Given that my investigations into a replacement world map system haven't turned up anything, I'm going ahead with a backup system that isn't nearly as nice-looking, but at least works for now. I've planned out the various changes to the cutscenes that I'm going to make and made some solid progress on implementing them, as well as added new abilities to every available class and adding some missing sprites.

Good news: I've identified the issue causing the world map to completely not function.
Bad news: The problem is that the latest update to RPG maker completely broke the plugin I've been using.
Less-bad news: The plugin creator is aware of the problem and has mentioned that they intend to make an update to make it compatible.
Less-good news: No ETA on said update.

So, what that means for Dragonfall:
1) I'm searching for an alternate plugin that isn't completely broken. If I can find one, I'll be able to push a release more or less as soon as I get it installed.
2) If I can't find a replacement, I can and will continue to work on other aspects of the game, including new maps, story, battles, skills, etc, since none of that is directly dependent on the world map.
Either way, there will continue to be progress and updates. Thanks for you patience.

So I intended to have a release out tonight. Got just about everything done for it, and then did a cursory unrelated test and found out that apparently my world map has decided to completely stop working for no discernible reason. Just doesn't show up at all, completely inaccessible. Since I didn't make any changes to the world map or the systems behind it, this is somewhat confusing. I'll continue working on it and I really hope I can resolve it soon. I'll post as soon as I figure it out.

I get the weirdest bugs sometimes. Finally got a fancy skill to work, or so I thought. Except it winds up, for some unknown reason, causing an infinite loop of the "Punch" skill being used over and over until the target is defeated. Here's hoping I can find a fix soon; currently working on it.

Irritation of the day: attempting to troubleshoot a thing. Find dozens of people who are asking about the same problem, with no solutions. Finally find one: "thanks guys, I solved it". No mention of what the solution was. Document stuff people, please. For the sake of all content creators looking for solutions to the same problems five years later.

Been finishing up making skills for most of the classes up to level 7.  One of the new ones may or may not be completely broken beyond belief. Hopefully it's not.

Side mission preview video is up!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CymUYacUb8
Let me know your thoughts, and thanks for the support!

Ran into some technical difficulties with getting the video recorded. I expect it should be up tonight though. Thanks for your patience.

After extensive testing, and quite a bit of experimenting with javascript, I have the mission system functioning! Expect a video tutorial in the next day or two. Next release will have the first parts of the system available, assuming no game-breaking bugs appear between now and then.

After extensive tinkering, I just managed to figure out a system that will actually let me use local variables for each actor, which will make the mission system so much simpler to code. So instead of pulling shenanigans and setting aside hundreds of individual variables, I can have the missions tracked per actor. So, way easier to work with from the coding side.

The side mission system is, tentatively, working! It's still super experimental and there's probably about a million game-breaking bugs involved in it yet, but I have a single basic test running successfully. So, assuming I don't change anything, here's how it goes:

-You find a side mission somewhere. Probably there will be a hub area for these in the sanctum, but there might be some to find elsewhere with exploring as well.

-You select a party member to do the mission. Whoever you select receives a status "on a mission" that renders them unable to act in battles. (I would have preferred to make them unselectable in the main party, but apparently that's super complicated and way beyond my programming skills for some reason.)

-After each battle, a timer ticks down, and anyone who's mission timer becomes 0 returns from the mission and the "on a mission" state is removed.

-There's a check for success, and if successful, the mission's rewards are granted.

I hope to have it where each person has different traits that make them better or worse suited for different missions, but we'll see if that's possible.

Once I get it worked out to at least a basic runnable state, I'll make a demo video so everything is clear how it works out.

So I, uh, just now found out that I can set states to last for a certain number of *actions* rather than turns. Given that the battle system I'm using isn't really turn-based, that would definitely help with making them behave more consistently. So, I think I'm going to try that and see if it breaks anything.

I'm currently doing some exploratory work on a new system. As the game progresses, a reasonably diligent player is fairly likely to acquire more characters than they're able to use at one time. So, I figure it makes sense to have some way to make use of the ones that aren't being used in the active battle party. My current idea is a system where characters can be sent on missions of some sort; they'd be made unavailable for a certain number of battles, after which they'd return with small but relevant rewards, such as money or crafting materials. This is super subject to change since at the moment I'm not even completely sure that what I want to do is programmable in RPG maker, but I do intend to have some kind of system even if this one specifically doesn't work out.

