So even though I'm not actually going to do any work on my game today, I wanted to go ahead and set up my devlog.  

Devtober 2020 was the first game jam I ever joined, and now a year later I've gotten a lot more experience under my belt.  I still need motivation to branch out and try other engines, and I wanted to join this year's Devtober as a sort of 'closing the circle' thing.  So that works out.

I've wanted to learn RPG Maker for a very long time.  It seems like a fun way to build games without too much coding or pressure.  And I have this weird science fantasy fictional universe going, but its pretty much veered towards the "sci fi and robots" part with the various games I've made.  I feel like I could do more with the "fantasy" part.  And since its spooky month, how about spooky fantastical creatures...like vampires?  Actually, I was originally going to join an RPG Maker jam where the theme was vampires, but it was only two weeks and I didn't think that was going to be enough time to really learn everything and get a nice game going, but I still wanted to make a vampire game.

So I had this barest idea of a vampire trying to get home, but this obnoxious little robot is following him home (because darn it, I gotta sneak a robot in there somewhere, and the idea of this stoic edgy vampire dealing with this happy lil metal dude seemed funny).  So from there, I just gotta figure out WHY all this is happening.  And learn RPG Maker, I just gotta buckle down and learn something new.

So yes, those are my main goals this Devtober.  Write my first-ever vampire story, and learn RPG Maker.

Sorry for a boring first-day Devlog, I promise there will be something to show for it tomorrow.  

Today I opened RPG Maker VX Ace and had no clue what I was doing.  When I closed the engine, I had slightly more of a clue.  Still, slightly more of a clue is better than none at all!

This may be a weird connection, but so far RPG Maker reminds me of RenPy...in that it starts out very confusing and bewildering, but once you start actually hammering stuff out it starts to come to you.  I already have the two main characters (one generated, one a default villainous NPC option that looked enough like a robot to me, granted its a far cry from the cutesy wheeled baby boy I had in mind but I honestly kind of like totes-not-haunted-armor-man better), some edited items/classes/movesets (admittedly, i'm keeping it simple for my first project and sticking with a lot of defaults (i do not even WANT to attempt important custom sprites at this stage!), but i did want to spice up some stuff just to see if i could), a first map, and the start of a menu (kind of want it to be red and a different font, surely thats possible).  So I got a nice little base set up!

Tomorrow, I want to edit the first map so that 1.) the dudes aren't in two places at once and 2.) they aren't walking on the trees.  I'd also like to add a little intro dialogue/cutscene to set up the game.  Maybe add some extra bits like a chest or two, or even a building.  Possibly the aforementioned edits to the main menu.  Essentially, I just want to get this first screen the way I want it to be before trying to add in new maps or combat.

So far, I'm just excited to learn something new!  And to do so under a deadline, so that I actually get work done!  

(Seriously, you guys, apparently I need some sort of deadline initiated by an outside force otherwise I will not get any game projects done.  I'm not as disciplined as I thought I was.)

Well, today was busy.  

Redid the map a little.  Made the trees solid.  Added chests and put items in them.  Added an intro cutscene (these example screens are both from said intro cutscene) AND a second cutscene that plays when you approach the two chests (the third chest just exists).  Made sure those cutscenes only played once.  Changed UI to red (and decided to just keep the font, its fine).  Got music playing in-game.  So this was a lot that got done.

I'm liking RPG Maker a lot.  Its surprisingly flexible, even with just the defaults.  I haven't had to type in any sort of code, which frankly feels like cheating a bit.  I think I would like to keep making games with RPG Maker.  Although my main go-to engine is still going to be RenPy, I think.

Tomorrow is my day of rest (by which I mean I will lay down to rest my eyes and then not wake up until the evening, thereby getting nothing done except a fantastic nap), so I most likely won't be working on Cut Me Deeply any.  But my plan on Monday is to implement some combat.  Whether is mostly fixed encounters or random encounters, I don't know.  Depends on which one is easier.  Also, I want to change the main menu music.  The default doesn't really vibe with the style.

