After Midnight Games @aftermidnight@gameliberty.club

Update #19: Road to Beta

In this devlog, I talk about completing the first full playthrough of the game in all its glory, as well as what is left to do before beta can officially start! Very exciting stuff.

https://after-midnight-games.itch.io/godsdisdain/devlog/742030/19-road-to-beta

#godsdisdain #rpgmaker #gamedev #indiedev #indiegames #indiegamedev

There is a dungeon in God's Disdain that has a game of "Slides & Ladders!" It is quite well-hidden. Do you think you'll be able to find it and get all of the treasures inside?

#gamedev #rpgmaker #godsdisdain #indiedev #indiegames

We're getting closer to beta! There may or may not be a demo coming out before then as well, so keep your eyes peeled!

It's been decided that God's Disdain will not be receiving the tileset swap and will be sticking with the original RPG Maker assets.

The main downside to this is obviously that it will look very similar to other RPG Maker games. However, almost every other piece of artwork outside of the tileset graphics is completely original, or at the very least non-standard. Hopefully that will be enough to really give the game its own identity.

That being said, the decision comes with the massive upside of the game coming out a lot sooner. I won't be taking any extra time off just because this isn't happening anymore. Starting tomorrow, I'll begin my playthrough of the game to test everything I possibly can before getting the beta ready.

Just as a little treat, here are some screenshots from the game that can, for all intents and purposes, be considered (mostly) final! I've been very protective over showing this sort of thing so far, so if you're seeing this you're one of the first handful to do so. Congratulations?

#rpgmaker #rpgmakermv #godsdisdain #rpg #gamedev #indiegamedev #indiegame #indiegames #indiedev #indie

The voice acting for the game has been completely implemented (with very minor caveats that are still in the works)!

I have been absolutely crushing my goals for the roadmap so far. The tileset swap is up next, and to be honest, I still don't even really know how it will turn out. There is the chance that I decide on sticking with modified default assets after all. We'll see soon enough.

Either way, the game will likely be going into beta much sooner than anticipated. Pretty soon here, I'm going to be putting up a thread for its development on the RPG Maker Web forums and other such places, which is something I've honestly been a little scared of doing for quite some time. With how close the game is though, I think it is time. Even if the screenshots end up changing because of the tileset swap, we're so close that I think now is the time to start drumming up interest.

Before long, the game will be in your hands, and hopefully soon after that it will be well out of mine. This past nearly 9 years has been absolutely insane and I'm loving the progress I'm making, but I definitely need to move on to something else! Which is something else that has been weighing on the decision to continue with the tileset swap or not, especially if it ends up not looking as good or being as functional as I'd like.

Until next time!

#rpgmaker #godsdisdain #indiegamedev #indiedev #indie #indiegames #rmmv #rpg

Just to keep everyone updated, here is my current progress on adding the Voice Acting. It's getting very close to being done! In fact, the whole game is close to being done. Other than the obvious few extra features and bug fixing/polish, the game is fully playable from beginning to end, side quests and all. There's more work to be done, but looking at how far the game has come and how close it is to completion is incredible.

I'll be hopefully finishing up the Kantai and Masahiro scenes this week, and the Kenshin and Captain Usange recordings will also be happening this week. The Ending scene will take a little bit longer, hopefully done by the end of next week. After that, I'll be working on the Masahiro Speeches which honestly shouldn't take too long. I should be able to finish it by the 4th of May if all goes according to plan!

The voice acting for the first chapter of the game (out of 7) has been fully implemented! Kenshin's voice lines are still placeholders so I will have to make another pass on them, but that will likely be during my own playtest once the voice acting is fully implemented and the tileset has been finished.

I have also sent the lines for the last character that needs a voice to his voice actor. Those are for chapter 3, so he has some time to get them to me and I can work on the other chapters worst case. I also need to add a few more scenes to the game to fit the lines we added later in development, but that won't come until I've finished every chapter as it currently stands in the game.

Given that I gave myself 2.5 months to do this and those months haven't even started yet, the fact that I'm already done with the first chapter is looking very good.

I've been hard at work getting the voice acting all cleaned up and ready to go. Guess what? It is finally in the stage of being put in the game!

Here is the intro cutscene with voice acting! Thanks for checking it out. Voice acting will be for select main story cutscenes and is an option you can toggle off if you do not wish to listen to it.

