• Forgotten Neural Kiss...
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It better be coming soon.

 :mad:
  • Forgotten Neural Kiss...
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@nickmasterx: That first screenshot looks really... weird. The sprites and the background clash quite a bit and it is hard to see what is going on since they've been reduced in size so much...

---



Maybe it was just an innocent crash...
  • Forgotten Neural Kiss...
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Downloading. Do I need to play sore losers in order to understand this?
Not particularly. Even though SL: Riot Grrrl is set after Sore Losers, it follows a different set of characters and the characters from the original game aren't mentioned. You might miss out on what a couple of terms mean initially, but it shouldn't effect your experience too much since this game isn't focused too heavily on storyline/characters. For what it is worth (and off the top of my head) the only terms I can think of that you might encounter are:

Central Ferusia - The polite term for the complex were the condemned are held. Basically a massive slum that is fenced off from the rest of the city.
(The) Condemned - The society in Sore Losers sends all its criminals away for life. They are referred to as the condemned.
Ferusia - The name of the country the game is set in.
Ferusia City - The name of the city the game is set in.

EDIT: I'd obviously prefer it if people played Sore Losers first, but the games are so different from one an other that I would totally understand if someone wanted to play one and not the other based on the gameplay styles alone.
  • Forgotten Neural Kiss...
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Yes, I think that is a much improved layout. I ran into the same issues when deciding what weapon to pickup. Looks nice.

Thanks. Quite a few people mentioned it so it was something I knew I had to deal with!

wow this looks awsome :D
:woop:
  • Forgotten Neural Kiss...
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Thanks for the suggestions, guys.

I think the main problem was that the sides of the "top" of the desk were too vertical and that makes it look like the top of the desk is... slanted towards the viewer, as if it isn't flat. Widening the desk seems like a good idea, too, and I've made the mouse smaller like you suggested, Vanit.

@KillerWolf: That game looks really intriguing. Is it some sort of platformer?
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Still not happy with this one. Something about the desk/computer doesn't sit right with me...
  • Forgotten Neural Kiss...
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Riot Grrrl is a great game, by the way, to anyone who hasn't played it.

. . .



Thanks!

Erm, what is happening in that screenshot. Is the text asking you if you want to use that skill after you press [1] or... what? Also, is that a turn-based system or is it something else?
  • Forgotten Neural Kiss...
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All from Sore Losers: Riot Grrrl.
  • Forgotten Neural Kiss...
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A few people mentioned, when commenting on the demo, that the images that tell you about new weaponry didn't go into enough detail, so I have been working on improving them.

I think that the first problem was that skills weren't displayed (only the number of skills a weapon gives you was) and this meant that, in order to see whether one weapon was better than another, you had to equip it, open the menu, check your skills and then make a decision. This obviously takes longer than it actually should because you should just be able to glance at the weapon's image and make a decision. By displaying all the skills I hope that this problem is alleviated a little.

Another problem was that, because some weapons have several "main" skills (their "regular" damage dealing skills), it was inadequate to display a single type/value for the damage a weapon would deal. This is also fixed by showing all the skills available for a single weapon - a simple solution for both problems!

Here is how they look now. I think it is a lot better:



The speed statistic being there is a reference to the fact that heavier weapons will now punish you with a speed decrease. Of course, this being a "light weapon" there is no penalty, but heavier* weapons will have one. I realise that speed is a big issue in RM2K3, but I think I will be able to balance it right if I give it due care and attention!

Any thoughts, people? This is better, right?

*For the record, there will be three classes; "light", "medium" and "heavy".
  • Forgotten Neural Kiss...
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I've not written one of these for a while, so I thought I would just let people know where I am up to with this. The short answer is:



As you can see, the second level now has nine areas (if we don't count the vents as an area, which we probably should since they took me so long to put into action) and, if I were to make a guess, I would say it is probably 2/5 to 1/2 complete. Development is definitely moving slowly because I know, in my "heart of hearts", that I could've finished this by now if I'd had the time, but I'm not about to start regretting having a life just because my game is taking a little longer than it should be doing - shit will be ready when it is ready!

I'm pretty pleased that the visitor count for the game-page at RMN is currently at 13,652 because this puts it at over a quarter of the amount Sore Losers has (~41,000 if you count the people who viewed the original game-page). I didn't notice how much this statistic was ticking over and I think it is pretty amazing (even if the download number is a little low, but that's understandable for a demo!)

Oh...

We Were #1!

For quite a while, this game was either #1 or #2 at RRR* (based on ratings) and I was pretty proud of that (even if it was only based on 8 or so ratings and games like Three The Hard Way have many more ratings and are complete). The game has been knocked down to #8 now (one bad vote ruined the average, bad times...) but I still think we had a good run at the top. Besides, we're still in the top 10 and that can't be a bad thing!

