Dev log

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!

Dev Progress Update 3/24/21

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As some are probably aware, I have full-time work that eats up enough time to choke out potential progress to Astraverse’s development.

However, thanks to some help that I’m getting from my supervisor, I’ve been able to work more on Astraverse-related stuff during downtime–that’s how I was able to rebuild the site and go back to providing updates as well as reestablish the Discord channel.

Anyway, today I continued to work on the narrative event system that will play a big role in the gameplay structure and flow as well as the story. I haven’t explained this yet but that’s because the last update was about 3 years ago and, well, things have changed a bit since then. Not TOO much. Astraverse is largely the same game but it’s overall concept and narrative approach has grown since then.

Behold! Astraverse’s Narrative System

Back in 2019, during E3, they announced that Phantasy Star Online 2 was coming to the US. Now, this made me think about the future of Astraverse. Astraverse was originally supposed to “fill” the void that Phantasy Star behind in the past decade but in it’s own way. So I thought to myself–“If PSO2 is coming out, should I continue working on Astraverse? And if I do, is it just going to forever be in the shadow of PSO2?”

Well, the answer is that it doesn’t have to be. Astraverse can be it’s own game even if it’s heavily inspired by Phantasy Star. So, I brainstormed on ways to make it stand out. Honestly, I think I was overthinking it–there are many games out there that are heavily inspired by the devs’ favorites and that doesn’t usually take way from those games but in some ways it adds to them.

But, I still wanted to explore ideas that would add to the experience and at the same time create an entirely new experience.

That’s when I came up with the narrative adventure system. Basically, it works like a choose-your-own-adventure game but with the real-time side-scrolling beat ’em up gameplay in-between narrative events.

Basically, a player will read flavor text and dialogue that will include descriptive scenarios that the player can imagine–like in a tabletop RPG. Then there will be dialogue options or choices that the player will choose from to progress through these events which may or may not alter the path the player takes while adventuring on a planet.

In between areas of a planet’s “stage,” players will encounter these events. And they will work for up to 4 players, with each player taking turns to interact with scenarios.

Another example of the narrative system

This not only allows for the game to become much more immersive with it’s storytelling but it also lifts a bit of the burden that would come with other styles of storytelling such as fully-voiced or non-voiced cutscenes. It also helps the game to stand out. On top of that, it makes it far more reasonable to implement “user-generated” experiences such as a party’s ship crash-landing on a planet or a quest popping up out of nowhere due to certain conditions being fulfilled through previous quests. This also allows for me to explore more options such as unique decisions/options in quests that depend on certain stats.

Anyway, I’ve been working on that lately as I’ve completed most of the other in-game systems and I’m getting closer to being able to build a playable demo. Once I’m done with the narrative system this week, I’ll be trying to test it out and then I’ll be moving into working on building out the gameplay loop of a typical session in Astraverse. Stay tuned for more of the finalized info on the game and more updates as I’ll be pumping out more soon.

LB

Challenges and Opportunity

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So, now that the move is over, I’m dealing with a serious case of jet lag. Over the course of the past week, I haven’t had much time to devote to developing Astraverse. This is all understandable but the real downside is that I’ve burned up my only free week before working a new, full-time job by just sleeping and waking up at odd times.

The good news is that I have a little help on the programming side of things now. The coder that helped me with some things on my last project is in on the project now so there should be some decent progress made even if I’m working full-time.

Originally, I honestly wanted to have things ready to showcase the demo and push it out to seek funding for the project so that we could work on it full-time. However, I underestimated the time that would be needed to complete the character creator and I honestly don’t think I have what it takes to run a successful crowdfunding campaign or “profitable-looking” project pitch.

Usually, I’d be pretty upset about such a huge and disappointing change in my plans but I don’t really see it as much more than a simple setback that may set up the foundation for a beneficial opportunity.

