WIP - Planet Stronghold, a light-RPG in space

[Jake]

Tom Shatz is creepy.

Also when I first started the game I chose a male character, but going immediately to the stats screen, I'm told my name is 'Lisa' and I'm shown a woman. I guess maybe the gender flag isn't set until later or something?

And while I was browsing through the training menu I got the attached crash (OSX).

And seriously, your character artist seems to have a bit of a problem with necks; Rebecca's in particular looks very short, like she's missing a couple of vertebrae or at least constantly hunched. I like the backgrounds quite a bit, though.

[jack_norton]

Yes I have to disable the inventory until I set the character gender!
Uhm training menu? You mean when you get explained everything? That is just a simple menu so I don't think is a bug in my code
I think the artist rules, but for me the one wrong is michelle, the head looks a bit unnatural. Rebecca is fine to me Backgrounds are awesome, so of course that artist quit working... I'll have to find another, bah.

[Jake]

Yes I have to disable the inventory until I set the character gender!

I'm possibly missing something, but rather than disabling the inventory, couldn't you just set the gender earlier? I'd already chosen it several lines of dialogue ago when I looked and saw the wrong figure/name...

Uhm training menu? You mean when you get explained everything? That is just a simple menu so I don't think is a bug in my code :(

Oh, I'd agree. But I'd pass the error on to PyTom, all the same, it's definitely a problem! Literally, I was just moving the mouse to select the next menu item, hadn't clicked or anything, when the problem occurred.

I think the artist rules, but for me the one wrong is michelle, the head looks a bit unnatural. Rebecca is fine to me ;)

Michelle is more than a bit unnatural; Rebecca and to a lesser extent Lisa have the same problem.

I had a play to fix up some of the more obvious problems on Lisa Nelson, and despite being the least egregious example, I think the difference is startling:

Before on left, after on right.

Her head has been lifted up to a more realistic placement, her left (our right) arm shortened, her right hand turned the other way (because it would have to be broken at the wrist to be visible with her arm at that angle), her kind-of-masculine crotch bulge reduced and her breasts altered to be breast-shaped. The result is twofold; firstly she doesn't look like she's had a vertebra or two removed, and secondly she looks more serious and more sexy at once. I'd kind of attribute that to her previous hunched position looking kind of Beavis-and-Butthead hur-hur-hur and thus giving her a kind of juvenile atmosphere.

Michelle and Rebecca both have far more extreme versions of the same issues; Rebecca also has some odd shoulder problems, for that matter. Now, I realise you've already commissioned all the art and you're probably not interested in shelling out again for replacement art, and that's your prerogative, but seriously - maybe some people don't notice it and get dazzled by the clean rendering, but problems like these make it difficult for me to look at the art for very long, I'd certainly not pay good money for a game which contained such sprites because I'd have trouble playing it. Please at least pass such feedback on to your artist if you see the same things yourself, and try and get a better result for your next game.

[jack_norton]

About the gender: yes but since in the inventory I also show the class and skills, is a bit weird to show a class, when the player didn't pick one yet It's just the first couple of minutes of play anyway.
About the bug: is really crazy that just a menu crashes, probably it's due to some mistake on my code (the mac version is still using the old updater so I think might be related to that).
About the art: well now that you have shown me that example, she clearly looks better. I am not sure about the arm/hand (I think are minor details) but for the neck, yes. Talked with artist and she seems willing to modify the ones who had troubles (Lisa, Michelle and Rebecca). Thanks for the suggestion, very helpful!

[Lace]

wow... @_@

[jack_norton]

The artist fixed the "neck" thing in the 3 females (only that sorry, I didn't want to ask too much to her).
I've uploaded a new version but there's not much else apart that, and a few WIP effects. I am thinking to wait until Renpy GL is "stable" to go on with the alpha so people don't have to redownload the whole thing everytime
Also I thought was easier but after few days I noticed that uploading several version is going to be a mess for me, so I'd rather go on and make a much bigger, almost a beta version and ask people to test that directly, with optional pre-ordering for those interested.
The biggest part of the game is done though, since there aren't many dialogues, I think it could be finished before Christmas

[jack_norton]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKmQbrzRFU8
I've added several FX, and damage done to enemy with each shot now is correctly displayed. I've also added a "dead enemy" sprite, since making them *pop* disappear (like happens in MANY other RPGMaker XP games) seems too unnatural to me!

[Aleema]

Cool! I like the direction the battles are going in!! I definitely think the damage counters and animations help a LOT. It's so much more satisfying and easy to follow what's going on. And the dead enemy sprites are win, too. Lookin' good!

[Qookies]

Not only RPGXP games make it dissappear. Every RPG maker (2k 2k3 XP VX) does. But there are some scripts that can make them not to dissappear I guess. BTW I love the changes. But I noticed one thing. When Robo ant 02 (B) hit Lisa, Tom was red. I'm not sure though and I'll look again.
EDIT: This is what it's like:

Robo ant heals other robo ant but it shows tom receives damage.

[jack_norton]

haha yes, because the target is him, but the robot uses the special skill instead of attacking. Going to check it

[Gryphbear]

Hey -- I'm not really sure if it's my netbook or not, but everytime you sorta 'introduce' a new character, the game kinda slows down?

Is it because of my netbook? It seems to only happen with bionic heart, and this one game.

Btw, both games are awesome. I love them. The RPG elements in Planet Stronghold appeal to me.

[Topagae]

"Neque porro quisquam est qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit..."

[jack_norton]

Gryphbear: Hm I think in netbook the game runs in software mode? You can see it if you go fullscreen and the screen size is still 4:3 (openGL) or expands to whole screen (software). If is software, when I present a new character I load a big text with his name that is a PNG and that might slow down very slow netbook (even mine slowdown a bit anyway).

[Gryphbear]

Hum, when I switched to full screen... it *seemed* to not be as slow. Still a slight delay though.

[jack_norton]

But is software mode or openGL? You can also notice in windowed mode if there is no maximize button for the window (is disabled).
Anyway the "problem" is that I load a big image (character sprite) and also the text name which is another sprite, all at once. Might try using cache_pin comand to preload all characters on startup in future versions