0.2.1 release

I haven't been able to make as much progress as I would have preferred, but I figure you've all been waiting long enough, so here's something of a polish release.

 

https://mega.nz/#!fhEgTRBJ!MLNO0iWeGLbpoR4rb3wChyC3h9AUM_7IpxAlfKva_3c

Patch notes:

- The various class graphics for Faurach are now in the game.
- The post-battle cutscene in the warehouse no longer repeats indefinitely.
- The wizard hat should no longer cause the game to crash.
- The spirit soldier ability is now non-accessible like it should be, but also won't crash the game once it is accessible.
- Status effects in general should now behave a bit more predictably with respect to durations. The most notable effect of this is the Tactical Avoidance ability should actually function now. Side effects may exist with other abilities lasting a bit longer than intended, but that can be more easily smoothed out going forward.
- All weapons currently in the game now have unique graphics
- I've begun groundwork on some systems for later, though not much that would be visible at the moment from the players' perspectives.
- A few minor touch-ups here and there too small to list specifically.

I'm still not entirely satisfied with the last segment in the current demo, but every time I tried to restructure it I got writers block regarding how to do so specifically, so it hasn't changed since the last release. I intend to modify it some when I come up with a good way to do so, but it will be at least ok for the moment.

Thanks to everyone who's been playing and commenting, and especially to the ones who have donated. Enjoy the game!

Apologies for the lack of communication. Mild illness combined with unstable internet for a duration wound up distracting me from posting. That said, I have still been working. New release should be within a couple of days, assuming no catastrophes.

In the interim, I've had reports of a few bugs, so here's the status of the ones I've heard about so far:

1) The various class graphics for Faurach are now in the game.
2) The post-battle cutscene in the warehouse no longer repeats indefinitely.
3) The wizard hat should no longer cause the game to crash.
4) The spirit soldier ability is now non-accessible like it should be, but also won't crash the game once it is accessible.
5) Status effects in general should now behave a bit more predictably with respect to durations. The most notable effect of this is the Tactical Avoidance ability should actually function now. Side effects may exist with other abilities lasting a bit longer than intended, but that can be more easily smoothed out going forward.
6) It's been reported that various merchants in the bazaar cause the game to crash. However, I haven't been able to cause this to happen at all. I've tried buying all sorts of things from a wide variety of merchants under different circumstances and everything seems fine as far as I can tell. If anyone has a save file where this is happening, it would be quite helpful to track it down.
7) It's also been reported that reaching battle the battle turns of the fifth party member sometimes causes crashes. The person mentioned specifically an imp apprentice, but I've checked everything I can think of relating to imps, apprentices, and fifth party members, and haven't found anything. A save for this one might be helpful as well.

Thanks to everyone for being so patient, and hang tight for the next build.

0.2.0 Release!

New release, with new content!

First of all, Link:

https://mega.nz/#!K90RgaoR!3DpNPCWygJnftETDus_KEMob_fck-R9cakjMw9IS0HI

Second of all, Patch notes:

-Next plot segment added; only a few maps since this bit takes place back in Trysnaak

-A couple of new unique enemy classes, and one new unique recruitable enemy

-Greatly increased TP gains across the board, because nobody was getting enough to actually use it

-Fixed a bug where the imps outside of the castle (on fire) might fail to recruit

-Made the abyssal claw limit break actually attainable this time

-Zhaleh can now deal damage with her damaging abilities

-Gwendolyn's Barren Gale should no longer permanently remove people from the party under certain conditions

-Gwendolyn's Barren Gale should no longer cause the mountans to continuously blink in and out of existence

-Gwendolyn's Barren Gale should no longer cause the game to hang if it defeats a party member with damage

-Seriously that spell was more trouble to get working than almost the entire recruitment system

As for the plan going forward:

The next couple of weeks are going to be devoted to polish. That is, I'm going to be working on icons, animations, balance, and so on for the content that already exists. Hopefully I'll put out a new release (with no new story content) around the end of the month (but again, not a promise). Any comments, complaints, bug reports, etc please comment. Thanks for playing!

