Mother Grub ~ It's like Earthbound, but with the trolls!

[Dxpenguinman]

Winged teddybears need to be a thing in this game now.

Also, yay for progress and I shall resume composing when need be!

[shinyjiggly]

I just had an idea related to quadrant bonuses. Kissmitude is supposed to be about trying to be better than the other through one-upmanship and infuriating the partner, isn't it?
So, maybe the kismesis bonus could be that if one gets a stat buff, the other one gets it as well. Also, There could be a chance when a hit would normally be fatally dealt to a monster that one of them would take out a monster instead of the other just to make them mad that they stole their kill.
This could lead to some sweet combos or some infuriating moments when you decided to take out an imp with SUPERDUPER ATTACK just to have the other step in and do their vastly inferior SUPERMEH ATTACK and fail to take out the monster.
The black limit breaker move could be the two of them dealing hits back and forth to the monster, while they argue and insult each other.
But these are just random ideas that I had so feel free to ignore them. I'm just thinking of ways to disconnect the black and ashen quadrant effects.

[MaskedClaus]

Yeah, I got confused when reading what you said...

I don't think the player will have control over romance entirely. I was thinking about how it should be programmed and I think I would do it kinda like that: Every possible relationship have a variable telling the um (I don't know how I should say this. I writing from my iPod and I can't translate word easely). Like for exemple, Equius Nepeta would have a high number (Because it's canon), but EquiusEridan would have a lower number. The love system from Fire Emblem four was the main inspiration for that. And their "love" would be counted by a variable that would get higher under certain condition (lets say winning a fight for exemple). Equius Eridan would win 10 points after a fight, but Equius Nepeta would gain 20 or 30. And um, the condition will not be obvious like that. It could be killing enemies or getting hurt or anything like that. And sometime you'll have to team up people because they have useful abilities or because of the plot. Anyway, sorry for that confused wall of text, I'm dumping lots of ideas.

shinyjiggly: That bear bat look good. I could redraw it in white to use it as a lusus or just keep it for later and say it's a fiduspawn.

EDIT: mega ninja'd. shinyjiggly the stealing the other kill thing is a great idea.

EDIT2: The bear-bat is now officially a fiduspawn monster. I need a name for it.

[Dxpenguinman]

I think its rather convoluted to design a mechanic that makes canon relationships more effective than non-canon relationships but I like the idea of 'relationship points', i.e. points that help the bond between two characters develop the more they fight alongside each other which could eventually lead to quadrant skills (like characters taking fatal blows for other characters if their relationship is at a high level) and etc.

[MaskedClaus]

I didn't meant that canon relationship would be better. It was an exemple to say that some character will win point faster, because they already like each others better. Like if the standard number of point won if ten, but Equius Nepeta would win fiften point. And Eridan and Feferi could only win 8 because they don't like each other anymore. I though it would make it a bit more real, because they have complex relationship and not everybody is going to fall in love with anybody at the same speed (that sentence make no damn sense. It's six a.m. and I should be sleeping). Fire Emblem 4, the main inspiration for that system did it that way: Character would be considered a couple in game if they had 500 love point. Most couple started with 0 point, but some started with already some point, because they already knew each other (and were "closer" to falling in love than complete stranger). And they stayed together for the rest of the game. There was no "divorce" option.

I can't program it exactly that way because I don't want to make couple definitive. I want that if somebody dislike his pairing. He can just team the trolls differently and wait for the new relationship to develop. So making some couple start with more point wouldn't work really well.

I think it'll be mostly used to make some quadrant easier. Like that Vriska and Tavros get a better chance to become matesprit or kismesis (those two quadrant would win 12 point, so It would always flip flop between the two (I'm too lazy to actually link to a page where the heart and spade rapidely alternate)), but it would be less likely that they become moirals (Moirails would still have the standard 10 point). Anyway it wouldn't change a lot because most ship would have the same value (10 in this exemple).

[Dxpenguinman]

So how bout instead of making relationship development faster/slower, make some characters already start with more relationship points/less relationship points than others?

It's a lot easier.

