Hello guys, this is a mini-tidbit. Basically meaning I didn’t have enough time to do a proper one and I didn’t want to do nothing. So here’s a small tidbit.

Spriting
Lunara has taken on the project to sprite downs for the main characters. At this moment she has made one for Xaver.
Xaver’s down was first on the list because I needed it for a cutscene.  She’ll be starting with other main characters soon.

Scripting
BigEd is almost done with the memory script. He mentioned that he just needed to fix some bugs and then he’ll be done.

Birthdays
Wij and Sevith were both celebrating their birthdays this week. Huzzah for Wij who turned 42 and Sevith who turned 18.

Note:
I promised some screenshots last week, they’ll be for next week when I have more time. I tried getting them done but it just was impossible. My apologies.

As the title suggests I’m going to discuss the setting in this edition. I know I talk in detail about it on this blog and other locations. But I’ll go into more detail and explain their relation to the characters. I’ll be adding a whole load of screenies next week and I would like to know what kind of screenies you’d like to see.

View This Poll

In this Edition:
Writing:
Settings:
Askarin
Kerren Desert
Partino
Gameplay: Traits
Writing

The first and most important setting in the game is Askarin. Askarin is the main city. The city where Chapter 1 takes place and the city where most of the main characters come from.  Askarin started out as a small community of fishermen along the Demenorian Sea then still called The Great Water. The community lived in peace and quiet for several years. They paid no taxes or served no king but when the clans of  Topas united under a common banner a group of soldiers was sent towards the community to claim taxes. Led by Marshal Carlton Askarin the army arrived at the community and forced the people to pay their taxes. Those who rebelled were fed to the wolves in the nearby forest. Marshal Askarin stayed in the town and named it after himself. He appointed a succesor shortly before his death and that succesor started a militia in the city known as the Askarin Guard and led by the Marshal.

The Marshals had the great task of collecting the taxes. Those who were unable to pay their taxes were forced to live outside the city and outside it’s protection. That area between the city and the forest became known as the Slums or the Foxhole.

The word Fox became connected to the people from the slums. A fox is a creature known for stealing and making it’s houses from dirt. Hence the people from the slums were nicknamed the Foxpeople. And the vigilante that appeared years later took the name Fox as a statement.

The Slums are a very important setting. RyanA is busy remapping them. It’s atmosphere should be cheery. Not gloomy but cheery. It’s a community where people love eachother. Everyone knows everyone and they all look out for one another. The housing in the slums is crappy at best. They build their houses with the cheapest materials and they have to make them small so many people can live their. Slumpeople generally live on the street. They sneak into the city to find food. But luckily for them Marshal Trevor Iscaroth has invested a lot into the Slums. He added a shop, a pub an inn and even protection from the Guard. This to great dismay of the Duke. Rumour has it that he was forced to retire due to this. Marshal Lukas Xaver is keeping this protection but he is concidering removing it again.

The maincharacters Dwane Kela and Jax all come from a great slumfamily. The biggest in the slums. Their grandfather Alfred was once a noble and even carried the title of Minister. But now he spends his time teaching the childeren of the slums some kind of knowledge. As schools are restricted to tax-payers. Food and water are gathered from the woods or the river. A well has been installed too and there is a shop but the hunting grounds are still popular. Wild boars roam the woods and since the build of the Wolf Wall the dangerous animals are limited to weak wolves.  The more dangerous kind live further south.

Dwane is the hunter of his family. He carries a crossbow the weapon of choice to keep his family provided with food. Jax likes to take a less legal way to provide his family with food and money. He goes out to steal at night. And Kela follows in her brother’s footsteps and learns to handle a longbow.

Other characters in Askarin are Toren and Agra. Toren is the son of the legendary Trevor Iscaroth. And Agra is the only female member of the Guard. Also important is the leader of the Guard Lukas Xaver.

From Askarin we go to the Kerren Desert. This Desert lies in Ryo and the only people who live there are nomads known as The Wanderers. A group led by a Seer called Razam. Razam is said be incarnated each generation. Wanderers are not that welcome. They worship a different god and this does not make them popular. Here we’ll meet Dorian and Sahir . Dorian is a young teenager suffering memory loss. He’s named Dorian by Sahir because he believes every person deserves a name. Sahir is a Lymar that accidently killed his wife and was banished from society. These 2 will become more important in Chapter 2.

