#voicelessjrpg

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Voiceless Theft System

You play as a ‘master’ thief, so of course we need more stealing and of the mini-game variety. More to come soon - but the prototype theft system is alive! 

I saw the tailor for ‘the thief’ in Octopath Traveler and loved the ‘steal from townspeople’ idea (for the record, we had it before their inspiration) but the simple menu with a percent chance to steal felt so... uninspired. I’m sure it will work well for Octopath, but for Voiceless - YOU are a master thief. Not 1/8th thief, 100% steal from everything all the time thief. So - thank you Octopath for the inspiration.

In Voiceless - you can steal from everybody! Enemies, town guards, the inn keeper that charged you too much, orphans. Steal from EVERYBODY. To make this interesting, and like the real world, we have added to the tried and true percent chance to steal. Before you even get that chance, you must case your target and ID potential valuables to...  ‘rescue’ from their possession. The goal is to fill the ID progress bar to 100% - hold ‘A’ to raise the bar, and it falls on its own (like more recent fishing mini-games - and yes, we have one of those, this is A Jrpg we are making). However, hidden within the bar are one or more ‘Gates’. Should you pass a gate without breaking it, the mark will be alerted to your hand in their purse... and well, that is when the morality/guilt system will come in. How does one break a gate? Simple - keep the head of the bar near it and the gate’s HP will decrease. For those normal people out there, Yellow = safe, Orange is sketchy territory, and red means the Mounties will be coming to arrest you.

Stay tuned for a more detailed write up and our Morality/Guilt system (a.k.a. How to get out of the slammer).

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Mini-Update

Voiceless - Be a peeping... Foxe? (Better Imgur link - curse you tumbler 5MB limit!)

See a window, look through it - any map, any time. How else would a thief learn patrolled routes, how to enter a house with no visible doors, what people think about him, and where the loot lives?

Finishing up the last of our Theft related systems for Voiceless, and have started using the twitter for more frequent, tiny updates.

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Passes and versions, not perfection first

Its time for another completely random Voiceless progress update (one day I will get these back to every other week)!

Sneaky passages beneath/in the starter town

We are working towards a feature complete demo to send to some interested affiliates as well as anyone interested in Voiceless, JRPGs, the creation process, or critiquing errors. However, progress has been a bit slower than desired. The three main culprits being my newborn, persona 5 (so much style), and my own adhd/lack of focus - the third being the most guilty. Its just too easy to do easy things - but easy things don’t make JRPGs, so, time to focus some more.

As for the title of the post, Voiceless continues to improve and develop, and often times, that means throwing something that once was ‘accepted’ out. Specifically, we have switched fonts (again) - which is good for it is now more readable to the player, but bad for it loses the pixel-y goodness of the old font (which admittedly, was too hard to read and many people told me so) and means... all our pixel perfect formatting of the... EVERYTHING with font (menus, combat, dialogue) is off.

Old status screen with old font

New font.. and everything

To explain the title, there is much more to gain from progressively improving passes at your creation than to make everything perfect once and never need to ‘do-over’ something (If you have heard the waterfall vs agile straw man argument, its coming up here in game-dev form... so... move along, nothing to see here). Simply put, you will never make something perfect... never. A ‘creative’ work is never ‘complete’ - you simply walk away from it... at some point, preferably in a state that the creator is happy with (though often simply from neglect or other newer and greener pastures). Also, when attempting to make something ‘perfect’ is a pretty high and intimidating standard (believe me, I know. Voiceless stalled for a few weeks last year because the combat system was not ‘good enough’). Instead, make a version 1 that is good enough to let you see the next biggest problem (”Now that we have combat, town 2 might be important to create...”) and then give that a pass. Keep working on/improving whatever the current biggest need* is and after enough passes, you have something better than perfect, something releasable! And that is the goal of good game dev - not just the final release, but any time you get your game into other people’s hands. Not only to get that ‘creator’ high, but more importantly to have other peoples hands and eyes on your creation (not like that guys...) - to find where it lacks and IF it lacks in that area enough for another pass (saying no / its good enough is super important... but not this post).