Instead of seeking some sort of funding for the development of the game from a publisher or some sort of crowdfunding platform, I can put my own money into the project where it’s practical and without worrying about having food on the table. This way, if I need to crowdfund at all, it will be to pay for stuff like paying the extra programmer(s) or paying a professional artist to redo the game’s artwork.

Of course, work will take away from the time I can devote to development but that’s where Astraverse’s game development method comes into play:

At some point, the development will shift from system and feature programming to just pure content creation. A simple way to put this is that the basic framework for the game will be done first–parent assets for weapon types, class types, enemy types, equipment types, area types, item types, etc. being programmed first–and then new stuff will be simply added as modified versions of the parent assets (but presented with different art, stats, layouts etc.). This means that once that initial part of development is cleared, a good 50% (or more) of the development will require much less time and effort to cover.

I heard somewhere that this type of development was called “sandboxing.” I think it’s a great way to handle development for games that focus less on “evolving gameplay” and more on equipment and level grinding (like in a lot of rpgs)–especially when a large amount of content is needed.

Anyway, I’m currently lacking reliable internet at the moment but hopefully in the next week or so, I’ll have something fixed up at the house so that I can post up some more music or videos.

– 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

Setbacks and “Throw-away” BGM

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The funny thing about game development (and pretty much any sort of creative project) is that there are almost always things that get cut from the final version.

Even though it’s quite early in Astraverse’s development, I’ve already chosen a couple of tracks to cut from the project–at least for now.

Now, a lot of people would probably disagree with me on this but there are a few reasons why I’ve cut some music stuff so early. For one thing–I’ve already composed about 60% – 70% of the entire soundtrack–Another main reason I’m making decisions on what goes and what stays is that my external hard drive just stopped working out of nowhere so I lost all of the project files for Astraverse’s music (along with all of the project files for the music I’ve produced, composed, recorded and released since 2010).

Fortunately, I had already saved every track that I had composed for Astraverse so far on to my local drive and a cloud drive. However, this means that I either have to re-do every track from scratch (if I ever wanted to change anything in them) or just treat them all as “final” versions.

This isn’t too much of a problem since I’ve spent a lot of time on the music already and I feel the tracks sound exactly the way I want them to. But there are a few tracks here and there that weren’t mixed well and a couple of them that I wasn’t sure I wanted to bring into the final game.

The following track was originally intended to be the BGM for the final area in the game (The Enemy Encounter version starts at 3:50).

There’s no need to worry about spoilers as this track’s been already replaced with something that I recently composed some time after my external hard drive failed.

And if you think it sounds good already–don’t worry, the new track is WAY better.

On the other hand, I MIGHT be able to find some use for this one somewhere in the game. But, there’s no plan for it now–I only need 12 environment tracks for the different places/planets that players will visit and those are already finished. I’m not worried about it right now.

 

This week, I’ve been dealing with this stupid bug while trying to import my animations into the game engine that I’m using and it’s taken about half the week to deal with the problem. Funny part was how simple it was to fix the issue. Even though the game engine’s compile window wasn’t explaining anything at all, it turned out to be that the names I was using for some files inside of the animation program were too long. After stressing out for about a couple of days, I ended up trying to rename everything and it finally worked!

Normally, I’d say this was a waste of time, but in reality, I learned something useful about importing my animations into the game engine that’ll save me the trouble for later on. Once I have some money to put into the project, I’m going to invest in a better animation program that will hopefully be more compatible with the game engine that I’m using (and hopefully will result in less issues like this week’s).

 

To be honest, this setback hit my schedule kinda hard and even though I’ve pretty much hit the ground running again with the game’s development ever since I fixed the problem, I don’t think I’ll be able to wrap up the character creator just yet.

But, there’s still this weekend so we’ll see what I can get done.

In the meantime, I’ll try to have something “special” prepared just in case I’m not able to follow through with that character creator by my next post.

 

– LB

Races of the Ze’re System

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Yep, that’s right–we have more lore in this post but a small update, too.

In Astraverse, there are 3 races: Humans, ADOLs and Neomans.

