digimonexe

[digimonexe]

Balancing Updates

So I've been playing around with balancing a lot lately, and I thought I had reached a point where everything was working well, but as it turned out, that was only for when your Digimon is level 1. After it starts leveling up, it becomes drastically overpowered very quickly, especially if you start off by putting all of your skill points into Attack/Magic Attack. To fix this problem, I am probably going to re-do everything's stats again so that the base level is much higher to begin with, that was when you increase a stat, the difference won't be quite as crazy. I'm gonna couple that with trying to decrease the number of skill points you gain per level, especially as an in-training Digimon. That way I won't be able to defeat Goblimon as a level 2 Koromon.

I've also been browsing through different pre-made crafting systems to start getting the crafting skills into the game. I have one system I am working with, but its not cooperating right now, which is a shame, because it is exactly what I want. I'll look more into it in the coming days. I really hope I can get it working.

New Psedo-Demo? I'm thinking about releasing a rerelease of the original demo at some point during the next couple weeks after I do significant balance work. It will essentially be the same as the original demo, except with the new Intro. The idea behind this is that I can get a lot of opinions on the new stat point system and find out from users at what point they thought the enemies became push overs.

[digimonexe]

Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays, and whats new with the new year

Hello there everybody! I hope that you all had a great Christmas if you celebrate it, otherwise I hope you all had a good week of December 22nd. I know I did. I bought myself Digimon World 1 and 3 on Ebay, among other things, with the money I got and am looking forward to playing those for the first time in my life!

Now that the holidays are over, I am able to spend more time working on the actual gameplay, as opposed to just potential digivolution line work.

I'm going back to the skill point system and I'm gonna try to get that nailed down soon. Once that is done, I will be able to populate the Dark Thicket and Mekanorimon Factory zones. I also am going to make the Chrome Digizoid Mine more interactive (after all, you are supposed to be able to go there to mine Chrome Digizoid, right?), and that includes a proper introductory quest, where you need to do more than just rescue Bearmon.

I am looking for some help from the community as well! If you consider yourself a good writer, I am looking to add small descriptions to every Digimon's info page. So if you want to give it a go and write a short (1 to 2 sentence) description for any Digimon in the game, or any Digimon you have seen me post about on this blog, feel free to either submit them to me, or send them to me in my ask box! Make sure to include a name (doesn't need to be your real name) to be credited in the game. If you don't I will just use your tumblr name if I choose your description!

If you want to do more than that, I am also looking for ideas for any different kinds of weapons/armors/items/general skills/etc. and will be more than happy to read over any suggestions you have. Feel free to get as creative as possible!

I'm really excited to get going on this again! I hope everyone has a good new year!

[digimonexe]

Got a couple of Ko- Digimon here. First is KoKabuterimon, who I always considered to be the rookie form of Beetlemon/MetalKabuterimon (if they had fallen into typical digivolutionary paths). Then MetalKabuterimon gets the option of going to AncientBeetmon or RhinoKabuterimon. On the other side of its tree is SandYanmamon who is often just an orphan without a line. I had SandYanmamon digivolve into FlyBeemon because it seemed to make sense.

Then there is Kokuwamon, who typically digivolves into Thundermon and then a Mamemon line, but I decided to include BladeKuwagamon's line with it as well, because it makes sense (both Kokuwamon and BladeKuwagamon are machines and of the Kuwagamon-Species).

[digimonexe]

Okay, so Monodramon isn't a Dark Thicket or Mekanorimon Factory enemy, but I really wanted to do this line badly because the Millenniummon story has always intrigued me. In doing this sheet, I realized how large the Kimeramon sprite is compared to every other one. I'll do something about that eventually.

I'm thinking about writing a side quest revolving around Monodramon/Deltamon that involves getting all the way up to the Millenniummons. Although it might not even unlock until towards the end of the game due to the sheer power of those Digimon.

Regardless, wherever Monodramon ends up being an encounter, you can bet that it will be a rare encounter.