In spite of my best efforts I didn't quite make what I wanted to get out for wednesday; pulled an all-nighter but too tired to finish before sleeping. I expect it'll be ready for tomorrow assuming no major problems though.

As I was working on finalizing some skills for one of the new classes, I ended up suddenly figuring out a much better way to do the class, and scrapping most of what I had before and re-doing it. So, that's a bit of a delay. Have to love inspiration coming at completely random times. That said, I don't expect it will be a huge delay overall. Going to have to crunch to get this out by wednesday though, so here goes.

Spent a bunch of time today putting together tons of facesets that I'd been putting off. Not super exciting to make 4+ sets for one character, but it's necessary. Also made the last new maps for the next version over the past couple of days, so things are going well so far. It'll take a push to get it out for the 14th like I hope, but I think it's possible.

My current plan, as of right now, is to hopefully try to get the next release out by the 14th (one week from today). That's not a promise or a guarantee, but I'm so far on good schedule to do so. Next release will be finishing up the Trysnaak part of the plot for now and hopefully introducing the next major plot point. I have a good portion of it done, so if all goes well I'll remain on schedule.

RPG Maker thing that I would expect would be default functionality because it's so basic, but somehow not only is it not a base function, but there don't seem to be any mods or external resources for it either, #54389402389056209341: spells that can target one ally, but can't target the caster. It's not such a big deal for player spells since it's a pretty awful idea to use on the caster and the player will just choose not to, but the enemy continues to insist on self-casting most of the time in spite of my best efforts to make that impossible. So, I have to hard-code a bunch of nonsense where the enemy version of the spell actually has completely different functionality in the code in order to generate the same effect, but has a special-case for self-cast. Yay programming.

Well, I logged on this morning to find out that Yanfly just put up a plugin for an in-battle status menu. Would have been convenient to have that before I spent however many hours on it, but ah well. That one doesn't show enemy status, so for now I'm sticking with the one I have implemented already.

So, something I just now figured out that I can do: passive abilities on level up. So, been working on a few of those as well; hopefully they'll help the classes feel more distinct. They're grouped in with the rest of the abilities as normal, so a character will have access to them if they have the appropriate class or subclass set. Look forward to seeing some in the next update.

Spent all day today making one spell. The things that take forever... it's a pretty complicated one though. Basically, you pick a target, and it doesn't do anything right away, but one turn later it does a big attack on everything in that target's row. A clever player will try to move out their characters to a different row in between to avoid it, but that won't necessarily always be possible.

The next plot segment is coming along quite well. It's going to be a pretty big release when it happens, because it will include a whole bunch of stuff:
-Plot, of course
-New characters, some of whom can be recruited
-A new unlockable class for Kristina, complete with a subclass to recruit into
-A new set of maps
-New enemies and fights, with their own mechanics
-The usual new weapons, skills, items, etc

No ETA yet since it's a big build with lots of work to do on it, but I'll keep updating with previews and so on as it's developed. For now, here's a teaser of some new character portraits:

Just a quick touch-up/polish release.

Changelog:
Added Thunder4.ogg to the package, so that shouldn't crash anymore
The maid now has a lv5 skill
The apprentice now has a lv3 skill
Added a couple of minor interactables in Trysnaak

https://mega.nz/#!y9NSFLQb!sHwP03gjtlWz0rhWuvY7MY00nl-kyJwXa1S3UhIBPhA

Preview - Limit Breaks

Limit Break Preview Video!

Since I haven't heard of any major bugs since the last release, for the moment I'm moving on to new content. Specifically, my current project is a limit break system. You've probably noticed the bars across the bottom of the battle screen that fill up over time; I'm adding a new category of skills that consume the party limit bar to use. The plan as of now: each named character will have four different limit skills that consume a different amount of bar to use (one, two, three, and four segments, respectively). The limit skills won't be learned normally; instead, they'll be attained via quests. A couple in the main plot, but mostly side quests. As one would expect from limit break skills, they'll be very powerful, but also the intent is that they have unique effects that might otherwise be unattainable. Haven't decided for certain what, if anything, I'm going to do in regards to limits and generic recruits, but it's a concept that's in the works.

