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spacesave-game · 5 years

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Version 1.4 News & other boring stuff

Good whichever-time-of-a-day-it-is! Here’s some irregularly scheduled piece of SpaceSave-related news and some things around it, which affect the development of a new version. It’s been nearly 7 months since the upload of the latest version and around 4 months since last post, so I guess it’s a good time to drop some info. Before we go into specifics, let’s delve into the state of my development process this year. It’s been a long time, so the post is going to be long as well! I’m sorry...

TL DR(I don’t blame you...): SpaceSave version 1.4 is in development and will release later this year. Also – I’m making a new game.

AlSO, A WARNING – TODAY’S SCREENSHOTS CONTAIN DEPICTIONS OF BLOOD. SO, IF YOU DON’T LIKE THICK TOMATO JUICE – BE WARNED.(I made tags, but I’m writing it here, just to be sure)

These last months has been pretty busy for me, in both personal life and game development. I haven’t been working on SpaceSave’s new version at all, right until three weeks ago or so. As I’ve noted in my last post – version 1.3 turned up to be very time consuming for me, so much so that I had to put my new, main project on hold(I still worked on it from time to time, but the progress was minimal) , just so I could finish the update in a timely manner. I eventually did release version 1.3 on time for my self-imposed deadline and the game was upgraded quite considerably, but it left me burned out in the process and with a small feeling of guilt, caused by ignoring my new project. Thus, after uploading the current version, in December, I’ve decided to take a break from SpaceSave and focus on that new project instead(development of which had a pretty major problem of its own, but we’ll talk about it later ). And this is basically what I was doing since last version’s release. Thankfully, that break was pretty rejuvenating – I’ve came back to SpaceSave, ended up enjoying working on it again and are making progress at a nice pace.

Okay, the boring stuff’s over. Below will be an actual info about new version of SpaceSave and... a new project? Well, that turned out unexpected.

SpaceSave v.1.4

As explained in my latest post about the same issue – this update will be much more humble than the last one, focused mostly on bug fixes, since I want to thoroughly test the whole game again. That being said – there will be some snippets of new content. To not reveal too much right now – one new, shorter questline is planned and I’ve already mapped it out, although I still have to create new(well, mostly recycled, but you get the point) assets for that and actually implement it in the game. As for the new stuff that’s already been added(may contain spoilers):

- New... character?:

- Also, now there are two types of soldiers, instead of one(there are also more sprite variations for them as well) on Day 4:

Now, the urban(that’s grey, for normal people) camo is the same type of soldiers that were in the base game with the same skills. The green(I call it “forest”) variant however uses incendiary grenades, which can put your entire party on fire. It’s a small change but should add some variety.

- New Items:

First, there is a new special item that you can get from hidden vendors(what, you didn’t know there were hidden vendors in the game? Well, now you know)

Heretical Book – (Description from the game)

Written in fake blood for better effect!

Use these dark secrets to fully revive an ally!

Since there is a new type of soldier, there is also a new type of grenade:

Incendiary Grenade– (Description from the game)

A real thing. Less damaging than a normal one,

but can put all enemies on fire.

The regular grenade also received a small boost in damage, since it was a little too weak in the base game, especially when you remember that it was supposed to be... well... a grenade.

There is a number of other things that I’ve already added, fixes and tweaks, but I’m going to skip them for this post and leave ‘em for an actual announcement, which is still quite a way ahead. I’m going to do a proper post about it, with a release date, as always – at least two weeks before uploading a new version. For now, the progress is going pretty alright, but I still focus more attention on my new project. The plan is, that I’m going to work on SpaceSave as much as I can, but when I’ll notice that version 1.4 will start to eat up into my main project - I’ll wrap the update up, finish things that I’ve already started to work on and release it. Another alternative is that I’ll manage to do all the work I’ve planned to do for this update(I keep a handy list for stuff like that) and if I keep my current pace – it’s pretty likely going to happen.

To summarize – I guess you can expect a new version, at best, in the early autumn. At worst – somewhere later, but it will certainly be this year.

New Project(!):

Yeah, I’ve been talking about it for quite a while, even in this post. I’m making a new game! It’s been in development since late December 2017, two weeks or so after the release of the first version of SpaceSave, although I’d say that I seriously started working on it after version 1.3, since I’ve finally got time to do so. Before that, I was mostly making assets for it.

