Book of Tales (vers. 1.0 PC)

Hello!

The seminare was yesterday, and now the hard work is finally over, or so I thought. I uploaded the game to Skydrive already yesterday and even linked it to my Facebook page, but that link required logging into a Live account before downloading, because of the size of the zip file which has apparently been restricted by Microsoft because of piracy issues. Well, I put like two hours of thinking into that before I figured out what was wrong. So today I started over again with Dropbox, first using the web application, which crashed just at the end of the upload process and wouldn't start again. Then I downloaded the Dropbox desktop application and tried uploading the file with that. Needless to say, that didn't work at first either. I had to remove some other software and restart my computer and other shit before it started working.

And now we are here, after all the trouble and hard work we have had to endure during almost a year now, here it is, the PC version 1.0 of our game Book of Tales. Hope you like it and don't have any big problems during your gaming experience. And remember the competition I started in the last post! Enjoy and recommend to your friends also, all publicity is good publicity... :D

P.S. Oh yeah, I almost forgot. For the best gaming experience, use the rotate camera mouse button only if you use a gun in the battle, for standard turning and sword battle use WASD, cause I didn't have time to fix the camera script and it lags. And some times after killing the end boss, if you go to interact with something by pressing E button, you get stuck and can't move. Well, I think that's all for now.

Here's the link(download and extract the zip file to your computer and run the exe file):

Book of Tales (vers. 1.0 PC)

The Day After Tomorrow

Hi.

So, this is the last day I am coding at home and now I decided I'm done for the day. The seminar is on Friday, and tomorrow is the last coding day at school, making the final adjustments to the game and at 4 pm the seminar version of the game is finished. I know there will be bugs in the game, I'm 100 percent sure of it. I'm just hoping that despite of the bugs the game would be playable and the game won't freeze or crash or some other way spoil someones gaming experience. I will upload the PC version of the game for everyone to play at the weekend, or atleast next week. I appreciate all the feedback we will get from the game, but remember this: the game was made by two students for free, we are not professionals and we made it for the love of gaming (and because we had to :D ). It ain't no Skyrim, mostly our game is crap, we were in a hurry, the rotating of the camera still lags the shit out of any computer, there is just simple sounds in it, there isn't the promised 20 levels in it, just one... This list would never end, I could go all night.

My main point is, that before you go all hating and just normal internet behaviour on us, I'll ask you one thing. How would you feel, if you had a child and everybody would call her slow and ugly, and no good and would compare her to other "better" children? Well this is my child, and I'm proud of it, no matter what anyone says... So bring it!

So the game will be out in the open latest next week and I have thought about a little encouragement for you to play the game. I will now post a screenshot here, and it's from my first ever playthrough of our game. I did every task and killed every enemy that gives you XP in the game, and I didn't die even once, it took me maybe 15 minutes. So here is the catch: THE FIRST ONE who comments here that they have gotten a higher level and XP amount, will get a some sort of cool price from me. Remember, I will ask the person to prove the score with a screenshot, and believe me, I will know if he or she cheated, I can check from the game code if the game score is even possible. So no horseplay people!

I will write a new blog text when the game comes available and instructions where to download it.

Cheers, Mikko.

Only a week left!

Hi there all.

So, we have only one more week left... next friday (22.3.) it gonna be a seminar day, and... yeah, that's it.

I can't remember if someone already told this, but we decided to include only one zone to this "demo". Which is kinda shame, but the code run in to some problems with changing the scene. But to some more brighter news! We made a quest. It works, and involves vanquishing an angry spirit. Yay. Aaand to some other news, which are very good for me and and very bad for Maikki...well, I shall tell you a story from last friday:

Mikko: "Henna, check this out... This is borderlands 2...see, it works fine. And this is our game, and it lags a hell out of my computer."

Henna: "Oh. Wait, I have to check my lights and occlusion, omaigaad."

(This is the part where I start to worry. Did I screw up the lights? Are there too much dynamic shadows? What's wrong with the occlusion, doesn't it work? Should I have really made LODs for this shit? It's a small zone, how is this possible?)

After a long while of checking the stuff, I finally remembered the existence of Unity's profiler... <_<

So we took a look at that. It turns out, that all the graphics hardly showed up there, but all the code was skyrocketing, and making the stuff lag. That's when I sighed out of relief, but of course I feel bad for Maikki, who might have to come up with some sort of solution for that in a weeks time : D

Overall I'm so happy that this is nearing it's end. I've learned a lot, from the numerous mistakes we've made, and I really want to start something new soon. I have already done all the stressful big stuff, and now it's just some small adjusting left for me to do in the game. Oh yayy.

