Hey everyone!

Just wanted to do a little progress update on stuff!

As you might have seen/heard, I recently uploaded a song to the GameJolt page for the OST. What was supposed to be a battle theme was later repurposed into the main theme. I have named it “Hour of the Fox Fighters!” Not to be confused with the achievement name (which requires you to have the game powered on for a total time of 1 hour).

As much as I would like to release the songs when they’re done, I have to do some additional passes, such as giving them to my friends to listen to. I tried composing a song for the overworld, thought it sounded fine, but one of my friends said, and I quote “my ears are actually getting uncomfortable what the fuck I’ve literally never felt this before,” so I have to fix it in some capacity. I’m relatively new to composing music, so there’s bound to be mistakes somewhere. It’s like a first coding project. There’s going to be mistakes somewhere (hey wouldn’t you know it, this is also my first game) or doing pixel art, where you might not realize you made an error somewhere. Hopefully I’ll be able to overcome those initial hurdles and make better music. Although, it is fun experimenting different rhythms and whatnot!

What I might do is look at MIDI files for music like the Cave Story OST (I can easily get the Organa Data files and extract MIDIs from them) and use some stuff such as the bass or using some of the starting notes to make songs. Especially stuff like Eyes of Flame, Last Battle and On To Grasstown, I absolutely LOVE those songs. This may help with composing music if I can get inspired by some songs.

Regarding coding…

I’m most likely going to switch development from Clickteam Fusion to RPG Maker 2003. Reason being is that RPG Maker is literally designed for people to make RPGs, whereas Clickteam would require me to learn way more to do stuff like make my own engine for battling. Would it be fun to learn Clickteam? Yes and no. Probably mostly no. However, I’m waiting until RPG Maker 2003 goes on sale on Steam (shouldn’t have to wait long, the summer sale should be here soon, but if it goes on sale earlier, I’ll buy it for the discounted price). So, because of this, the development language will also switch from Clickteam Series to RPG Maker 2003.

Also, I have some equations at the ready if I need to use them. Stuff like damage calculations, evasion/accuracy, physical defense and magic defense, etc.

I also have finished most of my armor stats. I’m probably gonna add stuff like shields, but for now, take a look at a sneak peek.

Yes, this is all on a spreadsheet. In simple terms, light armor is less tanky (except for a few very specific endgame armors) but gives you more evasion, and heavy armor is tankier but reduces evasion. The same logic will apply to some weapons, because of diversity. In addition, some weapons and armors will give either more passive effects or give effects when used as an item in battle. In the future, I’ll figure out how to balance this since I don’t plan on limiting your inventory to just four weapons and armors at any given time, but maybe I’d limit to what your character can have in battle at once. Same thing with armor. I don’t want to make the game too easy, after all. However, because of Nasir Gabelli (the original programmer for Final Fantasy 1 and 2) and his… absolutely wonderful logic for status effects (why do like half of the enemies just poison you/paralyze you in Final Fantasy what the hell were you thinking Nasir Gabelli), I have plans for something unique. More on that in the future.

(On an unrelated note, it is incredibly fun to say “Nasir Gabelli” in a funny voice, or just in general.)

Achievements are also good. I have a feeling I’m going to make completionists, really, REALLY mad. 150 trophies and some of them have nonsensical descriptions without actually telling you how to get them/are secret so you don’t know how to get them? Good luck! =)

Although, maybe I might have gone too far… I’ll have to see.

As for work on the game, once I get a better grasp on stuff development wise, I will probably make a post looking for people to help on the project. Probably gonna need pixel artists, some composers, and game testers. But that’s in the future!

In short: Progress is going slow as usual, but I have more stuff done! Even if it’s not coding, art, or music, I’m always thinking of stuff, despite how easy it is for me to get distracted/think of other stuff.