(July 29 to August 4, 2013)
Welcome dear readers to the latest issue of the Weekly Gazette! Here in the Gazette, we give you the news in brief of what occurred in the past week as well as provide any news happening in Save-Point itself
Official Area
Feedback and Suggestions
KasperKalamity noted some months ago his problem finding a large number of links to the gazette in his searches, which was answered by both Kore and DerVVulfman about the use of some features in the advanced search system to limit the range. But this week, DerVVulfman thought it would be easier for members by taking the Archived Announcements board, and all the threads and gazettes within, out of the searching system's equation.
Occasions
We got to celebrate a number of Birthdays this week, starting with Sievn's birthday. It didn't take long before shared birthdays of Nameless, [THread=3020bibuze[/Thread] and megatmikhail. And before the week was up, pkmntrainergary's birthday had come and gone.
Rather than just lurking around, Marinaliteyear had decided to join Save-Point. She was aware for a while thanks to a couple of people she knows in our family and thought we seemed awesome. Just be on guard. Her first impulse purchase in the Forum's Shop was a Stilleto.
Not long after, a cryptically entitled thread appeared as Ahzoh announced his arrival in his own constructed language which he is using for his novel and tie-in RPG game. Having already decided to have a carreer in Robotics Engineering, he felt a good way to prepare was to make a video game and learn scripting/coding. If you encounter his posts, you will likely note a poem written in his custom language, a language that apparently some like DerVVulfman and Pherione attempted to speak and got some back and forth dialog with Ahzoh at the time.
General Chat
And having found an RPGMaker game entitled "lb" very popular, yamina-chan discovered it was so popular that there exists some fanart, Doujinshis and an actual section for it set aside in Fanfiction.Net, let alone having five times the number of stories than that for the entire Grandia series. She was quite surprised and pleased that an RPGMaker game garnered a high reputation and a following, but never expected this level of polularity. Ahzoh, upon discovering this, hoped that he could craft an RPGMaker game that could get as popular. But it just stunned yamina-chan how the game had gained such a huge following. But MechanicalPen had an explanation for the number of lb fanfiction as he explained how shorter indie games that are well received may still leave people wanting more, thus people may become inspired to write their own stories. This he figures is in stark contrast to Grandia that is a game that spans hours of gameplay. Along with that, Ahzoh noted that psychological horror/thrillers have been popular as of late. However, yamina-chan thinks that it being more recent and trendy than games such as Grandia may have something to do with it. But she can't play it right now, waiting to get her PC fixed so she can load the game's RTP and give it a shot. The thing that she later thought about was the story she was working on, but fears it wouldn't be done by the holidays. In the meantime, Ahzol had grown tired of the cliche of where a game starts with the player merely starting an adventure, Of that, GLaDOS was in full agreement as she likes to add twists and turns, such as having the lead in one of her games start off jailed by a group of heroes. Only if cliches are executed well do they work for her. But what may not be working, or at least working well, is MetalRenard's laptop. His desktop unit is alive and well and is what he uses for his music composing, but is now worried that his laptop is on its last leg with a dying fan system. He just hopes he can backup all his data before it dies and get a new laptop for his teaching position. Yet all is not lost as Pherione's own system appears much worse having a dead coolant system, a deceased battery and a busted 'A' key... though he is expecting a replacement soon. Dying on Ahzoh, however, is his system when he gets a red rose when playing 'lb', discovering that the game begins to lag heavily from that point on and nothing, not even restarting stops it. Later on, RosyPosy announced that she installed 1000 fonts and wanted to hit the sack as she got up way to early in the morning for her liking. KasperKalamity may have wished to do the same, but found he needed to wash his sheets after his cat decided it was a king-sized litterbox. If you wanted to know What's on the Mind of RosyPosy from that point on, it was 'bad kitty'.
