#void zone

Such as this room, where nothing bad has happened:

And this person, who isn't happy about it:

I almost have the full intro/opening sequence done - not much more to do now!

I made a proper title screen, I really like how it turned out:

I also worked on a few NPCs, such as this one:

Behind the scenes here, I threw together a 'randomizer' to generate random traits for NPCs so that I have some variety as a jumping off point for making NPCs. The NPC sprites are then built from pieces I've made, with some light editing to make them look nice together.

Recently, I've been making music for the game with the amazing 1BitDragon software. Sadly I'm not sure how's best to upload music previews yet, so I'll have to show those off later.

I've also been working on making the titular Void Zone look nice. Which.. I admit I have been trying to do for a long while.

In the Alpha version, it looked....

Umm.. yeah. Let's call this "not as good as it could be". I've attempted quite a few different things since then.  First was this one, which.. well, it's not horrible, but I don't think I would call it "good".

My most recent attempt has yielded this, which is still far from where I want it to be but looks maybe a bit better.

And I tried a hybrid of the two just to see how it looks. I think I might like this better actually, but.. not by much. I think if I went with something like this it would incorporate the "floor" pattern from the upper one, just with this white "blank area" and maybe with lower opacity. 

I'm going to keep trying things to see how they look - the Void Zone is pretty important (as you may imagine), and the player will spend quite some time in it, so I would like it to be as visually appealing as possible while still maintaining the appearance of a sort of harsh, unforgiving light coming from a sort of nothingness. I thought maybe I had some older concept art that would help me. Here's what I had: The most recent illustration of the Void is from before when I tried making VZ into a comic instead of remaking the Alpha (but then decided against it). And though I like this illustration, it doesn't have much structure to go off of. 

Similarly, the two times the Void appeared in the Alpha's cutscenes, it was considerably un-detailed: 

So, I really don't have much to draw from admittedly, other than an image in my head. I'm not sure if I want the Void to appear as a sort of "layered platform" where you can see deeper and deeper into it beneath you, or as "shifting tunnels" of sorts. In either case, I want to maintain the theme of RGB light. I suppose I'll have to keep fiddling with it. Oh - and since it showed up in that old comic art, here's the enemy featured in it:

Beneath the surface of our planet exists our world of caves.

It is within the cave-cities that our protagonist, Kigg, makes a living as a member of the Void Scouts, a courageous group of explorers, protectors, and monster hunters pledged to protect the people of the caves. The Void Scouts work constantly to assist the cave-bound cities they live in from the potential threat of the Void Zone, a dangerous field of psychic energy which can quickly kill those who enter unprepared and untrained.

The caves are plagued with uncertainty: the people have been going missing without a trace, and between mysterious robotic beasts, volatile energy seeping into the physical realm from the Zone, and talk of strange monsters abound, Kigg, starry-eyed and eager to help others, must assist the people of the caves. His eyes are fixed on a sky he has never seen, but his heart lies with helping the people around him. Surely, he cannot reach for the stars and protect the people of the Caves…

The Void Scouts protect the people of the caves, but when calamity befalls the Void Scouts, who will protect them? There is only one choice: survive.

In Void Zone, you will explore unique cave cities, battle mysterious creatures, gather items from your surroundings, and unravel the mysteries of the strange psychic Void Zone surrounding the pockets of civilization around you. This game features turn-based combat, item gathering, and an elemental battle system!

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Development thus far...

Void Zone started about 8 years ago. In the beginning, it looked like this:

And while it was a labor of love, I was not sure what I was doing at all.

After a few years and quite a lot of effort, I had most of the story written and quite a bit of the game playable... In RPG Maker VX Ace, which is written in RubyScript. Unfortunately, I am very bad at programming, so despite years of work on the project, my inability to make things work the way I wanted them to really frustrated and upset me.

Eventually, I decided to switch over to a Javascript based engine - RPG Maker MV - which has suited me much better. Along with it, the game has gotten a lot of graphical updates, both thanks to a larger tile size and my own art skills improving over nearly a decade.

Now, it looks like this:

The now-defunct "Alpha Version" was admittedly probably 60% complete. The new build is probably 30% - most non-'dungeon/puzzle' maps are complete, almost all features have at least a basic working version, many sound effects as well as music and story are still intact from the Alpha.

Dungeon and puzzle design, monster art updates, player combat animations, final story revisions, NPCs, music, and a whole pile of eventing and balancing lay ahead still.

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Planned + In-Progress Features

Turn-based combat with an element system

The basic skeleton of the combat system is complete; it currently lacks balancing, graphics, and some skill abilities.

Planned: a skill-steal ability, an item-steal ability

Maybe: an elemental weakness-resistance share ability

Combination of pre-designed and randomly-generated maps

Thanks to the incredibly amazing Aerosys, randomly generated maps are possible for a total coding dummy like me!

That said, the randomly generated maps are currently very barebones.

Planned: Map-based effects, varied map generation procedures, pre-designed 'static' dungeons

Maybe: Restoring MP while traveling (possibly only in certain areas)

Gathering and light crafting system

A very basic gathering system is in place, as well as a very basic fishing minigame.

Planned: Light crafting system - think of basic cooking!

Maybe: A more robust fishing minigame, character food preferences (Ex: +5 to a food's effect if the character likes it)

Bestiary and codex entries; Quest-tracking journal

These features have been set up, and simply need to be edited as needed for story progression

Maybe: Bestiary gallery; this would require me to be better at JavaScript or find someone to help me out. Right now the bestiary can display static images, but cannot display animations.

Maybe: UI Updates

While I can get the UI looking pretty nice by messing with RPG Maker's settings and supplying my own graphics, it's still frustrating to be confined to the parameters set by the engine as opposed to nicer menus designed by hand. Unfortunately, this is not something I think I can do on my own (right now, at least) - so this is just a possible update, not a planned one.

I may also add small 'splash' illustrations when traveling from area to area, either only once (and then shown in the codex after) or very quickly every time. However, this may be annoying for players moving around many areas quickly.

Shops with interactive shopkeeps

Basic function is in place, but it hasn't been refined much.

Planned: Shop scenes (a background illustration and a character illustration for each shop)

Ultimately, there is a lot of work already one on Void Zone, but also a lot more to go.

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From here...

...I will keep working on Void Zone in my free time. For a while I kept this blog detailing my progress on the Alpha version; from here I'd like to update as I go and keep track of my progress.

A very generous timeframe would be to finish the game before 2024; I don't know if I'll reach that goal. But I want to keep going until I finish, and I hope if you've stuck with me through this post so far you'll maybe come check out how it's going from time to time.

And to end this post, here are some enemy animations:

Until next time!

Work in progress of a city I recently revamped - I like the new version much better!

U N K N O W N _ C H A L L E N G E R