After much discussion with the wretched hive of scum and villainy that is our Discord server, there have been some changes to how Carnation works. I will be making a larger post on that later on. Development on it is going well, there are only a few art assets left and most of the underlying game mechanics are ready to go. I basically have a big to-do list, once it gets a bit shorter I’ll start posting it to give an idea of how far we are off from a prototype release.
My prediction is October or Early November, depending heavily on how the bugtesting goes.
The prototype will be free to play just like Witch Hunter Izana’s was, and at that point Inky and I will figure out how we want to fund and develop the game.
Harpy Sanya?
This combat pose rules.
Fan Art!
I’m not going to explain why this happened but here’s Sanya as a skullcrawler/skitterer.
I am also not going to explain why Lydie, Natalie’s ghost maid friend from chapter 1, is now a digimon destined or whatever (I didn’t watch the show sorry).
Look, even if I did explain this it wouldn’t amount to anything, it’d be a word salad. Just enjoy that it looks cool and I can’t be sued for it.
Carnation work is going well, getting almost to a playable state within I think a week. I’m missing the GUIs that will let you actually use the features in question, though so it’ll be a bit longer before I can start internal playtesting. I want to make another post on the game but not just yet, so more later.
Meanwhile, Chicmonster (who did the art for Witch Hunter Izana) is now working on contract on chapter 2. You’ll be getting some Sanya talk sprites out of her, hooray.
Christine Secrebot now has a PDU pose. It had sort of slipped through the cracks with all the stuff that was going on, well Koops made one. Christine regards the PDU, a device that literally obsoleted secrebots which she is now one of, with exactly the suspicion and disdain all secrebots should.
Stinkehund is working on a cool thing that we thought would take a month and is now probably going to take two, but it’s really cool so it’s okay. Hopefully you’ll see it soon.
That’s right, at long last we got it done. There’s been some tumult recently but our art lead is art leading and we’re making progress on chapter 2. The bunny TF is complete, I have the harpy dialogue portraits on the way, and maybe a secret TF that will be announced later???
On Carnation, I am currently working my way through the combat changes. Abilities are now per-class instead of per-character like in RoP, so there were some issues that needed to be attended to (such as all the abilities thinking they were owned by the first party member – and using up his SP!). I am next going to work on getting items up to spec, as they are also quite different from RoP’s version and even WHI’s. Items in Carnation are instantly used without using up your turn, so they are somewhat like 55’s Effortless Action class change skills.
Urimas has delivered the steam droid idle animations and I think we’ll be getting eldritch Christine animations next. Hund is working on a very cool thing that will be revealed later.
The next Tales of Strings is on its way! Art and audiobook are contracted, editing is done. When will it come out? My goal is sometime in September. The first one has alllllmost made back its budget, so it’s time for round 2.
And lastly, our most important team member found a spot to hide.
Imagine the power you’d have if you were permanently invisible.
Fan Art, The Wiki!
After much battling with html or xml or whatever, Xandra has made us a wiki! It’s a community project so pitch in. Currently, it has some pages on slimes and such, with in-game stats and image galleries. Like all good long-term projects it’ll get better if you believe. Alice even made some nice chibis :3
Meanwhile, the secrebots got two new members. I think CR-2-1 and CR-2-2 would be happy that all their friends are now secrebots, too. I would say that but I think they won’t really be happy until everyone is secrebots. Art by Dias, commissioned by Justin Kinniger.
Curious Cat
Surprise Niko!
Niko is a master ambush predator, seen here imitating a loaf of bread.
Done with the UI upgrades for now, I’m working on Carnation’s combat. The game uses a greatly modified class system, accuracy, damage formula, and other hoo-ha. I’m mostly done setting those up, after which the equipment upgrade system will be my next thing. The massive combat back-end overhaul we did earlier this year has paid off big time, what would have taken a month before has basically taken less than a week.
Meanwhile, Sanya Sevavi is almost done but Koops hurt her hand and Doctor Niko is on the case (vibration therapy). It’ll be fine and she’ll be back to work soon.
I have completed half the UI overhaul. Because this has caused me to go insane, I have decided to proceed with Carnation development and finish the UI overhaul later. I’ve already finished overhauling all of the Carnation UI stuff anyway so there’s nothing holding me back.
And what a benefit it is! It’s already 100x easier to work on, great work, me. We’re already benefitting from our hard work. Glad I’m not me three weeks ago!
The UI code layout was terrible and now it is usable and we’re not done yet. We’re not done yet. I’m just over halfway done because Vendor and Equip taken together are about 1/3rd the total actual UI code.
Maybe another week and change and the UI overhaul is done. I’ve massively improved the system, even found and fixed a few bugs, lowered the memory footprint, and improved load times. Oh, and the code has a lot of removed redundancy.
If you don’t understand what the hell I’m talking about, it’s coding stuff. It means I’m spending time now to save gobs of time over the next few years. When new games are made or new UIs get added to RoP, such as switching party members, it will be 1000x easier to do it with the new code layout. Invest in your future, hire a coder today!
Urimas is working on those idle animations and Hund is making a map. I have several candidates selected for possible new hires, and Dias is working on the bunny TF comic.
I am hoping that all of the TF sequences will be ready for chapter 2 by the time work resumes on it after the Carnation prototype is out.
Tales of Strings: Instruments is on Amazon!
If you liked the look of Tales of Strings: Instruments on Itch but had some kind of problem with itch.io, now it’s on Amazon. There are some services like audiobooks that you might have access to for free if you already have Amazon Prime, try it out!
