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

[BubblegumPatty]

I think you mean Mother games (only the second one and the only one that got released here is called Earthbound).
I recommend Mother 3 for Gameboy Advance, Which you can download the rom for And the fan translation online. It's the one we're basing most of the graphics/mechanics on.

And I'm still here. Do we need any sprites or art or anything? I'm in a bit of a rut.

[Blastoking]

I think you mean Mother games (only the second one and the only one that got released here is called Earthbound).
I recommend Mother 3 for Gameboy Advance, Which you can download the rom for And the fan translation online. It's the one we're basing most of the graphics/mechanics on.

And I'm still here. Do we need any sprites or art or anything? I'm in a bit of a rut.

All right, yeah see I haven't played any of the games so I don't know that, but all right I'll try that game out.

[Dxpenguinman]

Woot, nice, this thread is picking up steam. I wish I could help out more but I've been so busy with exams lately.

Grrrr, I might just make a random chiptune out of boredom and upload it, we'll see.

[MaskedClaus]

Hey, just wanted to nak because I haven't said anything recently.

I didn't really do anything useful in the last few days, because of school and things like that. I just didn't really have the time to do anything. And I was kind of stuck with the equipment.

I was trying to fuck around with the code for the equipment and the equip menu to make it work with the way I handle items, but I didn't a lot of progress with that...

At least now I understand more how all that stuff work and I though about how I could make it work and uhh, I wrote some ideas on paper that I need to try.

Anyway, I don't think I'll do anything right now, but I have a 3 day long weekend, so I'll to work more during that time.

[TaoJaz]

I was thinking, and I'd like to write all the Trollian conversations, if possible. It sounds really fun to write, for example, Equius - Feferi convos, or Gamzee - Eridan, Kanaya - Vriska, Terezi - Tavros, Karkat - Nepeta, etc. etc.
So yeah, I guess I'm signing up for that.

[Gira]

...Beat me to the punch. xD

I've been stalking this fangame since... pretty much the beginning of the thread, and even though my spriting skills are pretty rusty (and I can't code for anything), I do write the trolls a lot (as well as have experience writing about half of them individually for roleplaying), so I would be willing to help out with the conversations as well.

[Maggyo]

About the large amount of party members, I dunno if it was discussed earlier in the thread, but would you be able to select four or five trolls from a group or would they come and go, similar to the FFIV party?

[BubblegumPatty]

I don't know for sure, but with how most RPGs go, I'm pretty sure you can't have any more then 4 members in your party.

[MaskedClaus]

Okay, I'm stuck on my iPod right now, so I can't nak a lot *(My little brother is on my pc), but I'll edit this post as soon as I can.

First, TaoJaz and Gira, I'm really happy that you want to help with writing! I'll talk about that when I get on my pc.

About the number of party members: The limit is four people fighting at once, but the game can handle multiple parties existing at the same time. I'm having some trouble exaining how it work clearly, so I'll try in that spoiler

Okay I started writing a lot if stuff but I can't finish it now, I'll have to go for about an hour. I'll finish my post after that.

I have a lot more stuff to talk about.




Ughhhhh... I'm back, but I don't want to write... I'll take care of that tomorow.

I wanted to talk about the way you switch from one party to another and I had some stuff to say about the plot. Oh and some stuff about the gameplay that I though about a lot... Basically, there's a couple of ideas that I think just don't work or aren't as good as they sounded at first...

A lot of stuff like that that I never talked about because I've been neglecting this thread...

[BubblegumPatty]

Well then it's time to stop neglecting it then!

Like I said before, do we need any more sprite work done?

[MaskedClaus]

(That post is half finished and I still have things to say. I just gotta leave my computer now and I can't finish it. There's a lot of stuff that I have problems explaining because I'm so terrible at talking in English... And I'm not even sure what I'm saying make sense...)



^Yes, but I have no idea what exactly. It's obvious that there's still a lot of things to do, but I don't know what need to be done right now and I don't have anything particuliar in mind... Because I'm not working on the maps so I don't know what will be needed. Ah oh god I can't finish writting this I gotta close my computer.


About the things I think aren't really good ideas:
First thing I can think of is Eridan's gun. I can't find any good way to make the charging lazer gimmick. It's just not a good idea... I guess I'll just keep the white magic thing and make his gun(s?) a normal weapon...

Another thing that's just not going to work is the big complicated system about the quadrants. I liked the idea of being able to, uhhhhh, "ship" trolls in game and maybe have some special conversations about that or something, but it really can't work the way I though...

