Locomule wrote:

Shall0w wrote:

I'm pretty happy with how things have been going, it's been pretty smooth. I'm looking forward to seeing how things end out!

I've been concerned that team members with nothing to do would become disinterested so I suggested multiple projects to get everyone involved in something but it seemed like the general response was “No.” But I noticed you recently suggested working on a platformer, I think so we could do a simpler project that we could get released to the Scratch public faster, maybe to get our team's name out there, that sound about right? Any more thoughts on that?

Yeah maybe, though I think the only one waiting is AlphaAndBeta, I've been working on various things, so that might be hard with just one person waiting.

also maybe we should have a different place to talk about our projects, and leave this one for applications.

BirdLover198 wrote:

I meant stamping pen.

Oh, ok. We still have one issue issue… Stamping will go beneath any sprites or clones so until we get the GUI and game play finalized we don't know for sure what will go where? However I will say that I am a big fan of stamping, my isometric RPG engine and countless other RPG projects have used it. I mentioned earlier stamping the background to allow pen usage but what I didn't mention was possibly stamping the object clones, maybe even the player clone. There is a chance this might also be the easy answer to the layering problem posed by Shall0w's proposal to allow the player to walk behind objects. Stamp everything to handle layering and then ghost everything to handle collisions. Anyway, when we get to the point of adding text, stamping will definitely be a consideration. We'll try everything out when it is time.

BirdLover198 wrote:

also maybe we should have a different place to talk about our projects, and leave this one for applications.

Yeah, good call, I have had the same thought. It was great to use for a while because it got attention and hey look, here you all are! But it is time to expand.
We can use the top post to link to our other discussions and reserve this post for recruiting. In case anyone hasn't noticed, we are now only seeking 1 more team member, a sprite animator.

Tomorrow's Team Update will be our last development discussion post here. I'll start a new discussion and link to it.

Is it possible that we could, in the future, plan for a system where to attack an enemy you select them then cast spells on them? It'd make choosing a target much easier. Think kind of like World of Warcraft's targeting system, if you've played it.

If you guys want, I can work on a map of Pyxel.

Shall0w wrote:

Is it possible that we could, in the future, plan for a system where to attack an enemy you select them then cast spells on them? It'd make choosing a target much easier. Think kind of like World of Warcraft's targeting system, if you've played it.

Sounds like a good plan.
I think we have been trying to over-design the current project. I certainly can't blame people for being excited about it but we are still trying to plan for advanced features (by Scratch standards) when we haven't even coded the basic stuff. That is the opposite of our team's design philosophy and the kiss of death for many projects. But that is nobody's fault but mine. As team leader, I've got to do a better job of keeping member expectations and project goals within our original scope. It is better to handout small disappointments on the path to a team victory than to keep everyone happy along the road to failure.
No worries though, this is to be expected. I have archived and studied tons of webpages on virtually every aspect of game design over the years. That was part of the reason I wanted to do this project, because left to our own coding devices we have a tendency to do many things wrong, out of order, etc while developing, things that work at that moment but create big problems later. So you study how pro teams develop games and read their stories about success and failures and learn what not to do.
As far as I know, none of us has ever worked on a pro game development team or developed a full length RPG from beginning to end. We are exactly the people who are supposed to do things the wrong way. So being on this team will be about us learning how to overcome the natural pitfalls of game production, how to use the limited means at our disposal to best emulate a professional game development cycle in this Scratch environment. Naturally we can't do everything like the pros, but the closer we can get the easier it will be for us to learn to make projects together and to eventually crank out the mind blowing projects we all know our team is ultimately capable of.

So with that being said, I will use the nfo I mentioned earlier to create an outline of our basic development cycle for us to refer to in the future.

Locomule wrote:

BirdLover198 wrote:

I meant stamping pen.

Oh, ok. We still have one issue issue… Stamping will go beneath any sprites or clones so until we get the GUI and game play finalized we don't know for sure what will go where? However I will say that I am a big fan of stamping, my isometric RPG engine and countless other RPG projects have used it. I mentioned earlier stamping the background to allow pen usage but what I didn't mention was possibly stamping the object clones, maybe even the player clone. There is a chance this might also be the easy answer to the layering problem posed by Shall0w's proposal to allow the player to walk behind objects. Stamp everything to handle layering and then ghost everything to handle collisions. Anyway, when we get to the point of adding text, stamping will definitely be a consideration. We'll try everything out when it is time.

ok, at the moment I am making a prototype for a text engine with clones.

Locomule wrote:

BirdLover198 wrote:

also maybe we should have a different place to talk about our projects, and leave this one for applications.

Yeah, good call, I have had the same thought. It was great to use for a while because it got attention and hey look, here you all are! But it is time to expand.
We can use the top post to link to our other discussions and reserve this post for recruiting. In case anyone hasn't noticed, we are now only seeking 1 more team member, a sprite animator.

Tomorrow's Team Update will be our last development discussion post here. I'll start a new discussion and link to it.

Oh wait! Tomorrow is Sunday! I'm not on scratch at all on Sundays. But I'll just look at the stuff on monday

Locomule wrote:

Shall0w wrote:

Is it possible that we could, in the future, plan for a system where to attack an enemy you select them then cast spells on them? It'd make choosing a target much easier. Think kind of like World of Warcraft's targeting system, if you've played it.

