Blogs - aryadips

Hi guys, it's been a while since my last post. I did intend to write more often but it seems I was too busy making games. But now I have a lot of updates for Warriors of Belirium, so read on.

Firstly, battle screen is now done... or at least good enough for alpha version of the game. Players are still unable to use items, because the inventory system is not in place yet. Yeah, inventory system in RPG is harder than I thought, right now only the interface is the only thing what's done but players can't do anything about the items. After inventory system is working, I can start making it possible for players to use items in battles.

As you can see from the screenshot above, the interface is very far from complete. This is because I still don't have a good idea of what the battle screen will look like. I will do my best to make this screen at least look like a working battle screen before the alpha release.

Another good thing is, a few days ago every part in my game starts to come together to form a single entity that I can call... the alpha version. Right now it's still a pre-alpha but the development towards the alpha version is going smoothly. What's left for me is to add content, add more story part to the game, complete art assets that still lacking, and then probably making the SFX and music.

Hi guys! It's been a while since I last write a blog post here, but don't worry the development of the game is still continuing. A lot of things are added in preparation of the alpha version of the game, let me talk about it one by one.

First off: Story sequence! Yeah, I've finally started doing the story part of the game, after drafting it for a few days.

(somehow, the screenshot doesn't show up, you can just go here)

Making the story sequence is easier than I thought. I just need to create a variable that increases its value by one every time I press a button, and the dialogue box just shows text depending on its value. One thing that doesn't satisfied me is that the dialogue comes up all at once instead of showing slowly one character at a time. Later, I need to make the dialogue screen do that but for now (the alpha milestone) this is enough, I just want to make the story really great because that's what gonna entice people.

Second, adventure part! This is where player ventures into dungeons or forests or anywhere the story demands them (later, there are side quests that let player go anywhere they want to). For this part of the story, the player is attacking (is it the right word? I'm not sure) Redhall. Our hero is about to reclaim Redhall from Altiria.

There is one thing that I didn't realize before when making this part of the game, it's harder than I thought and also time consuming. Because beside designing the dungeon (in this case, the town) I also have to create all the assets for it. I know it should've been obvious but it's really a surprise to me.

(if this doesn't show up on your browser, go here)

Only parts of dungeons you've explored that are revealed to you, and enemies are shown on the map they can really surprise you if you suddenly see them when you didn't expect. The positive side is that they are stationary, they are not gonna come to you even if you're near them. I made it like this because I think there are times when players don't wanna fight and just wanna go to the next map. At first I wanna make that enemy icon a generic one, but maybe you guys want a specific icon for a specific enemy, so that you know what you're up against? lemme know what you think.

Lastly, is the in game menu screen! you know, the one that shows up when you press triangle on your PS3 gamepad. I initially didn't plan on making this, but then I realized I need to have at least a basic function of this screen so that players can use items outside of battles (and to make it look decent enough for alpha state).

(the link is here, this one, and this one too )

As for now, not all functionalities of the in game menu is working, only the items and skills screen. Making in game menu screen makes me realize one thing: I need to have some kind of a database for stuffs in the game (items, equipments, and any other things) and also a good way to load them into the game... okay so that's two things. Maybe for RPG Maker users all these stuffs are already taken care of by the engine, and they only need to make a good story (and if they want, write their own battle script). But I have to do this by myself, and so the last two days I've been making a database editor (I need another way to call it) that exports the data I want in JSON format, what's left is to load that in the game.

I actually wanted to release the alpha version in february and start alpha-funding for my game. But now that milestone have to be pushed back for another month or two until I'm satisifed with the alpha version and I'm sure I can start using that to ask money from other people. For now, there aren't much content in the game.

Greetings everyone, we meet again in a series of blog posts telling you about development of my game. If you still remember my last post, I told you that I want to start setting up the... well, setting of the story. There are three kingdoms in this game, Altiria, Belirium, and Arkascha.

Altiria

Altiria is the antagonist kingdom in this game. Altirians are war loving kingdom, they are people with high physical power (higher than other kingdoms) with only small percentage of people practicing magic. Altiria is an enemy of Belirium (the protagonist kingdom) because king's daughter is elope with Belirium's prince. Altiria wanted the princess back, Belirium refused, and so the war raged.

Because they love war & fighting so much, they also have a gladiator arena in this kingdom. Die in a gladiator match (or in war) is an honourable death, and cannot be avenged.