[digimonexe]

Since I did Hagurumon, I might as well do Solarmon as well. Solarmon has a simple line; basically it completes the Hagurumon to Machinedramon DNA line, as well as adding a path to GranLocomon (for some strange reason, the Digimon World Dawn/Dusk/DS games have GranLocomon, but not regular Locomon sprites. Go figure).

I'm not sure how I feel about the Bombernanimon and Nanimon slide evolution. I might make it have a special requirement, but I haven't decided yet.

[digimonexe]

Hagurumon has always been one of my favorite digivolution lines. Both Guardromon and Mekanorimon are two of my favorite Digimon, and I've always had a thing for the Machine-type Digimon lines (which was part of the motivation for the Mekanorimon Factory).

This line is pretty simple, and also closely follows Hagurumon's canon line. The only change is that normally Megadramon digivolves directly into Machinedramon, but I've always believed that him and Gigadramon should have DNA'd into him.

[digimonexe]

The Last Week of the Semester! I am starting the last week of the semester at school, which means winter break is just around the corner, which means regular updates are just around the corner! To celebrate the lead up to winter break, I am going to utilize tumblr's queue to post updates with new digivolution lines every day this week (even though I won't be posting them in person, due to finals and whatnot).

So to kick it off, I have Biyomon's evolution line. Biyomon is an encounter in the Dark Thicket, so I figured, no better place to start than with Dark Thicket/Mekanorimon Factory enemies!

Biyomon's line isn't complex. Its a typical 3-1-1 evolution line that a lot of previous digimon have, so there's really not much to say on the subject.

[digimonexe]

Mekanorimon Factory - So here's the big update I've been working on for a while! I've been playing around with this Futuristic Tileset and finally have a good enough grasp on it to introduce you all to the first "Storyline Zone." A storyline zone unlocks once you have fulfilled a special set of requirements, and is usually introduced via a cutscene in DigiCentral once the requirements are met.

The Mekanorimon Factory is a large underground complex that is separated into multiple rooms. Predictably it is populated mostly by Machine-type digimon (which happen to be my favorite, so I'm really excited to be doing this zone).

You are sent to the zone to disable a malfunctioning Andromon, who is suitably the first Ultimate Level Digimon you will encounter (since he was the first ultimate level Digimon interacted with in a couple of the anime series'). Predictably, Andromon doesn't go down easily, and it also turns out the Andromon is a friendly Digimon who is being controlled by something else.

I'm having fun mapping this zone because there are so many more options to use in the tileset.

[digimonexe]

First Mini-update of the weekend: Locked Chests, Keys, and Skeleton Keys! Chests are common to semi-common occurrences in each zone. Usually they hold something small, like 100 bits, or a low-level DigiAR, or something of that sort.

Now there are locked chests in some zones! These chests are rarer and thus hold rarer items, but in order to open them, you need to have the right key. The trick is that you might not even find the right key to a chest for a long time after you first find the chest. You could end up in the end game and find a key that opened a chest way back in the Digital Forest, and find that that chest that you passed a hundred times in your adventure held the strongest weapon in the game or something like that.

Which brings me to my next point: Skeleton Keys! Skeleton keys are items that can be crafted out of Chrome Digizoid after a certain level, and can open most chests. The key has to be a quality key though, as it is possible that you could break the key while attempting to open a lock, especially for rarer locked chests (though a key that belongs to a chest will always work).

[digimonexe]

Hi, due to issues with my computer being resolved I was just able to start playing the Demo today and I LOVE IT. I love the graphics/style and the game just makes me really happy. Will the future demo releases be set up so we can continue with our current saves and just go to the new content, or will we have to start over? Just wondering. I love the game, again, I'm the happy partner of a badass Impmon :)

For the next demo, I know for a fact that you will have to start over again. HOWEVER, that is due to a major change in the game mechanics when you level up. So if you were to keep your Digimon from the first release into the second, whenever it comes out, they would be eaten alive (because all stats for enemies and characters are scaled up). As for future releases after that, I haven’t decided yet. It mostly depends on whether or not I can find a system to do that, and if there are any more major updates to the early game, or vital systems as a whole.

