The Musings Of The Consensus

I have put my DQ1 Remake project on hold for now, or rather, I have given developer access to Jaimas of the Kiwi Farms to examine it and make any improvements he deems fit. Jaimas has proven to be an exemplary beta tester, having pointed out many flaws and imperfections that needed addressed, and since he has a copy of RPG Maker and the associated material needed to work on it when he has the time to devote himself to doing so, I have since provided him access to a developer build of the current project. This means any further progress will be on hold until he gets back to me, but I consider this important to do since he is someone whom I trust to do a good job shaping up the rough edges of this project, and it is my hope this collaboration results in an exemplary production.

Jaimas of the Kiwi Farms has been playtesting my game of late, and noted many issues with graphics, sound effects, music, game balance, and some other minor concerns that have necessitated a new game update, with will be 2.25, which will replace Beta 2.20. It has the following: 1. Redid translations of many items, weapons, armor, enemies, and so on to match later DQ game translations. 2. Lots more musical variety. 3. Additional sound effects. 4. Many enemy graphics redone and retouched for better fidelity. 5. Several balance changes to make bosses less a joke at some points. 6. Several minor bugs and a few crashes fixed. It can be downloaded here: https://mega.nz/#!ZQcTGQ4C!DDFiIrVXYwohZr4FCNSp3A4WTo5Mq8S67t0Otf7BPKY

I'm writing this post to give a progress report on Beta 2.30 of DQ1 Remake. Thankfully, this build won't force me to add too much more content, but it has presented a new problem that forced me to take my time. The main new area I have to complete is Charlock Castle, and while I generally made my own versions of DQ1 locations out of whole cloth while maybe taking some minor inspiration from the level design of the originals at best, I wanted to do a nigh perfect homage to the original level design of Charlock Castle since I plan to reuse this in any possible sequels, but I had an issue. The level design of this Castle between DQ 1, 2, and 3 was VERY inconsistent. DQ1 was the worst offender. On top of being oddly small and cramped, the bottom floor had a tileset that looked like it belonged on the surface, so I decided not to use that one. DQ2 was simply a slightly expanded version of the DQ1 version, and it wasn't much better. DQ3 had the best and most logical f...

I have finally released Beta 2.20 of DQ1 Remake on my MEGA account, after a long time in closed beta. Everything up to the Cave To Charlock Castle is finished (there is a monument that tells you you need to save for the next build, which will be removed in the next version). The Catilin area is fully fleshed out, as are any remaining overworld areas, save for one or two on the Charlock Castle landmass (these will be fleshed out in the next few builds). The next build will have the normal ending implemented, the build after will implement the bonus ending, and the build after is planned to be the final build. Unlike the original Dragon Quest, my game does not have a "bad ending" option, but it may be added in some manner by the final build. A few bugs have been fixed in this build, including a UI bug, and a lot of legacy code and crash issues were finally dealt with. Most of this is thanks to the extremely dedicated bugtesting done by Stagefright. And, for the follow...

I'm now almost done with getting DQ1 Remake Beta 2.20 out of closed beta and ready for stable release, but before I do that, some issues need to be fixed as mentioned in my previous blog post. Also, the following changes for balance will be done. 1. Many more spells will have accuracy fluctuations. The original Dragon Quest games had this to prevent them from being too OP for enemies or players, and the more powerful spells and skills will have lower accuracy than their initial versions, especially multi-hit skills and spells. 2. On top of redoing the scripting for my bonus dungeon quest, the cursed and uncursed items you can get doing this will be rebalanced. Also, they will have actual gold values assigned to them to make them sellable, should the player opt to do so. I also will eliminate some items that were cloned to normalize game balance, as I was unsure where to put a few of these items several times during development, and this will be corrected for the final time befo...