The type of government here is a religious leadership. Now, I don't know whether there's a real life kingdom with religious leadership type of ruling, but this is how Altiria run its kingdom. A king will rule together with a Grand Cleric. Before waging wars, the king would ask the Grand Cleric whether the Gods bless their war. If Grand Cleric said that the Gods bless them then they will go to war. Generally, the king is allowed to do anything while ruling his kingdom, unless Grand Cleric received a revelation that Gods are against king's action, then the Grand Cleric will veto the king's action.

Speaking of Gods, Altirians worships several Gods, which are:

Kohrob, The creator, The ruler of Gods
Carathian, the protector of lives
Voraldin, the creator of creatures
Reyrull, The ender of lives
Elloyr, The grand healer
Andallar, The God of fertility (and birth)

Altiria's religion also have a creation myth, like this:

Kohrob created the world from the void
Carathian protected the world from its threat
Voraldin brought lives to humans, animals, and other creatures
Reyrull ended those whose time has end
Elloyr shined upon the world, and healed the wounded
Andallar fertilize the land, bring life to plants, and make creatures love one another
And thus the balance of this world is set

That's good enough for a beginning. Altirians also have a prayer, "My Carathian protects you." it's pretty much the equivalent of the famous "May the force be with you". This is just a small part of Altirian's mythology, I will probably add more Gods for people to worship but these are the main Gods.

I became interested in making a (virtual) religion after I played Dragon Age 2, where they have a complex religion and mentioned often in game's narratives (like "Maker's breath", or "Praise the maker"), and it even affect how people react to each other (like how mages are feared).

As a war loving kingdom, their war technology is the most advanced among three kingdoms which make their army very strong. They have catapult, trebuchet, and battering rams (and maybe even other technologies). But they don't have a gunpowder, because if I make them own gunpowders, they will be too strong as a kingdom.

One more thing, beside human this kingdom is also inhabited by orcs. They occupy the western and northern forest, this is also why there isn't a human town in the western part of the kingdom. Orcs usually attack trader's caravans. Altiria has tried to eliminate orcs multiple times, but orcs' physical abilities are higher than Altirians, which make them hard to fight.

Other than orcs, citizens of Highview has also reported a flying dragon soar above their town, which makes people believe that the dragon has a lair somewhere in mountains, it's just noone has ever seen it. Until now dragons never attack human settlement, so nobody tried to slay it. Even if there are people who tried, none ever return.

Belirium



Belirium is protagonist's kingdom. Most of Belirium citizen are traders and craftsmen who are able to create high quality artworks. Their agriculture and livestock arent able to support their own citizens, so they're really depending on trade.

Military side of things, they are weak but there are a lot of mercenaries available for hire in Belirium. The protagonists are one of these mercenaries. People of Belirium also have a unique ability that allow them to look in the dark, how good is their vision in the dark differs from each people.

Belirium's type of governance is absolute monarchy, the king rules with the help of senate called the council of five. The king is able to rule in his kingdom to his liking and noone can disobey, the council of five is free to give suggestions but it's the king's decision to ignore them or not. There is one exception to the rule, that is when the council of five thinks that the king needs to be replaced (for whatever reason). The king may agree or disagree, but if the king disagrees then the current king and the one selected by the council of five will have to prove themselves in front of the four great spirits. They do this through the test of courage, wisdom, and power. In this time the citizen is usually split into two, the one who roots for the current king, and the one who roots for the candidate for king. The winner of these tests will become the next king.

I did say something about the four great spirits. These are the spirits that are worshipped by the people of Belirium, Belirium belives that there are other spirits but only these four that are worshipped, they are:
Efreet, Great Spirit of Fire
Behemoth, Great Spirit of Earth
Amphitrite, Great Spirit of Water
Garudeya, Great Spirit of Wind

In Belirium's mythology, the world was once an empty void until one time comes and the four great spirits agreed to create a world for their creations to live in. They gathered their most powerful powers and together they created a world with elements from the four great spirits. Belirium also have a prayer, "The four spirits are with us" which are the same as "The force is with you."

Other than human, Belirium is also inhabited by elves. Majority of them live in the Whitewitch forest but there are others who live in human's cities. In this kingdom, elves are considered second class citizens, half-elves are even far lower than that.

