2/21/98Woah, what a major surprise. I got some mail from Brain Crews (he's in Hong Kong) with some more TLOT drawings. He let me know that he's looking forward to working on TLOT some more when he returns to the US. He's probably the most enthusiastic third party type person who's ever put anything into TLOT. (yes ELC, you're right behind him) This image shows King Ormad with his most trusted knight Drudwyn. King Ormad gives Drudwyn baby Seth to be taken to a good home. Hopefully this is a solid sample of the style and caliber of story artwork you'll find in TLOT.
If you click on this week's screen shot you'll get three more images. The first shows a little more of the work I've done on the ice castle tile set. It shows some walls that are crumbled over on the right. It also shows the status bars I'm working on. The HP and MP in all previous screen shots were just some fake text. The status bar and numbers in this screenshot are actually from HP/MP variables now. (the data structures are in).. The second of the three screenshots shows the forest town and this one has three characters. This shows how the status bars will look. I choose green for HP and blue for MP because HP is a bit more important and green seemed to show up a lot more. The third screen shots shows a different menu background. As I've mentioned before, you'll get to choose from a few different backgrounds (prolly 4) and you'll also get to change the color scheme.
I also changed the midi on the page.. Speaking of music, I had a musician contact me via snail mail. He sent me a letter of application, his resume and a demo disk with his stuff on it. He's extremely good. I'll see about posting some of his stuff on my web site in a zip file. Its definately worth checking out. And for all of you folks working on your own games, he might be very useful. His tunes sound great on my AWE but they even sound very good on my pathetic little FM synth.
Me and Aphrodite went to see Good Will Hunting tonight. While we were out we checked out some clearance games at a toy store. I found a copy of Star Tropics 1 and 2 for the NES for less than 4 bucks. I played them both a little bit. Star Tropics is the first video game I've even finished. Its an Adventure style game (like Legend of Zelda) and its very good. This was the first time I ever played ST2. Its was cool but I didn't play it a whole lot. They're definately worth 4 bucks each. Too bad neither game seem to work (completely) on NESticle.
Whats the deal, no one can figure out Aphrodite's midi this time. Is it too hard for you people!? Come on, I thought you folks liked a challenge. She must pulled one from too far back for all you young 'uns..
Ok, some quick RPG news. The full version of Joyous Rebel 1 is now a freeware title. Oh, and if you're working on an RPG right, now like so many of us are, you might be interested in this webring.
I've got a major Calc 2 exam on monday. I've also got a program to write in C for friday and I've got a slew of updates for Gathering website. I'm gonna be really busy tomorrow.
2/14/98This week was not a good week, but its Valentine's day (2:00 in the morning on Valentine's day) and I'm in a very good mood. Its amazing how much can change in a sigle day. Gosh I love Aphrodite.
Ok, my Gathering of Developers web page is finaly online. Check it out. I will probably be doing news updates for a while. I won't know anything about a real job for a few more months. That hard part should be behind me now.
As for Talibah. I took the time to make a much need update to the screen shots page. I don't have many images up there but I think its more than enough to give new visitors to the page an idea of what the game looks like. There is an interesting article on avault.com talking about screenshots. I think it has some pretty good points. Also, I updated the plot page a lot. I totally removed the full plot and put in a bit more attractive intro to the game. I may even use this exact text in the opening of the game. Let me know what you think of it. As you can tell from the screen shot this week, I've worked a little on the ice tile set. I don't really like that wall tile so I will try something different again a little later. Its just not working out very well.
I've got a few quick links and a bit of news. First, if you like anime images of girls with large breasts, this might be right up your alley. If you like Anime at all, you might still like this. And if you like Anime with Fantasy themes you'll like this. BUT, if you like Anime with Fantasy themes with women with large breasts, you'll love this! I found that link while looking through Shining Forth Online. Too bad I only know English. Anyway, here's another RPG called ShadowLord. And there is yet another called Utumno. This one is more like an engine.. Its interesting to say the least. A new company fairly close to me (few hours away) is promising a console style rpg. The company is Studio Blue. I was at The Rpg Haven MP3 Archive the other day (thanks Ariadne) and found a new favorite mp3! Look for main_theme_of_final_fantasy_iv.mp3. I link to it directly but the person who maintains the site aparently doesn't like that sort of thing as they've gone through a lot of trouble to prevent it.