So what does this mean for Voiceless? Combat version 2 should be blocked out this week as well as very slight tweaks to the new font in menus ONLY IF it looks THAT BAD - I know the font is off and will get to it, but I don’t want my testers getting distracted by what I already know when there is so much unknown for them to discover. Also, the website needs a version 2 so it can be ‘the once place to rule them all’ for voiceless news.

*biggest need - I mean the most bang for the buck. If you desperately need town 2, don’t skip everything from where you are up to it (or do so if its that important, it is your creation after all), but don’t give those things too much thought. Is town 2 after a canyon and creepy forest? Ok - world map gets some mountains and trees, and two square like maps latter I am now working on town 2 - those square maps will get their own passes later.

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Status Ailments & Effects - part 2

Having 90% of the code and game play systems out of the way, means I have time to actually work on parts of the game that *look* good!

Here is a taste of the big heist Foxe has been planning at the start of the game (rough pass one, so expect and demand better from me). It takes much more time to orchestrate the movement of 5 individuals, but I think it is worth it for all the character it gives (and it sure beats having a line of people talk at another line... no offense nostalgic old games I wish to emulate yet improve upon).

Last week I revealed the Ailment Health Point system (AHP) that Voiceless will be using. In short recap - rather than skills with a % chance to effect the target and many bosses being outright immune - Voiceless will give each ailment its own HP to track, and each skill will deal AHP damage rather than % to miss/hit. This means ALL enemies are susceptible to status effects (though some may be more or less susceptible than others) and even a missed status attack counts towards inflicting the status (think stagger... or any status from Monster Hunter... that game is gold).

To further build upon AHP and give more depth to the combat and thus meaningful choice to the player, status ailments all belong to one of four groups - Curse, Boon, Poison, Any - and each character, friend or foe, can only have one of each group on at a time (sans Any... you can have any of those... things like Stun and Berserk). Deep explanation in the form of simple combat.

Round 1

Hero 1 is fighting an Actual Cannibal enemy (yes, those will be in Voiceless).On turn one, the Cannibal (rather than eating all the bodies, or gnawing your leg) opens with a Strong  poison attack that hits 100 AHP on poison, which is enough to cause the hero to contract Strong poison and reset the AHP of poisons to 150. The player now uses his turn to remove the poison effect from themselves for nobody wants Strong Poison on them (4~10% max HP damage per turn). 

Round 2

The Cannibal continues with his Strong poison hitting the hero for 100 AHP in poisons again (hero 150 AHP for poison - 100 means we have 50 left and will probably get poisoned next turn). Though the heroes resistance to poison is increasing each time he is poisoned, our wise player does not want to waste any more turns (and more so items) on curing Strong poison - thus, the wise player uses his turn to cast weak poison on HIMSELF. This deals 60 AHP to the poisons group (50 - 60 = -10) which is enough to put weak poison on the hero (2~4% current HP damage) and reset his AHP for poison to 200.

Round 3

The Cannibal hits the hero with Strong poison... surprise. 200 AHP - 100 means the player will get hit with Strong  poison next turn... yay. Our hero and wise player use this turn to actually deal some damage.

Round 4

Yet again, the Cannibal attacks with Strong poison seeking to put the hurt on the hero. The hero takes 100 AHP for poisons and being at 0 poison AHP is about to gain Strong poison again.... ! BUT WAIT - the hero already has a weak poison effect on and so the inflicted Strong poison DOES NOT effect the hero. Yay! However, since the hero is at 0 AHP for poison, meaning - once the weak poison clears up, the next poison WILL BE CONTRACTED - better hope you time it well with another weak poison.

Round 5 +

Hero alternates between counting his AHP and applying weak poison to himself and bashing the Cannibal with righteous button mashing.

And this system applies for all grouped Ailments. Only one at a time - self buffs, poisons, bad things - only one (like the highlander of status effects). This gives the player (and enemies) the option to use positive status effects (like attack +10%) to mess up the build of enemies (versing a magic nuker enemy whose friend keeps putting +25% magic damage on him? Put your own boon of +10% attack and laugh as they waste turns). Or use negative ailments on yourself to avoid even nastier ones.