0.1.3 Systems Release

Alright, time for the next release. Not very much by way of new content in this one, admittedly; it's mostly back-end stuff. Link:

https://mega.nz/#!PkF2UIKK!aT5vjvFVi_YYq-I7qzHJvMNgoMAtDaQV9tistfDm6Js

Changelog:

-Added the game database system, accessible from the main menu. Going into it will allow for more in-depth descriptions of various parts of the game. For now, there are two categories: Classes, which explains each available class in more detail, including MP/TP data and equipment types, as well as any relevant quirks of their abilities, and Journal, which contains a plot recap up to the current point, as well as various characters' thoughts on it that haven't come up in cutscenes.

-Added the in-battle status option, finally. Select it (it's below "item") and select an ally or enemy to see a list of all of the various status effects on that character and a short description of each. Some statuses can be kind of complex, and seeing only the icons isn't necessarily very useful, so the status option is kind of vital. It's a character action, but it doesn't take a turn, so use it readily.

-Reworked the mesmerist class. The new spells function on a focus system. That is, the mesmerist takes a turn to activate the spell, and from that point it drains mana per turn to have a continuous effect. Casting it again will remove the spell and stop draining mana.

-Touched up some assorted stuff in Trysnaak, including adding a few more interactables and fixing some typos. Nothing major.

-Some minor bugfixes and dialogue reworks here and there throughout the game.

-Changed the default battle music to something less default.

-Yet another attempt to resolve the "width of null" error with the ritual cutscene. Hopefully this one finally sticks.

-Added a banner image to the patreon page. Ok, that's not really part of the game, admittedly.

And with that, contingent on there being no bugs (ha, like that would ever happen), I'm satisfied in calling this the "full demo" version. I'll still be doing releases as normal so the term is a bit misleading, but this level of content is where I feel it's appropriate to start advertising in earnest. Thanks to everyone for your support so far!

I was hoping to have the next release out about now, but apparently Eydis just decides not to join the party for no discernible reason. Yay. Release will be as soon as I figure that out and fix it; hang tight.

New RPG maker version just came out, which managed to completely surprise me. Clearly I need to pay more attention to that sort of thing. Regardless, I've been doing some testing and so far it doesn't seem to have broken anything in my project, which is good.

The status screen is done and functional! It even doesn't crash the game. So, basically, there's a new option called "status" in the battle screen, that you can target any battler and get a list of all of the status effects on that battler and the effects they have. I managed to get it generalized so it just runs through the list of statuses that person has, and if there's a description text it outputs that to a text box. (Also, it doesn't take an action, so use it as much as you need to)

The database is also working properly, and filled out with both class descriptions and journal entries about the plot-so-far. Accessible from the main menu, and updating as the player proceeds through the game.

I've also done something of a Mesmerist class rework; to be honest, what was there was pretty boring in terms of mechanics. The new spells are basically toggles; activate one on an ally or enemy and it will drain mana over time to have some continuous effect, and cast it again to turn it off and stop draining mana. Probably horribly unbalanced in its current state, but most things are at first implementation.

A few other minor updates in terms of icons, bugfixes, and some dialogue touch-ups round out the work of the past few days. If all goes as I hope, I should be doing the alpha testing on the next version very soon, with a releasable version not far after.

While I've done my best to maintain save compatibility between versions, I'm pretty sure the combination of the status screen and the database, plus bugfixes, will break old saves. What I plan to do is include a couple of my own saves in the download so that people have the option to skip to the later content if they want to. It won't give the optimal experience because building your party as you go is sort of the intended theme, but I recognize that some people won't want to play the same content repeatedly as new versions come out, so I figure I'll give the option at least.

List of things to complete before the 0.1.3 "complete demo" release:

-Database feature from the menu, containing class data and and other info: the framework is entirely coded, and most of the class data is in there. Probably going to put a plot recap feature there as well. Maybe character profiles if I'm feeling extra-motivated.

-In-battle status check: finally figured mostly how to implement it. I at least have it far enough along that I can duct tape the rest together with some special-case nonsense if needed, though I'm still searching for a way to do it more generally.

-Go back through the old maps and make sure everything that looks like it should be interactable is. Most of the things already were, but there's a few that weren't so I'm going to do another pass for consistency, including making sure all the library books have at least something in them.

