Announcement

Astraverse coming to Steam Next Fest!

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Feb. 21 – 28

First thing’s first…

If you don’t already know, lately I’ve been hard at work on crowdfunding to make an enhanced re-release of my previous title, Tales of the Elements. This new Tales of the Elements (we’re calling it T.O.T.E.) is supposed to stand on it’s own without the need of listening to the albums that its original game was based off of. I decided to do this enhanced re-release it to port the game to mobile and give the project a second chance at reaching a larger audience so that it could help boost the community following for Astraverse. As much as I would like to not think of T.O.T.E. as a “stepping stone” for Astraverse, the ultimate goal here is to give Astraverse a much-needed boost. It’ll need the funding and without a community behind it–I’m afraid it’ll struggle.

Now, the Kickstarter for T.O.T.E. is finally coming to an end–just a couple days left so I HIGHLY recommend that anyone who’s interested in supporting Astraverse support the T.O.T.E. Kickstarter as well! T.O.T.E. is a dope JRPG that’s heavily based on Hip Hop and it’s culture. It’s a bit different but it does have a banging soundtrack just like Astraverse does!

Supporting T.O.T.E. is also supporting Astraverse as there is even development software that I’m using for T.O.T.E. that I’m also using for Astraverse. You can click on the image above or the gameplay image below to check out the Kickstarter!

Short clip from the new T.O.T.E.

So, what’s going on with Astraverse???

Honestly, development is taking a short break. But, I’ll be resuming development again in about a month or so to finally finish off the playable quest demo and the official reveal trailer that I have planned. The ques demo will be for 1-4 players and it will include the character creator from the character creator demo as well as one playable quest including some narrative events with a boss at the end of it. I want people who play the demo to get a good feel for the vision of the game. So, I’m trying to include every important feature to the game’s main gameplay loop.

4-player inventory management!

Steam Fest February 21-28

Valve reached out to me and invited me to showcase Astraverse for the Steam Fest that will be held in February! During this event, players on Steam will be able to try out the quest demo for Astraverse so you can count on this being a solid timeline for development on the quest demo for Astraverse. I’m looking forward to seeing everyone’s characters and experiences with the demo!

– LB

Progress Update 4/21/21

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I know I keep saying this over and over again (in different ways) but I’m inching ever closer to a playable demo of Astraverse.

This time, though, I feel like I say that with good reason. After programming the logic for the in-game shields, I’m beginning to reach the point where all of the core-player functions/features are complete.

And that was a small achievement in comparison to the following:

The Narrative Adventure system!!!

Yep! The Choose your own adventure events are also done and are COMPLETELY ready for the storytelling needs of the demo!

So I figured it would be a good time to explain how these were going to actually be implemented into the game.

Now, I know that graph up there looks like a hot mess (lol) but I promise that it’s an “organized mess,” ha ha! I can assure that it explains the gameplay flow/loop very well.

See, whenever a party is formed, they will either choose a quest that will bring them to a series of short stages that represent a planet (or more) or they will be able to choose to just go to a planet to adventure on.

In-between each stage/area, there will be an event that plays out just like the one above and the way each event plays out will have an effect on the path that’s taken during each adventure–meaning the subsequent stages will be different depending on the party’s decisions/experiences.

For example, say you’re in this stage below:

Imagine running into a choice-driven narrative event at the end of this forest

Once you (and whoever you’re teamed up with) reaches the end of the area one of those events will pop up. Depending on the circumstances, the event can either be random or part of an overarching narrative that’s part of the current adventure.

Just like that chart up there shows, the CYOA events will chain together the gameplay loop, making it feel more like a choice driven adventure with a story rather than just a series of side scrolling beat em up stages. Rather than feel like a linear progression, there will be branching paths and even story points that will give each player their own unique experience.

So, now that I have the narrative event system in place, what’s next? How close are we to an actual demo?

Here’s what’s left to put in the game before we can see a playable demo:

  • more loot (at least 5 – 10 per weapon type/armor)
  • equipment shops with randomized loot
  • at least 2 more basic monster types
  • 2 or 3 more backgrounds
  • the first boss
  • party defeat system
  • the demo’s questline
  • the 2nd, 3rd and 4th player

That’s literally it! And while it seems like a long list of errands, it’s not as bad as it looks as some of those things such as the loot, backgrounds and other players are already partially implemented and just need to be finalized so that they are functioning properly and playable.

Also, because of the method of programming I’ve used up to this point, once the demo is playable, more content will be made much faster as the core systems of the game will already be functioning and it will just be a matter of taking player feedback and polishing stuff up!

Not Necessarily a “Return”

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I didn’t want to write a misleading title because if I said something like “I’m back” it would imply that I took a break which is simply not true. I’ve been working quite a bit on Astraverse.

