DevBlog - 9-1-11

So, how about that mid-August?

Yes, I've been delayed thanks to my work. Well, work and general first-time game-design maladies. And no, Ten Desires' release doesn't hold all the blame, only some of it. Who would have thought that making a game from scratch alone would be difficult? In any event, I haven't got it up-and-running yet, so for now I'm going to make my monthly blog post about progress and divulge a few more design notes.

For now, there is no current est. on the demo release.

Progress
For the most part, sprites are still finished, sans the occasional tweaking. Most of the work has gone into comprehending the scope of action script needed for the game. I've managed to develop effective measures after getting a few things wrong the first time through. As is usual with first drafts, I've started the coding again from relative scratch, and it's going much smoother. So many invisible boxes.

One part of me wants to add another bit of content in as an apology for the schedule slip, but of course that'd just take up more time. It really depends on how smoothly things goes from here on out. If I do, it would most likely be The Void, which would contain several terrain types from levels.

The Effects
Feel like I've got the Effects in a good place. Right now there are 32 Effects, and each one has some degree of planned usage in the game. While Madotsuki's Effects were mainly feminine and Japanese, Netsuki's effects are more masculine and run a cultural gambit. Each Effect is a distinct piece of Netsuki's personality and includes hints about his circumstances.

Every Effect has a primary and a secondary use, and is accessed by either pressing the Main Menu key, the Effects Menu key, or any of the hot keys you can assign from the menu. Hopefully this will remove a touch of menu lag. While you can not combine Effects, some will leave the screen with conditions that can change the use of other Effects (such as using the Umbrella then the Oni in Yume Nikki).

The Wiki
Not much work to be done here without any releases. I'd hate to create an entire compendium for the game before it even comes out, so I'll continue to leak content. While each Effect will get its own page, there will be a master page of them for ease of use. I'll also be providing a sort of simplified map that will display how various Worlds connect to each other.

Miscellaneous Notes
Just a few things I thought might merit a predisclosed answer.

Will there be a teleport maze?

Oh, heavens no. You can thank me later.

Will there be any dialog?

No. Just the same as Yume Nikki, there is no dialog. Well, unless you count whatever strange noises the various dream residents may make as you do what you will with them.

'''Can Netsuki die? '''

I thought about implementing some degree of game overs into the game, but decided against it. Really, the save feature should only be there so you can pick up the game at a later time. Though you'll be bolting awake every so often.

Unrelated: who to play as in Ten Desires?In order of fun-to-play-itiveness: Youmu > Marisa > Reimu > Sanae. In order of ease-of-use: Reimu > Sanae > Marisa > Youmu. Youmu's shot type is a lot of fun, and requires some more tact (well, a lot more tact than Reimu's homing amulets) than the others. The alt-shot makes things harder by utterly destroying your rate of damage (though the attack itself is fairly damaging).

Alright, that's sadly about it from me at the moment. I'm on vacation 'til Tuesday, at which point hopefully I'll get this puppy back up and running.