What's up, RMers?

[DerVVulfman]

Yeah, I can't leave well enough alone.  Still working on this little script here before I get back to spriting Akali.

• Expanded the multiple font styles with more options (underline and strikethru)? *  CHECK
  
• Able to customize colors of specialized font options?  CHECK
  
• Functional forced page-break system?  INCOMPLETE... CHECK
  
• Demo created?  INCOMPLETE
  

There's an actual library with over 30 books in the demo right now. I might add about a half-dozen more.

Oh, there are things that this script currently can NOT accomplish.

• No justification to center or right alignment. Left Justification is fixed.
  
• Only one font and font size available per book or scroll.
  
• Limited solely to the characters and letters permitted by the RPGMaker message engine. No custom characters like ¿, © or é.
  

[DerVVulfman]

Well.... I now have a fully stocked library, a book at every RTP bookshelf, and nearly 40 individual books in which to read, one with over 80 pages!

I will need to change some event code ... a little touch up.... to prevent some issues if the player tries to do something before a 'gag' finishes being performed. Nothing major. Just one of those Don't do this until THAT is done issues, and an easy fix. And I do need to do a little 'cleaning' of the code. Oh, it's all broken into proper segments, but I like to eliminate unnecessary white-space clutter AFTER statements, and remove unexpected line breaks where I don't want them.

And after that, Instruction-Writing time!!!!

[Kain Nobel]

SDK, MACL and Minkoff are all undergoing some changes. The updated SDK and MACL might be released sooner rather than later, whenever I find the time to make the rounds to all these different forums, but I don't know about the new Minkoff system. All compatibility patches have been removed completely, the code has been shrunk, developer config fundamentally changed, mixed it up with my CMS (which also has a player config screen for the Minkoff/ATB) and it's moving further and further away from what the original used to be at an accelerating pace. Now that it is the player applying certain settings and not solely the developer, this involves non-CONSTANT readable/writable data which requires saving/loading. Not a big deal and actually I was able to remove the New Game/Save/Load patches as it works internally via Game_System now which is already a save/load object.

Originally I was just simply going to apply some DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself) principles to Minkoff and maybe fix some bugs. In the end, this rewrite has fundamentally changed the Minkoff system and has touched on everything else within the project too. This has been a grueling process and it is still ongoing with mixed but mostly positive results thus far. I'm hoping this can be 0 bugs by June as far as the battle animation system goes. The ATB itself is undergoing changes but I have to finish the Minkoff-ish stuff before I get too involved with it. By next summer, I hope I never have to touch the system again except to add new battlers and apply the visual equipment system.

All FL Studio files have been lost, including soundfont instruments and everything else. I'm reeling. Yeah, I have the rendered music files, I still have FL Studio and a couple other DAWs, but there is 5½ hours worth of music I can no longer go back and edit. Two years ago there were extensive notes taken for every minute of each one of those tracks, what needed to be changed, but now they're set in stone. An unfortunate predicament, now I'm stuck with what I have and what will be made in the future. No going back now.

[Kain Nobel]

I really need an "Idiots Guide to Using mkxp/HiddenChest" lol

I need to clarify that "Project Echo" != "Echoside" - the title is null and void from this point forward.

The Insane Clown Posse have a card game out called "Into The Echoside", dubbed "Magic the Gathering for Juggalos"  by one reviewer. You can read more about it here if for whoever is interested in checking it out. I have nothing to do with this, it appears to be mastermined by Jumpsteady and another ninja. I'm sure it's pretty sweet, I might check it out myself :)

The "Echoside" title was a track from Bizaar/Bizzar era when my game was originally conceptualized, which I figured was fair use at that time, but now that they've made a card game too I'm calling it "Project Echo" instead (until I come up with the proper title.) I don't know how long the card game has been around but I think it would be bad taste to share the name so that's why I'm dropping it. However I'm sure something inspired by the crazy clowns may make it into the project, I like crazy clowns, hehehehehehahahaHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!

[kyonides]

How weird! It still features RGSS stuff, there are just few other stuff beside the basics. I will post some extra information on the corresponding thread just in case.

[kyonides]

Well, lately I have been busy converting over 1400 lines of pure Ruby code to CRuby one in order to be able to add as many (extra) default attributes for classes like RPG::Actor or RPG::Weapon or RPG::Armor as I want to. Yeah, I have not many ideas to implement for XP games, plus I need to fix minor issues here and there... Don't worry, pals! I would never do that to the stable branch of hiddenchest so go feel relieved now. But there is still a long road ahead...

Since I had activated several RGSS3 methods like wave_amp, wave_length, wave_speed, and wave_phase in RGSS1 games days or weeks ago, all sprites can get their benefits at any given time.

By the way, I want to complain, again, for the lack of ideas to implement in hiddenchest. I am getting bored, lazier than usual, eating more popcorn and tamales than ever before... Guys, give me some work to do in my spare time!

[Kain Nobel]

Battle system re-write is going okay, but it has its problems. Poses seem random at times and nothing is making sense yet. Dead people are slowly and suddenly starting to fill their AT bars at 1/256th time and enemies can no longer revive their dead pals which renders 3 of my boss fights and 1 encounter completely NERFED!



My son doesn't like the new sprite style - hasn't for about a year now. He says they're "too thin and too tall". Once I purge every last bit of RTP resources out of the project (ie maps) I hope and imagine he'll have a different opinion, especially when the characters fit in beds and tables aren't at their ankles.



As for now, I'm focused on getting this battle system working 100% and stable again. I'm pleased with the results thus far but let's not even mention the chaos associated with the new draft.

[kyonides]

I do think that your son got to be right about how thin they are. How would a fat guy look like? Like the average guy? Even so they look decent, but it would be great to peek on more original characters than the blonde dude, would one still be able to connect with unknown characters the way we do with Final Fantasy ones? We need to know!

[Kain Nobel]

Well this is a grown Eric Cartman (South Park) compared to the scrawny Cloud (FF7), just as a comparison of fat to skinny.



I'm not ready to make original mainline characters yet, it's not even close to a high priority at this point. Right now I'm just making sprites of famous fictional characters and saving the pieces, mostly for practice and also for the individual clothing, hair and accessory parts that can be reused later. Battle sprites are in the same prototype phase as character sprites, same situation, visual equipment is going to take even more time.

I'll try to come up with something original and cool but in the meantime... ;)

[kyonides]

I keep developing the experimental branch of hiddenchest for Linux and only let a few people try to test the win32 version. So far it seems to be a success except for a few RPG::Sprite methods I have not converted from pure Ruby to a CRuby - C++ mix. Why do I do that? Well, even if it was extremely to parse a 1500 lines long Ruby script, I felt I needed to add or change a few elements here and there for speedup or just for learning from the experience. This version now shows more weather sprites, up to 200 sprites at maximum level! The rest of the changes aren't impressive at all. Since I lack of ideas to implement, I haven't been able to add anything worth watching on screen.