(December 23 to December 29, 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
Occasions
This week, the trio of Mafields, Waddle Dee and LeSlipperyGypsy were able to snag all the birthday cake. Meanwhile, rumors that Kirot's birthday had come and gone were incorrect as he has yet to fix it in his profile.
General Chat
Once and a while, you may be away and lose track of your fellow forum members. Fortunately, it is an easy thing to know What's on the mind of the others within the community. This week, DerVVulfman gave warning to his fellow members as he received a bogus and potentially hazardous eMail that was disguised so it looked like it came from Amazon.com. His antivirus system immediately caught it and he knew it had to be fake because it went to an eMail account he has never used for any merchant services. As the Holidays came and went, Pherione wished everyone a Merry Christmas. Meanwhile, One language wasn't enough for Ahzoh as he began working on a new language, showcasing the letters for his new system's consonants. Kain Nobel was curious about the language that Ahzoh displayed so often, thinking it appeared Arabic. Kain Nobel also stated that his IP address was z-line banned from the IRC chatroom, though everything had been resolved. He missed chatting with DerVVulfman that night but looked forward to later, much to DerVVulfman's relief as he noted he spent some time trying to get assistance to lift the ban.
Games Development
Development Discussion
If you're curious what people are doing in their game-making projects, a good way to catch up with them is to read our topic that asks What's Up with these Rpg Making members. Kain Nobel was happy to hear that Steel Beast 6Beets had figured out what caused his enemies to become easily beaten in his project. After that, Kain Nobel touched on some things being brainstormed for the ReGaL project in IRC, and posted some of his animated battler spriting deadline goals. He had posted animated gifs of his basilisk still in its early stages and how his Hellhound battler had improved greatly. He later returned to showcase some of his battler, actually ahead of schedule. Just in time to wish everyone a Merry Christmas. Unfortunately, DerVVulfman had some connection issues otherwise he wanted to make a bump to a thread for Christmas. Kain Nobel too has been running into difficulties, but it seems to be related to a couple of keys when testing or running any RPGMaker XP project he's created, and wonders if AnyKey's input system could fix it. Meanwhile, he had expanded upon and refined his snow field tilesets which included objects in both snow-free and snow covered variations. JayRay wanted to praise Kain Nobel who lit a spark in his mind and aided him to craft a technique for a modular pre-rendered map system. Such a system will aid him in productivity, reduce project's size, and avoid the appearance of blocky maps. Speaking of graphics, Kain Nobel returned to show his improved ghost battler, complete with different animated poses. And to make things challenging, his ghosts can turn invisible at the slightest bit of damage. Meanwhile, he is also finding it easier to balance the battles in his game and is quite happy with the results.
Kain Nobel thought he saw a height error in the swampland that KasperKalamity showed off in the Maps and Screenshots thread, but KasperKalamity replied that the area was where two plateaus collided, impassible though it may be. But that wasn't the only thing that Kain Nobel posted as he displayed a shot of a wintery landscape with pine trees, both regular snd snow-covered which JayRay thought was astounding. Meanwhile, JayRay had a screenshot of his own using a technique he developed based on a comment made by Kain within the forum's IRC chatroom regarding tilesets. Looking at it, one may be surprised to find it was done with tiles rather than his previous parallax system. And he stated he plans to use this technique combined with tileset changing systems to be able to create virtually more maps than before while staying within the 999 map limit.
Upcoming Projects
A bit of dispiriting news game from KDC who announced that Schools of Magic has been put on hiatus until his laptop gets a new charger.
However, you can see what the in-game map editor looks like in Charlie Flee'ds game, Hartacon Tactics.