(As predicted, I slept pretty much all day and got nothing else done.  Great!  Plan still on to change main menu music and implement some combat tomorrow.  Also, I really like these two dudes in my game, they are turning out great and I'm going to have to use them for more stuff.)

Implementing battle stuff was pretty daunting to me.  I mean, there's all sorts of stats and debuffs to track with that.  I didn't realize that RPG Maker literally does all that for me, and now I just feel like I'm cheating.  Played around with hue sliders for the enemy graphics and renaming enemies, as well.  Ended up with several different enemies that would make great bosses.  Also, while testing the game, lost my very first fight (seen on the right).  Great sign, am I right?!   That enemy, by the by, is programmed to possibly drop the mithril weapons that my two main guys can use.  Seemed cool enough.  That's another thing I learned, was controlling enemy drops.  The only thing I don't get is why the background is all swirly like that instead of the forest scene I set up...but honestly, I kind of like the abstract background.  If I can't get that fixed, its not the end of the world.

Ended up making a second map, too.  Just to see if I could get a transfer event working (which I did).  The building is planned on being a shop, with a bonus cutscene that goes a bit into Amar the Robot's past.  The path down, I think, will lead to the first bonus boss fight (which would lead into Akeldama the Vampire's past, because I like going into characters' pasts).  I'm not fully sure, mostly I just want to work out this map first.  Add some treasure chests and details, maybe a cutscene.  Then I'll worry about the next map.  I have to take it one map at a time, or else I'll have a whole bunch of half-finished maps.  Nobody wants that.

Goodness, I'm so glad I finally started working with RPG Maker.

Got a lot more done than I was planning today.  Set up a cute little shop, complete with a vampire fangirl running it.  Touched up the second map, added some more chests.  AND started working on the first boss fight!  There's going to be a narrative element where Akeldama's family members keep calling him out for something relating to letting Amar follow him around before fighting him, but Akeldama has no idea why they're so mad...until the reveal later on (which I'm not entirely sure what it is yet, I have like two or three ideas planned out at the moment).

I want to go ahead and add the next map tomorrow, then spend the next day or so touching up all the existing maps.  Modifying enemy strength and abilities and spawning, sprucing up details, maybe redoing the shop on the map, and touching up the text.  So mostly just making sure I'm happy with what I have before moving on to anything else.

Got the fourth map made (and added a cutscene that plays when you interact with the body), then went back and made some modifications to all the existing maps.  Switched the chests to a smaller-looking sprite, changed the shop building sprite, fixed dialogue beats, modified enemy stats, added some signposts throughout the world (mostly to warn people when they're close to a boss fight), and even added an Inn function to the shop (although I'm not fully happy with the sprite yet, still working on that).  Considering how little time it takes to actually add all of that, its pretty amazing.

The hardest part has been modifying combat.  It just feels like everything is either overpowered or underpowered, and I'm having trouble finding the right balance.   That and figuring out the story, because I kind of have an idea on how I want to end it but no idea how to actually get there.

Main goals tomorrow are to set up the next boss fight and to make sure the boss fights say "defeated" at the end instead of "slain."  Because I do want them to come back in the final section.  Spoiler Alert: I want them to be regular enemy spawns in said final section.  I think that would be cool.

(I promise I was going to work on this today, but then I had a really rough time with collegework (my submission kept getting deleted and i gave up in frustration) and I decided to finish the game I was making for another jam, and by the time I was done and had time for Devtober I was just so tired.  But tomorrow, I should be back on track!)

I kinda feel bad now for skipping yesterday, since the whole point of Devtober is to work on your game a bit every day.  But I really was finishing out a different game so that I could touch it up and release it today!  In fact, you can see that game here.  Its my Devlog, I'll shill my non-Devtober stuff if i want to.  ;-)

Anyway, today I got three more maps made: another boss room (facing off against another powerful relative of Akeldama's), an outdoor map (highlighting ruins of the old world), and the first level of a dungeon (the inside of aforementioned ruins).  I'm going to have to touch them up a bit, namely get rid of what I now realize are snow-covered ruins and change the indoors chests to something bigger.  Also, I still need to edit the fights.  Enemies still feel too powerful.  