The Kerren Desert also is home to a race of Shapeshifters. Humanoid creatures that can take the shape of any other creature. This is a mental illusion , they manipulate the brain of others so that they might perceive them differently. Shifters are almost completely extinct as they are concidered evil. This is because they need to drink blood to sustain themselves and they are known to hunt humans and even infiltrate human communities. Their greatest weakness is fire. They can’t concentrate around fire and show their true face.

Lastly there’s Partino. The Capital of Topas. Partino is home to the great Castle of De Loas where we’ll meet several characters. There is the Duke. Duke Ector de Loas, his personal doctor and advisor Doctor Paliant Vantar. His ministers among which Minister Manter Alfredo. The leader of The Protectors, a group of magefinders who work in the name of the Gods, Cardinal Amadeus Santos. Partino was established by Duke Lodvin de Loas who united the clans of Topas under one banner.

In Partino there is The Seat of Topas a group of ministers advicing the Duke in all his decisions. They also help create laws who have to be followed by the people. If a person continues to break the law or there is any other kind of law problem the Duke sends out The Judges a group of elite soldiers who live the rule of immediate justice. Because Judges have to be neutral their memory is whiped by Paliant before joining. Judges are volunteers. They are most of the time criminals who are given the choice between death or memory whipe.  All over Askarin they fear the judges. Astor Drumlin is one of these judges, we’ll follow his story as they come to realize a memory whipe doesn’t stay.

Gameplay: Traits

For those who have played the demo will know that traits are an important part of the gameplay. To explain very shortly, a trait is a passive skill of sorts. A bonus that can be given to a character. Each character can have 4 traits. They can do several things:

-Increase a parameter
-Allow certain actions
-Increase Immunity towards elements/states

Basically a trait makes life easier for a player. Traits can be found all over the world. Some NPC’s teach traits. Other traits can be won by doing short quests. At the moment I’m trying to compile a list of trait ideas. This is a huge task and a very difficult one. You really have to get the right inspiration. Any ideas and suggestions are welcome but I’ll try to handle it on my own.

As promised a second edition. It’s a bit later then last week’s. But in my timezone it’s still tuesday so that counts. If it’s wednesday where you are just think of these as the Wednesday Weekly. This edition will focus on how the game looks. I’ll discuss the art and the mapping. I will also ask for some feedback. So I would appreciate some comments.

In this edition:
Mapping: Finding the right atmosphere
Art: Right style? Not in the way?
Menu: Simplicity: Good or bad?
Scripts: Update on the Memory System
Mapping
I don’t really like mapping myself. When XP got out I called myself a mapper cause I believed I was pretty good at it.
But with VX I’m having trouble. The limit of tilesets doesn’t really help.  The RTP tiles are versatile and it demands some creativity from the player to create the map he needs but I do miss multiple tilesets. Hence why I will be using bulletxt‘s Tilesetswapper. This allows me to switch between tilesets without much trouble. I’m not using it for the moment because the tiles I use now are good enough for the maps I need to make.

Now I believe the #1 in mapping that’s important is atmosphere, in my game the main theme are poverty and war. Using very bright colours kinda destroys the atmosphere. At least in my opinion. When showing rich people who are having a good life, I’ll use those bright colours, but when during a cutscene someone talks about the poverty it’ll most likely rain softly and the tint will ake to grey to emphasize the mood.

This is a map I just created. I’m not a great mapper but the point of the map is to create a sort of dark atmosphere. I used a fog and weather effects for this as well as a dark tint. I have to mention that pentagonbuddy‘s mapping tutorials really helped me create this map. It’s not a perfect one and I’ll need some time before it looks good but I’m quite proud of it.

I’ve been thinking about how to map the Spirit World and I came up with a simple yet effective effect to add to it.
This is yet again a fog and a blue-ish tint. Ignore the map for now, in the game this’ll have more added to it. For the moment this was just a little experiment.


As for progress. Both Ookie and Ryan A are working on their maps. Ookie has a lowpriority map. As announced in the previous edition she will be working lightly on this game. And so she takes her time with this map. Ryan A is remapping the slums to give it a better look then it has now.

Art

Gyrowolf makes the art for Cry of the Fox. I absolutely love the art and I have a feeling a lot of people agree with me. However I’ve also heard that several people don’t like the brightness of the art. So just to get an idea. Is there any kind of improvement that could happen to the artpieces?

On the other hand people have also complained about the placement of the Faces. Which you can see on this screenshot:

Some people have mentioned that they obscure the player’s view. It’s true. When a faceset is shown it takes
about a third of the screen. My comment on that is that nothing really interesting is happening underneath the face.
But I do understand that it’s a problem. So I’m asking would any of you want an option to hide the faces? Or is there another solution I’m not seeing.

