Hello everyone!

Today is the last Monday of the month, which means it's time for the monthly progress report. What has been done this month, what remains to be done, have I met any of my goals I set out for this week, and what are my goals for next week and for April. I almost didn't get a chance to get this devlog out there and as of writing this it is currently 9:02pm EST (3 hours until Tuesday), so I do want to apologize for not uploading earlier today.

March Progress

I know I usually say that "this month felt short" or that "I don't feel like I did too much" and then I go over in detail everything that I did and it turns out "Oh I actually did a lot", but for this month, I can assure you that relative to the last two, this month was the least amount of work done. I know that I initially planned for this with March being the month for clean up for anything Tiro Town related before moving on to Toxic Trails story line in April, but due to personal reasons and other projects that may or may not be tangentially related, I was not able to work on the game as frequently as I used to. Even so, here is what I did accomplish.

CSV Driver

I have decided, for the moment,  to store a lot of the games internal data inside CSV files that the game can access and instantiate based off said data. The game can now dynamically create the following:

• Moves
  • moves
  • primary moves
    • counter moves
    • protect moves
    • knock out moves
    • healing moves
    • regular moves
    • priority moves
  • secondary moves
    • stat changing moves
    • status changing moves
• Items
  • items
  • food items
  • healing items
  • key items
  • medical items
  • priority items
  • stat changing items
• Quests
• Story Flags

For a total of at least 20 CSV files currently.

Having them stored in CSV files like I stated in previous devlogs was a lot better than the method I did before which was instantiating all if the objects (moves, items, characters, quests, etc) via a series of if statements and it made the code less dynamic to work with, which would cause a lot of disorganization in the future. I need to work on creating CSV files for characters along with  code for gathering character data and I should be good to go. In the future may I want to move all of this to a database, absolutely. For now, I think that having all of the data in a CSV file is good enough for the game, and can also potentially give you all the opportunity to look over some cool things that may not be implemented yet in the game.

Cut Scenes

I have implemented the new cut scene changes for the game. This required some refactoring of the code, and an adjustment to the current cut scenes that are in the game. I have also added more cut scenes to better fit the story. I need about 2 more cut scenes left for this particular story line, and most of the mechanics for Tiro Town will be done.

Misc

I have also taken the liberty of refactoring/organizing my code/code files. This included txt files, and other C# files that I was no longer using as a result of updating the cut scenes and database driver classes. I think, while I still may not be done completely refactoring everything, by starting the refactoring process, I could have all the pieces in place to begin working on the Toxic Trails story line for the game early April.

Weekly Goals

My goals for this week were as followed:

• complete overhaul of the cut scenes. (100% done)
• complete all cut scenes for Tiro Town. (98% done)
• create the creation of CSVs for database driver. (90% done)

Even though I was unable to finish these goals, I came really close, and it doesn't mean that I should stop working on my goals just because I didn't meet them for this week. (If that were the case I would have given up literally every week). I like making this game and I have a vision for this game that I want to see carried out. So far, the only person who can do that at the moment is me, so I want to at least keep pushing.

This progress report has a little less done visually than other progress reports, and I would say that is OK. I believe that more work could have been done during the month of March like in January and February, but all in all, getting the database and cut scene mechanics working for the video game are still really important things that deserve the amount of time that they have gotten making sure that it works.

Summary

There are still a lot of things that need to be changed/updated, or implemented before the game is fully complete, but I have gotten through a good chunk of that over the course of this month:

• Finish Save Game feature
  • include saving flag information (for story)
  • including saving bag information
• Map Creation (50% completed)
  • Add all signs for each map
  • add all npcs for each map
  • Add box colliders for all map scenes
• Scene transitions for all scenes
• Implementation of cut scenes for story (48% completed)
• Creation of items
• Creation of moves
  
• Creation of quests
  
• Creation of story flags
  
• Creation of characters
  
• Creation of Battle Simulator
• Inclusion of music/sfx
• Animations
  • Characters/NPCs
  • Move Effects
• Additional UX features
  • Stores (Tiro Tavern and Chop Shop)
  • Player Settings
    • General information
    • Bag
    • Moves
    • Quests
    • Options (Include saving game)
• Bug fixes
  • Music looping issues
  • Battle simulator issues
  • Store issues
  • Stairs and portal clipping issues (80% Completed)
    

I plan on working on a few things before moving on to Toxic Trails:

• Finishing cut scenes
• Finishing database driver for all game data

Other Guardians of RPG Projects

The other reason that I alluded to earlier for the lack of production relative to the other months is that I am dividing my time to branch out into different projects, some of them Guardians of RPG related, though not video games. I have a vision or a plan for this series, that has stayed an idea in my head for too long I feel, and I want there to be ways I can express this idea into other media formats besides video games. Like the description of my account suggests, I plan on dabbling into cartoons, comics, and video games, so while I definitely want to and will continue making this game, I want to create other things, and so that's kinda been in the background of all this.

I want to thank all of the people who have helped me up this point, just by either watching these devlogs or encouraging me on the side to keep going. The support from all of you really does help, and I am appreciative of it. I almost didn't get a chance to upload today but because of your support you gave me the strength to get this devlog out there, so this one is especially dedicated  to all of you.