And I looked up how to change battle messages, and that involves editing the scripts.  I am so not messing around with the scripts, not on my first RPG Maker game.  Which is a shame, because I have one enemy just named Jerry and I thought it'd be great if his 'defeated'  message was "Jerry got bored and left."  Would have been a nice bit of surrealism in this little game.  But alas, not this time.

Didn't do too much today.  Changed up the music in the boss rooms, shop, and dungeon.  Was playing around with editing items and found the accessories, decided to make them into collectables and have them dropped either by dungeons or bosses.  Of course, this DOES now mean that I will need to make six dungeons.  I figure Amar's story can really take place in those.  Of course, now that I'm writing this, if I have the bosses drop some of these relics then that means I can't have them as normal enemies at the end because then their stuff will get dropped more than once.  So maybe I'll have five dungeons and two relics at the end of each?

Also, I got my "Jerry is more than you'd think" hints in.  Not how I was picturing it originally, but this works.

In lieu of coding/designing/whatever today, I decided to lay out what I plan to to for the rest of the month (which maps to make and when, editing days, etc)  If I stick to my guns, I should be able to submit around  the 29th.  That will give me plenty of time to wrap-up the story and all that.

I toyed around with ending it where it was and calling it a demo, but I really feel like I should go ahead and get it finished this month.  I've already got a backlog of stuff I want to make.

Today I finished off the first dungeon map.  For the sake of simplicity, all of the dungeons in Cut Me Deeply are just going to be three levels deep.  It's fine, it's my first RPG Maker game so I can/should keep it simple.  I modified the dungeon enemies, made them fair (seriously, I kept getting wiped by the enemies, I don't know what was going on).  And I started the sidequest where Akeldama collects relics and learns Amar's backstory in bits and pieces.

Most importantly, I learned how to handle conditionals!  I wanted two conditional-based events to occur one after another: the exit door that only unlocks after the final chest is opened, and a guard on the overworld that blocks the player until they go through the dungeon and get at least that final chest.  I use conditionals all the damn time for my other narrative-based games so finally learning how to apply them in RPG Maker really takes a load off my mind.

Tomorrow, another shop and another overworld map.  That map will lead to another dungeon.  Also, I need to remove the timers.  I misunderstood what exactly the 'timer' command does.

Also I just want to take a moment and shill The Eternal Cylinder, because that game is amazing and it reignited my inspiration.

I had a really obnoxious day today and kind of had to force myself to work on my game.  But, I got it done.  Set up the next map, made a second shop and its associated cutscene, erased the timers, all that.  And I had more fun than I thought I would (again, considering the rest of my day).

Just gotta keep chipping away at it in chunks, work around my increasingly-busy schedule.

Gosh, real life has just been so busy this week.  Feels like I'm rushing to finish everything on my daily to-do list.  Still, at least I got SOME work on this game done today.

I redid the "NPC blocks the way" trick, but now not only does he clear the way after the dungeon is cleared but he also serves as the third boss fight.  He's Akeldama's grandad and somehow the only sane character.  Originally, he was going to be a dirty old man.  But once I started writing him, he turned out much more respectable.  Also laid out the first level of the dungeon, and added an artifact that is - of all things - a Muppet Classic Theater reference.  I'm just a clueless as you are.

Tomorrow, I finish off the dungeon and test the boss fight.  Then, another map.  Don't know what will be on it yet.  I gotta figure out how to drag out Amar's story for another three dungeons.

Today I lost my notes for what I was supposed to do today and didn't think to check back here until after I'd wrapped up for the day.  Then I found my notes right before making this log.  Such is life.  

Finished off dungeon 2.  Threw in an encounter with a crazed AI for the fun of it.  Eventually, I'm going to have to have an actual boss fight against an AI construct.  They keep popping up in the story, so I may as well do something big with them.  Also added a boss fight right before the final chest (not pictured here) and touched up the third vampire fight.  The problem is, Amar is really strong and takes down most bosses on his own in three hits.  So I'm going to have to give them more HP, I think.  I mean, I do like Amar being kinda OP.  It fits with him being a robot.  But still, it makes damage balance tough.

