[Miles Edgeworth]

Would've introduced myself if I found a thread to do so before talking about my project, but what the heck!

So this is a BYOND project my friend and I are working on. It is, of course, not public yet, since no DQ BYOND game can be considered "playable" without a battle system. However, I took a lot of time making sure it would have the original look 'n feel of the NES games (within the boundaries of BYOND's limitations, of course...). Right now, all I can show off is the menus and dialogs, since there isn't much done in yet.

Here's a couple of screenies to show the goods:


The dreaded part of all BYOND DQ games: The menu hud!


Equipment system.


How 'bout a snooze?


Ye olde weapon & armor shop!


How do ya like me now?


And there still are old men telling us about stuff we don't care for!


This is the reason there are no taxis in DQ games!


Oops!


Ye olde shippe!


The legendary phoenix, Ramia!



Those are the first screenies I publically released in regards to this project. All I can hope is to gain support as my project goes public (that will be once I have implemented a full-featured combat system).

Enjoy!

This post has been edited by Miles Edgeworth: 05 July 2007 - 09:33 PM

[Sygma]

Woah, nice job on the game, menus & all :D

Since I do not know much about BYOND, and from what I understood, good luck for the battle system!


And btw, welcome to the Den :)

[Aeolus]

It does have that classic dragon warrior look to it (that is a very good thing). Good luck with the rest of your project.

[Miles Edgeworth]

Forgot two more shots:


Hmm... whatdayaknow...


I might like the NES old school looks, but that doesn't prevent me from bringing stuff from the SNES series!


So far, this is what I've got done on my project:

- Fully functional player's menu
- Multi-Player partying (for those who don't know, BYOND is MMO-oriented) & relevant basic functions (such as interactive item usage)
- Equipment system
- Item sorting and manipulation system
- On-map spell system
- Shops & Inns system
- Vehicles, for both sailing & flying
- Searcheable areas, such as chests, jars and drawers



Next steps code-wise:

- Bank
- Luisa's Tavern
- House of Healing
- Death detection (will be needed for battles)
- Battle system


Once I have this framework done, then we'll be able to shape it around a good story. One step at a time...

This post has been edited by Miles Edgeworth: 23 March 2007 - 05:59 PM

[Plattym3]

Screenshots look authentic! Nice job there and good luck!

[Indogutsu]

Yeah, the screenshots look so authentic, I thought I time-traveled back to 1992 for a second!

One thing I noticed about the screenshots is that there seem to be two blank spaces in the equipment info box of the status screen, after the weapon, armor, shield, and helmet. What are they for? Can you equip two accessories like in FF6?

And since it's BYOND, does that mean it'll be playable over the Internet? I never really understood how that works.

[Miles Edgeworth]

Well, the two other slots are for neckwear (such as a cape), and one accessory (such as the Meteorite Armband for example). While the neckwear would usually be another piece of defensive equipment, accessories will provide various kinds of benefits, as in most DQ games.

As for BYOND, it's a massive multi-player platform. The main "pro" of it is that you can basically make any type of game you want relatively easily, while the main "con" is the choppiness of the engine (something you get used to over time). I suggest you try some of the games over there. There are maybe 2 or 3 DQ games on this system (along with 2 dead ones, where drama used to reign supreme... :P), so you may want to give those a shot to get used to BYOND's engine.

Well, time to get off my butt and work some more! :D

[Kenshin]

I've tried a few DQ BYOND games before and I have to say I didn't care for them. There was always tons of lag, the sprites never looked right since most of the authors tried to edit them (and sucked at it), and the whole MMO system never seemed to fit very well... But after looking at your screenshots it's obvious your doing a great job keeping it looking authentic. Lag is inevitable, so I don't mind it too much. So as long as you can get the intergration of DQ to MMO then I can see this being a very good game.


Also, just one small thing I noticed is that in the text letters like "g" and "q" are placed higher than the others because of their "tail". And I honestly don't remember, did it do this in the original DQ, or is this just a limitation of BYOND?

[Miles Edgeworth]

Kenshin, on Mar 5 2007, 02:17.45 PM, said:

Also, just one small thing I noticed is that in the text letters like "g" and "q" are placed higher than the others because of their "tail". And I honestly don't remember, did it do this in the original DQ, or is this just a limitation of BYOND?

BYOND limitation. The HUD system I use won't let me ajust letters' x/y positions for one or two exceptions. The NES versions had this done correctly, though...

As for connectivity-related lag, it depends on who hosts the game. Most of em host their game from their DSL/cable service and go on P2P networks at the same time. The rest is history...

