Thanks for all the comments guys. ^_^ At DaFool's suggestion, here's a full list of changes that are going to be made in v1.0 (due to be released either later today or tommarow)
Planned Changes for v1.0
-Spell fixes for "Pheonix," "STRIKE's," "on," and "awhile"
-Pressing space moves the dialouge forward
-Returning to the main menu after finishing Episode 2 and 3
-The damage done by the special attacks and regular lasers will be slightly increased
-Save system will be operational
-The ability to pause the gameplay will be added
And now on the future of Raidaa no Asahi. The plan right now is that this is just a detached story in the world of Raidaa. After v1.0 is released, there will be a significant rewrite the visual novel engine, gameplay engine, the story, and also a major art overhaul. Most of the stuff you see here was me nearly three months ago. I've gained alot of experiance since then, so I'm hoping I can make a better product from now on. How I will release this future project once it is completed, whether by episodic installments or as a single VN is still up in the air and will be decided later.
Changes to come in the new Raidaa (subject to change)
The Visual Novel Engine
-More efficent programming that uses much, much less computer resources
-Functioning rollback
-A saving system similar to the one seen in other visual novels
The Story
-Almost no use of CGs to cut development time
-Increase the length of the story to about 50 000 words
(Quick GM code note - I found it useful to have code scan through the dialog text and insert #'s rather than rely on draw_text_ext, which as you've no doubt noticed doesn't quite work right with letter-by-letter text display. I can dig up my code for it at some point if you want...)
Yeah, I was hoping to change that in the next Raidaa game. If you could find it, that would be wonderful. ^_^ It'll save me tonnes of time on making the new VN engine. ^_^
(This is lots of fun. Are you releasing this on the GMC?)
Mmm... I may or may not release this once v1.0 is completed. Shall decide later. :3
I died in the first boss fight on easy. The fights take so long that even if I just take an occasional bullet, I still get worn down to zero hp before I win. This is even with delta attacks. My strategy was to charge up blue and red while using yellow to dodge so that I don't lose my charges until I can release them all at once. It worked until yellow died.
You have the right idea... Although Asaga makes a much better one to dodge bullets with since she charges her special the fastest. ^_^; I may decide to write up a small strategy guide for the gameplay segments soon if alot of people have trouble with beating the game.
Thanks! ^_^ When v1.0 is released, full free to delete that and replace it with the new version. ^_^
This was something I worried about before, when the demo video was shown; I'd figured it was taking so long for testing reasons... was that really an accurate representation of how long boss fights take in the final game? :/
Mm... The video was indeed longer than it is in the actual game. The software I was using to record the game was slowing it down by about 5/6th of the actual speed.
The text flicker is rather odd and offputting, especially when it's finished displaying its text.
Hopefully this will be solved very quickly if Papillion still has the code for it. ^_^; In either case, I will definately try fixing it in the new Raidaa game.
Bug: "Load Game" seems to lose the background.
Yeah, loading is pretty much disfunctional in v0.99. -_-;
Starting a new game, I'm happy to discover that the Ctrl key is supported. But somewhat vexed to discover it doesn't save the "Text Speed: Full" setting. Bad preferences engine, no biscuit!
Another something to add when I'm rewriting the VN engine. :3
It's a bit strange to have text saying:
[Asaga makes Kaito grope her]
It wasn't supposed to be like that... That's actually a fill in for a CG that was supposed to be there. But alas, my CG artist quit kinda at the last second and I had to release the game without them. XD
Would it be possible to display multiple characters on screen?
That is supportable in the current engine, but never used.
Random glitch: in Episode 3, just before "General Nooke out.", Kyst is shown half-offscreen.
I know... I have no idea what's causing that. *frusti, shall take another look*
(Edit 2: I finally beat the Machiavelli on Challenging, but at the precise same moment, my last character died. This led to a bizarre circumstance where the plot (after you beat the boss) started playing, at the same time as the game also brought up the "game over - select difficulty" menu. I was able to click to advance the plot, but the select difficulty menu was still there; and clicking one of the difficulties restarted the chapter.)
Wooahh... What are the chances of that happening!? o_o;
I have Windows XP SP2, Czech version, a lot of RAM and a lot of processor power and space. Maybe because I have no video codecs (I use a standalone media player with built-in codecs, so there are none in my system, other than win defaults)?
Mmm... It might be because you don't have the right sound codecs. As far as I know, GM is built on DirectX which does not support .wma files and they're actually played by an external media player. But you'd have to ask somebody who knows more about the internal engineering of GM to get a much better answer than what I've just given. ._.; In the next game, I may not use .wma files at all, but .mod files... (maybe)
So sit tight everyone! Version 1.0 with most of your suggestions implemented will be released very soon!