SotML Progress Report - Road to the Alpha

It has been a long ass time now since i announced this, and yet only roughly three weeks since i FINALLY started coding this sh*t into something tangible.

Life got in the way, depression got in the way, basically everything got in the way. But now we've started for real, and i ain't stopping 'till we're done with this thing.

SotML, the Chimera-game-thing

First thing first, presentations are in order. SotML is what i would define as a Multi-Genre game, meaning it fuses different game genres into it's own experience.

In total, SotML possess three distinct systems :

- The visual Novel System, a choose your own adventure type story with multiple endings.

- The Reforged Battle System, a turn by turn JRPG with a twist on it. (The "Ring Controller", which we'll get into at a later update.)

- ??? (It's secret, it's horrific and it's a huge twist which hits you in the face as soon as you launch the game.)

All in all, SotML tries to fuse these three distinct systems into a single game, in order to offer a fresh and interesting take on the whole video game stuff.

And thus, the first order of business that we need to get through in order to place this damn thing in your hands, is to get the Reforged Battle System to work first.

Reforged Battle System log - V 0.0.0 ~ 0.3.0

In total, I have gone through 11 versions since the start of the Project. Each of them went and added a little new something, starting from the turn by turn basics.

As of RFB - Version 0.3.0 :

- Every single game systems are now implemented (Meaning : Health, passive system, turn by turn system, action system and opening up the player's menu to select an action.)

(When the player presses on an enemy character's sprite, the action menu will then open around their mouse)

(Following which, when the player chooses an action that uses it, the Ring Controller will open at the center of the screen.)

- Every system is capable of interacting with one another. (Meaning the health goes down on an attack, the turns regenerate the number of actions you can take, etc..)

- Some system have had advanced work put into them, and can be considered to be Alpha ready at this point. (The passive system of the game is fully finished, and working as intended. It can be scaled with as many buff/Debuff as i wish with little to no effort.)

And all of that while taking into account that there are :

- No bugs to report, as of V 0.3.0 (Nothing breaks, no matter how i try to break it)

- The game's performances are really good. (While attempting to reach for 200 FPS, the game manages to run at a stable 250 FPS )

- The code that i have written is "quite clean", meaning not only can i understand what i wrote myself, but i can also infinitely scale my systems at will with less and less effort. (Example : Thanks to the advanced passive system of the game, i can now add in new buffs without even requiring to code additional lines.)

(Note : "Modifier" stands in for anything that Buffs or Debuff a player/Enemy)

Reforged Battle System : V 0.3.0 ~ 0.5.0

With all of that having being said, what would be next you ask? And when can you actually play the damn thing?

Why the answer is now quite simple to me now, and it is :

"The RFB will be player ready once it will possess all of it's system in a working state, with a proper enemy A.I to face, and the basic SFX and Music to give out something a little more polished"

And thus, this is my Version roadmap at the moment :

• V 0.3.0 (Current) : All systems are online, player control does not yet exist.

• V 0.3.5 : Player control is added to the game, allowing the player to take action to attack the opponent.

• V 0.4.0 : Enemy control is added to the game, creating a simple A.I that randomly attack the player

• V 0.4.5 : Data type systems are implemented in (Character stats library, Skills, Damage calculators, etc..)

• V 0.5.0 : Basic SFX, Music and Particle Effects/Animations are added to the game.

-- Game can now be considered Player ready and the Prototype Build can now be made public for anyone to give it a whirl --

Obviously, V0.5.0 will not be the final version of the RFB. But it will showcase everything it strives to become down the line.

Once we'll get to that point, i will then decide either to start implementing the Visual Novel Systems or the ??? Systems into the game. Or, maybe, to push the RFB all the way up to V 1.0.0 , we'll see then.

Conclusions

So yeah, that's where i stand at the moment. On other news, I'll also attempt to go on ahead and kickstart the Cz Studios content with the GENESIS project i spoke of back then.

But as of right now, the game's first Alpha release take priority, so do keep that in mind in case you see nothing pops up over there.

So that's about it. I hope you're still interested in this thing, and i'm happy to say that it has now officially started production.

See ya in the next one! (Which will hopefully be the Cz Studios video with the first alpha to play update. Prayge.)