Anyway, I've got to get up early and go to a wedding tomorrow. Woo Hoo..
Yawn....
2/9/98No, its not the end of the world, just close. First of all, you may have had problems finding this week's update. Nortexinfo changed web servers. Previously, if you went to a Nortexinfo web site it was translated into host.ld.centuryinter.net, thus most bookmarks and links point to the host.ld address wich no longer works. I'm trying to get at the old copy of the page still in tact on the host.ld server so I can replace it with a "this page has moved" document. As always, the correct URL for the Talibah web site is:
http://www.nortexinfo.net/Zaskoda/Talibah
I suppose I should look into a domain name or something. Anyway, FTP access has been down most of the day also. That combined with the fact that I didn't get my update online on Sunday leads to a lot of confusion. In addition to all this, the mailing list is also going down in the near future. I'd like to thank Nathan for providing me with the list as it has been a lot of fun. I am currently trying to get a new list but no promises. If you were on my old list I will notify you when the new list is started.
The screenshot this week is of a swamp tile set I worked on some time back. I didn't get much done with it, but I got a general feel for the set. Basically, this will be an underworld kind of thing. When you pass through the portal into Aphillia's realm this is what the world around you will look like. Kinda grim eh? If you click on the image you'll get to see two more shots. The top one shows a secret in the trees. Now that I've improved my character clipping code just a little I can use this effect in a few more places (like in the water) to do some interesting things. I probably won't use it a whole lot though. The last shot just shows a larger mountain I stuck in the moutain range to break up the monotiny.
I did some tile art this week and thats about it. The Gathering website is pretty much completed expect for some clean up and such. It should go online sometime within the next few days. If I will be working for them still remains a mystery for a while. Perhaps as long as April. But, the push time is over and I can start getting back into TLOT.. FINALLY!
As you may have noticed I changed the music this week. I really like this tune but it doesn't loop very well and its kinda short so two or three times through and its getting old. It will probably only last about a week or so.
Aphrodite REALLY has the midi contest going this time. I apologize for all those I sent to her web site last time when I _thought_ she was having the contest.. Check it out.
Two quick news things.. First, Age of the Mystics Web Page moved to GeoCities of all places. Secondly, I found another interesting RPG. I have a list of other stuff I wanted to mention (other rpg links) but I don't have it available to me so it will have to wait until next week.
2/1/98I'm still hard at work on the Gathing of Developers website. I pretty much started over from scratch. I had royal blue, not navy blue.. And I had yellow, not gold. This that and the other... If what I've got now isn't good enough, then I'm done with it. I've put way to many of my resources into a project that I'm not getting anything back from. I'll go ahead and give you a link to what I'm up to. This is the latest version of the page as of the moment I make this update. You can find the page here. Feel free to send me feedback but keep in mind that its still missing most of the content.
The image up this week is from the ice tile set. If you look real close, I was trying to make the walls reflect in the ice. This is easier said that done. It would rock if the characters also reflected (kinda like the shadows).. This is stuff I'll have to keep in mind for the next engine. Anyway, the ice tile set will be used for an abandoned castle found in the northern most part of the Talibah world. So, I will also have broken down walls and debris in this tile set as well..
You know.. now that I think about that relection, I think I wanna do a mock up... [away] [back] Ok.. click on the image above to see the mock up... I just stuck Shadonian Seth in there with a quick relfection.
This week flew by as I worked every free moment on that damn Gathering page. I'm falling behind in Calc 2 already wich isn't a good thing. I did, however, get my weekly update done in time. Its not much of an update, but its here.
Only one quick peice of RPG news. I got a link on Oscar's news page. Its not a full preview or anything, but it did land me a great deal of hits this past week. In fact, I'd say my hits are up by about 3 times their norm.
Umm.. just for the record, I love Amanda..