*Shame RRR has a site that makes it hard to see this table, meaning it is fairly pointless...
  • Forgotten Neural Kiss...
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New Demo Version Released!

I've fixed a couple of niggling bugs and re-balanced a few things based on the comments I've recieved. ConvoBattles that you "tie" always end up with the negative out-come (to being some consistency to that system), for example, and some of the weapon-skills and character-skills have been tweaked.

The first version also had a pretty major bug so that has been fixed too!

Download is still here: http://rpgmaker.net/games/1158/downloads/
  • Forgotten Neural Kiss...
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So, the demo is pending approval by... whoever it is that does that sort of stuff at RMN. It should be up soon. This is (probably) going to be the only demo that I release for this game (not including the tech-demo or any patches I might need to release, of course!) so you should make the most of it!

First of all...

PLEASE DON'T REVIEW THIS DEMO. I WOULD RATHER PEOPLE HELD BACK ON THEIR REVIEWS UNTIL THE FULL VERSION IS RELEASED. I WANT FEEDBACK, DEFINITELY, BUT TRY AND KEEP IT TO COMMENTS/THIS BLOG/WHATEVER!

So, what does it contain..?

Well, it contains around an hour of gameplay depending on your puzzle-solving ability, how good you are at the minigames and how many times you die etc. In comparison to how long the full game is intended to be, this demo contains the first of five (planned) levels. However, the first level is the shortest of all the levels so I wouldn't expect the whole game to simply be 5x longer than this demo is...

How about features-wise..?

This demo contains most of the mini-games that will be present in the final game so you should get an idea of how gameplay is going to work when the game is complete.
Although I have to admit, some mini-games are being saved for later levels, as are mini-games centred around a certain set of arcade machines!

The battles show off a rather limited amount of the "interaction" you can have with the environment, but it should be enough for you to get any idea.
Future levels will have many more "puzzle-interaction" style battles and I personally find these the most fun so look out for more on those!

The weapons you can obtain are quite varied and show off a lot of the silly unique weapon-skills. I couldn't say exactly what percentage are present, though...
I will say this about the weapons: Weapon-skills and types are more important than weapon power!

Pretty much all the items you can find are featured, but who cares about that?
New to this demo: Grenades!

You can (theoretically) learn all the skills possible for the main character in this demo, but it is (technically) impossible to do so since you cannot earn enough AP.
Perhaps multiple play-throughs will give you a chance to try all possible combinations?

So far, so good, so what..?

You can see how most of the game is going to work, but quite a few features are being held-back for the full version. Why? That's how demos are supposed to work! Have fun with the demo, subscribe and keep looking out for updates!
  • Forgotten Neural Kiss...
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I'm finishing up the demo now; I'm basically just applying a little polish to everything after my first couple of beta tests.

Little, graphical things like computer screens for the hacking game and new battle-animations are being implemented, although don't expexct custom battle-animations just yet. I'm okay with making the character poses but the animations themselves are not my strong point. I am probably going to be editing the RTP animations to fit the style this game later on in the development cycle but I won't be doing it for this demo.

I'm also tweaking the cost of abilities (both in-battle wise and learning wise), the placement of items and the the damage weapon-abilities deal. Also, the fairly game-breaking shotgun is no longer obtainable because I am either going to create a viable ammo system or I'm not going to have guns at all: Underpowered guns in RPGs are a cliché I want to avoid (and one I didn't avoid with Sore Losers) and I think the best way to make guns powerfu damage-wise without them being game-breaking is to make ammo for them scarce and to make using them cost a lot of SP. For the purposes of this demo, don't expect any guns to be floating around.

Blagh.

Basically, the demo is pretty much done. I just want to touch things up a little, do a couple more playthroughs to check everything is working and then get a couple of my housemates to have a run through it too (if they'll indulge me; they haven't played before so they will be good guinea pigs for a difficulty test). Only then will I release it and, given my lack of free-time recently, this is probably still going to take a week or two.

(This should really be out already but... what can you do? Real life is more important!)
  • Forgotten Neural Kiss...
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First, I've updated the screenshots.

Second, I've started coding the skill-tree into the game and all is going well.

It isn't exactly a difficult system to create, if I am honest, especially when you are using a map-based CMS. The map contains all the icons for the skills you can learn and events make it so all you can do is move between the icons for different skills. When you land on a skill a picture comes up telling you what it does and if you press the confirm key the game asks you if you want to learn it. From there, it is just a bunch of conditional branches that check if you've learned the pre-requisite skills and then give you the skill if you have, taking AP away from you in the process.