All of this works into the two remaining systems used in combat in Voiceless: Demonic Blood (which I will conveniently skip over for it is very plot/story related, and will be fun for you to discover in game) and Attacks of Opportunity / Desperation - whose damage is based on how far from death or close to it the user is.

Until next time - yay JRPGS (which is probably Xenoblade 2 at the time of this writing)

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Dec. 17th update (not a battle system post)

(WARNING - a new sarcasm approaching) A fun week of being sick and lots of work (the paying life’s bills kind) lead to not much Voiceless work and this blog post - intended to be about Voiceless’s (Voiceless’, Voiceless-i’?) branching level up system - to be a simple update/whats to come.

A WIP of our new company logo/name

Goals for next week:

- No more migraines - they seriously throw off my groove.

- Work on hero animations/visual effects in combat, or rough out the castle scenes - depending upon which I feel like doing (got to create the illusion of options to avoid burnout).

- Blog post about branching level up and why it will be awesome.

-Christmas! (For those of you that don’t celebrate Christmas, it’s pretty awesome, yet I support whatever belief you hold - as long as you hold one, don't rain on Christmas just to be negative).

Goals for next month:

- Playable demo from start to campfire scene - combat will be super unbalanced (Got to set some realistic yet crazy goals)

Next year:

- That Square-Enix Collective thing (they are the grandfather of JRPGs after all)

- Finish alpha release? Profit?

- Taxes for me and then set up a real LLC for Voiceless (gots to love all the hats you get to wear as an indie team... even if some have lice...)

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Encouraging Epic Moments - JRPG Combat Mechanics Part 3

I FORGOT - we have a website for Voiceless! (click)

I’ve been rambling about JRPG combat mechanics and how Voiceless will be breaking the mold a bit. Status effects are a huge part of JRPGs, yet often pigeonholed as to be too random for normal enemies and too ineffective on bosses - Part 1  and 2 of my rambles seek to remedy that.

Now, status effects are fun and cool and all (who doesn’t enjoy stacking everything negative in the book on a foe and then defending until they kill their friends and self?) - but status effects are just one tool in the team’s kit, and depending on the player, might never be utilized. How to remedy that? Make more combat mechanics that encourage meaningful choices and risk-reward. I’m talking about attacks of OPPORTUNITY and DESPERATION.

In Voiceless (as with anything calling itself a JRPG) damage comes from two formulas - one for physical, one for magic (I might delve into those main formulas later, but for now... no one cares, right?). Skills/Magic follow said formulas, with a multiplier on it (fireball deals 1.5x magic damage, a good deal for a few MPs). So far a decent, though generic JRPG combat - skills deal more damage at the cost of MP, which makes MP equal more damage, so you save/conserve it for the boss at the end of the dungeon - but with Voiceless, we want every choice (except for mashing A to slaughter mobs way under your level) to matter.  Attacks of OPPORTUNITY ([OPP] on the skill) and DESPERATION ([DES]) will increase or decrease the effectiveness (the modifier) of the skills they are on. Heroes with nay a scratch on them, no status effects, and fresh to the fight will see increases from OPP attacks, while those on death’s doorstep will see massive boosts from DESP attacks - and remember, these options are available to enemies as well.

Here is where we see this system shine - an case example of the Invoker (think black mage) and the Lunar Night (FF4′s dark night Cecil, but on self damaging roids). The Invoker is a glass cannon magic nuker - pretty much a requirement of all JRPGs. You hide him in the back and conserve mana to blow away challenging enemies. Bestowing attacks if Opportunity on him makes his very typical (and often dull) archetype now more interesting. The Invoker deals more damage with a higher HP and MP percentage - which makes him a super glass cannon, but not the kind that dies quickly. If your invoker gets hit, poisoned, or even looked at incorrectly - his damage output drops and won’t recover until his ills have been treated. Our hope is to change up the single character glass cannon so that he requires a team to do more than be a meat shield. While the Solar Knight can cover for him, when he DOES take damage, the other classes can shine by patching him up and letting him get back to nuking at 150% strength.