Forum Games & Nonsense
Time was coming to an end to submit an entry into the Game Jam 10 Minute Game Contest as the last day had come and gone. Late it was when Ahzoh inquired about the 10 minute requirement as it would have been practically impossible to start and finish a game within the last remaining hours. Concerned about submitting his entry, KasperKalamity inquired about participants in time zones other than GMT with a 5 or more hour offset. But MetalRenard felt no one would be picky given that fact, and thus Kasper posted both a RapidShare link to his game and a pair of screenshots which were acknowleged and accepted. However, MetalRenard reported that the judges temporarily had issues as they needed the required .dll to play. He also reported that he got stuck on a bridge, which turned out to be where Ahzol thought the game ended, so contrary to what he thought he didn't beat KasperKalamity's game. Just in case, KasperKalamity also had an unencrypted game available where Ahzol realized a teleport feature wasn't working and fixed the issue himself. Still, there were only three entries between Save-Point and RPGMaker Detante (our French Affiliate), one game by Ephy and one by Lėo. KasperKalamity inquired if the others worked in teams or were individuals like he, to which MetalRenard replied that they were also single members. So the contest deadline had been extended till the September 1st to garner more contestants. The extension was fortunate for KasperKalamity who noticed he had some things he never finished, and a Ahzoh delivered a matching comparison between crafting a fine blade and crafting a game.
But if it isn't a game you desire, you may wish to let your fellow members What you're currently craving, as Ahzol tastes the rainbow.
Games Development
Development Discussion
And Ahzoh visited the IndieSam Exposure and submitted a link to his project for Samven's consideration the next time he visits.
Upcoming Projects
Another new project entered our realm, this one being penned by Ahzoh, based off the science-fiction novel he is also currently writing. Augmented Realities is a story that takes place as a union of mortal humans from various dimensional realms wage war against the seemingly eternal and powerful race of "gods" that can feed off their very lifeforce or soul. A near impossible feat were it not for the leftover Augment they find which could be used in their struggle. The science of the future appearing as miricles of the day, fantasy and magic elements do appear within this game as you follow Tanas and Sevrok Vandr and their sister as they visit the other realms to steal more augment and use it in their fight. Also presented is some concept art and a bit of Ahzoh's constructed language. Besides himself, he has Hatchetrocker/Sudden Verge as his lead composer and ShukMan as his coder/scripter. Having read through, trexrell thought the idea was cool and could see how plot twists could occur, though he did wonder why humans would wage war against something so immensely powerful. And MetalRenard wished Ahzoh well on his game, and likened some character material to Marvel's Silver Surfer which he recently just spied on NetFlix. Since the introduction of his topic, Ahzoh had since cleaned up his initial page, updating it with pics and character biographies, and finished working on his first village.
trexrell visited Charlie Fleed's Hartacon Tactics topic and applauded all the work gone into the visuals. So too did Ahzoh as he found them to be of high standard. Yet timing is everything as Charlie Fleed just releasted the newest version of his Map Editor, coming complete with a updated watermarked version of his tileset, allowing people to make and submit combat maps for review. Of course, there are some guidelines he posted for those interested in making combat maps, from minimum and maximum sizes to suggestions about straight and erregular map borders. When she has the free time, Yin said she'd start playing with the Map Editor, and called Charlie an inspiration for making such a masterpiece, let alone seeing where it it had been borne. Were she to look the next day, she would have seen a new video that Charlie Fleed presented to show a redheaded fireball casting sorceress he called an animated healer. At the same time, Ahzoh felt that Hartacon could evolve even further as a MMO.
It had been a while since Yin had posted anything about the conversion of Demon's Revenge from RPGMaker XP to RPGMaker VXAce, but came in to show off screencaps of the game in action and state that it is going on quite well. The maps have been completely been reworked with clearer paths for the players, the music is no longer repetitive, and includes even more artwork. The sample music that Yin supplied was discovered by Ahzoh to be a dead link, which she had later corrected.
After some months, Penguwin announced major breakthroughs in his game, ELAN: Reign of Catastrophy, as he managed to integrate SephirothSpawn's FF7 Materia System with Dubealex's classic Ring menu. Along with that, he has screenshots displaying his cel shaded artwork while showing the Dynamic Shadows system working with his caterpillar system.
And within the topic for Pherione's game, Legend of the Flaming Falcons, Ahzoh discussed with Pherione about alternate names for one of the principle characters. Afterwhich, Ahzoh also suggested and supplied a link to a UK RPGMaker XP Tutorials website for mapping. Pherione thanked Ahzoh for the suggestion, though he stated that his current map screenshots are outdated and would like to update them when he gets a better connection.
Code Support
Ahzon was on the look for day/night and weather scripts that would work together in his game. Along with that, he'd like a script that could auto-install fonts, though he would much like it so his game didn't need a custom font installed to use the alphabet he created for his original 'constructed' language. DerVVulfman came by and supplied the links to a day/night script he wrote as well as ccoa's original Weather script, as well as suggesting he might find the forum's stickied index of scripts to be helpful. After that, Ahzoh wondered if there was a script that activly flipped and rotated the screen's map so a player could appear to be walking on the walls or ceiling.
