Monday, May 15, 2017

Another progress report on the DQI Remake 2.20 Closed Beta

After getting some more bug reports about Garinheim, I had to fix a lot of buggy tile collision issues, including being able to walk through certain portions of houses, being able to hop stair well where you shouldn't, and other wall clipping weirdness.

I should have fixed all of this.

I also got a complaint about how it looks how some landings make it look like the character is walking on the landing railing, not the floor, and I tried to fix this the best I could, but the tile art and the fact I have a 2D engine make some of this perspective weirdness unavoidable, and since I had to pay for the assets I used for the Garenheim town art, I'd have to contact the artist or someone with the same DLC pack I paid for who would be willing to modify it, as my own art skills are not that good.

I also made a few minor overworld map adjustments, nothing major, just shaved down the Hauksness and Rimuldar overworld areas a little bit.

I'm still awaiting more bug reports, but while I await them, I did make a minor story change.

Sarah is supposed to be a soldier who was detached from regular duty for personal reasons to help you, but because she's not officially on the clock, she can't use her authority as a soldier to help you until she resumes her regular post. I was informed I didn't make this entirely clear, so I extended her introduction a little and gave the player a choice to tell her you're okay with that and just grateful for the help or that you find it disappointing, both of which will modify the relationship value system I built in to the game a little bit.

I might as a few more of these altered dialogues in other areas as well, but this is the only one I've done out of necessity so far.

Monday, May 8, 2017

Closed Beta 2.20 of DQ1 Remake Continued Feedback

Got some more feedback on my closed beta and it looks like I have some more bugs to fix:

1. Seems I still have some remnants of the old dialogue system in place, need to purge that.

2. Fixing a small frameskip bug in town when picking up vegetation and eggs.

3. Complaints some music and SFX are too loud, will fix by cutting their level by 50% across the board.

4. Fix the bank, has some old code that causes graphical issues.

I plan to meticulously fix as many bugs before releasing this build, as I want the game as mechanically solid as possible before implementing the normal ending, final dungeon, and any content beyond that.

Wednesday, May 3, 2017

Closed Beta 2.20 of DQ1 Remake Feedback

I've already gotten some feedback from beta testers, and I've already fixed a lot of issues regarding UI problems, including screwed up text and number displays.

I reverted the player menu back to using the classic row format instead of the column view to fix a few more issues, but this is merely a cosmetic change.

Fonts had to be resized in several places for optimal display, and aside from a harmless "flash of unstyled content" glitch (the first character in the menu will briefly have their name and the "level' marker turn bold, then normal text), the menu is now free of UI problems, and the glitch is quite harmless for now, so I'm leaving it as a low priority to be fixed in later builds.

I have also begun experimenting with how to integrate content from DQ1 in any possible sequel, since I did have one planned, and I'm pleased to say my experiments with how to port content for us have proven quite successful, so any possible sequel, should I make one, will be able to incorporate areas from the original game in full (barring changes explicit to the sequel of course), which would be a great improvement over how most areas from the original DQ1 were greatly abbreviated in scope in DQ2.

Once beta testers finish getting back to me Beta 2.20 will enter public beta, and work will begin on the next build, in which the endings will be implemented, or such is the idea at this time.

Gamergate 2 is on, and I want no part of it

 This will not be a long post, but I just want to make clear, as someone who was involved in the first go-round of Gamergate, I want no part...