Male ADOL.png

ADOLs were the first race to be created by humans. The name ADOL is an acronym which stands for “Artifical Design(s) Of Life.” To put it simply, they’re androids–but in Ze’re, if a person calls them an “android” it’s like a negative racial term. ADOLs excel in physical strength but they are the weakest when it comes to using “Formulas” (which is Astraverse’s science-fiction equivalent to most RPGs’ “magic”). Unlike most robots in science-fiction stories, Adols are very human-like in that they can understand and feel emotions.

Female Neoman Adept2.PNG

Neomans are the youngest of the 3 races and they are made up of human DNA enfused with a form of energy called “plasma”–the same energy that is technologically altered to create “Formulas.” Because of this genetic alteration, Neomans have a much stronger connection to plasma allowing them to create stronger formulas. A side-effect of plasma mutation is a weaker body, so Neomans have less endurance and strength than the other 2 races.

 

Human Male

Humans are (obviously) the default/regular/normal/typical/average race with balancedabilities and appearances. Pretty much nothing notable here besides their back story. The humans of Astraverse’s story created the other 2 races and because of that, they tend to think they are better than the other 2 races.

 

 

 

 

I will make posts that showcases the ADOLs and Neomans as individual races.

Here’s a small update:

I’ve been working on a lot of GUI-related stuff this week. I kind of underestimated the need for that which is funny because the game is an RPG. I think this is because my last game was developed in the RPG Maker engine so I didn’t really need to worry much about UI stuff outside of customizing system and dialogue windows.

Here’s what a character’s basic gameplay hud will look like:

Astraverse gameplay UI final (blank example).png

The 4 hexagons at the bottom represent the “button palette”. This is where weapons, skills and items will be equipped. There are 4 more button palette slots available for when a player holds down the “R” trigger/button and also 4 more for when they’re holding down the “L” trigger/button. Altogether, there are 12 different button palette slots available.

I’m choosing to place this hub at the upper left corner of the screen for the first player and for other players–at the other 3 corners of the screen. I wanted to reduce as much UI clutter as possible on the screen because I want the environments to be very visible and the gameplay to feel as immersive as possible.

This week, I’m planning to finally finish up the character creation as I got a bit “sidetracked” with this hub stuff. Hopefully by the time I next post here, I’ll have a video showcasing it!

– LB

 

Character Creation & Stuff

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Ever since my wife and I came up with a decent number of outfits and hairstyles for the characters in the game, I decided to focus my efforts into finishing up the character creator.

Here’s the song I composed for the character creation:

The funny thing about making a character creator is that it’s not really hard to design. But, it can get pretty complex to implement once you start adding more possibilities for the characters that are created.

For example, a lot of games (especially in 2D) tend to have a simple editor where you can change your character’s class, palette colors and his/her name.

Not with Astraverse.

Because the game is 2D, I could’ve probably gotten away with a simple class, name and palette editor but I wanted to make it feel more like a personal experience so here are some things that are ready and being implemented in the character creator (and what’s already possible so far):

Custom Hairstyles

Custom Hair colors

Custom Eyes/eye colors

Custom skin colors

Custom colors for make-up (girls only)

Custom outfits

Of course, there’s more–like race-specific stuff such as skin types for the Android race (we’re calling them ADOLs–I can do a lore post later on). But that’s the stuff that’s mostly for every race.

Anyway, the toughest part (in my opinion) has been setting up the character creation menu. It’s funny how things that sound simple in theory are harder to program than things that sound complex. The character creator is just a menu but after programming it, I’m starting to see why a lot of games don’t bother with the feature.

Here’s what the menu should look like in-game (hopefully by the end of next week):

character creation class menu example

Once the character creator is finished, I’ll also have the character saving system ready to go, too (as they will need to both be implemented at the same time). Then, I’ll move on to the character data selection screen and then to fixing up some UI-related stuff.

 

For you guys who are following, thanks a lot for the support! Right now, I’m experimenting on when’s the best time to post here. So, at least, for the first few weeks, expect some changes in the time I post updates and stuff.