[digimonexe]

Weekend work

Hi everyone! No real updates right now, just mostly re-balancing work (it is beyond tedious...), but I really want to do something new this weekend. I don't know what yet, but I want to take a step away from guessing and checking stat tables and do something -- ANYTHING -- involved in the game that is different. I haven't decided what yet, but I've been brainstorming some ideas. I really just want to do something with the plot, and make some advances there.

So my goal for this weekend is to take a break from the re-balancing efforts and do something more engaging and enjoyable, and post-on-tumblr-about-able, because I feel like I'm just leaving you all in the dark on the work ever since I've predominately put my time and effort towards this stat system.

So hopefully by Sunday night I will have some cool new pictures and information to give you all, because I know first hand that just looking at blocks of text on a tumblr page is boring.

And since blocks of text are boring, I'll leave you with this gif of koromon eating a watermelon:

[digimonexe]

Ramping back up

October is almost over, which means that the most busy month of my year is almost over too! The World Series is over, and unfortunately my St. Louis Cardinals didn't win, but there's always next year.

Now that I have more time available at nights that was previously dedicated to watching baseball, I will be ramping up work on this project again, so you can all expect more semi-regular updates! Yay!

[digimonexe]

Howdy Everyone

Just thought I'd pop in and let you all know I'm still here and still working, just haven't had time for any updates. October is a busy month for me. Mostly because I am a huge baseball fan. Just know that you will still be getting semi-regular updates in the future!

[digimonexe]

Rare Encounter - Calumon

This is an idea I had been working with for a while now that I hadn't brought up. In every zone, there is a (very) small chance of spawning a Calumon on one of the maps. Calumon doesn't let you fight him, and in exchange for not hurting him, he does something for you.

I haven't decided what yet. At first I was considering having him give you the scan data for a rare Digimon, but I don't know how I would regulate it (obviously I wouldn't want to give away a super powerful mega level Digimon if you get lucky and find him in the Digital Forest). So now I am leaning toward having him take you to his secret hideout, where he brings you so that you can play with him (to keep him in character with how we was in Tamers). I kind of like this option, where you can play a mini-game with Calumon, to win a prize or a Digimon or experience or something.

Obviously I haven't fully decided yet, but what else is new?

[digimonexe]

Better late than never, right? Here are some in-game shots from the Dark Thicket. Obviously, there aren't any encounters yet, because of reasons explained in the last post.

You'll notice in these pictures that there is a much more claustrophobic feeling in this zone than in the previous two zones. There are multiple bottlenecks where if an enemy is wandering around, you WILL NOT be able to avoid fighting them.

This zone is graphically my favorite so far, and with a wide variety of more colorful Digimon wandering around eventually, it will be even more visually appealing. There are some shadow issues I need to deal with on one of the maps though.

[digimonexe]

Dark Thicket Notes

I've got some updates for the Dark Thicket zone! First off being that I mapped the entire zone. It is pretty big and spans 5 different maps (although the maps are in general much larger than the previous two zones).

The zone is laid out like a sort-of maze, although it isn't that difficult to get through. If you were to just run right through it without any distractions it would seem like a spiral almost. However, you can't just run through without any distractions, if you want to complete the zone quests!

The Dark Thicket's quest line revolves around freeing groups of baby Digimon who are being held captive by Kokatorimon, RedVegiemon, Aurumon, and Apemon (I hear there is also a dastardly Kuwagamon causing trouble as well). Once you have saved all of the Digimon, you need to figure out who is behind this whole thing, and that is...

I'm not going to spoil the end of the quest! You're just gonna have to play it to find out!

As a side note, I haven't started populating this zone with Digimon yet, because I haven't finished rebalancing the previous enemies yet, and that is something I need to finish before I can start making new enemies.

I'll post pictures from the Dark Thicket later tonight!

[digimonexe]

Sorry for the lack of updates this week. I've been preoccupied with school and haven't gotten much opportunity to do much. This weekend though I will have more free time and will definitely get an update out by then if not earlier!