Wednesday 13 August 2008

The 'Vigilante Eye' Release

Yes, we're ascending to the next level of our destiny through the obstacles of the great dev-eater beast of Tiredness and Desperation. We have entered the sanctuary of the miraculous Release again. Here we stand astounded and in silence, holding back breath. We are aware that something great surprising and of elemental effect may happen anytime. As we are there awaiting for some never-ending minutes, a booming sound starts to cite something strange, slowly - pressing each word. Listening carefully you try to memorize what's being told:

"
- Turn based playable Combat phase added
- New animated models (boarmen thug and mage by Zphr)
- New house and town models (by Zphr)
- New static monster model (kobold by Surt)
- Total redesign of jungle plants, new plants for continental,
- New Encounter Ground system that separates the encounter scene
- Inventory enhanced (equip,attach,give,drop)
- New Loot Window after combat
- Character leveling
- New ground tile generation system with smoothed ground
- New 2D elements, some refactored UI images
- Optional support for secondary ground textures
- Optional texture splatted ground tile blends
- New spells, skills, items, artifacts, objects
- Bard instrument concept available with one implemented item
- Particle system with lights for spells added
- Support for continuously playing sound sources like waters, forest ambient
- New environment & humanoid sounds added
- New Body Part system that enables critical impacts
- Optimizations: tree trunk batching, cutting of non-visible interior parts, more locking
- Bug fixes
- Far view mode is disabled till fixing it for the new ground system
"

Right after finishing these words, a glowing globe elevates from out of the darkness of Sanctuary. Yeah, now you know what awaits you, jcrpg next sneak-peek enchantment is in your hands like a crystal ball. It may be that it helps you to look into a distant Future... let the Trial begin!

Great Heroes, come and test your wits - play the game or create your own tormenting beasts! It's high time - because combat is ready to begin NOW!

Candidates for Testing and Modeling - don't hesitate!

PS.: Just this moment I decided to reupload the release with a bugfix - it was a major problem with non disappearing 3D models. The old one I've deleted so from now on the new and only one is the good one.

16 comments:

Charlie said...

Very, very impressive progress.

Anonymous said...

Hello,

If you would like to get wider audience, there are couple of websites where you could try to announce jcrpg:

www.remakes.org
www.tigsource.com
www.indiegames.com/blog
http://www.rage3d.com/board/forumdisplay.php?f=133

pzi said...

thanks, anonymous!

I've added it to remakes.org and applied for a post on tigsource.com.

Good tips, thx! :D

Anonymous said...

Well done!

I'm excited about this project, and look forward to the finished game. Just looking at the screenshot makes me nostalgic for the summer I spent playing Might & Magic II as a kid. JClassicRPG promises to let me, at last, reclaim my lost youth! ;)

pzi said...

Hello, Anonymous2!
I'm glad you like it!

If you or any of the readers want to help you can always try to spread the word about this attempt. This is a community effort, we always need good work - testing/reporting bugs/spreading word or if you feel talented enough creating artwork/models etc. We will get ahead much more if we have a good community...and we have a good one! But it can be even better with your help! :)

Dragonbait said...

Hi, I was testing out JCRPG earlier tonight and when I was trying to name a character, I am unable to use the character (b) or (B) in the character name. If I do, no letter appears but I get white lines on my screen. You can view a screenshot at the link below.
http://www.icestorm9999.com/jcrpg/jcrpg2.PNG

pzi said...

Hello, Bri!

Uh, that's because I've unintentionally left a debug key (to see 3D bounding areas) switched on in the game, sorry, you can't type B in this release! I hope this doesn't discourage you from testing. :) Sorry for the inconvenience.

Anonymous said...

Hello,

There's another (recently opened) page where you can announce jcrpg:

http://www.javagametome.com/

Anonymous said...

And here:

http://www.javagaming.org/

pzi said...

javagametome previously contained jclassicrpg, but they have removed it when they changed profile. I will check javagaming.org. Thx!

Anonymous said...

Maybe you could also try here (theres probably many readers there):

http://rpgwatch.com/

Dragonbait said...

Is there a way to change the font? or make the fonts larger? It's kind of difficult to see the text. Otherwise it's going along pretty well so far.

pzi said...

Hello Bri! I find it quite readable if i play it fullscreen, but next release i try to include some kind of configuration for this to help out. Are you gonna make a new review? :) It's got a big lot of changes, much more than anytime before.

Dragonbait said...