In the February of this year, I’ve finally got enough assets to start working on a prototype, since this is a quite a different game from SpaceSave, more complex gameplay-wise. Naturally, I’ve wanted to test out how these mechanics work and how the whole game feels to play. Good ideas on paper don’t always result in an enjoyable game. There was also another thing I’ve wanted to check – the engine. For this project, I’ve decided to use the latest RPG Maker MV and there were two reasons for that:

- Bigger sprite sizes and with these – more detailed sprites – which was the main reason

And obviously...

- I owned it for some time already and wanted to justify the purchase

However, you’re probably pretty well aware about MV’s reputation as an engine that is pretty unstable. By creating a prototype I wanted to see if that’s true, before I started working on it proper. And, oh boy, MV didn’t waste any time proving all the bad rumours about it right, for me. I may have sucked at working with it, but when I did – the engine was slow, menus were janky, graphical glitches were everywhere, more complicated events broke almost every time(sometimes they actually worked, but broke later after no changes whatsoever) – hell, sometimes, after the software update, the entire game could break and I had to update project’s files manually.

In short, it was a mess. It was already March at that point in time and while the progress on the prototype itself was going swell, constant problems in the events for crucial parts of the game were infuriating. Finally, I’ve decided that if I want this project to survive – I need to start over and make it again in VX Ace. I have already made a lot of assets at this point(we’re talking around 86 spritesheets here and that’s only for characters and overworld animations, not counting stuff like tilesets here) and while battlers and animations could be reused no problem – all the sprites made by MV’s standards and most pictures made for MV resolution had to be redrawn. It was a hard decision to make, since it would take a very long time, but I’ve decided to go for it. The only possible alternatives were either keep making it on MV and risk creating an inferior game(at best) or to scrap it altogether. I really like this project and want to see it to the very end, like SpaceSave, so I didn’t want it to just die in such an anticlimactic way. So, for the rest of the March and the entirety of April – I’ve managed to painstakingly remake every single graphical asset that needed it, to fit VX Ace’s standards. T he operation was a success and I’ve finally been able to continue my work! But before that, there was still one thing to do.

When I was busy remaking assets, the prototype for MV was obviously put on hold. However, after I’ve finished working on the asset problem, I’ve decided to complete that version. It was already half-done anyway, so sure, why not - I could still use it to test out the game mechanics, even if some of them will probably be borderline broken. I’ve spent the entire May working on it and finally – on the very first day of June – it was sent to a few carefully selected victims individuals.

The prototype in its barely working state, to my relief, turned out pretty fine. All the mechanics are there, giving me a good blueprint to use in an actual version and its fairly enjoyable. The people I’ve sent it to were pretty positive about it as well. So, everything turned out fine in the end! Now... I just need to actually make the darn game, oh boy...

Anyway, as a reward for you for reading this boring wall of text – here are some screenshots from the described prototype! Please keep in mind, that the screenshots you’ll see below are from a version that will, well, never be released and the actual game will look different, although it will be similar in style and gameplay. That being said – it should give you a general idea about what I’m going for with this game, but remember that it’s VERY WiP. It is also not an announcement(we’re, at the very least, one year before that), that’s why I’m not going to give you any dates, descriptions or concrete information. Sorry, you’ll need to wait some more for that!

Anyway, here are the screenshots. Enjoy(I hope)!

Picture of a robot in that particular screenshot was made by my friend Pequod, who helps me out in art-related matters

BTW. That name of this project is not real and a joke made just for these screenshots. Please don’t ask about the meaning - it’s really bad. Seriously.

Okay, that’s all from me! This post’s length is nearly criminal... Thank you very much for keeping up with SpaceSave! See you all next time, when I’ll, probably, announce version 1.4 in a proper way!

If you want to download the latest version of SpaceSave(1.3), then use this link:

DOWNLOAD HERE FROM A MIRROR OF YOUR CHOOSING

#rpg maker game #RPG Maker #indie game #gamedev #rpg maker games #indie games #indie #RPG Maker VX Ace #update #blood #spacesave

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