This is an update for those who are following my DQ1 Remake project. The 2.20 beta has been through about ten revisions now, and in each one tons of bugs have been fixed, as I want to leave all the engine issues behind me so they do not plague me in future builds, and I want to thank beta tester Stagefright in particular. His efforts to find and document all my numerous screwups so I could fix them have been nothing less than Herculean, and I just want to say, "Semper Fidelis" to him for all his fine work at unearthing all the fail in my project so I could fix it. Due to his tireless efforts, the following is now no longer an issue. 1. More legacy broken code is now removed. 2. The last remaining shards of my old dialogue code should be gone. 3. A longstanding UI glitch when displaying skill data is now fixed. 4. Skills in general have received numerous fixes to damage, calculation of effect, and other fixes. 5. Tons of game crashing issues now no longer a problem. ...

I'm taking a lot more time than usual to verify this DQ1 Remake build is ready for release before taking it out of closed beta, for three reasons: 1. This build will be the very last build where any scripting changes occur. The engine will be essentially complete after this build. 2. Per the first reason, this will allow the remain builds to proceed much more quickly, now that any remaining scripting work is over. 3. I now have a roadmap for eventual "Gold release per the first two reasons, as outlined here: Beta 2.20: Everything just shy of the final dungeon of the normal route done. Beta 2.30: Normal route finished, finished all the basics of the true route path. Beta 2.40: True route ending implemented. Gold Release: Assuming nothing goes horribly wrong. This version will receive any last minute polish, bug fixes, and will be the definitive build.

After getting some more bug reports about Garinheim, I had to fix a lot of buggy tile collision issues, including being able to walk through certain portions of houses, being able to hop stair well where you shouldn't, and other wall clipping weirdness. I should have fixed all of this. I also got a complaint about how it looks how some landings make it look like the character is walking on the landing railing, not the floor, and I tried to fix this the best I could, but the tile art and the fact I have a 2D engine make some of this perspective weirdness unavoidable, and since I had to pay for the assets I used for the Garenheim town art, I'd have to contact the artist or someone with the same DLC pack I paid for who would be willing to modify it, as my own art skills are not that good. I also made a few minor overworld map adjustments, nothing major, just shaved down the Hauksness and Rimuldar overworld areas a little bit. I'm still awaiting more bug reports, but wh...

Got some more feedback on my closed beta and it looks like I have some more bugs to fix: 1. Seems I still have some remnants of the old dialogue system in place, need to purge that. 2. Fixing a small frameskip bug in town when picking up vegetation and eggs. 3. Complaints some music and SFX are too loud, will fix by cutting their level by 50% across the board. 4. Fix the bank, has some old code that causes graphical issues. I plan to meticulously fix as many bugs before releasing this build, as I want the game as mechanically solid as possible before implementing the normal ending, final dungeon, and any content beyond that.

I've already gotten some feedback from beta testers, and I've already fixed a lot of issues regarding UI problems, including screwed up text and number displays. I reverted the player menu back to using the classic row format instead of the column view to fix a few more issues, but this is merely a cosmetic change. Fonts had to be resized in several places for optimal display, and aside from a harmless "flash of unstyled content" glitch (the first character in the menu will briefly have their name and the "level' marker turn bold, then normal text), the menu is now free of UI problems, and the glitch is quite harmless for now, so I'm leaving it as a low priority to be fixed in later builds. I have also begun experimenting with how to integrate content from DQ1 in any possible sequel, since I did have one planned, and I'm pleased to say my experiments with how to port content for us have proven quite successful, so any possible sequel, should I m...

I'm on the cusp of sending out the closed beta of Build 2.20 of DQ1 Remake to beta testers, and I have to admit this build stops shy of including a lot of content I wanted to add because, frankly, I have so many game balance concerns at this point I don't want to add a ton of new areas and content before I have that resolved. Several fixes over 2.10 include: 1. Scripting fixes for the minigames to resolve some crash issues. 2. Hopefully have removed all traces of the original crappy dialouge system code. 3. Code/resource bloat has been trimmed as much as possible, frame rate should be better overall, no more lag spikes. 4. Some further balance fixes to enemies and some random steal skill crashes should also be fixed. 5. Implemented some code meant for use in later builds, but only partially, most is dummied out for now because I don't want to totally enable some scripting code without finishing more content that would require it for stability reasons. 6. Have ...

