It's been a bit. I think I'll just do this as a sort of monthly devlog from now on. Hope you don't mind. I've had a bit of an art block and had to rework the engine, so it'll be a bit until the alpha is ready, but the game already feels much better. I started work on remixing some of the original themes into classic RPG sounding songs and I'm working on some new songs/leitmotifs as well. The world design remains pretty lackluster, but I thought up some new enemy designs. I also went through the painful process of going through all of the important stuff in the forums and put it in one heckin' chonker of a Word Document. The grand total is… 35 pages and 15621 words. This is gonna be a pain to compile. Oh well, that's it for now. I'll try to update with a bit more progress next month.

- Waffle (but not really because it's an alt account)

Thanks for your commitment and dedication to this project, it's really inspiring. I'm still here lurking, and I'd be willing to do some work for the world design, as that was my primary job. As for enemy designs, we had at least one that I can remember, the spiders that wear trees as hats to camouflage. Just let me know anything you need on the world design side, I'm available. Good luck.

I will need you and some others for playtesting, as I want it to fit the original vision perfectly, so I will give you a demo once the prologue is done. I do not know when the prologue will be done, though.

ok

DREAMCHILD Devlog 2: Electric Boogaloo:

Hello everyone who still cares, here I am with DREAMCHILD Devlog 2: Electric Boogaloo. It's been a busy month, especially with the final month of school in the way, but regardless, I've done lots of work with the planning phase. Most of the planning is for fleshing out Elmore, the PC's hometown. I've done a very small amount of work on the actual development of the game, so as it stands, its still an ugly prototype . As far as the fleshing out goes, I've done quite a bit, and I've even started on refining and writing the dialogue. I've started a good few music tracks that absolutely slap, so stay tuned for that. I might as well share some of the random world building and lore stuff I did, although most of it is just summarizing the earliest posts. For anyone who cares, here it is:

Characters (WIP):

(Dubbed PC): He’s your average friendly kid, but he seems off, because the player is in control of him. However, he does have a certain margin of control over himself, be it a small one. Basically, he is being puppeted, but is trying to fight back.

Marcus: An arrogant kid, something of a bully, who is not welcoming to outsiders, and will shoot them down with his state-of-the-art Nerf Gun. He tries to intimidate anyone smaller than him and is angered by anyone who tries to be more annoying and fuller of themselves than him. He and the PC are close friends, while him and Eva butt heads, but eventually become friends by the end of it all.

Eva: Kinder to the younger people in the group, which is a stark contrast to Marcus. Sort of like a mother figure to them. She is the glue that holds the team together, and the diplomatic one of the bunch. She has a lot of pressure on her, and she ends up coming to terms with herself near the end of the game. She does also hate Marcus, as the two have sort of a hate-hate relationship until the end, where they learn to tolerate each other. She ends up learning not to be so overprotective all of the time near the end of the journey.

Zoey: She is the spunky, vertically challenged tank of the team. Sometimes she is overconfident, but she is not full of herself like Marcus. She is grateful to be around others, even though she may not want to show it. She will end up losing it all when she needs her friends most. Marcus is her “hired gun” and the PC is her Watson (meaning that he writes stuff down for her).

Annie: She is shy yet adventurous, similar to Zoey, except she is more timid instead of overconfident. She notices intricate details, which is sometimes a distraction to her, but also works in her favor in some cases. The is slightly taller than Zoey, but still very small compared to the rest of the group. She feels safer around her friends and is scared without their help and protection.

Dr. Eary Day: A zany scientist whose cockamamie inventions often end up in shambles. The older townspeople don’t trust him much, but the children in town are quite friendly with him. And while he is brilliant, he doesn’t really care much about the safety of anyone who participates in his experiments, which can be something of a fault.

Alex: Eva’s little brother. He is overprotected by his older sister Eva and doesn’t enjoy being babied all the time. He doesn’t stick around for too long. He ends up getting attacked by Weed Shrubs because he gets into trouble easily. He wants to go on an adventure like the others, but Eva stops him from going.

Enemies (WIP):

?/Unformed Soul: In the second story, it changes its name to Unformed Soul, but before it is known as the ?. This enemy is an enemy you will find throughout the game. It upgrades its stats with the PC in an attempt to become more like it, but the stats are only half of the PC’s. It changes the amount of elemental damage depending on which area it is in, and it has attacks that are quite basic. It is a very simple enemy and only has certain attacks depending on its area. They start popping up in the beginning village.

Weed Shrub: A weak average enemy with little to no attack damage. These enemies however can be annoying and more powerful in larger groups. It has two moves, Uproot and Leaf Rain. Leaf Rain is damage spread out, whilst Uproot is focused on one member of the party in particular.

Living Woods: A tree that is only slightly distinguishable from a normal tree. It has eyes and can heal other enemies around it, but not one of its own kind or itself. It has two moves, Fresh Apples and Timber. Fresh Apples heals one of the enemies around it. Timber causes the tree to fall down and do a ton of damage on the members of the party, but it is a one-time use for a last stand, as the tree dies once the move is executed.

Heart of the Woods: This is a large version of the Living Woods and is more powerful because of it. It heals every member of its own party. Its own version of timber can cause all of the Living Woods near it to fall as well, which would mean that this is an endgame move you would not want to be hit with. It can also use buffed attacks of the Weed Shrub as well, making it a hard and powerful boss to encounter.

