(January 5 to January 11, 2015)
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
Taking a break from Clickteam Fusion, our new member RockyRaccoon is planning to use either RPGMaker or Ren'Py to tell his gaming story. But while he may not be familiar with Ruby scripting, he feels he is learning Ren'Py's language fine. He was quickly introduced to the places to visit in our site by JayRay and later by DerVVulfman who was used to one of the Clickteam Products, and suggested some other boards in the forum to our new member. Both yamina-chan and MetalRenard wished to send their greetings, MetalRenard being thrilled that a new fuzzy member had joined.
Who here likes Birthday Cake. Here at Save-Point, we like to celebrate our members' special days by announcing their birthdays with a bit of sugary confections. As such, we started this week by celebrating the birthdays of Asmara, Leinedikus and Legal Luke. It didn't take long before the birthdays of lade-agems, wecco, Cronus and mel08 had come and gone. And it became cake time for the trio of chaysejack, TheRobert and vgvgf only to be followed later by the birthdays of kyonides, sameascache, KasperKalamity, AlonsoX2 and Mizael Nunes.
General Chat
While some only join a community to glean information from their site or to register some form of product, others may wish to interact with their fellow members and friends. In some cases, they may wish to ask how thier colleagues are doing or to just express themselves by saying What's on their Mind, as DerVVulfman did after experiencind a hard drive issue which forced him to perform a complete factory restore. He received a number of heartfelt responces from Kain_Nobel, MetalRenard, Pherione and JayRay, but he replied that he had backups for most everything saved if not uploaded to the forum itself. Likewise, he also added that he lost none of his necessary passwords as he had them written down for safekeeping. Kain_Nobel noticed a TIME magazine article that discusses cars that could actually drive themselves, but added that he's not sold on the idea as hacking a car's guidance could run along the same road as the recent Sony hacking, And disappointments abound for Kain_Nobel as he is not thrilled with anyone currently up for the next U.S. Presidential race. However, he is interested in getting back into development mode with the ReGaL project. Pherione has his own thoughts towards who would be responcible in automobile accidents if the cars were automated thus, though he was curious about how the traffic system itself would be controlled. And Ahzoh went the Princess Bride route to tease Kain Nobel's use of the word Zionist, which DerVVulfman quickly caught. Both Taylor and JayRay were experiencing miserable days as Taylor wanted to get away and work on his own gaming project while JayRay was counting the minutes just to get back home. However, JayRay celebrated having no more overdue bills and that his wife has now entered college. Comically, he added that while she doesn't like watching any history documentaries, she now has history media as a prerequisite. And he added that his project, Roguehave, is coming along nicely. Ahzoh's own language is also coming along, having created a word for Empire. However, he gave a shout to MetalRenard to make a song involving Pi. After that, Kain_Nobel swerved the discussion over to the U.S.'s Keystone pipeline, and both Ahzoh and MetalRenard felt the project would cause problems. However DerVVulfman pointed some pros and cons to the project. But as he entered, he replied he has his copy of RPGMaker XP working again.
While he wrote a blog on his own site about his interest in Bandcamp releases of his music, Python Blue wished to hear from others about Selling Music Meant for Game Mods. He would like to pursue the route of making game soundtracks, but has seen how game developers are extremely picky regarding their musical tastes and how it may not mesh with that of composers such as he. JayRay's suggestion was to have, not a full score available, but his music online as individual tracks that could be sampled and then purchased through sources like SoundCloud or iTunes. And MetalRenard discussed how he has terms of usage and mentioned the different forms of exclusive rights he has for his work. Since then, Python Bllue felt he had discovered a better avenue to explore, using YouTube where he may accept donations for his work.