There will be too many relashionships with 12 characters and four quadrants, I can't find good ways to make the four quadrants happen at the same speed (Like, I dunno, winning battles make Matespritship happen or something). And the idea for Nepeta's power kind of sucked... And don't know what they should do anyway: Giving small stat boosts suck because nobody care about small stat boosts and I don't want to give some kind of special abilities to characters in a relashionship because I'm starting to think that the game is getting saturated with stuff like that. I don't wanna make it too complicated.


But it doesn't mean I want to cut that from the game completely, because I liked the idea, so maybe I'll keep it but won't make it do anything useful and just keep it for fun or something. I really can't explain what I'm thinking right now...Sorry...


The problem now is that there's no special ability for Nepeta now. I'm trying to figure that out. Bluh bluh bluh, I still have more things to say, but I had almost no time to go on my pc today and I'm going to sleep...

I'll continue this from my iPod.

[shinyjiggly]

Well, for Eridan's gun, you can use a move called "charge" which could add one to a variable which could be spent on different types of shots, like a strong focused one, a spreaded weak one, or other things like that (yes, I got that from BtSDLB, but it's a pretty cool mechanic for Ahab's crosshairs).
Example:
Charge: Adds 1 CH
Thin 1: 1 CH (hits 1 with 3 attk)
Thick 1: 1 CH (hits 2 with 2 attk)
Wide 1: 1 CH (hits 3 with 1 attk)
Thin 2: 2 CH (hits 1 with 6 attk)
Thick 2: 2 CH (hits 2 with 5 attk)
Wide 2:...

Nepeta's special ability... were you thinking more of whatever her "troll power" is, or her Rogue of Heart powers? Either way, it is quite a challenge to come up with something for her, since we didn't really see that much of her in battle over the course of the story.
First of all, it is known that the rogue title is a more passive one that has to do with redistribution or carving one's own path with the chosen aspect, in this case being heart. Secondly, the aspect heart is supposed to have a lot to do with feelings, souls, and gooshy stuff like that. So a possible ability that she could have might be similar to Manaphy's signature move Heart swap (which switches who controls whom for an amount of time). The only problem with this is that there is absolutely no canon to back this possibility up, so she would probably only have this ability in a doomed timeline.
I'm guessing that the only thing that would somehow classify as a "troll power" would be her cat abilities or something like that. There's a character in Chrono Trigger who also has a lot of cat features that we might want to pull some ideas from (the cavewoman with the blonde hair). She happens to have the ability to charm monsters into giving up their held items, lift huge rocks/rock-based monsters, dance, and some other stuff that I presently don't remember. Another thing to remember is that this character does not have a specific affinity for any elements (Chrono trigger plot reasons will tell you why).
While I can't exactly see Nepeta picking up a marble ogre and chucking it for massive damage, I can more likely see her using her charm to maybe get some monsters to give her some stuff. Or maybe not. She seems more like the type that takes this hunting thing seriously and just stalks her prey with the intent to scratch their faces off and rip them to shreds.

But whatever special abilities you do give her, make sure that they match up well with her character and are fairly balanced.

[BubblegumPatty]

Well Rogue of heart litterally means "Steals Heart (AKA Soul) for the benefit of her team". So Maybe Her power could to Steal PP/Mana from Enemies, and use it to replenish the other Troll's PP/Mana. Kinda like PSI Magnet, but for the team.

[MaskedClaus]

I'm making a post here really quick before going to bed. I made some progress on the equipment today. So far, it's possible to open a troll's equipment screen, select something like weapon and a window will open showing you all the items that can be equiped in that troll's inventory. And you can equip the one you want.

I guess have must have almost half the work done on that. You can't unequip things yet and the name of the equiped thing doesn't show up in the menu for exemple.


I also created a google doc thingy to add information about the twelve lands. I will link to it after I finish dumping ideas in it. I wanted to do this to make it easier to keep track of all the things that could be said about them. And it could serve as a reference for writers.

I'll add some stuff about the story and trollian tomorow. I don't have time to finish this tonight.



edit: shit I did almost nothing today. I didn't have much time to go on my computer. School thing. Anyway, I'm probably going to write some stuff on my iPod and put it there... The only thing I made today is make the game tell you that you can't use an item that you need to equip.

[MaskedClaus]

This is now a shitty thing that exist (and is also late): Doc
There's not a lot of things on it yet. I was planning on doing something similar for the game's plot soon. It's supposed to let anybody with the link edit it if anybody wants to add anything. Just write in a special color if you want to. I'll try to make it less terrible with time.