I've had a bit of a snag as I have been hunting down custom resources for the bonus dungeon areas of my game. Since the assets required some custom editing and some mix and match optimal use in VX Ace (and it took a few tries to get it to look right), I've had a bit of a delay, but most of the graphical side is far behind me. The music is now my remaining concern. I wanted custom music for this section to emphasize how much difference there is between the bonus dungeon and the rest of the game, much like how the Culex bonus boss in Super Mario RPG just stood out due to is dramatic clash with the rest of the game. My biggest issue has been hunting down resources that were available for use that fit the theme, and I've finally found some worthy candidates, hope to have my music score picked out and ready to go soon.

One of my goals for DQ1 Remake Build 2.20 was to eliminate all the source of lag spiking noticed in earlier builds, and I discovered what caused most of it. The user interface code was loading a lot of external assets by default. It looked nice, but unfortunately the code was very inefficient, and the lag spikes were caused by how poorly all that extra information moved in and out of memory. To fix this, I tossed out the old interface for items/skills/equipment/shops and redid it using simpler code. I also removed some scripts that were loaded into memory but weren't doing anything. The results have been incredible, with framerate issues hammered down to nil, the improved scripting shows more tactically useful information, and a lot of load bloat is gone, meaning the game starts much faster. This does have a gameplay change in that only one accessory can be equipped, not two, but I consider this an improvement for game balance, as two accessories of certain types could be  ...

I'm still working out a lot of balance and scripting bugs in Catilin, and I've made the following changes because play balance was important to me. * Lora is a lot more squishy. Originally, I set her defense to rise about to the same heights as Sarah, which makes her nigh invincible at times, so now I've reset her defensive power to be not much more better than Mara. Keeping both in the back row and loading them up with defense boosting equipment will keep both alive for sure, but both are now around the same level scale of physical defense given they are magic class users. * In a future update, I'll switch out weapons to use a non MP costing version of the spells equipped items will let you cast, but for now I'm retaining it for further balance testing. * There are two bosses in the Catilin area, and I've set one to be the "easy" boss and one to be the "hard" boss. The easy boss is NOT immune to insta-death, nor most other status effec...

I currently have a lot of beta testing for Build 2.20 of DQ1 Remake I'm doing now, and while I don't have half s much unfinished content to worry about like I did before, I need to test the following: Play Balance: Catilin, much like in the original game and DQ3, is the shopping mall of my world, and you can get some excellent gear, some of which is but a step or two down from some of the best gear in the game, so I'm going to have to make sure play balance isn't set to make things too easy or hard regardless of your equipment. Scripting: I have a considerable amount of game events that revolve around scripts in this build, and I have to make sure none of them are broken. Next build preparations: In the next build, I plan to make the normal route of the game beatable as well as completely unlock the bonus dungeon and true ending route, Certain IRL events have made progress slow, but I hope to get on with it because I really want to finish this sooner or later. O...

Before I address the main topic of this post, I just want to get something about autism out of the way first. I have it. I live with it every day, and while it's very crippling in many ways, I know there is no cure for it and it will be with me til the day I die, and I accept that. But there is nothing that would make me think in a million years that I could cure myself by drinking bleach or gasoline. If I wanted to kill myself, those would be effective means of doing so, but they are NOT sane medicinal solutions for a developmental disorder. For starters, bleach is an incredibly powerful chemical used for cleaning. Some forms of bleach are indeed used in medical fields like dentistry to whiten teeth, but they are not intended to be ingested orally, merely used as a passive tooth whitener. Some forms of bleach are used for food preparation, like flour whitening, but this is again a passive use of bleach and the active components of the bleaching are generally removed from the...

