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It is available for download here on Slime Salad and on Castleparadox! Slime Salad still retains the original, uncut version distributed with Ubersetzung for historical purposes, but the game has changed dramatically since then.
http://www.castleparadox.com/gamelist-display.php?game=768
or
http://www.slimesalad.com/forum/viewgame.php?t=38
Vikings of Midgard - Development Journal
Fri Oct 03, 2008 8:55 pm 
Fri Oct 03, 2008 10:48 pm
How much has changed/been added? I probably won't have time to replay this this month, but I'd like to know what's waiting for me.
Super Walrus Land: Mouth Words Edition
Super Walrus Land: Mouth Words Edition
Sat Oct 04, 2008 4:21 am
-> Every area has an additional "shadow" to objects giving an illusion of depth, to better show off the use of layers, and also indicate what are walls.
-> Every character also comes pre-set with equipment to show what they can equip.
-> When they join the party, every character has a guide that is automatically added to your inventory, with art, a description of the character's ability, and (where possible) that character's theme.
-> Portraits for MOST major characters. I'd like feedback on whether they should retain the hand drawn appearance, or be sprited before I continue.
-> Borders around just about everything.
-> Engine specific fixes, and plot boulders where you're not supposed to go yet.
To friends long gone, and those I've yet to meet - thank you.
-> Every character also comes pre-set with equipment to show what they can equip.
-> When they join the party, every character has a guide that is automatically added to your inventory, with art, a description of the character's ability, and (where possible) that character's theme.
-> Portraits for MOST major characters. I'd like feedback on whether they should retain the hand drawn appearance, or be sprited before I continue.
-> Borders around just about everything.
-> Engine specific fixes, and plot boulders where you're not supposed to go yet.
To friends long gone, and those I've yet to meet - thank you.
Sun Oct 19, 2008 8:25 pm
I told you this via AIM, but I think if you actually sprited the portaits instead of using the backdrop images it would look a lot more natural with the game. I've playtested the hell out of this game, and there's a ton to do.
And from the way I understand our conversations, but there's still a bunch left right? Will you ever be done with this game, ha.
And from the way I understand our conversations, but there's still a bunch left right? Will you ever be done with this game, ha.
Sun Oct 19, 2008 8:55 pm
RedMaverickZero wrote:
I told you this via AIM, but I think if you actually sprited the portaits instead of using the backdrop images it would look a lot more natural with the game. I've playtested the hell out of this game, and there's a ton to do.
And from the way I understand our conversations, but there's still a bunch left right? Will you ever be done with this game, ha.
And from the way I understand our conversations, but there's still a bunch left right? Will you ever be done with this game, ha.
The original Portraits:
And the New portraits:
The colors are a bit off because they use the "default" import palette the characters were designed with. This is especially apparent with Hilda and Eric, but it appears just fine in-game.
As for how long it'll be until it's complete, I'd love to be done by Christmas, but if not, I'll keep working as often as I can.
To friends long gone, and those I've yet to meet - thank you.
Sun Oct 19, 2008 8:57 pm
...Slime Salad can't display indexed BMP files? What gives?
To friends long gone, and those I've yet to meet - thank you.
To friends long gone, and those I've yet to meet - thank you.
Mon Oct 20, 2008 6:46 pm
Mon Oct 20, 2008 8:20 pm
The old ones were great, but the new ones are even better. Kudos!
Two crits.
1) The only one that took a step backwards is Eric. His coloration looked much better in the old version
2) Neither version of Night looks quite right to me. Maybe her eyes are too close together? I'm not sure.
Frumpy, Olaf, and Hilda are my favorites. And I vote Mr Triangle most improved. He really looks vivid in the new version.
Two crits.
1) The only one that took a step backwards is Eric. His coloration looked much better in the old version
2) Neither version of Night looks quite right to me. Maybe her eyes are too close together? I'm not sure.
Frumpy, Olaf, and Hilda are my favorites. And I vote Mr Triangle most improved. He really looks vivid in the new version.
Fri Jul 03, 2009 11:34 pm
Turning this thing into a development journal. Hopefully by keeping this reasonably active I can maintain at least the ILLUSION of progress.
-> 
Spent the last 24 hours making a small, not-even noticeable alteration to the game's palette where the first color is now the bright neon pink-magenta I use in all my sprites. This is only important because it makes color #0 in the OHR now OBVIOUS for transparency purposes, and is something I wish I'd done a LONG time ago. Of course, that meant every single palette and tilemap had to be checked and fixed, but if it saves time later, I'm willing to sacrifice a day of progress.