MechanicalPen is currently trying to port Hime's Full Error Backtrace script to RPGMaker XP, but is having issues trying to get class name from Scripts.rxdata. He's having some success while using the recently posted Console Script by Grimimi, but gets unexpected output such as "Section086" instead of "Game_Player". If anyone is interested, he posted Hime's script within the thread.
Tutorials
If you wanted to get started in creating music in a digital environment, MetalRenard posted a tutorial on how to Become a composer! Part 1: Baby Steps!. While they do not actively teach you how to compose, they give you the necessary tools which would let you learn how to on your own. His tutorial, Baby Steps, assumes that the reader knows Midi and that you have a DAW set up with suitable instruments. Baby Steps isn't about composing good music as it is about teaching the mechanics behind music creation with an exercise to practice.
Once the baby steps are out of the way, you may wish to read MetalRenard's later tutorial about Learning Your Instruments, the second part in his 'Become a composer!' line. Within, he discusses how to wisely choose your intruments and use them to their potential. Necessary for his latest tutorial is a series of virtual instruments, though he does suggest using Kontakt Player for the drums and SampleTankFREE for the piano and strings.
And along with that, MetalRenard updated his tutorials on the Introduction To Digital Music Creation, Part 1 and Part 2 with updated material and new graphics.
Material Development
Script Requests
RaphaelRpgGames obtained a copy of Madajuv's Message in Event script, and requested a Small Change in the Script so it could accept both the classic \v[n] and \c[n] found in the message system. At the same time, he wondered if it were possible to craft an add-on so the script could communicate with Madajuv's other script, Move Moves for Events. Ahzoh had issues understanding the code as the script comments were in Portuguese. But MechanicalPen put together some code he thought could assist RaphaelRpgGame, saying that that the language made no difference to a scripter. Unfortunately, the edit that MechanicalPen supplied did not work, but DerVVulfman suggested a way to get around the need for the \v[n] message command. And while Ahzoh assumed that code in other languages may be hard to comprehend, DerVVulfman pointed out that the basic commands in any RPGMaker script are all based on English Language words.
Resource Requests
Having no visual artistic talent, Ahzoh wondered if someone could make an RPGMaker XP Title Screen using the graphics he provided. The image he posted was a singluar graphic pattern made of thick red lines coming out of the corners of the screen and a central circular area, however he desired it to appear glowing and have a light emanation effect with his title, Augmented Realities, being overlaid with his title or in "Mael" font. At first glance, it was noted by yamina-chan that the image Ahzoh provided wasn't the default RPGMaker XP size and inquired about whether it should be stretched to fit the screen dimensions or clipped. She also inquired about the initial description of the lighting effect which he later clarified when he posted a shot of the title screen's text He thought it would be cool if the title could be animated. And though DerVVulfman replied that RPGMaker didn't actively support animated gifs, he made mention that there were scripts for animated title screens. But in contrast, Narzew supplied a link to the BitmapEx utility that extended RPGMaker to support Gif format. Eventually, MetalRenard came forward with a title screen that Ahzoh was thrilled to see, and surprised KasperKalamity as he tried using a zooming radial blur effect. MetalRenard followed up KasperKalamity's inquiry how it was done by describing what steps he took using Gimp to accomplish the task.
After that, Ahzoh thought it would be a sensible idea to request a custom windowskin to match his game's title screen. However, it wasn't long before he edited his own topic stating he made his own and supplied a pair of windowskins as his example. MetalRenard thought the screenshot of his title screen in action looked good. And though yamina-chan replied that the border looked interesting, she felt that the purple he chose clashed a little with the title screen's red. Ahtoh considered her words, but presented a simple image of a tile which he wanted the edges in his windowskin to match.
Later, DuongCool revisited the thread where he asked if anyone could help make a battleback's sky look like it is night and saw MetalRenard's render. He was very pleased and thanked MetalRenard for the effort.
And spelling is everything as DuongCool was still looking for an RPGMaker XP Minotaur Characterset, having continued his search on google, eventually finding one.