The skills themselves are roughly split into three branches. There is a branch for the direct-damage skills, there is a branch for the status-effect dealing skills and there is a branch for the stat buffs/debuffs. Because there is a limited amount of AP available throughout the game you will only be able to learn a set number of these skills, meaning you'll have to work out an effective combination of skills for getting through the game. The skillset isn't massively diverse but there should be enough customisability to make the system interesting rather than annoying.

Anyway, here is a picture of the skill-tree so far. You start in the middle (between "Fisticuffs" and "Hear Me Roar", on the little square) and you already have "Fisticuffs" and "Hear Me Roar" when the game starts.


  • Forgotten Neural Kiss...
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I was browsing around the RRR (RPGRevolution) homepage earlier and I noticed that the latest review section had Sore Losers: Riot Grrrl - Review/Preview at the very top. This came as quite a shock because:

a) The site-section of RRR is poorly designed, making it really hard to find games.
b) All the links I've posted around the internet lead back to RMN as that is the "main" site I visit and as that site has the best gamepage hosting (by a fucking mile).
c) On all three of my gamepages at RRR I have a total of 4 comments, one of which is by me!

If it wasn't for quite a large chunk of luck I would've never known the review existed since that site has absolutely no system for informing you when someone reviews your game and I long ago stopped checking my gamepages there (after someone rated Sore Losers down to 0.5 stars within minutes of me uploading it there. I know it isn't amazing but 0.5? Seriously? And in such a short timeframe this person clearly hadn't even played the freakin' thing! /nerdrage). I can only assume that the review was posted by someone who saw my Sore Losers: Riot Grrrl thread on the RRR forums and decided they were going to review it, even if it meant interacting with the clunky RRR interface.

Anyway, enough about RRR. The review itself is generally positive and mentions quite a few things I am trying to achieve by developing this game (i.e. making an RM2K3 game look and play a lot less like an RM2K3 game). I think this is good because it shows my efforts aren't going un-noticed. That such efforts are being praised is even better. As for a score, the reviewer gave the tech-demo a score of 7.5 (out of 10) which I think it pretty good for a buggy tech-demo, especially as I know that the section of the game showcase in the tech-demo has improved greatly since it was released (thanks to all your lovely comments!)

If you're interested you can read the review here: Click Me (Link Goes To RRR)
  • Forgotten Neural Kiss...
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I found a bug in the item-system used in the tech-demo that I thought I should tell you about. It isn't a big deal as far as the tech-demo is concerned and it has been fixed for any future versions I release.

What is the bug?

Items used in battle are not removed from their item slots. This means that the game will think you have more items than you actually have if you use items in battle. This is problematic when your pack is full before using an item in battle as the game will continue thinking that your pack is full (even though it no longer is!). If you were then to try and pick up a new item you would be told that your item slots are full (even though they aren't) and will be forced to drop an item in order to pick up a new one.

Fortunately, in the tech-demo you cannot find more than 6 items and so you will not come across an occasion where you need to swap one item for another. As a result, although your pack might show an item being there that is not there, you won't run into any actual gameplay problems. Your pack will just be broken graphically.

Understand all that?

So, you idiot, why are these bugs present?

Testing is important in any game and it looks like I didn't properly test the item-system before releasing the tech-demo.

My original testing involved me using items via the main menu on a specifically designed test-map. Doing it this way, the item-system seemed to keep track of when you used items quite well: It removed the item from the backpack, set that slot of the backpack to empty and didn't take any duplicate items out of the pack. So far, so good.

However, in an extreme oversight, I didn't test what happened if you used an item in battle. This is where the main brunt of the bug comes from as the system is unable to consistently track when you use an item in battle. I say inconsistent because it works sometimes, although more often than not it will not work at all.

What are you doing about it?

First off, the problems have been fixed now. I am telling people about them since these problems are still present in the tech-demo release and I want people to both be aware they are there and to be aware that I already know about them.

Second, I will not be releasing a fixed version of the tech-demo. I don't see any point in releasing a fixed download for something that barely effects the gameplay considering this is only a tech-demo. I will repeat: You cannot find enough items in the tech-demo that you'd ever need to swap one for another so the problem isn't all that prominent - you might become aware of it graphically but it will not effect the gameplay.

Summary

There is a bug present but it shouldn't effect the gameplay in your tech-demo playthrough (I hope).

:)
  • Forgotten Neural Kiss...
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I completely forgot I posted about this here, but now I know I did I might as well update you guys.

This game has basically been on hiatus for a long time because I just didn't have the desire to tinker with RPGMaker after releasing Sore Losers and dealing with patches, fixes and other such things. Not that this game was ever cancelled, because it wasn't, it just sorta sat there on my desktop, untouched.

Now I've got up the desire to finish another game I've started working on this again and the result so far is a tech-demo, which you can download here (the link leads to RMN). The general response has been positive, although I am aware that there are a number of minor issues (most of which I have already fixed, although this isn't reflected in the tech-demo).