Tomorrow is mostly just more mapwork.  Plan is three more dungeons, at least one more shop/inn, and one more vampire fight before reaching the castle.  At which point, Akeldama and Amar have to fight through six levels.  Facing off against the vampire bosses again before confronting the final boss on level 6.  Apparently, I can just copy enemies and redo their stats that way, no need for a level scaling plugin or script.  Thats nice.

Also this has nothing to do with Devtober, but I joined Godot Wild Jam and holy crap my project is a mess and a whole bunch of stuff that I wanted in there I couldn't code in because I'm still new to Godot and the game is just a mess but I've put so much time into it that I can't NOT submit it but good grief its an embarassment okay thanks for listening to my rambling bye for today.

Got a whole bunch of maps laid out (three overworlds (one of which is a boss fight) and the third dungeon), that construct boss fight I wanted, a weird storytelling blockade like I've seen in Pokemon from time to time, a touch of existentialism, and a direct reference to one of my other games.  Now that I'm done with the other jam and my week's college homework, I got a lot done.

Combat is beating the crap out of me, though, so I seriously need to rebalance everything.

I was starting to lose interest in RPG Maker, but its coming back.  I'm considering picking up some of the sci-fi tilesets for future games I may make with it.

LOT of map work today.  Each of those tents is going to have an NPC in it, with their own decorated room.  That's tomorrow, though.  I already took my nap today. :-)

Also, for some reason other maps where I have an NPC block the way until a trigger works the way I want.  But today, the NPCs wouldnt disappear until you touched them.  That is bizarre.  Another thing for tomorrow.

Main goal was to add more maps, and that is what I did.  

Kind of hard to write detailed devlogs with RPG Maker when its all just the same stuff.  ^^;

Today was mostly just bugfixing day.  For some reason, all the NPCs in the scene I mentioned earlier weren't disappearing.  Now they disappear after a brief second.  That's good enough for me.  xD

Also, the Construct boss fight wasn't dropping any gold or XP...because I forgot to assign some to her.  After testing that boss fight, I can say she is the toughest one in the whole game (which was the intention) and hopefully I have given her a fair amount of gold/XP in exchange.

Next week I should be able to get a lot more done, since my schedule doesn't look so tight.  We'll see.

I was hoping I'd be able to get more done daily this week, and sure enough it seems to be working out that way.  Was able to work on Cut Me Deeply way more in one session today than I was each day last week.  Game will probably be feature-complete by the end of this week!  Then it'll just be bug testing and revising and whatev.  Plan is to release it on the 29th.

Anyway, rounded out the camp with a bunch of NPC encounters that are there solely for flair.  Added the fourth dungeon, and added some lore to the final level of said dungeon.  Set up the fifth dungeon as the point where Amar will finally reveal what the heck is up with him, and as of such I will need a cutscene there.

WOW, today was productive!  I actually finished off the overworld maps (including the lead-in to the final dungeon of the game: Akeldama's castle).  I made the last not-castle dungeon, too.  It's only one level, but it triggers a flashback where you play as Amar on the day he royally screwed up and painted a big target on his back for the vampires to get their revenge (its hard to explain without spoilers...except that I will say it ties directly into an older game of mine, as in I am literally lifting dialogue from that game for this cutscene).  In this flashback, I learned both how to change the main character's sprite AND how to hide followers.  So yeah, thats a lot.

Tomorrow, I want to focus on the flashback scene.  Get various dialogue and animations and sound effects in place.  Figure out how to make the map look like its nighttime.  Etc.

Got a whole big, dramatic interactive cutscene done today.  It's basically just taking one of my earlier RenPy games and shoving it into this one, but it still took awhile.  Kind of forgot halfway through that I could create characters, and went back did so for the human Amar is talking to in said scene.  Hopefully the scene doesn't feel too cringey for players.  I'm not sure.