This post has been edited by Miles Edgeworth: 05 March 2007 - 02:24 PM

[Woodus]

Looks very nice, good work. :)

[Miles Edgeworth]

EDIT ON MARCH 23RD:

We lost the party screenshots by a stupid mistake on my part. We'll make some new ones when we'll host a private demo session for you guys at the Den. The date is, of course, to be announced.

This post has been edited by Miles Edgeworth: 23 March 2007 - 05:40 PM

[ablahblah987]

I'm with Kenshin. Every time I've played a DQ BYOND game it sucked. But this one looks promising I guess. Good luck with this.

[Culix]

Whats a BYOND game?

[Sygma]

Culix, on Mar 5 2007, 09:38.44 PM, said:

Whats a BYOND game?

Not too sure about this myself, since I registered myself there last night... www.byond.com

You can play games online (been playing a FF game there all night... except for the lag, it was real nice) and you can somehow make your own games with it.. although I haven't found how to yet... still looking into it. A good alternative to RM2K, with new views for games.



To Miles: Only thing I'm wondering is, with BYOND, must all games be played online? or you can actually download them and play offline (such as RM2K)?

[Aeolus]

They are all played online. Only online

[Miles Edgeworth]

Sygma, on Mar 5 2007, 10:07.24 PM, said:

You can play games online (been playing a FF game there all night... except for the lag, it was real nice) and you can somehow make your own games with it.. although I haven't found how to yet... still looking into it. A good alternative to RM2K, with new views for games.

Well, you can make your own games with the DreamMaker application that comes with the suite. However, it requires some basic programming knowledge, it is not as user-friendly as RM2K. You need to implement code, make your own "icon" (ie: graphical) ressources with DreamMaker, import your own music and sound effects (it doesn't support mp3 due to licensing issues, but it DOES support .ogg files!). Requires more work than RM2K, that's for sure, but it's much more flexible, plus it's online.

However, lag can be an issue due to poor hosts (leeching torrents while hosting is NEVER a good idea, and some folks over there haven't learned that, still...), and as I stated a bit earlier, the engine is a bit choppy. But the flexibility and ease of use as far as coding is concerned are factors that do more than make up for it all.

Oh, and on the topic of music & sound, I got a hold of Culix's midis... Awesome work there, dude! Mind if I'd use some of your work? I have several versions of some DQ tunes that either have a pause at the beginning, or that just fade out at the end. And since I'm no midi artist by any means, I'm not capable of "repairing" those midi files. Of course, you'd be credited should you grant me permission! :)

Sygma, on Mar 5 2007, 10:07.24 PM, said:

To Miles: Only thing I'm wondering is, with BYOND, must all games be played online? or you can actually download them and play offline (such as RM2K)?

Technically, you could, if you can get a hold of the dmb & rsc files of the game (This is what the BYOND client remotely connects to). That involves most of the time asking the game owner. Of course, that's at your own risks! :D

This post has been edited by Miles Edgeworth: 05 March 2007 - 10:27 PM

[Sygma]

I'll just stick to RM for the moment I guess... I'll let the pros work BYOND for the moment :P

[Sylvena]

Wow, a Byond Dragon Warrior fangame that actually looks like a Dragon Warrior game. Do want! I've got one question, however; is a "Sage" class going to be included in the game?

[Miles Edgeworth]

Krast, on Mar 13 2007, 07:00.40 PM, said:

Wow, a Byond Dragon Warrior fangame that actually looks like a Dragon Warrior game. Do want! I've got one question, however; is a "Sage" class going to be included in the game?

Well, this needs to be discussed with my partner in crime. I mean, it would sure be neat, but it would defeat the purpose of our original class system (can't tell more on that yet).

However, if it gets included, rest assured we won't pull an SoE on you and make it a staff-only class. If it gets included, it's included for everyone, no ifs and buts! :D

I'll grab Fraps or Camtasia shortly so I can make a small gameplay video. Of course, this won't include any battle, since combat is not in yet.

This post has been edited by Miles Edgeworth: 13 March 2007 - 06:54 PM

[Miles Edgeworth]

Well, today I've put a small video demo of the game on youtube. They are not ready at the time I'm writing this, but it shouldn't take too long...

Demo - Part 1
Demo - Part 2


As for news on the game, I improved a bit how menus behave, and added stat-boosting seeds.

What's left to be done for the game to be "publically" playable:

- Bank (this is my next step)
- Luisa's Place (for NPC mercenaries)
- Damage Floor & Death
- House of Healing
- Battle System

So that's about it for now.