Arkascha

(I haven't made a map for it, but Arkascha is to the south of Altiria)

Arkascha is the third kingdom of Dorton (I actually am not sure whether this fits as a continent's name or not), I made it as a "neutral" party in this war, but they are friendlier to Belirium due to the trades relationship they have. The Arkaschan are people with extreme magical powers (even higher than the other two kingdoms), they are also the only ones who are able of shapeshift magics.

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I actually wanted to write the first chapter of the story, but worldbuilding proved to be harder than I thought (there are other details I didn't write here). Even so, I'm so satisfied with the world I created even though this is just a small part of a continent in this world. Even now there are a lot of story ideas going around my head. A big war between human and orcs, invasion from a more advanced country from the west, the arrival of people from the east with their martial arts, holy war between two religions, the rebellion of half-elves. There are a lot of ideas I can make for this world, and I haven't even touched about possibility of war against demons.

I hope you are as excited about this world as I am, or maybe you have your own story ideas? Write that down in the comment below (don't worry I'm not gonna steal it, I told you I have lots of story ideas of my own)'.

Hi, we meet again in my series of blogs about development of my RPG. Last week I was planning to make my battle system, which is to be action based, but before that I need to prepare the sprites and animation, so last week I was being busy with Spriter

At first I thought making animations will be a hard job, turns out it's not as hard as I thought (still difficult, though). In making these animations I make character sprites in parts (head, body, hands, feet) before making the bones and start animating. At first I was confused on how to make animations, how does a human body supposed to move, etc. but after trying for a while, I can finally make a pretty good animation.

The next problem is how to use these animations in Construct 2. I can load Spriter's file and change animation of one entity (character in Spriter) but I don't know why I can't change to another entity in the same Spriter file. The animations did change but the sprites didn't change to Tiara's still Argus'. I've taken a look at Scirra's forum but it seems this is because the Spriter is still in beta and still have bugs, it is still a very good tool though even though it's still in beta. So, the solution I came up with is making each character's animation in its own Spriter file, so I don't need to bother changing their entity. I believe this bug will eventually be taken care of in next updates of Spriter, but for now this will do.

For now I only just animated Argus and Tiara. I was planning to make animation of all characters before I work on the enemies', but because I wanted to finish the battle system (or at least make it good enough for the alpha), I need an enemy to work with. But before I make an enemy, I think I need to work on world setting and a rough first chapter so that I know what to make (whether it's bandits, wolves, bears, or maybe something else). Maybe I'll make myself busy with that this week.

Welcome again at my weekly update of my indie game. Even though it's gonna be a bit hard writing it, but I'll always try to make this kind of update weekly. After the last week's update that's more about programming, now I'll write more about the art of the game. Eventually I'll make and write about the music of this game, but that's for another time. For now, here are the sprites of important characters in the game:

Argus Soruva

Tiara Roldyn

Sophie Roldyn

Anita Nurrein

Valerie

Rudolf Vaughan

These are the protagonists of my RPG, with Rudolf as the mercenary leader. Others are either soldiers of his merc or just people who someway or another ended up helping him, I'll flesh it out better when I actually write the story.

One thing that scares me is: animation. Because my background is not an artist (which you probably knew already), animation is gonna be hard. But thankfully, there's a tool called Spriter (can be found here ) that makes it easier to make an animation.

For now I only managed to make battle animations for Argus and Tiara. Just something basics like idle, use item, slash, and so on. I haven't make the animation for skills, because I still haven't make skill lists for my characters. Later, I also have to make battle animations for enemies (in random battles).

Okay, this post is actually posted on my blog last monday (it's here ) but since I also intend to make indieDB blog post as promotional tool, I thought to translate it (as best I can) to English. So, let's start.

The last week I finally finished making the barrack mode of my game, this took longer than I thought because it turns out the barrack mode is more complex than I thought. What is barrack mode? Barrack mode is some kind of a "neutral zone" when our heroes aren't on an adventure or doing side quests. It's named "barrack mode" because in the rough storyline that I made, this game is about a band of mercenaries hired to fight war against neighbouring kingdom (yes, war. Not something grand like saving the world from being destroyed by an evil demon). Players can do a few things in barrack mode:

- Buys necessary items / equipments, these are sold by merchants in the guild.
- Leveling, to increase player's attributes when they rise up in level
- Choosing a quest, either main quest or side quest. It's presented like a request board in a mercenary barrack
- Arranging inventory, players can later equip weapons and armours and stuffs too, but still not yet implemented.