I also tweaked the title screen a little bit from before, lowering the amount of movement and instead adding a small flash to the logo. Let me know what you think!

#godsdisdain #rpgmaker #indiedev #indiegamedev #gamedev

I don't have too much to share at the moment, but I have started finalizing the voice tracks. It's coming along swimmingly.

Here is a little appetizer of what you'll be hearing during the game's main story cutscenes! What could be emitting these strange energy waves?

All of the tasks for February have been completed! Again, great time is being made here.

The final voice lines that need recording may need to wait a little bit because, admittedly, money is a bit tight right now. It will be done before July though, for sure!

I am completely unsure how long it will take to A) master/format the VA audio and B) implement all the lines into the game. I gave myself a long time to do this just in case it took a while, or was so mind-numbing that I need more breaks. In the event that I finish pretty early, though, the tileset swapping will start as soon as possible!

Cleaned up all of the current things possible to clean up on the To Do List already, meaning one of two tasks for February is already complete!

This included finishing up the credits scene and adding a mechanic for learning about your current karmic standing. An interesting event will occur if you have the right item!

(Graphics not final)

#godsdisdain #rpgmaker #gamedev

Update! January's work is now officially done. Only about halfway through the month, too!

Work on February has already begun.

Well, the door locks have been finished. That happened much sooner than I was anticipating! We'll have plenty of time to do some more NPC polishing this month now!

I've been thinking that if I finish all of my goals for one month, I will cut the remaining days of the month in half and take that long of a break before beginning work on the next month. I think that's a good way to do it and incentivize finishing things faster to take longer breaks.

If I actually get to the point where I'm finishing things way before the end of the month and very frequently, though, I'll definitely want to just keep working on stuff so I can get the game finished! I definitely don't want to keep anyone waiting, much less myself, but it is still important to take breaks every now and then.

Chimneys/fireplaces have now been implemented into the game! Depending on the region you're in, fireplaces will be lit within homes and other buildings at certain times.

Locked doors will be worked on next! If there are any awake NPCs inside of a home, you'll be able to go inside. Otherwise, you'll need Avadel in your party to pick the lock! Maybe you'll find some interesting things inside, but that's kind of mean to do don't you think?

#rpgmaker #godsdisdain #gamedev

Happy New Year everyone! Here's to making 2024 the best it can be.

The 2024 Roadmap has been finished! This is the rough outline for how long things should take and when they will be worked on. You can expect progress to continue throughout the year following pretty closely to this outline.

As you can see, voice acting and tileset swapping are notable parts of next year's development. When the beta releases, that is when things such as forum threads and the game page on itch.io will go up. After that, it's all bug fixes and balance adjustments until it's all finished and can be set for a release date, hopefully some time in 2025!

I'm looking forward to sharing this game that I've worked on for so long with you, and this year will certainly be full steam ahead to get that to happen as soon as possible!

#rpgmaker #gamedev #godsdisdain #newyear #2024

All of the NPCs for God's Disdain are now finished! Minus whatever pops up in testing, the whole story, world, dungeons, side quests, and all of the inhabitants are now fully playable and explorable! There are a few major things left to do, and the road map for those will come within the first few weeks of next year.

I seriously cannot wait for this game to get in everyone's hands! For now, though... I think I deserve a little bit of a holiday break.

The Chiliss Hot Springs are now also open for business! You can spend 15 Giku here to relax and heal. Soaking in the soothing waters will even give your entire party a buff that lasts for multiple turns in battle, seen here as an icon below the characters!

(graphics not final)

#gamedev #rpgmaker #godsdisdain

Listening to this mix today to get in the Christmas spirit while working on game development! What are some of your favorite holiday-themed video game songs?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHqxWyzTRug

#christmas #music #gamedev #vgm

14 NPCs left to program! Here's another little sneak peak at the latest one I created. He's the leader of Komura and resides in the capital city of Sodai. Give it up for Emperor Youta!

(graphics not final)

#rpgmaker #godsdisdain #gamedev

I've been getting a lot of work done on the NPCs. There are only 21 left to program! I've been making them in chunks of 5 for the most part, so it should only take me a few more days.

As soon as I'm done with this, I will be drafting up a rough roadmap for next year, all the way up to my final goal of having the game in at least a beta stage by the end of 2024. I'm looking forward to sharing it with you all!

#gamedev #rpgmaker #godsdisdain