Hello everyone!

This is the last Monday of the month of May, which means it's time for the monthly progress report. This month went by really fast, which is why I'm partially grateful for keeping a weekly log schedule so that the days, weeks, and months don't blur together as much as they usually would with work and family life occupying a good portion of my waking life. But that's life, trying to find a balance between what you want and your responsibilities... Something something insert Spider-man quote etc.

Regardless, I have made strides in creating the game since the start of May, and that's what you really here for, so let's get into it.

Companion NPC Feature

I have created a way for the NPCs to follow the player while they are traversing through the game! This feature took sooooo much time to implement because I couldn't find much detail to help me figure out how to use it for my own game. 

For example, let's say the game is operating on 16x16 pixels. Naturally then, your characters should move at a rate of 16 pixels per input, or they should have traversed by a factor of 16. Right?

When I made the game I didn't think of that, and so the characters move at any arbitrary albeit constant rate. Cut scenes were already designed with this feature in mind, and so overhauling this for the sake of the Companion Feature would just be wasting more time. Therefore, this "bug" is officially a feature, because I'm not changing it lol.

The way the Feature works is a 3 step process

1.   Spawn the companion exactly on the player + the xy offset depending on what direction the player is facing.
2.  Check for any waypoints that the player is supposed to go to followed by the direction to go to and traverse there.
3.  If there are no way points follow the players current position + the xy offset depending on what direction the player is facing.

This strategy was a lot harder than I thought, but once I was able to figure out what I wanted and how I wanted it to work, I could find tutorials on how to create waypoints, how to traverse to them, and so on and so forth.

New Cut Scene Actions

I have created a new cut scene ability that will help me create more dynamic cut scenes.

Item Action

With the Item Action, NPCs are now able to give you items during a cut scene. This will be especially useful when receiving rewards for quests, and for receiving key items to progress the story.

Cut Scene Action

With the Cut Scene Action, I am not able to embed a cut scene inside of a cut scene, which will result in more diverse and dynamic cause and effect chains that will enable players to play the game and experience it in different ways.

These new Actions will play a roll in the story in future chapters more than in chapters 1 and 2, but if I learned anything from the companion feature, it might be best to try to future proof as much as possible so that you don't run the risk of overhauling/working with janky code.

Toxic Trails Storyline Completed

I have finally completed the story and cut scenes for Chapter 2: Toxic Trails. The story is a bit more linear than Chapter 1: Tiro Town, with the difference that you have so much more if the forest to explore and discover new things about the world of RPG. Another thing is that Chapter 2 will introduce new enemies and tie in some loose ends from Chapter 1. Overall I find it pretty exciting. It's a new setting with a new story and overall just feels very new from what I was working on for the first demo.

Battle Simulator Implementation

I am currently still working on the Battle Simulator. This might be the hardest part of the game so far. I want to make it easy to code and use while at the same time being distinct enough to call my own. So far I have created the UI for the Battle and some of the methods for the Battle states have been implemented. The logic for how I want the Battle to play out has been created too, so right now it's a matter of coding everything and animating some of the features as well (The animation part might come last who knows). I have high hopes for the Battle Simulator though, for I have made significant process in completing it.

Weekly Goals

I want to focus on the Battle Simulator again for this week. I know I wasn't able to finish it last week but that's why I need to continue working at it. Since I will have one more month to go before this needs to be launched, I will give myself 2 additional weeks to fully work on this thing. if I am unable to do so, then I will have to implement only the bare bones of the Battle Simulator and set up the rest of it for Chapter 3: Esoic City.

Summary

So that's all I got for you today. While it was an incredibly busy week and more busy weeks are sure to come, I would say that overall for the month of May we have achieved quite a bit. That being said, there is just one more month left to work on the game, so it's time to really hustle and make sure that everything works as smoothly as possible. 

I also want to give a shout out to everyone who's been supporting me up to this point. you've really been a huge help and motivator to keep going despite how hectic my life can get. I very much appreciate every follow, comment, like and view that I received, and I went to take the time to really show you that. With that, I will see you all next week.