When making the shopping part of barrack mode, I must first list all available items in the game and which items can be bought on store. Players can buy most healing items and equipments on store, but most items and equipments (especially strong ones) can only be acquired from dungeons in side quests. This is my reward system from trying out side quests in the game. Also, this adds a bit of realism to the game, because I can never understand how come the best equipment in a game be in the hand of a weapon merchant (who's the dreaded weapon supplier?)

Leveling system of the game is pretty simple. Each time a player levels up, he/she will get 3 skill points (or level points, or upgrade points, no definitive name yet) to be used to increase characters' attribute (like HP, ATK, DEF, and so on). Character's skill (and magic) can also increase in level, but in a different way than attributes. Skills will go up a level after being used a number of times, I haven't decided how many uses to go up a level but each skill will have their own minimum number of usage before leveling up. And characters will only get a new skill after a certain skill (or skills) reach a certain level. I haven't decided whether to show a skill tree in this game or not.

Quests are divided into main quest and side quests. Main quest is always at the top part of the screen with side quests below it. I make the interface a bit like quest board (or something). Right now the quest screen already shows some placeholder quests for testing mode, but I still not able to change main quest depending on how far the player is in main story of the game. The quest works though, clicking on it will move the game to a adventure map which players can explore. Another thing that burdens my mind is the number of side quests, two are too few. I want to make side quests part scrollable so that I can provide players with more than two side quests.

Lastly, there's an inventory screen where players can manage stuffs (items and equipments) that they carry. Inventory screen is the part that gave me most headache between any other functionality in barrack mode. I have to make 2 arrays , one for database of all items, one for remembering what items the player has in his/her inventory. The array for item database has three dimensions, the first is the item's name, the second is item's description in detail, and the third is the item's frame index in the animation (all items are the same game object). While the array for remembering player's inventory only have 2 dimensions, the first is the item's name, and the second is how many of those item the player has.

I made a mistake because I haven't familiar with how Construct 2 handles arrays. Usually (in other language I'm used to) I define an empty array and then push all new elements to the new array. It turns out when Construct 2 creates a new array object, it will by default fills the array with a value of 0 for every index. After I know how array behaves in Construct 2, I can fill elements of the array based on its index, and then sort items in inventory screen based on the array.

Even though I did say that I finished barrack mode, I haven't actually perfectly finish it, because there are still things lacking. Shopping screen still unable to actually buy and sell stuffs, leveling screen still not improving characters' attributes, quest screen is still not showing the necessary main quest, inventory screen is still not storing weapons and equipments. But for now I'm quite satisfied with barrack mode, and will proceed with other parts of the game. I only hope that I can address these minor problem as I continue to make alpha build of my game. One more important thing: I haven't decided on the name of the game, guess that's one more thing to think of as I work on my game

It's really been a while since I last post something in this blog, and I thought why not write something about a game I'm working on? This actually already been posted on my personal blog (which is here by the way), but that is in my language instead of English, so now I want to post the English version of it here. Grammar errors will be everywhere, so I can only ask for forgiveness from grammar nazis.

This game is gonna be the biggest one I've ever worked on. Previously I've worked on two game studios and made games for them, now I'm going indie and push my skills to the limit. The game itself will be an action RPG with a lot of features:

Main quest (but of course)
Side quest (there'll be plenty of them)
Defending mode (a la tower defense)
War mode (still in planning, stay tuned)
Epic storyline
Crafting / cooking to create new items
Players can recruit NPCs for defending mode (and war mode)

That's pretty much the initial design of the game, I'm gonna make this game with Construct 2, tool that I'm already familiar with. Please stay tuned for next blog post

Hello IndieDB, this is my first blog here, although I have another blog on my blogger account. First, let me do some quick introduction. My name is Aryadi Subagio, an Indonesian (not native English, what you see here may have grammar mistakes), male. Making games has been my dream ever since I was at school, and I finally able to realize it. I have made a game by working under another studio's flag, but now I've decided to go out, be indie, and start making games I myself want to make.

Currently I'm a one man team indie studio (I think there's a page in this site to list my studio), I use Construct 2 as my tool of choice. For now I have start designing my game, it's gonna be an RPG that takes place in medieval time between two warring kingdoms. It will have an epic storyline (yeah, all indie studios say that I think), action based battle system, dungeons, and a lot of side quests. Right now there's still no screenshots, but I will add them soon.