The Menu System
The current menu system is based around simplicity. I know there are a lot of  scripts out there that use pictures to create beautiful menus. And a lot of creative scripters/graphic artists have made custom versions of them. But for me a menu should be accesable. Nice looking is an extra but not the first priority.  That’s what I told Wij when I showed him the design and that’s what I still believe.

The same goes for the battle system. Though people have urged me to update it with at least a battlebackground and others have even asked me to implent a battle-hud. I’m torn. I don’t mind having a relativily dull looking battle system as long as the battles itself are interesting but as others mind I’m going to listen to the suggestions of people reading this blog and look for some ways to slightly redesign it.

Scripting
A mini update on the memory system I mentioned last week. BigEd has almost finished it. The non-vivid (text-based) memories will work via pictures. This to add some customization. Normal text is little bit dull.

On the other side of scripting. The big scripts are 100% finished. If I request some other scripts it’ll be polish to the game. Small things that make the player go “Oh that’s cool” without it having a massive gameplay effect. I’ve yet to decide what kind of things that’ll be. Ideas are welcome but I don’t think it’s a real priority.

Note:
Next week there is going to be another tidbit. If you have any questions about the project, post them in the comments and I’ll answer them next week. I’m not running out of ideas yet but just to be safe.

For those who don’t know, Parallex Mapping basically is editing a map inside a graphical program to enchance the way it looks and then using that map as parallex in the game. It has crossed my mind to do so, however I decided against it, for several reasons. The most prominent being that I don’t have a reason to parallex. Of course it’ll enchance the map the player has to play through. That is correct, if I knew my way around Photoshop or even Gimp I’dd be able to add some extra atmosphere to a game.

But lately it just seems like everyone is parallexing, some parallex maps are awesome and they effect they add to a map is significant. In other cases it just seems like people follow a craze. Certain maps look barely touched by the mapper and it just seems like they could’ve easily achieved that effect by normal mapping.

I had to get this out of my system, if you have no good reason to parallex stay away from it. It stopped being original which is a real sad thing for people like Drunken Palladin, Hanzo, Lyonn, Celiana and C7 who’s parallex effects actually make a difference.

Sorry guys, I’ve been busy with a lot of stuff (A lot), and I’ve been neglecting this blog too much.  This will change thanks to the Tuesday Tidbits.It’s tuesday today and from now on instead of updating at whim. This edition is quite big since it has been a while. Most editions will be rather small and I won’t force myself to do one if I have nothing to say. This will however motivate me to work more on it.

View This Poll

So… *cuts rope*

In this edition:
Teamchanges: Epic Ancient/Smarthious
Sprites: Redos of Jax and Dwane
Art: The Fox (finally!)
Scripts: Stealing+Memory System
Plot: Information about the Spirit World
Characters: Spotlighting Paliant
IRC Channel: Information
Looking for a Spriter: For 3 sprites.

Teamchanges

I am pleased to announce that the Cry of the Fox team now has a databaser.
Smarthious has joined our ranks and is busy making the database for the next
Cry of the Fox Demo. Smarthious aka Smarth is a member from rpgmakervx.net and applied
for the position several months ago.

On top of that Epic Ancient returned to our team, she was a member of it a few months ago but
had to drop out due to real life business. As real life has calmed down she will gladly aid me in inventing
puzzles for this project.

In other news Ookie Panda the official Cry of the Fox-Panda is taking it a bit lighter with this project.
She is busy with 2 projects already, on top of that she writes for the VX-Club and had to therefor take a step back.
She will gladly continue to support this project and help out as much as she can including mapping. But all in a lighter dose.

Spritechanges

The Jax and Dwane sprites have always been famitsu generated sprites. I never had much trouble with having generated sprites as main characters but to quote Lunara

You can’t have an RTP sprite or generated sprite as a main character. I won’t allow it.
-Lunara

So she went ahead and made 2 new sprites for the main characters:

Dwane

Jax
Her current project is designing Down Poses for the Main characters. Good luck and thanj you Lunara!

Art

Gyrowolf has been a bit Missing in Action lately. However he has returned. And how! He is working on Fox’s facesets. He’s putting the last hand on the faces at this very moment but I can show you a sneak peak already.

Scripting

TheOriginalWij has been scripting away and has fnished a few new scripts. I don’t want to reveal too much to keep some surprises but among what he has finished is a Stealing System. By finding the right trait and equiping it you will be able to steal from the shops.