(That's all of the enemies for the first area, but more are bound to come, as I already have some in the works. :))

Battle System Explained in Great Depth (Under Revision):

On the overworld, if an enemy notices you, it will come toward you fast. If you hit the enemy before it hits you, you get the advantage by the enemy having less health, and you get your turn first. If the enemy gets to you first, you lose the advantage, and the enemy gets the first turn. When an enemy gets to you first, however, it doesn’t reduce your health.

When it is your turn, you can, attack, defend, heal, flee, or act. Attacking reduces the health of the selected enemy. Defending reduces the damage taken during the enemy’s turn. Healing increases a party member’s HP. Fleeing lets you flee the battle, but it may not work 100% of the time. Acting allows you to persuade the enemy and be diplomatic. This may not always work, as some enemies are not very smart. Your choices will be boosted by a well performed quicktime event, however if you fail, the attack will be less effective than it would be normally. Changing the order of the characters will change the enemy’s prime targets, but it will also change your strategy. If your entire party is down, the battle will end.

When it is the enemy’s turn, each enemy attacks with one of their randomly selected attacks. Sometimes it is a strategical move, depending on how high the enemy’s INT stat is. You can jump during this, which will effectively make you dodge the attack, depending on how well you time it. You will be awarded with gold and XP when you win the battle. All of the mechanics that you have, work for the enemies. If every member of your party falls, you lose. If certain members of your party are up, but not others, they will be knocked out on the world map, and you will have to heal them. If you leave them behind, they will slowly heal, and if they get fully healed, they will wonder where you went. You can also stop at Inns to heal them much faster, for a little bit of money.

ALL OF THE STATS!!!:

MUScle: This increases the amount of damage you deal with melee attacks.

FORtitude: This adds HP to your character and helps block attacks. You will take less damage and you will have more of a chance of getting a full block.

REFlex: This heightens the chance of an enemy missing you and increases ranged damage.

LuCK: This ups the damage and chance of a crit happening.

MINd: This decreases the amount of TP you have to use for specials and increases your XP gain.

MYStique: This will increase the damage of spells that you use as well as TP gain increased.

MOXie: This heightens your chances of calming and sparing the enemy.

(I've tried to find more than one purpose for each stat to make them feel impactful, but some are still under revision.)
Gameplay Somewhat Explained:

You do some puzzles, bullet-hell segments, fetch quests, max out your stats, and fight some baddies. All while trying not to break the game. That’s pretty much it.

Sign-off:

So yeah, not a lot, but I'm working on some art, world design, and dialogue and focusing on that next month. And again, feedback is greatly appreciated!

- Waffle (but not really because it's an alt account)

is there a project that has what's completed so far?

Hey Waffle, that looks great! Do you think you could share the working project, though? I'd love to help out however and whenever possible.

Next month there should be a ready build for you guys to play! Thanks for the enthusiasm. I didn't know people still cared about this project!

WaffleTundraStudios wrote:

Next month there should be a ready build for you guys to play! Thanks for the enthusiasm. I didn't know people still cared about this project!

Sweet I look forward to it!

I feel like this conversation should be in a studio instead of constantly bumping a project that isn't accepting applications

AmethystBeam wrote:

I feel like this conversation should be in a studio instead of constantly bumping a project that isn't accepting applications

Too bad.

heine wrote:

Hey Waffle, that looks great! Do you think you could share the working project, though? I'd love to help out however and whenever possible.

I second this! Thanks for all your work on this, Waffle; I look forward to seeing the ready build!

WaffleTundraStudios wrote:

AmethystBeam wrote:

I feel like this conversation should be in a studio instead of constantly bumping a project that isn't accepting applications

Too bad.

my opinion has been so violently rejected

AmethystBeam wrote:

WaffleTundraStudios wrote:

AmethystBeam wrote:

~snip~

~snippitysnappity~

~snipsnapsnoop~

Sorry, but studio notifications are broken, so there's no way you'll get correctly notified every time I post an update.

Harmony_Hertz wrote:

heine wrote:

Hey Waffle, that looks great! Do you think you could share the working project, though? I'd love to help out however and whenever possible.

I second this! Thanks for all your work on this, Waffle; I look forward to seeing the ready build!

Pressure… ⚆_⚆

DREAMCHILD_Official wrote:

DREAMCHILD Devlog 2: Electric Boogaloo:
~snip~

Sounds great. Thanks for the time you're putting into this, it'll be exciting to see this project become a reality.

Little Update:

Haha, world design go skibabopbadopbop. Also, the engine is coming along nicely, but I might have to make the party members not follow you in the overworld. I'll try to make it work, but this may delay the process quite a bit. Expect the demo to come this month unless I say otherwise along the line. o7

- Waffle (but not really because it's an alt account)

DREAMCHILD_Official wrote:

Little Update:

Haha, world design go skibabopbadopbop. Also, the engine is coming along nicely, but I might have to make the party members not follow you in the overworld. I'll try to make it work, but this may delay the process quite a bit. Expect the demo to come this month unless I say otherwise along the line. o7

- Waffle (but not really because it's an alt account)

Thanks for the update! If there are any code issues I could help out with, just let me know

This sounds really interesting!

Yet Another Update:

My deadline is nearing. The overworld engine will for sure be done, but I cannot guarantee it to have your party following you within it. All of the art within the engine will be placeholder, so don't expect a masterpiece, and I will release a bunch of lore along side it, since it is fairly lackluster. Thank you for your patience with this project. The dialogue and battle system will come through the later months of Summer. I plan to finish all of the prologue dialogue by July, so stay tuned for that as well. The larger devlog will most likely come on the 30th. Thank you for your patience.

- Waffle (but not really because it's an alt account)