Currently play-testing the Hauksness area, and after I get it all balanced and make sure everything up to the Lord Edward quest works, I'll release a Beta 2.10V2 to replace the first version, which is a hot mess of bugs, bad balance, and overall fail. In the meantime, incorporated the following fixes. * Healing spells have had their resistance modifier check removed. I had to do this or healing spells would eventually be useless due to magic defense nullifying it at a certain point. * Several enemies in the Hauksness region had a tone down, they were OP to an insane degree. They are still hard, but now they are much more bearable. * Several more dialogue bugs were fixed and some tileset edits were done to the Great Caravan for better realism, like being able to walk under most open air stalls. * In the 2.20 build, I'll refine the bonus dungeon balance a little, but I kept them somewhat harder than the regions around them since they all have some OP stuff (especially f...

I write this article with a sigh on my lips and a palm to my face because I thought that people are panicking too much on KIA. Yes, mods have been squelching certain topics, and maybe on some of them, they could ease up a tad. However, I think a few arguments against them are a bit ridiculous. 1. MUH PAGE VIEWS! I hate this argument. I'd rather 1 person who benefits from my work read it than have 100 people who only show up to throw rotten fruit at it, and while page views might have decreased, so long as it's of benefit to someone, I don't see the point in obsessing over this unless you are an attention whore. 2. Has the core mission changed? No. KIA is about opposing crappy journalism, gamer news pertaining to censorship, culture, and politics related to gaming as well as general watchdogging on gaming in general. None of that has changed. When the mods don dangerhair wigs and start declaring a need for safe spaces, then I'll start to panic, b...

The Book of Leviticus is seen as one of the more 'boring' books in the Bible, but I just happen to be painfully autistic and love it, mostly because I find its breakdown of the rules for the Israelites interesting. Below is a simplified summary of the book, with some trivia explained: (Unless otherwise specified, all offerings had to be without defect) Burnt Offerings: Compulsory offerings where an animal was totally cooked to ashes on the altar for God alone. Only male goats/lambs or bulls were acceptable. Grain Offerings: Semi-compulsory offerings by themselves, though sometimes required alongside other offerings. Either unleavened bread or wafers of bread, prepared with oil and salt, with a portion sprinkled with incense before burned on the altar. The priests could eat the rest. No honey or yeast could be mixed in. Newly harvested grain was sacrificed at the start of the harvest season, same general rules otherwise. Fellowship Offerings: AKA "Peace offerings...

I've finally gotten up to the Hauksness area for testing, and I've already fixed some more issues * Game balance has been further tweaked and polished. Lora gains levels slightly faster than everyone else, but I'm leaving this alone, since she can be recruited at a point where she'll need it. * Fixed odd scripting bug where a 'New Game+ tag would be added to save files, turned out to be a control switch issue, I have no NG+ features built in or planned for. * Several more remnants of the old dialogue system were removed. The game was effectively unwinnable past defeating the dragon guarding the princess, this has been fixed and Build 2.10V2 will be released when I'm done with the Hauksness region, will supplant my previous 2.10 build. * New art for the dragon's portrait has been added. * Noticed a very rare crash bug that occurs when changing through multiple different types of windows while changing scenes in quick succession. I haven't been a...

A friend of mine who read my previous post about Bible humor pointed out that the Bible was amazingly honest about a lot of stupid people in the Bible, and even though the Bible is a mostly human document with some quotes from God, it's still quite impressive for the level of unvarnished human stupidity it covers without trying to whitewash it. And since some of the mind boggling idiocy is funny in hindsight, I'd like to to cover the top five dumbest people in the Bible. 5. Nabal, the guy who decided to piss off David for no good reason. This guy seemed rather appropriate to start off with, because his very name means someone who is a fool, and while his stupidity is rather brief, it's still astoundingly dumb. During David's days wandering around as a mercenary and blade for hire, he found some really rich dude named Nabal with a ton of livestock who was currently doing a lot of harvest work, and David generously offered to provide security for his farm animals...