BigEd786 has taken my request for a Memory System. The memory system will provide the chance to discover hidden mementos on maps. If you find the right mementos you will be able to discover memories from certain characters. Thus providing the backstory I’ve written without having to force it onto the player.

Plot

The world was devided in 2, a world of spirits and a world of the living. The living world ruled by the 4 elder spirits, changing through time, constantly evolving. The spirit world stands still, not ruled by the laws of the 4 elder spirits that inhabit it.

The Spirit World will play a significant role in the Game. It is the source of magic. As the physical world excists out of nature. The mooncycle influences the Spirit World, the closer to a full moon the more active the spirit world becomes and on a full moon spirits can travel to the other world. It is ruled by 4 spirits:
-Vivant the spirit of life
-Mordred the spirit of death
-Amoro the spirit of love
-Potent the spirit of power

They control the Physical World from inside the spirit world and are known as the Elder Spirits as they were the first. There are several other kinds of spirits:
Lycans: Lycans are spirits of animals, on a full moon they travel to the physical world and they take over a physical vessel. Hence the excistance of werewolves and other were-animals.

Banshees: Banshees are slave to Mordred, when entering the spirit world the spirts that decide to defy the 4 spirits are hunted by them. When caught they are turned into Banshees. They are tasked with killing the living when there time has come. Tearing off the spirit from a physical vessel and bringing it into the Spirit World.

Demons: Spirits turned mad by staying too long inside the spirit world. On a full moon they travel to the other side too. Wreaking havoc inside it. When they find a vessel they can live inside it for some time, even after a full moon. An excorcism can help to bring the spirit back to the Spirit World.

Character-Spotlight: Paliant Vantar

Doctor Paliant Vantar was born the son of 2 Pharian Nobles. His father a trader who took his son travelling through Topas. On the road Paliant studied herbology in books that belonged to his grandfather a great herbologist. His mother died on a serious illness and Paliant became frustrated, he knew so much about herbs but couldn’t save her. So he decided to find a cure for the illness that took his mother.

His father spent a fortune paying his son’s studies and he became a student to Doctor Pecurias of Topas, the physician of the Topian Court. Eventually he found the cure and gave it away for free, something his father kept on calling him an idiot over.

Paliant discovered that Pecurias who was taking care of the Princes of Topas was poisoning the crownprince and keeping him ill. He discovered the poison and took the Duke in trust. Pecurias was uncovered to be part of a cult of Mages and was put in prison.

Paliant took his place as doctor of the court and stayed so for the next years, continuing under the crownprince and after his death under his brother. However Duke Ector and Paliant aren’t such good friends.

IRC-Channel

Cry of the Fox has it’s own irc channel. On the synirc server: #cotf on irc.synirc.net this channel is both for the team and those who want to support it. It’s also a bit of a social channel. If you want to join just behave, I won’t set rules but please use your brain. If you act like an idiot I won’t hessitate to ban but I hope this won’t be neccessary.

Looking for a Spriter

To make Lunara’s work a bit easier I’m looking for a spriter to make 3 sprites. If you need more details contact me on sanderf90@gmail.com

The Fox

Dwane

You can learn more about Dwane Adriac here, and more about the Fox here. Leave your comments below and tell us what you think!

As a main role you would be mapping mostly
exterior maps and nature. However it is completely
up to you what you want to map, I think the vital
part of a team is to really ask what the person wants to
do. I have done this so far and it worked out nicely.

The maps will be done with Mack’s Tiles and using
bulletxt’s tilesetswapper we can also use other sets of tiles.
I expect an average speed of one map a week, though I can
be flexible about this when I don’t hear from you for a long time
you are off the team. I will however send enough PM’s or e-mails to warn
about it.

Besides Mapping you can also attend brainstorming, my team comes together once in a while on IRC
to discuss some idea. Though your presence is not required it is nice to hear some of the ideas.

How to Apply?
Post in the comments or e-mail me with the following information and a Proof of work (screenshot, (un)encrypted project):

Team Info
Writers:
Sander
-phi-

Spriters:
Lunara
Sevith

Musician:
RoelfMik

Artists:
Gyrowolf

Databasers:
Sander
Oscarvarium

Eventers:
Sander
Prof. Meow Meow

Scripter:
OriginalWij

Mappers:
Sander
Ryan A
-vacant-

You can read more about Louis and his involvement in the story here.

Enjoy, and I’ll be seeing you around!
~ Gyrowolf