(August 25 to August 31, 2014)
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
Days come and days go, but a birthday is always something special as a number of our members got to celebrate theirs. Early this week, cybercorsaria, Zohran and sjl98 had their own celebrations which were followed later by kasikarbon's, TheoAllen's and Kleinerminer's. The very next day, aasnas, zmbkilla, kinguanghua, vetchu and Shojiki all had a birthday in common. It wasn't long before the trio of xnakax, Zeriab and Juan J. Sánchez had the chance to celebrate thier birthday, and this weekend started with KamaArchangel's, Soulleech's and Croug's own birthday. And this Sunday, takaihoshi, WarioPunk, seanthemalloy, Funk2929, MechanicalPen and blackmarketjellyfish shared the same birthday.
General Chat
Sometimes you just want to kick back, relax, and just get to know your fellow members. That is one of the good things about the forum is that you can always find out What's on their mind, both during their periods of sadness or their times of joy. However, this past week was more a time of headache as Steel Beast 6Beets replied back to KasperKalamity about how the Lizard Squad wished to disrupt online activity with DDOS attacks for kicks. Kain_Nobel's personal headaches were not at the result of any RPGMaker projects, but from his endeavors to clean out and perform maintenance on his aging computer while he awaited the arrival of his new Windows 7 replacement. Along with the use of multiple anti-virus scans, repeated defrag processes and the deletion of over 12GB of worthless data, he's been manually sifting through the registry of his aged PC to weed out any potential garbage left behind by uninstalled programs that didn't properly erase all the data it should. Having spiffed up his old machine to a fairly workable degree, he eagerly awaits the new one with plans to add his old PC's hard drive as a slave unit. Ahzoh delivered a statement of brotherhood and equality in his constructed language before remarking that Kain_Nobel had been overworking himself. And then Steel Beast 6Beets questioned why anyone would switch from Windows to a Linux OS since there were fewer progams and utilities available for Linux. Still hesitant to re-install Linux himself, Kain_Nobel replied that software development appeared to be easier in a Linux environment.. Meanwhile, Kain did report that the latest version of RPGMaker XP recorded the location of the RTP within the registry was different than how it was with earlier versions, so his previous custom RTP setups became obsolete. At the same time, he's discovered some lost relics on his old PC's drive which he thought were lost for good. With that, he's been able to see how much his works have progressed from drab to exciting.
For those wishing to see an RPGMaker XP game being actively created, YuriVampire wished to invite people to watch the live stream of Let's Make a Game on her channel at Twitch TV. Every day between 2PM to 3PM EST, people can watch, comment and suggest things at the link she posted while the game is being made. And she felt the video series could act as a tutorial of sorts to show how one can use scripts from other people as she's been granted permission to use some from PK8, DerVVulfman and others. Meanwhile, it can be a learning experience, both for the viewers and herself. yamina-chan wished her well in her endeavors which YuriVampire appreciated greatly. So she decided to spend time pitching ideas of things she can make with a first youtube video coming soon.
Forum Games & Nonsense
Time was almost up for greenraven's contest asking members to Work with what you got! until Natako extended the deadline from September 1st to October 1st. This was due to stress and a recent job transition on Natako's part while neglected post updates allowed potential participants to forget. One only needs to put together a quick five-minute entry and submit it before the new October deadline, and you may have more than one entry if you wish. And to spur activity along, greenraven added two new incentives: a sponsorship at AngelSpire with a personal sub-forum, and a Lets Play review of the game. Still, he mentioned that not many people had finished products, and he added that unfinished games were acceptable as well for a prize of $30 worth of games. Both he and Natako of AngelSpire are looking forward to the entries.
While time is up for anyone wishing to enter the contest, one can participate in the voting of the Boss enemy design contest for Celestial Tear: Demon's Revenge as trexrell posted a link to their game's official website. Almost immediately, greenraven popped in to announce two of his choices which pleased trexrell to see the interest in the game.
Games Development
Upcoming Projects
There's been some big events happening during the development of Celestial Tear: Demon's Revenge as trexrell wished to let everyone know that their new Kickstart camain will be going live in a matter of days. The time to enter submissions into their 'design a boss' contest is over and he loved the creations sent their way, and he posted a link to their official website for a community vote. Meanwhile, trexrell stumbled over his words during a recent interview with Average Giants about their game.
Meanwhile, Charlie Fleed announced that a new demo of Hartacon Tactics is available for download.
Material Development
Scripts Database
Mimicing an effect where Final Fantasy weapons may deliver unexpected effects at random when they hit their target, DoubleX crafted the RMVXA Random Cast script. Now users of RPGMaker VXAce can let actors attack their targets and deliver random skill effects on a strike.
Soulpour777' returned with a new Basic Scene Mail script which makes use of RPGMaker VXAce's 'note tag' system to hide/reveal certain types of items which can be used for virtually anything. And by looking at his screenshot, you can see a window displaying various envelopes or letters that were addressed and mailed to different people in his project.
Meanwhile, the Theolized Sideview Battle System received some updates by TheoAllen which included an update to the Battle Camera add-on in his demo.
On a sad note, JayRay discovered the RPGMaker XP demo link for PK8's Unlimited Graphically Layered Maps system is down and the demo unavailable. Not only that, but YuriVampire discovered that the links to all of PK8's demos in his Mirror Events topic are down.
Resources Database
After nearly three years, KasperKalamity revisited his Battlers thread to post a classic Single-Frame battler of a barbarian.
And a single frame has appeared within the newly created Pink's Side-view Battlers topic by one of our newest members, pinkink. His first battler render is an idle pose of the RPGMaker XP '050-Soldier02' character brandishing a sword. While it isn't as yet, he intends that it will be animated, though not compatible with Minkoff's Animated Battlers or any other system but his own. DerVVulfman saw that and noted how the Minkoff system he has been maintaining has been fairly fluid enough to adapt, and felt it may just need to be configured to the Pink Battler style. In the meantime, pinkink would like to know how people felt about his spriting, though his schedule may prevent him from posting regularly.
Creativity Section
Music and Audio
For those who have recently been enjoying MetalRenard's Music, they may have noticed that our resident Fox in the Music Box has been doing vocal work. His most recent release this week, entitled 'Underdogs Rise' is was exception, however MetalRenard felt it was his best vocals to date. He had not only released the newgrounds.com link to his track, but updated his topic's lead post to single out his vocal tracks; 'Underdogs Rise', 'Ego Betrayed', 'Made of Stars' and 'Mechanical Hypocrisy'. The vocals are by MetalRenard himself, and it may seem odd if you had a pre-conceived idea how he sounded as Ahzoh did once he finally heard his voice through the internet.
Art and Design
If you wish to peek in to see Olivia's Experiments with 3D to 2D digital design, you'll see some work on her style of face portrait work, her first recent post showing a young girl with a sassy brown hair style, and her second with the the same girl with a lighter hair color.
Well, that's it for this week.
"A girl phoned me and said, 'Come on over. There’s nobody home.' I went over. Nobody was home!" - Rodney Dangerfield (1921-2004)
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.