Regardless, I’m FULLY aware of not having updated this dev log in a long time. I need no reminders and I honestly realize how sloppy it looks. Ha Ha

My break from writing regular updates didn’t stem from a lack of work or progress on the game. Slowly but surely, I’ve made quite a bit more progress on Astraverse since the last time I’ve updated this. And to be honest, I think I’ve made so much progress, that it’s hard to really tell exactly where I was in the development process in my last update here compared to now.

This is actually a good thing and should be taken as good news to anyone who has been looking forward to any news on the progress of Astraverse! This means there’s A LOT to share! And if you can tell by any of the footage here on the site, the game is looking like it’s reaching a point of even being playable. Yes, this is also becoming a reality!

So, how much progress have I made? Let’s leave it at that cliffhanger as I’ll be updating this dev log later today with some much needed visuals to give anyone interested a better idea of where we’re at and even what has changed.

LB

Quick update: Moving

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First off, I have to apologize for not having a regular update here posted on-time.

 

My wife and I are moving this week so I haven’t been able to work on Astraverse in a couple of days. We’re almost ready to fly out on Friday so I’ll have some time to work on it before we move.

 

I did, however, work on some animations that needed adjustment and made some new animations for the male characters–hand-to-hand combat ones. I don’t have the time to post them just yet but they’ll definitely be in the demo for the game!

 

The goal this week is to finish up the character creator and then post up an update on it before we leave on Friday.

 

– LB

 

 

 

Development Progress 12/30/18

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Okay, so this time I decided to take some footage from a couple of weeks ago to showcase some things that I’ve gotten done for the month of December:

I enjoyed putting this video together more than I thought I would and it took a lot less time than I anticipated as well so I’m thinking it would be a good idea to make more videos for future dev progress updates.

There was a lot of progress made this month even though the project’s not exactly where I’d like it to be right now.

Besides what’s shown in the video, here’s a quick breakdown of what all I’ve gotten done this month:

  1. All male and female custom player character hairstyles, skins, attachments, outfits, and faces ready for the demo.
  2. The design for the gameplay Hud UI.
  3. A few buldings for environments.
  4. The design for the character creation GUI.
  5. At least one digitally painted weapon type for each class.
  6. The GDD 90% completed (almost 80 pages)!
  7. The new title logo.
  8. The calm and battle tracks for the final stage in the game.
  9. The cannon attack animation for female characters.
  10. The female ADOL idle animation.
  11. Documentated abilities (for a new “trait” system) and Section ID names.

Some of these things took more than just this month alone to work on like the GDD and the composite character stuff for custom player characters.

It was pretty awesome how PSO included the afro as a hairstyle for custom characters despite it not being my personal preference. It felt iconic at the time to have an MMORPG include something like that so Astraverse is bringing it back!
It was pretty cool how PSO had the afro in it despite it being a hairstyle I personally didn’t prefer.  It felt iconic to have an MMORPG include something like that.

As for the game’s character creator, I didn’t finish it as soon as I hoped. A storm hit my area causing a power outage for several hours yesterday, so I wasn’t able to work on the game, unfortunately.

But, that’s okay. Game development is usually a very long and involved process so unexpected setbacks and delays shouldn’t come as a surprise. Besides, I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a “perfect” development process for any game up until now.

In my honest opinion, the closest one to being “perfect” in recent memory would’ve been the development of Divinity Original Sin 2 but even Larian Studios experienced a power outage on the game’s launch day.

Any delays here right now are minor compared to that. But, as long as I’m getting at least one thing done (whether big or small) once a day, I’m making progress and I think that’s really the important thing.

– LB

Should’ve Started This Before But Here Goes…

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I’m not really sure of what the best opening start to a blog is….

I figured I’d just go ahead and say that instead of pretending like I have all the answers or know completely what I’m doing. 

I’m starting this blog because I’m currently working on a serious game project inspired by my favorite video game “Phantasy Star Online” and I’d like to not only give a proper way for others to track the game’s progress but also (and mainly, to be honest) to gain the project some sort of following so I can put some food on the table while I’m at it.

I’m Daniel (DJ is what my friends call me) and I’m a part-time music artist (Last BeNeVoLeNcE–I’m actually “googleable”)  and, of course, a game developer. 

As you can tell by the title in the heading logo of the site, the game I’m working on is called “Astraverse” and it’s set to be a 2D game co-op RPG that’s A LOT LIKE PHANTASY STAR ONLINE.

I’d even go as far as to say that it’s a “PSO-like” (I get this from the “Souls-like” & “Rogue-like” terms) or a “PSO-clone” but it’s still going to be quite different. For one thing, it’s a 2D game–which already comes with a set of differences. But, it’s basically my own 2D twist on the gameplay from the legendary fantasy sci-fi title that some of us know and love. 

Anyway, I’d like to keep these blog posts as short as I possibly can so that it’s easier to follow (some will probably be long to cover more in-depth topics). I’ll cover the current progress of the project in another post and I’ll do maybe another post or 2 that’ll go further in explaining why I decided to work on this game and how it will be the same and/or different from PSO. 

Thanks for coming–don’t forget to subscribe at the bottom the page if you haven’t already!

LB