General Support
While he touched on it briefly within a thread discussing what's up in his RPG projects, Kain Nobel has been having an Occasional RMXP Input Problem whereby his [SELECT] and [DOWN] keys have been acting up. He had planned to use AnyKey's Input script, as he had encountered such issues with Cybersam's, Near Fantastica's and Vgvgf's original Aleworks system. He expects it may be solved if he uses Vgvgf's later AWorks system as it has its own .dll file. His theories run into differences between .dll versions between older and newer RPGMaker XP versions or conflicts with scripts such as a fullscreen script he has in use. DerVVulfman, however, replied that Cybersam's and Near Fantastica's input scripts use Windows's own API input system, so it wouldn't be an issue RMXP's default Input module. He did wonder if Kain Nobel encountered the problem with demos from other people, believing it could be an issue with Kain Nobel's Game.exe file. As DerVVulfman suggested, even AnyKey's script had no luck for Kain Nobel who decided to try a fresh re-install of the system.
Code Support
In many games, characters move up and down stairs. But most every time, you are limited to coordinal directions in an RPGMaker system rather than moving a character in a diagonal method. Not satisfied with having characters go solely up/down, Iqus put forth a request to control Movement by terrain tags so he could make characters move diagonally when using staircases. Rather than a script however, DerVVulfman posted a method that would change a character's motion by use of a series of events with their own event code. And MechanicalPen posted his own event code, while accessing the terrain tag system. The thought of an evented system didn't cross Iqus's mind, though he did notice that the player would need to continually re-trigger a directional key for each step taken. In answer, MechanicalPen suggested having his code look at a script condition which Iqus wasn't sure how to accomplish. After that, DerVVulfman described how to enter such a scripted condition into an event system, and showed him how it would change the appearance of his event code. Now that Iqus learned how to add the new scripted conditions, he changed the event triggers and got the diagonal stairs to work perfectly. He thanked the guys and wished them a Merry Christmas.
Meanwhile, MechinicalPen continued to find out why firevenge007 received a Cannot convert fixnum into string warning in BigAce's Warrior engine. Continued, until he saw the issue on line 1738 of the Engine script, which he informed a very thankful firevenge007.
And Iqus found a message system by RD12, a script that would display short messages in the corner without pausing gameplay. Lacking in experience with RGSS, he needed Help editing the script, so an icon can appear with the message. On reading what Igus posted, MechanicalPen suggested a couple of lines to add which he felt would solve his problem.
Material Development
Scripts Database
This week, DerVVulfman discovered and fixed a bug in The Lycan ABS which involved his system's built-in map looping feature. He stated that he wanted to update his demo for Christmas, but couldn't until Sunday.
He later ventured into MGC's original Mode7 thread and put a copy of the script within as the original script link was dead.
And though he didn't update the script itself, DerVVulfman added an additional patch for the Super Simple Vehicle System - Enhanced to work with Mode7's map looping feature.
Creativity Section
Music and Audio
While he started working on the music for a game for Literarygoth back in 2011, you can now enjoy listening to The Sound of Zackwell as he was asked to resume work and continue on the soundtrack to 'Dacian'. This week, you can click on his soundcloud link to enjoy 'Night Falls on Mori', the first track he's composed from way back then.
Filmography
Uruhara wished to announce that this January, you'll be able to watch his Youtube Linus News Show entitled On the Mark. It will include music by MetalRenard and an opening by JayRay.
Special Projects
ReGaL (RPG Game Lab)
The Talk Box
This week, Kain Nobel undertook the job to organize the method in which Character Graphics are filed within a ReGaL project. An organized method allowing for multiple animated actions per character as well as a paperdolling system, he considers his initial post a rough draft. His premise is that each character would have a personal subfolder which would have their own unique set of actions while creating a separate subfolder for paperdoll character graphics in the same manner. At the same time, each character would also have their own subfolder for custom paperdoll graphics when a custom graphic is available. This system he conceived would be used between both charactersets and battlesystem battlers combined. Yin was happy to see more developments with ReGaL, which pleased Kain Nobel who wondered if she had any suggestions seeing that her own game was heavy into animation.
Well, that's it for this week.
"One always overcompensates for disabilities. I'm thinking of having my entire body surgically removed." - Douglas Adams (1952-2001)
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.