I discovered some major, gamebreaking crashes in the Cave To Rimuldar, remnants of my old dialogue system were to blame, and since this is plot critical, I will be releasing a bugfix version for this. A few other changes will be in this, another major bugfix and a change to getting Lora in your party. * I discovered, thanks to an oversight when implementing the battle rows code, I made all Club and spear type weapons unusable if your character was in the front row. Since there are few club or spear weapons, I did not notice this until I equipped an Iron Spear and noticed Roto and Sarah could not attack at all, though they could user magic/special attacks. This oversight has been corrected. * Lora will join the party at Level 13. I have redone all the game balance so it's ideal to be a certain levels, and believe this should be reasonable for her to join at. I tried to assign a variable condition to the Hero's current level so she'd join at the same level, but the game...

There are a few things in the Bible that I have to admit have always amused me because when I sat down and did a little thinking about them, some of the things that occurred to me struck me as funny. 1. That scene in Acts where Herod is speaking to the crowds, they all proclaim his voice is like that of god instead of man, and then it's reported that since he didn't give glory to God, he was eaten by the worms and died. I have to wonder, does this mean a bunch of worms consumed him from the inside out, or did they literally pop out of the ground like in Dune and eat him alive? Either way, it's a blackly comical image if you ask me. 2. In Leviticus, if you made a grain offering, you were supposed to offer cakes or wafers made of fine flour, or crushed heads of new grain if it was an offering of the firstfruits. I did a little research, and I realized that technically, corn harvested when the seeds are dry count as a grain product, and popcorn would be about the same ...

Other crap has delved into my time working on DQ1 Remake further, but I have gotten some more progress done. * A lot more crash bugs involving the spit and pencil version of the old dialogue system removed. * Enabled a few bonus dungeons I hadn't completely in earlier builds, like the Tower of Kol. Don't go in unless you have the Final Key (you'll need it to get far past the entrance anyway), or you WILL get slaughtered, it has enemies you will be way out of your league to fight when you first can go in. * Made a lot less enemies capable of spamming status spells. They'll still do it, just not to the point it's like they are trolling you. And speaking of spells, giving Mara a mild boost, since an earlier tweak for balance seems to made Mara a bit TOO weak as a mage, which is ironic, as she was essentially an "I win" button in earlier builds, so I'm gonna even her out to be a tad stronger than at present. * Found the new item limit is great for ...

While whittling away at bugs and getting stuff fixed (the Combat Log now works in battle just fine without hanging issues), I have also done some other changes to tighten up the game, since I'm most of the way towards the day of a "gold" release, or a version I can call "complete" * Some areas have been edited graphically for consistency, so what you see is what you get (you see a brown tower on the world map, but you enter it and the walls are all white, this is getting eliminated as much as possible) * Fixed the game AI to be far less punishing for some enemies. Trick Bags were ANNOYING because of their Sleep spell spam, could make battles take forever because you'd never wake up in time to kill them before they all ran away. This was fixed, and some enemies were edited so they were prone to spamming certain attacks as much. * I have also been trying to remove every last remnant of my old dialogue system, this has been a constant source of crashes, a...

Build 2.20 will basically be my planned Build 2.10 Bugfix V2 with the Catilin area and all areas save the final landmass (where the Dragonlord's castle is) accessible, which means another town and three or four dungeons will be added. It will also have the following changes: * Lots of bugfixes I missed in 2.10 * Balance changes (mostly to make certain things easier) * Item limit decreased to 10 of any item. Not nine like in most Dragon Quest games because it will be easier to make batch recipes of five when crafting this way. You can store an extra ten items in the storage services at most banks if you need to. * Going to fix the music so more of it loops or at least doesn't have obvious fadeouts anymore. * New credits sequence implemented. (will be viewable from player menu, ends and send player to title once seen, be warned). Features the soundtrack "Theme For Gamers", courtesy of Jared Burrell, which he was kind enough to pre-loop for me. * Some graphics c...