What's left is setting up the final boss rush.  Five-level dungeon with a vampire boss fight on each level.  Then an ending cutscene and some credits, and this game is  feature-complete!  It will need some touching up and editing, but still.

We'll see how much I actually get done tomorrow, since most of my day I'll be out substitute teaching.  Yaaaaay!

Got the five rooms of the castle laid out, as well as the four bosses leading up to the final boss wired up and ready to go.  Added some narrative bits to bring the story full circle (although I think I need to go back and modify some of the dialogue I have already, because the stuff I wrote today hinges on knowing something about the general lore and I don't think I clarified it beforehand).

Even in my exhaustion from substitute teaching (which went well, thank you), I managed to get all of that done.  Tomorrow is the final boss, ending cutscene, and however I'm going to do the credits.  Then its just editing and testing!

And here we are, twenty devlogs later, with a feature-complete Cut Me Deeply!  Now its just a matter of editing and playtesting before release next week.

Today I finalized the final boss, and I don't know what kind of AI RPGMaker is sticking into him but holy cow is he a good boss fight.  He sure makes ME nervous when I fight him!  Also, the final cutscene and credits  (by which I mean the screen fades to black and some text boxes pop up saying who made it and in what engine and for what jam, nothing too fancy since I only used RPGMaker's built-in assets for this project).  I also touched up the reviving potion of the game by adding a 50% health restoration effect to it, admittedly inspired by how Pokemon's revives work (it seems fair, and plus it gives me a chance to learn how to edit restoration items).

Tomorrow, I'm going to go through and double-check all the dialogue boxes, make sure everything is spelled and formatted (and add in any story bits that I feel are needed).  I'm also going to time my playthrough, get an idea of how long it takes to play the game in one sitting.

But mostly, I'm just glad it's feature complete!  I definitely want to return to RPGMaker for other projects.  Heck, there's an RPG idea I've had bouncing around in my  head since 2012.  Maybe....

No pictures for the next few days, because its just bugfixing and stuff.  Maybe a trailer on Monday, though!

Anyway, yep, just touched up the dialogue and some of the maps today.  I also timed my playthrough, and it would seem an average run lasts about an hour.  That's not counting grinding or anything, that's just playing through normally.  So that's great!

I think I got all the dialogue hiccups, but i need to play through again to check.  On a fresh day, though.  If I check for the same stuff over and over on the same day, my brain will freeze.

Today, all I did was gather screenshots for the store page.  Tomorrow I will be recording footage for a trailer and doing some more editing.  Goal is to release on the 29th, maybe earlier if I can get things they way I want them.

I'm also going to start something for a narrative jam, making another RPG Maker game except without combat.  I also want to hype up my plans for November: Game Off 2021, I want to make a walking sim in Godot based on whatever the theme is (because i want to try 3D development again, but I don't want to deal with combat).  Crunchless Challenge, I'm making a visual novel that is actually a sequel to Cut Me Deeply (same universe, you play as Amar and meet a bunch of characters from the same universe, originally it was going to be a not-dating simulator but after a ferocious nightmare that I can't remember I was up at 3am scribbling notes for a friendship management game that can end in characters dying permanently if you screw up, Mass Effect 2 style).

I enjoy game dev.

Today, I made a trailer.  It's not a good trailer, but it's a trailer nonetheless.  I also did a touch of editing, and then rethought my joining the narrative driven jam because my schedule is going to be packed enough but that doesn't have anything to do with Devtober so whatever.

Anyway, 10/29 release date!  Probably won't update my devlog until release day, since its just going to be bugfixing from here til then.

I know I said I wasn't going to update the devlog until release, but today I remade some of the maps I'd made earlier in the month when I didn't know to use walls.  Also, the game kept kicking my butt this round of playtesting.  Not sure if that's good or bad.

I decided to go ahead and release it today, I'm done with it.

https://itch.io/embed/1254198?border_width=5&bg_color=327345&fg_color=afbfd2&link_color=193d3f&border_color=529365

Enjoy Cut Me Deeply, an RPG starring a vampire and a robot and my first attempt at RPG Maker!