And if anybody is into the idea of a 2D (offline) Phantasy Star Online inspired co-op experience–subscribe here to stay updated on Astraverse’s development!

– LB

Astraverse Game Features and Design

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While I was writing up the progress report for the game, I realized that I hadn’t really explained yet what features would be in the game or how it would be designed. So, I figure I should explain some of it’s features now before moving on to anything else.

Astraverse will have the same basic features of Phantasy Star Online but it will be in 2D and have a few changes to some of the systems and gameplay. For one thing–it won’t be an mmo.

For those who are not familiar with Phantasy Star Online, I’ll explain it this way–It’s a futuristic loot-grind action RPG (Diablo in 3rd person maybe?) but with a customizable button “palette” for assigning weapons, items, and skills to a GAMEPAD. It also has “drone-like” companions that can be fed/raised and equipped to bring into dungeons/areas. PSO also featured randomly generated (or more like randomly arranged) areas/dungeons.

All of that will be included in Astraverse but I’m going to try to expand on some of that stuff.

For example, the button palette system will include all four buttons on a controller instead of just 3. And since there’s no need for the left trigger to adjust the camera anymore, I’m planning on allowing for 4 more slots that can be used by holding down the left trigger/button.

Another thing I’m planning on changing a bit is with the drone companion (they call them “mags” in PSO). They’ll still be robots floating right next to players but they will be more like “pets” similar to the Chao from the Sonic Adventure series of games rather than little drones. They’ll be customizable through enemy material drops in the same vein as the Sonic Adventure games, too. We’ll be able to name them as well.

Players will be able to level up to level 200 and they’ll also be able to combine weapons with other weapons to make them stronger. No need for giving up cool-looking weapons just because other weapons are stronger–there will be a system for gathering a material (we’re calling it “plasma drops”) to level up weapons and combine them with others.

The music in Phantasy Star was one of the most defining characteristics of the game. As a matter of fact, I would say that PSO had one of the best soundtracks in gaming history. The music in Astraverse will sound like a mixture of Phantasy Star Online’s music and my own personal style. I always like to say that it’s “better for me to show than tell” so I’ll post up a sample of a track from the soundtrack soon to give a better example of how it will sound. 

Astraverse takes place in a fictional star system and so there will be 6 planets that the players will be able to explore.

While that may seem a little crazy–it won’t be an open-world game so developing this won’t be entirely unreasonable. I’m planning it out to still feel immersive, though. For example, players will have to board their ship in order to go to a planet.

Each planet will be more like a randomly-generated level. I’m doing it this way to simulate the idea of exploring parts of an entire planet. After everything’s said and done, a player should feel like they are exploring a planet whenever they play through a level–even if they don’t experience everything that the planet has to offer.

There will be “rest areas” that will also randomly generate in between the regular areas that players explore. They’ll mostly be represented by cities and while they are there, players can go to hotels to heal and gain temporary stat boosts as well as go to shops to buy and sell items and equipment.

At the end of each normal planet run, there will be a boss and then players will automatically be returned to their ships to explore another randomly generated level on the planet or fly to another planet to explore that instead.

The art style for Astraverse is currently a digitally hand-painted style. My wife and I are making the art for everything in the game ourselves. Mostly, it’s inspired by 
George Kumitani (the “mastermind” behind the Vanillaware games–Odin Sphere, Dragon’s Crown, Muramasa). We’re also taking inspiration from retro-style science fiction art.  Honestly, I’m not too confident about my art because this is my first time painting anything but my wife does great art. If someone were to help out with the art–I’d be glad to talk if they could pull off some nice stuff similar to the Vanillware games. However, we don’t have a budget for the project as of now so we’re sticking to what we can do on our own.

There will also be a few mini-games that will be included in the final game but I’ll get there when we get there as I have no plans to include any of that in the game’s upcoming demo.

Hopefully this post gives a better idea of what I’m making.

If you like what we’re doing here, don’t forget to subscribe to the mailing list!

LB