Anyway, feel free to comment, or not. Just thought I'd make people aware that this isn't vaporware (and I hope it won't become so).
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SORE LOSERS: RIOT GRRRL

INDIRECT SEQUEL TO SORE LOSERS!

DEMO VERSION 1.3 NOW RELEASED! CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD!


"Ever played an RM2003 game where you almost forgot you were playing an RM2003 game? Sore Losers - Riot Grrrl accomplishes just that" - acknowledge101

"Notice how I'm saying unique a lot? That's probably because Riot Grrrl isn't like any RM2k3 game I've ever played. It takes a lot of chances with most of the custom systems and the emphasis of gameplay (and minigames!) over story, but I feel that the game faired pretty well." - Xanedil

"They said that they had everything under control in that little complex of theirs. That everything would be okay because the military was there. That the riots would soon be over and that future generations could laugh at the effort the rebels had put into their ploy. And we all believed them, sat happily in our houses as the curfews and blockades dragged on and on and on, because we did not think anything would come of it. After all, we had the most powerful military in the world protecting us!

It did not help that the rebel's propaganda, their so-called "evidence" of genetic brainwashing, sounded like another cheap trick to try and incite anarchy from which only the rebels could benefit. They had tried it all before and, frankly, it sounded like a desperate ploy in their final days of existance. Although I had read their words and heard their broadcasts I just could not take any of it seriously. It sounded like one, big joke...

But the joke was on us.

As soon as one company of the military realised it was their Captain, the "infamous" Captain Alexis, that the "evidence" was based on, it stopped being nonsense. It stopped being comedic, it stopped being propaganda and, instead, it became a new set of orders; orders to fight against a system they believed had warped them and their Captain into killing machines. As the mutiny spread and the military was divided down the middle, the Condemned, criminal bastards that they are, followed the trail of violence out of Central Ferusia until... Until chaos ruled over everything.

I have to get out. I do not care what the television says about Ferusian victories anymore: I can't keep sleeping next to this knife as I wait for someone else to break down my barricaded door... I already have too much blood on my hands!"


~ Diary of Cheska Frederick, Secretary to the Executive.

Blarb:

This is a game that is going to be highly interactive in terms of field-map gameplay because - much like Sore Losers - it is going to be crammed with minigames. In fact, this game is going to have far more minigame sequences than Sore Losers managed to have. Minigames will be present for everything; from searching areas for items to lockpicking doors; from hotwiring electrical equipment to dodging rioters; from arguing with NPCs to hacking into computer systems. In fact, nearly everything you do is going to involve some kind of minigame mechanism. Why? Because I want to make an RPG where ability doesn't rely on the stats of the characters. I'm going to try and bring player skill more to the forefront and hopefully the excessive use of minigame sequences is going to achieve just that.

Of course, battles are also going to be interactive. I'm not heavily reliant on stats so having normal battles would be extremely redundant. In Sore Losers: Riot Grrrl you'll be able to knock the weapons out of your opponent's hands, kick bookcases over onto people, throw your enemies into electric fences, use trashcans to stop enemies from being able to attack you and generally use the environment to fuck people up. Why settle for just the weapon in your hand? Use everything to your advantage!

This game won't be convuluted in terms of plot, character development or other such things because I know I am not a master of words; instead I just hope that this will be a game that's fun to play because having fun is the whole point of playing games in the first place!

Features:

A soundtrack comprised of tracks by Brand New, Be Your Own Pet, The Postal Service, The Sleeping and more!
>90% custom graphics.
With only 6 item slots, correctly choosing what to take with you becomes a vital skill!
Innovative ConvoBattles offer a viable alternative to violent conflict.
The search minigame means you won't have to mash Enter near a bookcase ever again.
Lockpicking and Hacking return from Sore Losers, revamped.
Hotwiring is introduced as another way to get around Ferusia.
Use the environment to your advantage and disarm enemies in the new Environment-ATB system.

Screenshots:


Videos:


Credits:

Storyline, Characters, Graphics, Eventing and Basically Everything Except Music: Fallen-Griever
Battle Themes: Be Your Own Pet and Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Area Themes: Brand New and 30 Seconds To Mars
Cutscene Themes: The Postal Service, Slipknot and The Sleeping
Title Theme: The Postal Service[/center]
  • Forgotten Neural Kiss...
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RMN3 has just been released - you might have caught it in the period the transition between 2 and 3 was taking place because the link works fine for me now.
  • Forgotten Neural Kiss...
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The Hangover...

... is actually pretty good. Given, the story is bollocks, but I went to laugh and the whole movie is, more-or-less, hilarious. I kinda like the fact the movie pushes stupid boundaries for no reason; seeing someone make a baby mimic jacking itself off it hilarious yet very, very disturbing.

Oh, and Mike Tyson.