-Finish up Trysaak. Specifically, touching up the last couple of things in the bazaar, making a couple more of the houses in the residential district accessible, completing the illegal weapons sidequest, and making the inn actually work, which I somehow managed to forget about halfway through coding it such that if you get the inn key you can't ever leave, but can't return it either.

-Try to find a good non-default generic battle theme. Not a deal-breaker if I can't find one, but I'd like to have something not from the RTP there especially.

-Some more icon updates here and there; that's going to be a pretty much continuous ongoing process throughout development.

-Fix any further bugs that I become aware of.

So that's the current plan going forward. Most of the difficult parts are done at least, and after I get all this done I'll have a solid demo and will move forward with the next part of the plot.

The funny thing about working on a project of this sort is that intending to work on one feature can wind up leading to building something entirely different. I sat down to work on TP modes. Specifically, the system I have in mind is that each class that uses TP has a specific set of conditions under which it gains and loses TP. For example, the Cat class will gain a large amount of TP from damaging enemies, but will end up losing a small amount of TP from taking damage, meaning it's best in a situation where other allies can draw fire. (And yes, there will be taunt abilities.) And so on for each different class that uses TP. Classes that don't use TP will have a default mode that gains a little on dealing or taking damage, in case they have a subclass that does use TP.

The problem comes in that the player doesn't necessarily have a convenient way to see what the TP mode of a given class is. The solution? An in-game database, that contains the relevant information on a variety of game mechanics. To start, it will contain long-form descriptions of each class and the stats and mechanics thereof, with the potential to add additional types of entries, such as characters, location, plot, items, whatever ends up proving useful. So my work the past couple of days has been on sorting out the database and making sure it not only works correctly, but also contains the relevant information on each currently-accessible class.

The current plan is to finish the database and TP modes, finish up the Trysnaak weapons shipment side quest, and a few more polish things, and then put out a "complete demo" version. I'll continue working and doing releases past then, of course, but the version I have up to that point, assuming there aren't any major bugs, I'll call sufficiently complete that it's a good demo to show off like for demo video playthroughs and things like that. Stay tuned for further updates.

Bugfix, finally. Took longer than I hoped, but there were some pretty major things going on. Fortunately, I've been able to resolve them at least to the point that the game will function. Specifically:

-Yet another workaround attempt for the width of null error. Hopefully this one finally works.
-Fixed some stuff with the recruitment system so that people shouldn't randomly disappear after being recruited. I still have no idea what was happening there but I made some changes and the problem doesn't seem to be occurring anymore so here's hoping it sticks.
-For now, changed the settings on the save system to just not show character graphics in order to prevent crashing. It's not an ideal solution, but the thing I'd really want to do is beyond my current javascript capabilities. It's on the list of things to improve, but no estimates on when it will happen. It should at least not crash now though, which is the most important part.
-Deleted a few assorted phantom maid's robes that were stuck on a few different characters.
-Fixed the default imp class to be Imp instead of (blank space).
-Fixed the class graphics for the plant minion if recruited.
-A couple of minor graphics touch-ups.

Updated link:

https://mega.nz/#!jtU1VSbJ!CXsz9INYmydARILfH1dGhlXsQTFhDD8kweAxwrbrgWw

Well, I was hoping to have a bugfix out today, but the bug with the disappearing actors is proving harder to diagnose than I hoped. I think I have a lead on it, but no solutions quite yet. I'll keep you all updated as soon as I know more in detail.

1.1.2 Content Release, and patreon up

Two major pieces of news today:

1. The new content release is here. Some highlights include:

-A mostly constructed and explorable Trysnaak
-An entirely new area, Silent Bluff
-The next plot segment, which takes place across the two aforementioned areas
-Several new enemy types, including a more difficult boss fight
-Additional weapons, armors, and abilities for various classes
-The first shops in the game, selling a variety of items (some more useful than others)
-Some minor graphics upgrades here and there on spells and weapons
-A couple more of the library books have been filled in with useful information
-Row formation in battles, where each row has different effects (only properly implemented for the player so far, it needs more work on the enemy side)
-Probably various other minor things that I'm forgetting

As always, the link is on the right, as well as right here:  

https://mega.nz/#!X51xSBwZ!mso3U6IknxlFhH5qqKEExdngLPonXsRTIzfQhgL2GiQ

I've run through the game myself and haven't encountered any major bugs, but I'd be surprised if  everything was absolutely perfect. Feel free to leave comments if you find any, so I can fix them.

