The termite log

[jolt1k]

Starfruit Glade is a small forest town in a world full of ancient dungeons, teeming with monsters. After The Catastrophe five years ago, a Legendary Hero stepped in to fight their way through these dungeons and save the land.

Nothing much has changed since then. The land may have to save itself. But, deep in the jungle, a forgotten dungeon still teems with monsters...

At the Starfruit Glade Nature Preservation Centre, your goal is to research and preserve this habitat. Scan monsters and add them to your journal to learn about their behaviour and origins, but be careful - they bite! Learn to defend yourself to journey deeper into the dungeon, and discover the secrets it holds. Outside, you can chill out, chat to townsfolk, and enjoy a quiet life in an RPG whose main quest has been left unfinished.

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Starting a devlog thread to archive some of my progress on this game! The game doesn't have a proper name yet, so I just called this the termite log. This might stop me from spamming the discord 24/7 with the tiniest little details, but... probably not

Enjoy my magnum opus

[Pepsi Ranger]

This looks like a lot of fun, especially that scooter. Keep up the great work.

Starting a devlog thread to archive some of my progress on this game! Smile The game doesn't have a proper name yet, so I just called this the termite log.

Maybe "Starfruit Glade"? I mean, it's kinda right there. Just a thought.

[jolt1k]

Maybe "Starfruit Glade"? I mean, it's kinda right there. Just a thought.

It’s not bad, but feels a bit close to Stardew Valley for me. So thats a maybe. And thanks!

[Bob the Hamster]

This looks really nice! I love the big trees

[jolt1k]

This looks really nice! I love the big trees

Thank you!

[jolt1k]

The character creator 2.0 seems to work! I like the layout a lot better than the old one. I feel way more comfortable scripting simple things now.

[Hedera]

The game doesn't have a proper name yet, so I just called this the termite log

"Termite" is as good a name as any for a game, even if there aren't any literal termites.

Really digging the soft colors in the village.

[SwordPlay]

this looks like one of the most beautiful things ever.

[jolt1k]

"Termite" is as good a name as any for a game, even if there aren't any literal termites.

haha it’s my discord name! I forgot that people might not have seen me there.

[jolt1k]

this looks like one of the most beautiful things ever.

thank you >:)

[jolt1k]

Ok, big update. firstly, new graphics! I still like the old graphics, especially the tall trees which I’m struggling with in the new style, but the new style is a lot easier to work with and the vibes are more like the image that I had in my head. yay.

bunny not included in final game

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Secondly, I overhauled the whole story. Forget conservation and nature and all that stuff, it’s just gonna be a pokemon-like. It won’t win any prizes for originality, but I hope I’ll be able to make something fun with it.

Thirdly, what the hell? Nobody told me that you can gut the default battle system and use its insides! If you use out-of-battle attacks and replace enemies with reserve party heros, you can fully customise the visuals while still letting the engine do all the storage and the maths. what!!!

mmmmmm idle animations

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I knocked out this mockup in about 3 days, and while I haven’t sorted out turns and end conditions yet, you can hit the enemy and make the health bar go down. It works perfectly for a pokemonlike too, because it’s symmetrical - enemies and heroes work the same way (although technically you gotta make 2 hero definitions for each ‘mon so that you don’t get weird party bugs).

This game might not ever be finished in the way that I’ve been imagining it, but I’ll definitely be able to put a tech demo out for this half-custom battle system stuff.

[SwordPlay]

That is a GREAT idea for a battle system! I feel some gears turning in my head.

(Also everything looks great as always)

[jolt1k]

That is a GREAT idea for a battle system! I feel some gears turning in my head.

(Also everything looks great as always)

Thanks! It might be helpful to note that you can’t read or write attack stats with scripts, which might be annoying for stuff like animations. I’m manually giving each attack a plotscript to make the menu work though, so I think it’ll be fine, I can just stick extra stuff in the plotscripts.

Also, turns is harder than I thought. There’s an easy route (ditching the speed stat and going by party order), a medium route which I’ve mostly mocked up (sort the order by speed, everyone moves as soon as they can) and a hard route which I want to do next (attacks get cached and all go at the end of the turn, priority moves exist). I haven’t even tested status effects yet either, who knows how much that one will work without scripting help. Can you hear my brain gears turning too lol

[TMC]

Welcome back!! (You too, Sword)

As always, your graphics are fantastic! Oh no, still stuck on graphics revisions? You can worry about the trees less, they're great every way you've drawn. Consistency is good but I think you can get away with a great deal of inconsistency without it looking bad.

It may be a pokemon-style game, but that still leaves you free to put a lot of personality into both the characters/setting/plot and the gameplay.

Using attacks out of battle with "map cure" command (the name bothers me since it's highly misleading) to create a custom battle system is a great idea. I'm not aware of anyone having done that. But beware that there's a long list of things it doesn't do that in-battle attacks do. I can hardly list all the differences since attacks are so complex.
Luckily, somebody is adding a script command for reading attack data (no, not me (no, not James either!)) but (as usual) I'm the holdup on actually getting it finished and incorporated. Definitely will do so before the very near stable release.

(although technically you gotta make 2 hero definitions for each ‘mon so that you don’t get weird party bugs).

What's that about?

[jolt1k]

Using attacks out of battle with "map cure" command (the name bothers me since it's highly misleading) to create a custom battle system is a great idea. I'm not aware of anyone having done that. But beware that there's a long list of things it doesn't do that in-battle attacks do. I can hardly list all the differences since attacks are so complex.
Luckily, somebody is adding a script command for reading attack data (no, not me (no, not James either!)) but (as usual) I'm the holdup on actually getting it finished and incorporated. Definitely will do so before the very near stable release.

I forgot that you mentioned the attack stats here! lol, reading attacks WOULD be incredibly helpful, but I’m mad flaky so I can’t judge people for not getting things done sooner.

also, I don’t remember what that bug was. I probably did something stupid somewhere.