The Lunar Knight gets a bag of fun and nasty tricks - most with the DESPeration label (as he gets closer to death, his skills will do WAY more damage, like 300% more - that’s three turns for the cost of one!). The flow for the Lunar Knight will be: Cast status ailments on everyone (friend and foe, its the price of power); Takes some self damage to boost defense and flirt with death; Bash heads in with 300% DESPeration power. Sounds awesome, right? If you can set this man up to deal this damage each turn WITHOUT his single digit HP dropping to 0 - you are a JRPG pro (or simply the kind of player we want to delight).

In both cases, OPP and DESP attacks permit the supporting crew (healers, tanks, etc.) to shine a bit more. They also require the player to pick one extreme (full life or no life) and run with it. Well, you could take the save (and lazy) middle ground, but they perks of living life to the extreme won’t apply to you. And lets be honest - killing the boss with a party of 100% or all near death heroes feels pretty bad ass.

FFT: Wiegraf fight... aka a few weeks of my life

Coming out of this fight with any more than one living party member - complete success in my book.

Next week/time - the classes of Voiceless and how each character’s skills and stats make them feel unique. Or perhaps, I will ramble about our choose your level level up system... or maybe an entire essay on why our white mage is the party tank.

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Voiceless Hiests

Short and quick (stream of consciousness) update for Voiceless. We choose to go to dedicated interior maps (a la FF4-6) rather than Dragon Quest inside/outside of towns on the same map. This means almost everything had to be redone... Lots of work, but totally worth it (what do you think?).

In redoing town 1 (and dungeon 1) - we had the opportunity to make better environments to suit - what we have learned, the feel of Voiceless, and the game mechanics coming up later in the game. So - game progress got a three month set back, but now each and every location should look and feel like Voiceless (sneaking, robbing, secrets) as well as hint and teach future mechanics long before we give them to you.

Whats coming up?

Town 1 is almost redone - slow to finish due to the addition of an optional dungeon within the town - and then dungeon 1 needs a version 3 pass. We are throwing together some extra sprites for key emotions (FF6 Edgar finger wag, Kefka type laugh - that kind of art) for Foxe. Voiceless is getting its own OST and it sounds freaking awesome. After that I’m thinking heists - both the get in, steal, and get out, as well as a more social (think logic puzzle) type ordeal. And sometime February, a Kickstarter - got to pay everyone that isn't myself somehow.

Why is this one year project approaching year three?

Full time job + family with two small and crazy children + house maintenance + life + video games/rest (I mean, market competition research) + life. Y’all know the drill. Voiceless is still a hobby project which means it gets whatever time is left over (props to you Stardew Valley concerned ape and others, but I want to make a game and keep life/family going, not at the expense of them). However, there has been consistent daily effort for the better part of two years now - and with our complete demo and kickstarter coming this February - I hope to make this a little more than hobby. Also - for a ‘small first commercial’ game... don’t pick JRPG and don’t let the project quality/story drive the scope... make something small and get it out there... lesson learned.

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Voiceless - Journal System

When your core JRPG team is a programmer many hat wearer and a writer, you  end up with scrapbook type menu for collecting and reading all the lore hidden throughout the world.

The idea is to provide the player with TONS of OPTIONAL notes, letters, and other sources of lore should they seek them out. If you want to dive deep into the world of Voiceless, the high dive is open and waiting. If you don’t - well, ok then. The only downside to not collecting all the lore (aside from not knowing all the cool and hard work put into each location in the world) is no achievement for you! The light blue text will be ‘header’ items - usually a location or character name and a quick summary of it and how many child text you have found / left to find, while the white items are dedicated flavor text belonging to its blue parent.

I hope y’all enjoy prodding every nook and cranny of the world to find what we have hidden. (Some flavor texts may offer clues or valuable hints - hint hint)