#vxace

 ENGLISH RELEASE! I’m so sorry for taking so long ;; but here we are!

A Figment of Discord takes place before the events of the previous Midori Fragments game, A Timeless Story. The game features: -Gorgeous artworks; -100% original soundtracks; -2/3 hours of gameplay; -9 different endings. Plot: Human relationships are so frail. Luckily enough, Eris doesn't mind such things since when she was abandoned at the gates of Rosechild orphanage, deep in the woods. She held no significant friendship with the other inhabitants of the structure. Instead, she prefers spending her days with her only friend; the odd cat Millionmiles. Constantly keeping to herself with the orphanage low on food supply, could one mere apple break her quiet stance amongst the orphanage?

Another change, added a new mechanic called the Break status.

All skills have a chance to break enemies, or you can utilize break skills instead to 100% break an enemy.  However, using a break skill will put that character to "Rest", not letting them have any action for the remainder of the turn.

Hey, it’s been a while!

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?

Mirror. Download short demo of Black Dog:

Download the new short demo:

Yup, its been a long time with no update. Good news is - Progress is still happening! See -

I archive the done column all the time (you have to trust me on that) - so that means I am finally getting more done FASTER than I find more things needing to be made done!

So why no posts? Turns out... you can only wear so many hats at once. Full time ‘real’ job, parent, spouse, hobby dev / PR / art / writer / QA / design... If I take off the PR/’Hello World’ hat, I can get more code and design stuff done. But then there is no signs of life to the outside world and no one to be interested to get me interested to work harder to get done sooner to..... Its a viscous cycle.

Still lots I want to post longer write ups on (the boons of pixel art, mechanics of being a thief, etc.) but for now... there will be more smaller things at Personal Twitter and Voiceless Twitter more often.

Until the next write-up tumblr blog (a.k.a. This thing) -

I plan on covering the 6 core mechanics of Voiceless soon (I think it is legit how simple they are yet they all play into each other - woo emergent systems) - but for now, a short update on what once was our torch system and is now our full on lighting system.

As a thief, our main character can say ‘hello darkness my old friend’ and mean it (kinda like Batman). Originally and simply - darkness is meant to invoke nostalgia for Dragon Quest 1 (minus the mane crawling to light a torch) and to limit player vision to permit level design to go crazy with mazes, hidden areas, and smaller more intricate areas.

The original Torch and Night systems succeeded in this goal, but play testing exposed a fatal flaw - When you can’t see very much.... you can’t see very much. While hampering player vision permits for some fun puzzles, one must never impede the player’s ability to see enough to know where they have been before, and where they are going/need to go. The old darkness system saw too many testers not know where to go and often double back on areas they  had already been - not good game design.

Thus... we needed an improvement.

Thus the lighting system was born! I wish VXace had better sprite/bitmap support (and shaders... love those things) - but overall, the new system is awesome. Voiceless has entered the modern era with a light system of its own (whilst staying nostalgic with those juicy pixels/grid). With this, level design can place light sources strategically - like, to show where the correct path is (the most light area), or where a secret might be hiding, or illuminating a landmark so the player knows which way is backtracking, or... to deceive the player into the wrong path ;)

Thus far, the system has given me days of enjoyment tweaking lights here and there - and I believe it makes the game look much better both in pure visuals and readability (testers thus far agree). But... its missing something...

Dithering! Yeah, that stuff. Crunchy pixels are good and all, but even back in the NES we knew and used dithering to do some cool stuff. The smoother edges even look like smoke/fog/or something. It almost feels like Courier of the Crypts now that I look at it objectively ;)