Sounds like a good plan.
I think we have been trying to over-design the current project. I certainly can't blame people for being excited about it but we are still trying to plan for advanced features (by Scratch standards) when we haven't even coded the basic stuff. That is the opposite of our team's design philosophy and the kiss of death for many projects. But that is nobody's fault but mine. As team leader, I've got to do a better job of keeping member expectations and project goals within our original scope. It is better to handout small disappointments on the path to a team victory than to keep everyone happy along the road to failure.
No worries though, this is to be expected. I have archived and studied tons of webpages on virtually every aspect of game design over the years. That was part of the reason I wanted to do this project, because left to our own coding devices we have a tendency to do many things wrong, out of order, etc while developing, things that work at that moment but create big problems later. So you study how pro teams develop games and read their stories about success and failures and learn what not to do.
As far as I know, none of us has ever worked on a pro game development team or developed a full length RPG from beginning to end. We are exactly the people who are supposed to do things the wrong way. So being on this team will be about us learning how to overcome the natural pitfalls of game production, how to use the limited means at our disposal to best emulate a professional game development cycle in this Scratch environment. Naturally we can't do everything like the pros, but the closer we can get the easier it will be for us to learn to make projects together and to eventually crank out the mind blowing projects we all know our team is ultimately capable of.

So with that being said, I will use the nfo I mentioned earlier to create an outline of our basic development cycle for us to refer to in the future.

Ok, i'll leave my think tanking for latter

Whelp, looks like the way I was doing my text engine was wrong, and the way you actually do a text engine is WAY beyond my coding skills bummer.
Woot! Just realised I almost have 100 posts

BirdLover198 wrote:

Ok, i'll leave my think tanking for latter

Well that is the thing, I don't want the team to get to far down a bad road but likewise I can't express what a joy it is to work with people who share my enthusiasm for making games with Scratch. So one of the last things I want to tell anyone is to stop working or coming up with ideas. If anything, I want to try to direct as much of that energy output as possible into work that will go to good use. We have had many ideas and a lot of good ones. I think it is when you don't have ides that you really need to start worrying.

In the long run, it will be critical for all of us to have patience as we hack our way through this uncharted forest and create familiar paths. That would be a big benefit of cranking out some simple projects first, we will be establishing how we like to work together and that will make our future projects go that much easier.

Locomule wrote:

BirdLover198 wrote:

Ok, i'll leave my think tanking for latter

Well that is the thing, I don't want the team to get to far down a bad road but likewise I can't express what a joy it is to work with people who share my enthusiasm for making games with Scratch. So one of the last things I want to tell anyone is to stop working or coming up with ideas. If anything, I want to try to direct as much of that energy output as possible into work that will go to good use. We have had many ideas and a lot of good ones. I think it is when you don't have ides that you really need to start worrying.

In the long run, it will be critical for all of us to have patience as we hack our way through this uncharted forest and create familiar paths. That would be a big benefit of cranking out some simple projects first, we will be establishing how we like to work together and that will make our future projects go that much easier.

Wow, you sound like my Mom! (That's a GOOD thing, she makes great speeches )

(100 posts, woot!) Also I get what you mean, save the advanced ideas for later and funnel it into less complicated ideas.

Thanks! I've raised 2 daughters so that might not be a coincidence, lol. For those that don't know, I'm 46 years old which I know is like Gandolf old to a lot of people around here.

Locomule wrote:

Thanks! I've raised 2 daughters so that might not be a coincidence, lol. For those that don't know, I'm 46 years old which I know is like Gandolf old to a lot of people around here.

Meh, I've lived all my life with a older mom, so it doesn't really matter to me EDIT: and it's not like you say “You shall not pass!!” to people when they try and go to the employees only part of the store so yeah XD

BirdLover198 wrote:

(100 posts, woot!) Also I get what you mean, save the advanced ideas for later and funnel it into less complicated ideas.

Well, we will do some amazing things, of that I have no doubt. We just went against our own plan and started with one of the hardest types of games to make on Scratch. So I'm considering resetting our immediate goals by turning Shadowlands into a long term project with a clear, stage-based development plan and turning our team members loose on some new, simpler projects. This would get us back to our original team plan with the bonus of having a long term project started as well. And as Shall0w pointed out, it would be nice to have some completed projects to show off around Scratch.

But I am also a creative person. Our team plan of following a pro development cycle is more for those large, complicated games like Shadowlands. We will use other methods to develop game ideas too, and I have some pretty cool ideas, no spoilers!

Locomule wrote:

BirdLover198 wrote:

(100 posts, woot!) Also I get what you mean, save the advanced ideas for later and funnel it into less complicated ideas.

Well, we will do some amazing things, of that I have no doubt. We just went against our own plan and started with one of the hardest types of games to make on Scratch. So I'm considering resetting our immediate goals by turning Shadowlands into a long term project with a clear, stage-based development plan and turning our team members loose on some new, simpler projects. This would get us back to our original team plan with the bonus of having a long term project started as well. And as Shall0w pointed out, it would be nice to have some completed projects to show off around Scratch.

But I am also a creative person. Our team plan of following a pro development cycle is more for those large, complicated games like Shadowlands. We will use other methods to develop game ideas too, and I have some pretty cool ideas, no spoilers!

ok

My ideas so far, for Cozy Li'l Campfire Clicker:'
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1KIdfK4gCRNxW5yckDQSsEZHYRR4CnmqCAOMhRSINu-A/edit?usp=sharing

Locomule can I have a part-time job here giving feedback?
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