Creativity Section
Music and Audio
After wanting to show a friend how cliche some pieces of music can be, a new piece entitled the 'Generic Heartbreak Song' ended up merging with The Sound of Zackwell. It didn't take Zackwell even an hour to put the piece together and post it on SoundCloud.
Understanding that he is a novice composer, Ahzoh would like assistance with critique on his battle theme and need help with "Phrasing" . He's experienced with MixCraft 6 and posted his piece entitled ""Psynecerions Arise, unleash your Primal Rage", but was curious about musical phrasing which was brought up by MetalRenard. He does know about the basic structure of music as he brought up the terms 'Intro', 'Chorus' and 'Bridge', but appreciated any assistance. There was plenty of dialog by MetalRenard regarding information and analysis along with a tutorial, which actually gave MetalRenard the inspiration to begin writing a new one for elsewhere in the forum. Ahzoh appreciated the assistance, discussing such matters as using a riff as a skeleton throughout his song and woring on on transitions from one section to another while leaving the skeleton alone. The dialog continues between MetalRenard and Ahzoh and could be a must-read for any would-be composers.
Special Projects
ReGaL (RPG Game Lab)
If one wondered how easy or hard it would be to import or export data between game systems, Narzew described it well within the ReGaL kickstarter topic, showing pseudocode which can explain how it may be easier to import data once you know the data structure than to export it. After all, if an a game exported twenty fields of data and it is being imported into another system capable of holding only 14 fields, 6 fields of data would be lost.
The Talk Box
MechanicalPen added one more inquiry to the ReGaL Suggestions Booth, that being a Z-Axis enhancement to the event system as the 'Always On Top' feature doesn't cut it. DerVVulfman said he wasn't the coder handling the engine code itself, but suggested that the map layer system would likely be highly improved upon. However, it wasn't the layers that MechanicalPen but a 'screen_z' method so there would be a heiarchy between multiple events, a system different than that in the RPGMaker line. Meanwhile, Narzew requested a tileset swap system, Day/Night system, an Pre-fab Event Generator system and Unlimited Layers. Of those, DerVVulfman replied that the tileset and layer system were already being considered, though he wasn't sure about the day/night feature. He did, however, seem to show interest in the Prefabricated Event feature.
And if you wanted to know what DerVVulfman has been doing Regarding ReGaL's development, he worked a bit more on some of the default scripts as he added the Game_Texts feature mentioned by Kain Nobel and tied it into both the game's message system and Debug feature which was based on RPG Advocate's 2005 Custom Debug script. He said he had issues for a time, but got the issues straightened out. The notion of no hidden classes impressed Ahzoh, as well as all the hard work as he gave DerVVulfman a compliment for the endeavor. DerVVulfman pointed out it was part of the same game system that he read about in the ReGaL Application thread and a little banter went back and forth between he and Ahzoh about the team.
Screenies
After hearing about ReGaL's development in a group chat, Yin decided to take a look at the REGAL Application, and began to look forward to using it one day. Ahzoh ventured into the thread, curious if ReGaL was a Game Making program, to which ntzrmtthihu777 replied that it was; a cross-platform system programmed with Java, Jruby, and Lwjgl. It messed with Ahzoh's 16-yr-old mind as he can't comprehend Java coding, but both ntzrmtthihu777 and DerVVulfman brought up talented coders that were his age or younger when they were met. In any event, Ahzoh's talent is more literary than code-based. And regarding talents, MechanicalPen described how his understanding of game code progressed as he went from system to system. And as MechanicalPen mentioned that the ReGaL system will come with default scripts such as the RPGMaker line, DerVVulfman replied that the java code for the engine would also be made available. After that, DerVVulfman said he added Kain Nobel's $game_texts class and tied it into the message system. And speaking of Kain Nobel, he discussed the current issues he's having with making a single game editor cross compatible, stating how certain features might not be an exact match between OS systems. Still, he posted a screen shot of his latest widget, the 'Control Variables' box which has more options than the typical RPGMaker editor.
Well, that's it for this week.
"Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself." - Mark Twain (1835-1910)
PROSPECTIVE GAZETEERS!
If you are the creator of a thread in Save-Point, you have the option of sending/writing your own entry into the Gazette. The Gazette accepts write-in announcements (which will be doublechecked). Likewise, the Gazette would welcome other content such as a comic-strip series, ongoing story arc, or the like.
Just PM DerVVulfman with the submissions. Submissions must be in by 10pm EST.