I'm certainly not the world's expert on balancing, so I can't promise that all the fights will be exactly the difficulty that I intend. I've played through each of them multiple times, so I can confirm that they're all at least possible, though some might take more strategy than others.

 2. Given that there's actually an appreciable amount of content now, I've put together a patreon page:

 https://www.patreon.com/bloodkraken

 For anyone not familiar with how that works, it's a system by which people can give me monthly donations in order to allow me to continue working on the project over time, and possibly receive some perks in exchange. As for what that means for Dragonfall specifically: Anyone who wants to can choose to donate to the patreon campaign. Regardless of donating or not, the full game will be free. If all you want to do is play the game, then you'll be able to do so without paying any money at all. People who donate will be eligible to receive various things in exchange. The full list is on the site, but they include things such as being listed in the credits, helping to design an NPC, and similar. If I receive a larger quantity of donations, it will give me the ability to put more resources into the game. My ideal goal would be to turn game-making into a full-time job, which would take quite a bit of donations, but would help increase both the quality and quantity of releases substantially.

As I'm rather new to the patreon thing, the various aspects of the campaign are subject to change as I figure things out, but I'll do my best to communicate beforehand if things are going to become too different. I might at some point move to a model where donators get the newest versions slightly earlier than free players, though I haven't decided that for certain. In either case, even if I do, the full game would still be free, just slightly delayed.


As always, thanks to everyone for your support, and enjoy the game! 

Getting ever closer to the next release. Just finished putting together the next (and final for this update) major cutscene, so mostly what's left is a couple more minor cutscenes, some graphics updates, and a balance pass for the new enemies.

I also believe I've finally narrowed down the crash in the ritual cutscene. It's a bug in RPG maker itself that's causing it, but the new version has a workaround that I think should cause it to not happen.

On top of the expected plot and cutscene work, I'm in the process of taking a bit of time to expand the battle system. The next chunk of content will have a bit of stuff that functions based on rows in battle, so I figured it would be best to make row formation actually exist and have effects. Specifically, what I have at the moment is that the front row deals more damage but also takes more, the middle row has no special effects, and the back row takes less damage but can't use standard weapon skills due to being too far away. That's subject to change as is everything, of course, but that's the rough sketch of a plan so far.

The game is proceeding pretty well. If all goes according to plan, I hope to have the next release out by the end of the month, though the unexpected can always happen. Today was doing a bit more mapping for the next area past the city, as well as graphics work on some NPCs and enemies and some more advancement of the plot.

Just a quick update this time: the next plot segment is, at rough estimation, about 30% done. Granted, this could change potentially significantly depending on how things go and if I run into bugs. Also coded up a couple more items, though nothing major on that front today.

Spent all day today making the city's commercial district. Highlights include a bunch of generic NPCs for flavour, assorted minor interactables, several new purchasable and craftable items of various sorts, and the start of a minor sidequest. Progress moving along nicely.

Today's progress: Good! Albeit slow.

Mapping takes a long time, especially when one considers the amount of NPCs, interactables, and minor cutscenes involved. Plus Trysnaak has the first possible shops and so on in the game, so I've had to take some time to plan out some of the shopping and money systems.

Overall the core of the city is mostly mapped at this point, so the majority of the remaining work before the next release is in the plot itself.

Dev blog start

This is the dev blog for my game Dragonfall, to chronicle the development process. The plan is to make at least one post every couple of days to show what I've been working on and give some insight into the setting and mechanics.

This came about primarily because some chunks of content are both big enough that they take awhile to make, and cohesive enough that it doesn't make much sense to do a release without all of it together, so people can at least look here and get an idea of what progress is being made.

Also hopefully I'll be putting together some supplemental character and setting information for perusal.

The current version is 0.1.1a:
https://mega.nz/#!j4tnEaiS!tCkK0elfFJI3cgf9xBPhcCLO9c39u_QntiGkS99mUW8