Except I didn't stop there. Some of the older backdrops have been begging for a touchup. Notably this one:
-> 
The newer one fits in better with the style of the other "scene" backdrops of the game. I'm thinking of having one for each (major) character when they're introduced sort of how FFVI has the screen fade out and give a small snippet of information on the character before they join your roster.
Speaking of the roster, finally added in the scene to re-introduce Eric back into the party (after the mid-game "World of Ruin" type event).
His portrait is much nicer now. I still hate how he looks like Ronald McDonald.
As far as actually GETTING to the final battle, you can now go from beginning to finish to fight the OLD last boss, assuming you skip pretty much ALL the new content. And you'll be horribly underleveled (and get creamed). Hopefully this means people will be forced to actually EXPLORE in an RPG, instead of having to be hand-led through it like modern RPGs.
And that concludes this week's work. Tune in next week for more fun. Or not.
->
Spent the last 24 hours making a small, not-even noticeable alteration to the game's palette where the first color is now the bright neon pink-magenta I use in all my sprites. This is only important because it makes color #0 in the OHR now OBVIOUS for transparency purposes, and is something I wish I'd done a LONG time ago. Of course, that meant every single palette and tilemap had to be checked and fixed, but if it saves time later, I'm willing to sacrifice a day of progress.
Except I didn't stop there. Some of the older backdrops have been begging for a touchup. Notably this one:
->
The newer one fits in better with the style of the other "scene" backdrops of the game. I'm thinking of having one for each (major) character when they're introduced sort of how FFVI has the screen fade out and give a small snippet of information on the character before they join your roster.
Speaking of the roster, finally added in the scene to re-introduce Eric back into the party (after the mid-game "World of Ruin" type event).
His portrait is much nicer now. I still hate how he looks like Ronald McDonald.
As far as actually GETTING to the final battle, you can now go from beginning to finish to fight the OLD last boss, assuming you skip pretty much ALL the new content. And you'll be horribly underleveled (and get creamed). Hopefully this means people will be forced to actually EXPLORE in an RPG, instead of having to be hand-led through it like modern RPGs.
And that concludes this week's work. Tune in next week for more fun. Or not.
Wed Jul 08, 2009 5:08 am
ooo, ill download the new version as soon as i get a chance to. cant wait to see whats new. im excited.
Wed Jul 08, 2009 5:45 pm
Everything in these nightmare demi-planes is just WEIRD. Don't be surprised if the locals have gone completely bonkers. This guy for instance, will start chasing you around after a while, involving some of the most complicated walking scripts I've ever done.
A monster straight out of the shuffling madness. This guy goes through several stages, each of which has some pretty nifty items you SHOULD try to steal from.
Most of the enemies here either do very little damage or a LOT. It's partially to emphasize how ridiculous the source material was, but also to generate a bit of confusion too. Regardless, all that's left for this area is to fill it with treasure, and to finish up the boss defeat script. Then it's off to another micro-world to grab/plunder the legendary treasures there. Something about green swords and furries.
Wed Jul 08, 2009 9:43 pm
Hooray for plane shifts!
Sat Jul 11, 2009 5:42 pm
It's close enough to the one-week mark to do a minor update. I haven't been able to get as much done as I wanted. I've had... some unexpected emergencies come uprecently that were NOT fun.
-> Completed the map of the SoJ area and got all needed doors working therein.
-> Completed the random enemy sprites that'll appear there.
There's not much to say about the first one, except that it's pretty obvious she's a healer-type enemy (and consequently will be your first target in every match)
The Xaolin-monk type guy in there even has the "burn marks" on his head. It's fantastic. On the other hand he's only a green-belt. Those guys don't even make it outside the temple walls.
Fedora is my favorite of the four, and not because her clothing is skimpy. It's the insulting gesture. At least it's in character?
The last one came out all wonky. Who wears that much purple anyway?
-> Completed the map of the SoJ area and got all needed doors working therein.
-> Completed the random enemy sprites that'll appear there.
There's not much to say about the first one, except that it's pretty obvious she's a healer-type enemy (and consequently will be your first target in every match)
The Xaolin-monk type guy in there even has the "burn marks" on his head. It's fantastic. On the other hand he's only a green-belt. Those guys don't even make it outside the temple walls.
Fedora is my favorite of the four, and not because her clothing is skimpy. It's the insulting gesture. At least it's in character?
The last one came out all wonky. Who wears that much purple anyway?
Thu Jul 30, 2009 7:03 am
My game time has been robbed. Robbed by work, and home emergencies AGAIN. There's no way to get this thing completed by August (not like I believed there was), but I can at least work on things.