[Dakloze Duif]

And Earthbound/Homestuck game? Looking forward to it!

[MaskedClaus]

Okay, okay.. I did something today. I was trying to find a way to make equipment work with the new item menu, but there was a ton of problems because I didn't do it well. And I ended up deleting things that should be deleted and I lost some progress on the items.

But I don't really care now, because I'm pretty sure the way I was making the items wouldn't have worked anyway. And I made some research and found an already made script that is made to create more than one inventory. If I think about it enough I'm sure I'll be able to find a way to make individual inventory for every trolls.

So in the end I made a mistake but it solved a bunch of problems.

[MaskedClaus]

Hey, hey, hey.

That way I'm doing the individual inventories is way better than the last one. I made more progress in two days than in the last week. Basically, I'm just using a really simple premade script that help creating more than one inventory and I make one for every characters, so I can still use all the code for items and equipment that comes with Rpg Maker XP. That's a lot more simple than before when I was trying to rewrite almost all that stuff entirely.

[MaskedClaus]

Okay, I don't have much time to write this. I'll try my best to explain.

First: I made the inventory thing in a new Rpg Maker game, because I thought it would be easier to do. And it was. But the problem it made is that it's causing a couple of problems when I try to add it into Mother Grub. Some incompatibility thingy because it doesn't work with other part of the code. I'll do my best to fix it.

Second: Since fixing bugs is a pain in the ass, I'm going to do that more slowly and focus on everything I've been overlooking like the plot, art, or writting. I already started by writting some stuff in google docs. So now, instead of only having the doc about the lands, there is three documents. They're in that link.

There's three things in there now: The doc about the lands, A document were I try to explain my ideas about the plot and the "quests" and some naks about pesterlogs.

Everything in there is unfinished. It's also really badly written as usual. I'm going to continue it tomorrow, but I think I should mention that I will be away from Wednesday to Sunday because I will be in a voyage thingy with my school. Bad time to relive this thread.

[ObeseCatLord]

Have you thought of adding the Land of Wrath and Angels? From what I have seen it would make an interesting segment, pretty strange with lots of buildings. Though the Angels themselves would make strange enemies. Just having a segment where Eridan gets his wwhite science powers might be nice.

[BubblegumPatty]

All the lands from the Trolls session, and most likely Skaia, Derse, Prospit, and Maybe the Veil will be included in the game. So yes, LoWaA is in the game.

[Woe Kitten]

One of the more aquatic lands, Dew and Glass maybe, could have axolotls as consorts. They would look kind of like Woopers, it'd be cute. /transparent thread bump

[BubblegumPatty]

One of the more aquatic lands, Dew and Glass maybe, could have axolotls as consorts. They would look kind of like Woopers, it'd be cute. /transparent thread bump

I guess? even though Their Technically salamanders.

[Woe Kitten]

That's true. But as far as I know, newts are in the salamander family anyway. I just thought axolotls would be visually distinctive.

Shrug. We probably won't get to Dew and Glass for some time, so it's mostly a non-issue. I think I'm going to try drawing some consort concept art once I get some spare time. If nobody minds, or course.

[MaskedClaus]

That's true. But as far as I know, newts are in the salamander family anyway. I just thought axolotls would be visually distinctive.

Shrug. We probably won't get to Dew and Glass for some time, so it's mostly a non-issue. I think I'm going to try drawing some consort concept art once I get some spare time. If nobody minds, or course.

Nobody minds. BubblegumPatty made a bunch of suggestions a while ago, you could look at that or do something else if you want.

show spoiler

hide spoiler

I'm going to place my suggestions/Bets:

LOQAM: Toads
LOSAZ: Iguanas/ whatever Jade's are
LOBAF: One of these weird Snake/Worm like things.
LOPAH: Snakes
LOLCAT: Gekko
LORAF: Turtles
LOTAF: Crocodiles
LOMAT: Salamanders
LOCAS: Tortois
LOTAM: Chameleon
LAWAA: Tuatara
LADAG: Newts

Oh and I didn't say anything here recently. I'm a little busy right now with school exams and stuff, but I'm still doing stuff. I'm still trying to get everything to work together because I have a bunch of differents scripts that aren't compatible. I pretty much only opening a new game, making it crash, fixing the problem and opening another game over and over again and it's really boring.

I have a bunch of things written that I need to post, but I never finished writting it all. I need to finish that too. I'll probably post everything I can tonight.