I'll be making a new review but only after I play through it a few times and get back in the swing of things. Last time I tested it there was only limited character generation and no combat so much more to learn now. When I get some free time I'll get a review going and post a link. :o)

pzi said...

bri: in one word - COOL! I like your reviews! :)

Dragonbait said...

Testing 123

Now there is a title menu giving options new game, save, load, options, quit. Lets start us off with a premade team by clicking load. 6 characters and a couple of steps into the game we start off with a fight. A Boar Mage. The battle setup screen appears and we need to decide what each character will do during the fight to come. Being new to combat without there being a manual to go by (that I know of) I set the characters to fight with their weapons swinging and thrusting their swords. Once everyone is set, click the (s) key to start the battle. After a few rounds we are able to take the boar mage down. (might I add here that the boar mage has a spell that sends a flash of red at our party. neat effect. Much sound effects added since the last testing. backround noise of birds, and other wildlife to give a safari/wilderness audio. sounds like there is some waterfall or stream around somewhere. Now we will choose how we check the remnants. i.e. (loot the evil boar mage that tried to cut us down.) The boar mage had some healing potions in his possesion. those will come in handy since he beat up on us pretty badly. Select (t) to take individual item from the list, or (a) for one person to take all the items from the list. Being lazy I chose (a). Immediately after finishing the looting procedure we are informed that there are nearby lifeforms. What to do? Um. Leave. Yes we will leave. I SAID LEAVE!!! NOOOO! RUN!! RUN LIKE HELL!! Uh oh! Death and Drek!!! Battle Number 2. I face combat so I must press enter. (I'll also add in here that whomever did the boarman mage animation...it's really friggin' sweet! So now that we are at the combat phase it occurs to me that the yellow bar (one of the 5 bars that appear on screen next to the characters icon) is the one that determines how much strength the character has to fight. My team's first character Ozaza has no yellow bar left. I can try some reasoning since it seems the only thing left that he can do since the last battle. Lazlum will try the killer death grip. Balonimo will thrust the dagger, Marwu will thrust his blade, Ziggo will throw a knife, and Ilumi will try to detain using his wrestling skills.

Round 1 gone with the boarmage taking some damage after inflicting his red spell on us.Ozaza will reason yet again. Marwu will try a minor heal on Ozaza. Ziggo is also now left with Reasoning as his last option. I guess he no longer has the strength to fight the boarmage either. Uh oh. Ilumi has no options now so he will do nothing for this round. There seems to be some cheering and clapping going on during battle. Though I'm not quite sure whether the cheering and clapping is for our rightous party or for the boarman mage that seems to be kicking our arses! Doing nothing seems to regain the yellow bar so I guess that will be what we need from time to time. After a few rounds of not Ozaza sitting back and relaxing I'm able to get him back into the front line to try a hit/don't cut attack. I assume this is a swing the blade over the boars head and hitting him with the flat of the blade creating a nice clang which will vibrate his ears. Balonimo (being a bard) will play his Lute of dreams. I hope its some soothing music to put the boarmage to sleep so we can stomp on his arse till the blood comes out. lol. Marwu regained the ablility to thrust his sword, Ziggo will try the deathgrip, and Ilumi will do a quick arrangement, though I'm not quite sure what that means. Hopefully he will make a quick arrangement of the boarmages head and turn him into a more lesser lethal animal like the "raging squirrel" or something of the sort. lol.

Marwu is successful in his attempts at swinging his longsword. (And there is much rejoicing. Onto the next round. And um. uh. I seem to have been booted out of the game. Will post more later after I give it a second go. Not sure what happened there.

I'll just go and say this....I enjoyed it for the most part. There is some potential in the battle, but also some caution to be heard. This is coming from an old timer who remembers the bard's tale trilogy era. It is interesting to see all the different things each party member can do during battle but also can be too time consuming. Remembering the old days of text battle scenes the like of....

attack
defend
use item
cast spell

and now there being numerous style attacks, the issue of not being able to attack every round, i.e. do nothing to regain the yellow bar, and um. the lack? of a defend option? Also I try to view the bottom portion of screen where you see (in text) what is happening and I'm still trying to figure out what is going on. If it is possible, why not make the result of each attack better known, as in if the boar mage hits Marwu, have it say Boar Mage hits Marwu for 5 damage points or something of the like. I do see the points being deducted from each characters portraits but is that points being deducted from the characters hit points? or hit points that the characters are inflicting upon the boar mage?

I have posted this review and will post future reviews on to the link below...
http://www.icestorm9999.com/phpbb/viewforum.php?f=10&sid=f6728ff8b0c49a2c9977ecd3e2730db9

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