bear lifting the world as if it could crumble at any moment. Like 2 hours later everything loaded smoothly. Weird.

Has any recent game inspired you to make a new game?
Or did it convince you of resuming the development of an old one?

[DerVVulfman]

Some area-of-effect features for Lycan. Create a sort of Lip file system so mouths playback properly and synced in faces within message systems....

[Steel Beast 6Beets]

just one question: are you using a plugin? The last time I checked, max map size in MV was about 256x256 and your map looks much bigger than that.

It's 256x256, i started at max size so I could properly determine how big to remake the other towns

I see. It certainly looks bigger. Something about the scale must have thrown me off.