So I've spent what time I HAD tracking down and fixing some rather nasty bugs within the plotscripting that would let NPCs roam through walls as though they weren't there, and also resuming random encounters that had mysteriously been suspended. The encounter rate in many areas is SO LOW now that I at first thought nothing was wrong at all! The thought had occurred to me to simply drop out ALL the random encounters, and have enemies attack onscreen like Earthbound, Lufia, or (god forbid) Mystic Quest. But the only benefits to that would be to avoid/seek out fights whenever the player wants, and to construct an item that makes the "random" monsters vanish (ala the Moguli Charm from FF VI). My gut tells me this would be far, far too much work - but cooler than the engine handles it now.
The other major bug that I feel is hindering the game is the misalignment of textboxes that has cropped up due to having ALL of them have a portrait now. Characters who speak vanish under a box of text - and from a presentation standpoint I don't much care for this at all. It isn't a major issue, but it's distracting. Almost like how FF5 has the player appear somewhat off-center when the screen is drawn, as if it didn't want to bother drawing half a tile on either side of the action. Regardless, the only way to actually fix this one is to play through the game scene by scene and make camera adjustments until it works just right.
Put some sand on the beach finally.
So I've spent what time I HAD tracking down and fixing some rather nasty bugs within the plotscripting that would let NPCs roam through walls as though they weren't there, and also resuming random encounters that had mysteriously been suspended. The encounter rate in many areas is SO LOW now that I at first thought nothing was wrong at all! The thought had occurred to me to simply drop out ALL the random encounters, and have enemies attack onscreen like Earthbound, Lufia, or (god forbid) Mystic Quest. But the only benefits to that would be to avoid/seek out fights whenever the player wants, and to construct an item that makes the "random" monsters vanish (ala the Moguli Charm from FF VI). My gut tells me this would be far, far too much work - but cooler than the engine handles it now.
The other major bug that I feel is hindering the game is the misalignment of textboxes that has cropped up due to having ALL of them have a portrait now. Characters who speak vanish under a box of text - and from a presentation standpoint I don't much care for this at all. It isn't a major issue, but it's distracting. Almost like how FF5 has the player appear somewhat off-center when the screen is drawn, as if it didn't want to bother drawing half a tile on either side of the action. Regardless, the only way to actually fix this one is to play through the game scene by scene and make camera adjustments until it works just right.
Put some sand on the beach finally.
Thu Jul 30, 2009 11:43 am
Perhaps you could try something that allows you to go into a "Monster Seeking" mode which enables random encounters. Otherwise there aren't any. Or of course you can have it default to having random encounters.
I personally love how Mystic Quest does it (I love Mystic Quest unconditionally, though.) but one problem is that it doesn't allow players to skip very many encounters (good because it lets you easily guess what level the players are - for boss fights, but bad because players who prefer to skip random battles are left in the dust. Or if you cared about speed runs or low level games, it kind of wrecks that.)
One of the things I loved about The World Ends With You is that you didn't have to fight... pretty much any random battles at all. That made the game more challenging, which is a good thing, but I know that many players are not like me and prefer instead to level up to beat a boss fight, and the game gives you that option as well. I personally ran from nearly every fight in FFIV because I don't care for them. Made the last couple bosses quite interesting. I'm usually in the minority here (generally I prefer to gain the upper hand with better equipment/skill setups and in-battle strategy, rather than through overlevelling) but if you can cater to both groups, it seems best.
That turned out much longer than I expected.
Also FFV is my favorite FF, I've played through it dozens of times - and I'm not sure what you're talking about with the off-centering.
I personally love how Mystic Quest does it (I love Mystic Quest unconditionally, though.) but one problem is that it doesn't allow players to skip very many encounters (good because it lets you easily guess what level the players are - for boss fights, but bad because players who prefer to skip random battles are left in the dust. Or if you cared about speed runs or low level games, it kind of wrecks that.)
One of the things I loved about The World Ends With You is that you didn't have to fight... pretty much any random battles at all. That made the game more challenging, which is a good thing, but I know that many players are not like me and prefer instead to level up to beat a boss fight, and the game gives you that option as well. I personally ran from nearly every fight in FFIV because I don't care for them. Made the last couple bosses quite interesting. I'm usually in the minority here (generally I prefer to gain the upper hand with better equipment/skill setups and in-battle strategy, rather than through overlevelling) but if you can cater to both groups, it seems best.
That turned out much longer than I expected.
Also FFV is my favorite FF, I've played through it dozens of times - and I'm not sure what you're talking about with the off-centering.