While it's not as bad as I feared, as in, major bugs that cripple entirely having any fun whatsoever, lots of little bugs and issues have cropped up in my game to the point that, as I beta test it, I'm discovering more and more things that can crash the game (mostly remnants of my old portrait/faceset system), as well as a passel of goofy glitches, most harmless, but still annoying, so I'm still going to release a new version as planned, but before that I'm releasing a 2.10BF V2 edition of the 2.10 build beforehand. It will contain a partial implementation of some of the 2.20 build's features, so it will double as a sneak preview of 2.20, but I won't guarantee stability past Catilin since that was projected for the 2.20 build onwards.

Due to a combination of needing to add more content and having to acquire some more resources, the next build may take awhile longer. However, the good news is that the next build will have a LOT more content than previous builds, with many areas I had not completed finished. For those who may have been hoping for this to be finished sooner, I beg your patience for now, as the next build may have an even higher version number once I am ready to release it due to having much more content.

As some may already be aware, I now have a public account in my own name on the Kiwi Farms. My reasons are as follows: 1. I was so appalled by the lengths that were gone to to exact retribution against Joshua "Null" Moon's family just to get back at him I decided if the Kiwi Farms were ever brought back after he temporarily shut them down as a result, I would post there under my own name in protest of such attempts at spite. 2. Certain parties (who I shall leave nameless and not comment on further by their own request) have requested I not speak of them if the Kiwi Farms were ever revived. I have every intention of honoring that promise. 3. Some at the Kiwi Farms were not entirely sure the "GethN7" there is actually me. I have written this to confirm it is. I had an account on the Farms prior to the temporary shutdown, now no longer in use. Null is the only one I have shared this with in the interests of full disclosure, and I have requested he not revea...

The Kiwi Farms were recently taken down by its owner due to threats to the welfare of his family, threats so severe ordinary legal recourse would not have been sufficient to protect them. I'm sorry innocent members of his family had to suffer because of this unwarranted assault on them when Null was the intended target of those who decided tormenting his family was justified, but I will not mourn the Farms passing if it grants his family some relief from their tormentors. I have family too, and I have added Joshua Moon and his family to my prayers. And, since I too have been threatened by similar parties for similar reasons, and while I have far less to lose, I want innocent people out of the crossfire, so I have completely torched copies of anything on my blog certain individuals found so offensive they attempted to attack me in a similar manner as Null, and they have my word I will keep silent about their activities now and forevermore, so long as what they have done to thr...

As mentioned in my last post, I'm loath to promise anything, but I can mention the following since they are a done deal and I confirmed they are backed up on the cloud if worst comes to worst. * Finally got the character art I needed requisitioned, again from Fumirei on the RPG Maker Central forums. It was pricy, but the quality was so good I happily ate the cost, it was well worth paying for. Seriously, Fumirei is a good artist, throw them your money, you will get some fine artwork in the exchange. * Actually have a fair bit of work done already, but I'm unsure what a good "stopping place" would be. I also have to test a lot of event code, so the more I add, the more event code I need to test. * I went back and touched up a few dungeons, especially the towers, they should now, thanks to some creative design, appear to have actual height as you ascend each floor. * I'm coming up with another dry spot when it comes to some other resources. I have what I n...

It's the dawn of 2017, and among my New Years Resolutions is to finally get my game to gold code status before 2018. With that in mind, now that I've decided to be paranoid and back up my game on the cloud for the sake of redundancy just in case my HDD file tables go nova in some freak accident once again, I have decided on the following things for the currently in production version of Beta 2.20 (V2, since the first died awhile back) * I'm likely going to focus on adding new stuff instead of reinventing the wheel. I've already had to overhaul the game scripting more than I ever wanted to and I'm tired of it, so scripting changes will be minor at best, if any. Instead, I'm going to focus on finishing up all the maps I can and try to have the 2.20 Beta be set just before the normal/true ending point split I had planned since day one. * I plan to stop just short of the normal split final dungeon because I need to requisition some new portrait art I don'...