Henna

The last sprint

Hi!

We had again a seminar at school this week to see where we are at our final projects. There was also first time some testing of all the games our class is making, so all the groups got good feedback on their games. The feedback Henna and I got consisted mostly of some minor bugs and unpolished game mechanics, and we were aware of most of the problems already before the testing. We have now about 14 school days until the last seminar where the finished final project is presented.

Even though the time is ticking, I have a pretty good feeling about our project. On friday we made a new timetable for the remaining days and it really cleared the rest of the time left to me. There's still obstacles in our way and we must work just a little longer, but I am feeling really positive about this. Seems that our hard work is paying off, and I hope that aliens from space won't destroy earth before March 22th has passed... :D

So, in roughly about three weeks, we will hopefully have a new playable version of our RPG for the seminar and soon after that I think we'll let you guys download it also...? Keep your fingers crossed, let's make it happen!

Bleargh

So, meh.

I haven't updated in ages. Yes, we have worked on the game, and we have made some stuff. We started adding some noises and music and stuff, and now you can talk to one NPC and we also replaced the horse and yeah.

Personally I'm starting to just hope this would be over soon, heh. We had a small holiday just now, and I haven't done much. A break from the game thought felt nice, and now I'm ready to start working on it again at school. I just made some particles for a big baddie monster, I hope we could use him as a some sort of a small boss encounter. Well, we'll see.

Ugh, We aldo updated the project to Unity Pro, and apparently also to Unity 4. As I have heard no panicked news from Mikko, I have to assume nothing broke at update. Yay.

Thats all, really. We'll continue working on this shit till the gruesome end.

Henna

Working at school

Howdy people!

So, we are slowly getting back to school feeling after the holiday, and most of the classes we now have we work on our final projects. Matter a fact, if I look at our school schedule, and if I read it correctly, most of the classes before the final project is to be finished are devoted for working on it. That's a really good thing and hopefully it minimizes the need to work on weekends and after school.

We are making steady progress, but I have to still admit I hope I would be further ahead than I am. I'm still working on the battle system, which I thought would have been finished weeks ago. Luckily, for the version that should be finished for March, the battle system is the biggest and most complex part of the game and when it is finished, the rest of the parts for the game are a lot smaller and hopefully easier to code. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for minimum amount of suprises and problems... :D

But what happens to the game after the final project is finished? Because the game is not a finished game at the end of March, that's for sure. Do we just cast the project aside once it's main purpose is fulfilled? I think that we will see after March does either of us have enough interest on the game to continue on it after we have no obligation to do so.

In the summer we (hopefully) graduate, and after that me, Henna and the rest of our wonderfully crazy class go on our own ways. I'm feeling both happy and sad that these three years of my life are soon over. Well, it's not over yet! I hope we have a really great last four months and make more great memories!

Update on progress and some backstory

Well, we haven't updated because we had a somewhat earned christmas holiday!

But we are making some progress. I´ve started to draw the intro animation for the game, which will be a rather simple keyframe animated thingy, but with colors and stuff. I´ve also done lot more props for the starting area, and soon we shall scrap our...lovely horse... and replace it with something else.

I´ll ask Mikko what he´s up to:

"I´m trying to make our character die. Fashionably."

Yeah. But now I shall tell you about our game world and the lore behind it.

Kyran lives in a rather nomadic little village, called Crescent village. The people there have lived a simple life for decades, yet the world is slowly changing. Steam power and guns are becoming a common sight in growing cities. While elders of the Crescent village resist the change, young people are embracing the change, and migrating to bigger cities. Kyran still stays, because of his sister and his artistic soul, which craves for the majestic sights of the wilderness, rather than the hustle of the big cities. But he is no stranger to modern culture, and prefers clothes and items imported from cities, which makes him a rather odd sight to be seen amongst his more traditional kinsmen.

Traditionally the people of the Crescent village refer to nature spirits or deities, of which the most prominent is Aios, a giant bird-like figure associated with sky, rain and protection. Statues of Aios are often found in cemeteries, for it is believed that Aios guides the deceased safely to the afterlife.
With the modern movement though, more and more people are deciding to leave the old ways behind, and those who still refer Aios are getting few in number.

Crescent village is much self-contained. They raise cattle, grow grain and special fruit trees, called Opako trees, which are exclusive to that region. The fruits of the Opako are covered in spiky shell, but the fruit itself is sweet and nutritious. Crescent village has only one major trade, which is mining garnets, precious red stones, to be sold to jewelry makers across the land.

I´m really gonna try and bring the backstory to life in Crecent village, through propping and NPC dialogue. It´s important, but I guess also rather tricky thing to do.