Some of this should look familiar to anyone who’s seen the original Castle Heck. The entrances and bridges from the towers to the central castle are missing, but they’ll be there! …And so will the night sky/ocean. 
Today I took my last 2 exams ever for grad school, meaning I unofficially have my Master’s Degree in Software Engineering… It already feels like a huge burden has been lifted from me…and I’d go as far as saying my shackles have been undone and I’m free again. :) But I’d say it was all worth it in the end…even though I felt like a lifeless prisoner at times. 
Anyway, with me having free time again, I should start working on DQ: Aberrance again with the intent of quickly getting it done. But before that, I have to keep my word on something that I said I’d do way back. There is a Verge game called The Sully Chronicles which about 10 years ago served as my introduction to Verge1 and game programming in general, and it is now being remade/completed in Verge3. Without the Sully Chronicles/Verge to influence me, I probably would not have even pursued a career in programming. So as a tribute to the Sully Chronicles, I’ve been working on an original tileset/map for Castle Heck, which is the final area of the game. I’ve already made great progress too. I’ll post some screenshots as things start coming together more. I’m a man of my word, and I intend to finish this before doing anything else.
Ever since I started playing Lost Odyssey, I seriously can’t get enough of it. This is like the long-lost Final Fantasy successor I’ve been waiting for. It has the familiar Sakaguchi charm to it that the older SNES-era Final Fantasy games had, and the epic musical score by Nobuo Uematsu further reinforces this. The story in this game is really deep, as are the characters… One of the most interesting things is being able to read Kaim’s memories as you unlock them. These are a series of well-written short stories which are accompanied by music that fits the atmosphere along with shifting backgrounds. This was really well done, and they really invoke all kinds of emotions. Some people have reported being brought to tears by the stories, and I can see why. It’s a really great way to bring a large degree of depth to a character who is 1,000 years old. This is quite honestly the first game in years that I’ve been wanting to play just to uncover more of the story. The fun turn-based battle system which includes a unique aim ring system(sort of similar to Shadow Hearts and Legend of Dragoon), and learning skills for immortals based on accessories equipped(similar to FFIX) or skills linked to mortals is just icing on the cake. Now that I think about it though, the whole skill linking thing is probably there to give players a reason to use the otherwise useless mortals as living job classes. Why else would you want someone in your party who doesn’t automatically come back to life after 3 turns?
Now is this game worth buying an XBox360 over? I can’t answer that question. I didn’t buy a 360 over a year ago just for this game All I can say is that if you do own a 360, you will love this game if you were into the SNES-era FF games at all.
As for lack of game-dev updates, you can blame Lost Odyssey for that. Lately the limited free time I get has gone towards that Why do great RPGs have to come out the moment I want to start working on gamez!?
By the way, since we talk about game development here, this is a link to a gamasutra article on the development team behind Lost Odyssey. It gives lots of insight into what goes on in the development of a next gen RPG and how teams are structured.
One of my most anticipated games, Lost Odyssey, is coming out soon so updates might be less frequent during this time. But I’ll try to do SOME work when I can!
As it stands, I’m slowly adding on to my ever-growing function library. Since I’m using the latest Verge3, I don’t have to worry about limits too much either.
…That Save/Load menu will be finished…I’ve just had lots of school-related stuff to work on lately.
After posting on the Verge boards about how I couldn’t compile DQ:A in the latest version of Verge3 and having to revert to the old one, they basically gave me the impression that I should try and move to the new one.
So I sat down with the new one again and debugged through everything the new compiler didn’t like. Well it turns out I was the one at fault, and I had made several errors that the previous compiler just let slip. So I bow before the might of the new improved parser in the Verge3 compiler, which made my code more accurate!
Oh, and I know I said the Save/Load menu would be cake, but I didn’t get a chance to work on it. I had a midterm coming up(which I took today) and spent all my free time studying for that. I expect more Save/Load menu progress tomorrow.
I spent 2 hours this night finalizing the Save/Load functions. Every function required to save, load, copy, and erase an adventure log is now in place! All that is left now is to make the GUI. I would’ve done that today, but it’s too late now. It’s times like this that being undead would be an advantage.
One significant improvement I made on the save files is that they are now versioned. This paves the way for all sorts of things like demos being compatible with final versions, patches, content updates, etc. with no worries about breaking save files.
Writing the GUI should be cake compared to the data-related stuff I just did. Afterall, I’m going to make use of the same dynamic menu generator I wrote about 3.5 years ago when Verge3 first came out. The same one I used for all other menus.
Oh, and here’s some unrelated eye candy I’ll throw out relating to an experimental lighting system. Should be useful for a torch effect in deep levels of a cave/dungeon 
I’ve been attempting to design a good DQ save/load system for DQ: Aberrance. In general, the DQ save/load system allows one to create a new adventure log, copy an existing one, delete one, or continue one.
I already have methods to Save/Load groups of related data based on the type of subsystem it is associated with. For example, I have specific WriteVars/ReadVars methods for item search, item accrual, party stats, etc. The main Save/Load function is a conglomeration of these smaller functions…as it should be.
The tricky part comes when designing the header of each save file. The header is critical to quickly accessing the relevant display info of an adventure log so that it can rapidly be loaded/displayed on the save/load screens. I’ve narrowed the header info that I need down to name, level, map name, and state(active or deleted). This is all based on my observations of how DQ6 works. …So I think I may just go and finally code this thing instead of constantly contemplating the mechanics!
Unlike DQ6, which allows you to save to any adventure log when you go to the priest in the church, I think I will just have it save to the active file. My reasoning for this is that:
So…that’s what’s going on. Will update whenever progress is made. I’ll try to keep things lively this time. I completely abandoned my other page…speaking of which I’d add a redirect…but I forgot how to log in to it! LOL!
The word aberrance means a deviation from the intended path. With that being said, the theme of DQ: Aberrance is the consequences of an alternate path taken in a popular Dragon Quest game. It’s kind of like that scene in Back to the Future 2 where Doc Brown draws a line on the blackboard, and then draws another line that skews off into a tangent. THIS is one such tangent!
DQ: Aberrance is powered by Verge 3, which is an amazing freeware, opensource game engine that is strongly leaning towards RPG development. Though it can be used for anything…I’ve made a Balloon Fight Clone with it! So yes…Verge3 is wonderful and I encourage its support.
Anyway, here is what you have been waiting for. Screenshots! Hopefully more to come later…
Title Screen (this has scrolling transparent clouds like in DQ6!):
No you really won’t encounter this guy on the field:
To the handful of those who are reading this,
I’ve been missing from the game development scene for about 3 years now. Most of it was due to graduate school, which I am about to complete :D Another factor was moving around a lot and moving from job to job. I was at a point where my life just kept changing and each new day just brought more and more change. I think things have settled down now for the most part, so I can start messing with game development again!
I was once working on a game called Dragon Warrior Legend, which was aimed at cloning the engine of DragonQuest III for the SuperNes/SuperFamicom. The engine is mostly complete, and I actually started playing with it again. Dragon Warrior Legend is no more, but another game is currently being developed using the same engine. It’s not the completely original game I intend to make one day, but rather another Dragon Quest fangame!
With most of the original engine already in place, I hope to have some smooth development on this thing and get it out the door…something I’ve been meaning to do for a loooong time. I’m a completionist and this has been the thorn in my side for years
As this was an introductory/test post, screenshots will follow in the next post!