I’ve seen a good reaction to the story so more are on the way. :3
Fan ART
The fastest way to my heart is puppet TF. This one is by Animerionettes! Thanks it looks wonderful.
Curious Cat
“Ha ha I made it all the way through a post without getting ambushed by Pumpkin” -You, being WRONG
The time has come. I am redoing the goddamn UI. It has taken a week and it’ll probably take another week but it is overdue. Restructuring the UI to be easier to work with, with less redundant code and more automation, is the right choice.
What does this mean to you? Nothing. Nothing at all because the whole thing will look identical when I am done. The code will just be easier to work with and less prone to causing bugs when I add new stuff or make new games.
Just know that I’m tired and it’s going to save 500 hours of work over the course of 10 years. Long term investments!
I’ve updated Carnation’s buy/sell stuff and am going to be working on getting the UI up to spec. I have also optimized some stuff in the C++ code so you can now directly load assets into C++ objects, which is another step on the road to fully moddable UI elements. Will that ever happen? Maybe! I really do want to encourage mod development but it’s a ton of extra work to do. Still, this will if nothing else slightly reduce loading times.
Oh and I have been considering changing the Harpy Tower Defense minigame in chapter 2 to Harpy Autochess. The purpose of the minigame is to both give the player something fun and cool to do besides beating the shit out of monsters (though that is fun), and to give you a better impression of the fact that the harpies actually do have an army.
One of the problems omnipresent in games is that the scope of things isn’t always clear, due to technical limitations. It’d be a lot of fun to put in 6000 harpy NPCs in a huge military camp but I think the call of “not doing that” is much stronger. Instead, you put in as many characters as you need in order to save on resources. So the player is always of the impression that the harpy army is 20 people over 3 game screens. It isn’t! There are thousands of them! Hence why TD/Autochess exists.
I’ll make a patron poll once Carnation is prototyped and ask the great mass of the patrons what they think. I’m sure everyone will be measured and reasonable.
What Could Have Been
Art by Xandra. You made Pyxxis cry. I’m not tearing up, you are!
Before we get to the Carnation stuff: Urimas has finished some more idle animations, Koops has finished the style bible, and Hund is working on the big map reveal. I’ve also got some TOP SECRET individual working on some more chapter 2 talk sprites.
I also borrowed a second monitor and bought a new HDMI cable (because the old one freaking broke) so I could greatly improve the engine’s support for multi-monitor setups. Unfortunately the version of Allegro it currently uses is bugged, but the SDL version works. I may have to update the Allegro version after Carnation is out.
Project Carnation
Possible Title: Witches of Ravenbrook
Carnation is an RPG dungeon crawler where your three humans must confront and defeat the so-titled Witches of Ravenbrook in a turn-based combat system with upgradeable equipment and changeable classes.
There’s TF involved, as if I had to tell you that.
After several iterations of design, we’ve settled on what I’m calling an Influence system. When a character’s HP reaches 0, they gain a point of influence, which advances the transformation. As you level up you can increase the influence cap, slowing down transformations, but when the transformation is complete, that party member is hostile for the remainder of the expedition.
Your party enters dungeons and is not always expected to succeed, as the difficulty is intentionally high but fair. If you fail to reach the end and beat the boss, then you keep half of the gained EXP and money. I wanted to make it acceptable and okay to go get transformed, make it part of the gameplay, while still giving you the ability to overcome it.
The art lead is Inkyfluffs, the internationally renowned artist who worked on such titles as String Tyrant and is currently making Covenstead. The characters of Chris, Beth, and Lore are also her design and she’s handling the overall setting and writing. I, Salty, am doing the more game-y parts, like balance, layout, and the actual C++ part.
Presently the prototype is a few months out. I want to overhaul the combat system some more. Navigation is mostly complete but will likely need a few more backgrounds, we’ll know for sure once the final product is ready. I have further ideas on how to handle the navigation part but we’re making a prototype to see if people are interested in this kind of gameplay.
The combat system actually uses a lot of RoP’s guts with a number of small changes I may go into in a later update. Dialogue is also using RoP’s basic talk sprite system.
So there you have it, the semi-reveal of Project Carnation. If you love it or hate it, let us know on Discord or email or just, flag me down in the street and yell at me from a rolled-down window. Do whatever you want.
Fan Art
Here we have SX-399 and Unit 499323, or as they are now called, CR-2-2 and CR-2-3! Brand new secrebots ready to serve. Please don’t look further into their pasts, they’re fresh off the assembly line!
These were drawn by Dias and you can find their DA pages here and here. Thanks, Justinkombat888!
The upcoming Windthrall form hasn’t actually been concepted yet though the base enemy has. So local maniac Xandrasubmarine asked, what if they were cool as hell. Here’s the answer. This is what Jeanne would look like if she merged with one.
Why it’s fan-art of Dmitri! Taken by Koops, it’s so realistic!
Koops is presently working on the art bible, Hund is working on a big map that I’ll show off later, and right now I’m working on Project Carnation. It’s not quiiiiite ready to show off, but it’s getting quite close to a point where I’d start showing off some teasers and progress reports. I’m making rapid progress on the layout work, though the UI leaves a lot to be desired. Yay!
I have also completed the third and final String Tyrant Story. Taken together all three are the length of a medium-sized novel. They’re going into editing, and then we’ll look at publishing them in full.
Pandemonium Development 