Games Development
Development Discussion
If you are wondering What's up with your fellow RPG Making members this week, the Three Stooges of the ReGaL development team took over the thread on the last half of the week. Proud that he was the first poster in the thread this year, Kain announced he's back to spriting with a vengeance after taking a holiday break. ntzrmtthihu777has been working out the details of the system's database editor while getting his Yamaha Vino repaired and getting ready to move to a new state. And DerVVulfman saw what ntzrmtthihu777said about empty records in RPGMaker XP's database and assumed they did that to make it easier for both Enterbrain's own development team and the user, while announcing he has his copy of RPGMaker XP restored. After that, yamina-chan has graphics on her mind, whether it be for the inclusion of facesets that wasn't initially planned or for the logo for her project. Meanwhile, she is also pondering how to include a new game feature. And Ahzoh's been wishing to request sprites via commission, but as his game isn't 10% done it appears he may be stuck with using the RTP. DerVVulfman suggested making do with the RTP on a temporary basis so he could work on his game. But without a custom desert tileset, Ahzoh feels he cannot proceed.
If one enters the Maps and Screenshots thread, they will see a revised version of Ahzoh's world map with almost 30 cities plotted around the land's mountain ranges and waterways. Over a third of them have names in his fictional Vrkhazhi -language. And JayRay applauded him for his use of shading.
JayRay saw how Ahzoh wished he could craft something akin to the Diablo dungeon crawl within our World Maps discussion, originally created by Bacon years ago. In that, he posted a description on how it could be achieved including some code which would be used to accomplish the task. However, MetalRenard noticed a flaw in the code, describing the bug and suggesting what he would do for the fix.
Upcoming Projects
While JayRay is known for dabbling in graphics, he has decided to go a different route with a new project. He is now workung upon the Shakespeare RPG Tool, a system to create an RPG Based Character Database handling character names and backgrounds, genders, family trees and the rest of the information describing each character in a game. Using various sources, he expects to have nearly a thousand first names alone, and a system to detail your character's family history including their parent's previous occupations and much, much much more.
Recruitment Office
For the past year, MetalRenard's time had not been his own. But now he's back and reminds everyone that he is an Experienced Game Audio Creator and Composer who has skills to offer in various musical styles. He has a portfolio of his experiences and skills, and discusses payment methods though he may do some work for free if he feels inspired.
Tutorials
DerVVulfman added an old tutorial he found years ago that discusses how one creates Effective & Realistic Villains. The author of the actual work went by AzureFenrir.
Material Development
Tools
For those interested, RockyRaccoon rediscovered the GASHISOFT GXSCC Midi to Chiptune Convertor from 2003. A project that has been in a beta stage for all this time, this freeware tool allows one to convert Midi files into various emulator/early-year game formats.
Resources Database
Earlier last year, Pia Carrot posted a midi archive of the Dating Sim Maker 2 Soundtrack. Since then, RockyRaccoon took the midi music and converted them into .Ogg Vorbis files and uploaded them posted a filedropper link for those interested in the background music.
Special Projects
ReGaL (RPG Game Lab)
The Talk Box
Crono was curious about any process Regarding ReGaL, so he put forth an inquiry. Not long after, DerVVulfman repliled that he was doing some tweaking of the scripts and was dealing with another battlesystem feature, but unfortunately had a HDD crash. He also replied how Kain_Nobel took a break from the project, citing that this would be the norm for anyone. And that ntzrmtthihu777 was developing new C++ techniques. However, DerVVulfman also announced that the gaming functions, apart from the resources, are all in the single Game executable file itself. It was later followed by ntz who added that he may even be able to combine the game resources into a final executable when compiled rather than a separate .rgsaad as RPGMaker XP and the like create. Meanwhile he is contemplating how the map maker will be crafted while waiting to see about the final data file structure for use with the editor itself. Such news pleased Crono who is glad to hear that another game maker was being developed with the best features of the RPGMaker line. And Criz gave his applause while lamenting that he hadn't spent as much time working on resources while waiting for the system's release.
Well, that's it for this week.
Fake news executives are nicer than real news executives, though real news executives are funnier than fake news executives. They dont know theyre being funny. - Stephen Colbert
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.