[BubblegumPatty]

Messing around with the Game so far, I have made a list of Things that will most likely be ironed out by release, but I thought you should know. (I don't know weither to Pm it only or to post it here OHGODTHEQUESTIONS)

. When I talk to the two people next to Aradia's Hive, The Game crashes.
. No Music
. I walk through the left and right most of the bones I gave you. Maybe spliting it in half between two tiles would fix the problem?
Also the transparency of the shadow doesn't work, which is my bad.
. The game seems to be in Protuguese/French/Some romantic language. :/
. No Karkat walk sprite even though he seems to be in your party.
. The damage gauge still keeps going down even when you finish the battle. When you enter enoughter battle, the Gauge just keeps going dow until it's finished.
. Aradia's walking sprite is wonky. (You already know this)
. When It's Karkat's turn to attack, the Icons don't show up.
. Imcomplete roof on Aradia's house.
. Selecting "fly" in Aradia's skill menue glitches the game, preventing me from doing anything else.
. Runaway Lusus is took weak, gives out too much Damage, and gives out too much experence.
. On that note; Karkat and Aradia are a bit too stronge. They should start at Level 1.
. Aradia's "PV" is at 0 at the start of the game.
. The money window in the Menue blocks the bottom two options in the menue.
. A window pops up when I open Aradia's or Karkat's Skill menues outside of battle. It doesn't do anything thankfuly.
. Aradia doesn't have a portrait. I'll probably fix that later.
. Selecting "Quadrents" in the menue does nothing.

No holes in the walls or ground (Besides my Bones) like I was expecting. Sooner or later I'll make some things to add to the field, so that it doesn't turn into Yume Nikki where you just keep walking into nothingness untill you find something.

[MaskedClaus]

I talked about some of these thing in the PM. I know about most of these things, but it's funny to see them all listed like that

• The game is in french, but to copy and pasty english text to translate everything. I never took the time to do it because nobody else was playing the game.

• You can walk through the bone because I didn't make take the time to make it correctly. I just put it on the map to complare it size to other things.

• The transparancy of the shadow isn't working because I did it really fast I didn't see the shadow, so I didn't tell the game it was supposed to be transparent.

• I know about the bug with the hp. It's just because I fucked around with something in the code. I just have to copy and paste the old code.

• Karkat's icons disapearing is harder to fix. I know what's happening, but I don't know why.

• The quadrant option is there for later when I'll start working on the quadrant system.

• And everything about the skill menu is probably because it's not finished.

The only thing I didn't know about is the thing with the damage gauge. I never saw that bug. I'll try fixing it, but right now I have no idea the game did that.

Anyway, It's nice to have a list like that. I can try to attack one item on it at the time. Like right now I really wanna fix Aradia's 0 hp.


And... I just fixed the hp.Yay

[BubblegumPatty]

Also, A bug I foget to mention is that Aradia's sprite in the Battles seem to be in a walk-cycle, While Karkat is perfectly still.

Stratch the last bit, It seems Karkat is also moving.

[Lookatroopa]

Sorry for being inactive here for a while. So, the game has a kind of alpha version now?

[MaskedClaus]

Nope. I decided to give the game to anybody who's been working on it (that would include you). Right now it's almost nothing, it can't even be called an alpha. But anybody who contributed stuff to the game can PM me to get it. It'll probably be more interresting for you to try it later when there will be more things to the game. Right now it's still just a small map made for testing.

[shinyjiggly]

Wait for it...

Wait.

...

WHALE!

THAR SHE BLOWS.

It probably won't be used in a very long time, but b***es love wwhales here it is anyways, the wwhite wwhale.
(it would be cool to get an updated list of sprites to be made for the scenes that are being worked on so that I know what sorts of things to focus my attention towards.)

[MaskedClaus]

I definitely should do a list like that.

Ok, first for the demo:
I think we have the battle sprite for every enemies (not sure)
But we're missing some walking sprite for them (not sure too)

I can do the floor and walls for the map, so I think the only thing that are still needed are the frog temple and trees (just noticed it'll be useful to have trees to make "walls" to limit the map. And the next part of the game is going to happen in the wood).

