Two Game Updates, One Post

I have no idea how to run a game developer’s blog. The stuff I’m working on right now is not sexy enough to show off, so I’m not sure what—if anything—I should write about. At the moment, I’m programming the puzzles for #TowOM’s first dungeon, developing enemy stats, and putting together tilesets for other level maps; so not a lot to see.

I did start redoing the map for the inn. I posted a preview of it on Twitter last week for #ScreenshotSaturday.

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#TowOM: Adventures in Dungeon-Building and Story Editing

I’ve come to the conclusion that creativity is really all about learning how to edit and, unfortunately, that particular skill eludes me at the current moment. I can come up with hundreds of ideas for a story, but the story quickly becomes a narrative mess because I have such a difficult time cutting out unneeded elements and selecting the right pieces to tell the tale in my head.

I think part of the issue is that every story I’ve ever dreamed up has at least two versions—sometimes many, many more—and I want to tell them all. But since the story deals with the same characters, this isn’t always possible since some storylines may not be compatible with each other. Other times, the different versions create characters with personalities and motivations that stray too far from my original ideas about them.

The Tower of Menda RPG

A few months ago, Kadakowa came out with a new game engine called RPGMaker MV. After reading up about it and looking at some videos, I decided to port my original project Keloryn: The Darkening (KTD) to it because it has most of the features I needed to make the game how I want without having to make a bunch of custom scripts. For instance, MV has sideview battling built in, whereas I would need to install a custom battle script to get the same thing with VX/Ace.

Since the porting process for KTD is going to take awhile (and has already run into a major hiccup), I decided to start a smaller project called the Tower of Menda (TowOM). The reason is purely psychological. I feel like completing one project will give me the confidence and impetus to continue working on my long-term project KTD.

Anyway, it’s been awhile since I’ve blogged, which means my transition game is a little rusty. So…Imma just jump right into it.