Talking about that, the enemies in the next part of the demo will be undead trolls (one male and one female) and a musclebeast boss. So I guess we'll need walking and battle sprite for the zombies and a battle sprite for the boss (but we'll only see the musclebeast in a cutscene, so no need to draw him in every direction. It's not going to walk).

After that we have the fiduspawn and Flarping level with Tavros. And then the rest of the game is in Sgrub, but I don't really know we we'll need for those part and anyway they're not the priority right now.


EDIT: I forgot the most important thing: That whale is really cool (even if you know what I'll do with it??).

[BubblegumPatty]

Yes, We have battle sprites for all the enemies (Snake, 2 bats (one you didn't like, and a teddybear with wings), and the runaway lusus)
However we lack overworld sprites for all that isn't the runaway lusus. So we need those.
also I call not-it for drawing trees. Trees hate me, they never come out right.

[MaskedClaus]

Hey quick update. I figured out how the skills are working and why they bugged. That means I could probably make simple skills like Psi work. I still have some work to do, but lets say 90% percent of the work on the skill menu is done.

And I remember that I forgot to post the script/list of quest thing I wrote. I'll try to find it tomorrow.

[shinyjiggly]

I did the overworld sprite for the snake!

Darn it! I followed the XP charset specs instead of the VX charset specs! (oh well, it's mostly just copy-flip movement anyways.) Hopefully it's the right size.

[MaskedClaus]

Nah don't worry about the charset. Do it whatever way you want and I'll just put it in the charset after.


Also, skills are now working without any bug (I think) and I fixed the bug with the Hp.

[BubblegumPatty]

That's great to hear.
I'll get off my lazy ass sooner or later ro draw something for the game.
No promises though.

[MaskedClaus]

Oh, um, bump. I managed to do something really cool. I made the hp go down slowlier if you have more of the "guts" stat. Like it did in Earthbound. So at the start of the game you wont be able to heal a character before they die from an attack that will kill them, but later in game, when you'll have more hp and guts it'll be slow enough for you to go and select an healing item in your inventory.

I though that would've been really complicated to do, but that's probably the simplest thing I did for the game.

At this point I think the only thing left to do for the demo is to fix a bunch of bugs and make a trollian menu (talking only about coding).

[Fayd]

Oooh. Rename this "guts" stat gel viscosity and it's perfect for canon!

[BubblegumPatty]

Oh hey I notice your using the the Out-of-hp Nepeta Sprite I made! That's really flattering.
And stiiiiiiill nothing on the decorations for Aradia's field. I've been too busy with Vidya games to do it.

[BubblegumPatty]

Double post bump, Look at me I'm a rebel !!1!!one!

Okay, so claus, Progress report? how's programming going?
and also still no more art. cause of PROCRASTINATION, that's why.

[MaskedClaus]

Um, progress update. Ok.

I started working on the Trollian menu, but then I realised that we would maybe need to have ship specific conversations, so I started working on the romance system instead. I wanted to wait and do that later, but I think I'll just try to finish all the big complicated programing jobs like that, so I can spend more time on story/level design/whatever.

Anyway, I'm working on those two things and I'm surprised because I'm making progress without making the game crash or creating weird bugs that take hours to fix. So I guess I'll talk about that more when there will be more progress.

[MaskedClaus]

Um, quick update: The basic romance mechanic is working. It's really just the beginning, the game can detect when the characters from a ship are together and give them points under certains conditions (right now they gain points when winning a battle, but that's just for testing, it'll probably change) and after a certain number of points the game consider that they are a couple, but it doesn't do anything else right now.

That's enough for me to go back and work on Trollian. Anyway, the quadrants aren't going to be used until later.

[MaskedClaus]

Progress Update!

Here's what the Trollian message window look like right now:

It's all buggy and text-colorless and it doesn't close, but that's some cool progress.

Also, it take the pesterlog from a text file in one of the game folders, so you only have to write the text, place it inside of the right folder and it work (I'm pretty sure that if somebody playing the game would try to add a pesterlog it would work). So it's easier to add text than having to write all of it in the code.