Pre-Non-Vacation Stuff

Contrary to what one might imagine based on my adventure-loving characters, I really don’t care for the hassles of traveling. x_x I believe it’s been at least two years since I last did any major traveling—and somehow, even though I know it’s a pain, I always forget just how much of a pain it is. D: Maybe it’s a mental safeguard or psychological repression. I don’t know!

Translation: I spent almost the entire past week generally freaking out about how I could make this trip productive. In hindsight, if I had given all that preparation time to my game and then my trip was 100% unproductive, it would still have been a net gain. As-is, well, I’ll do what I can. I could be underestimating effects like jet lag too because it’s been a while.

One “downside” of weekly updates is that I have to be upfront with stuff like this, but that’s alright. I have no desire to hide it. I’ll just have to sink in that much more effort to compensate. I had actually intended to play through Tales of Xillia 2 when I’m back, but I’ll see how much I can get done while away before deciding what to do. My game does come first!

(…well, except in November when it’s Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire time. That’ll be a real Vacation Edition. =P Probably for Super Smash Bros. too.)

Actual Productive Stuff

At any rate, I have five more character design rounds to evaluate now—hoping to knock out some of them on the plane and in the airport—and I’ve made some small progress in understanding how base Unity functionality works (on the layer underneath my favorite assets). Also, one of the features that ORK currently lacks is the ability to have multiple moves per turn, so another user and I are working out together what we’d want from such a feature, then we’ll probably pool money to make it happen. =) That took up a good several hours of planning. (…and I see now that I missed a reply, so there go another couple of hours right after this post!)

gamingislove (the maker of ORK) is also so fast at releasing new versions that I’ll have to go back and figure out how I can benefit from the additions of three new releases that went on while I’ve been plugging away at 2D. At the top of my list to investigate are stuff like ORK’s own plugin system, a Bestiary system, leveling up without experience points, a new equipment list style for menus, and a certain new battle AI step.

Implemented at my request, AI can now count the number of allies, enemies, or total characters on the battlefield and then determine what to do—so I can make my monsters even more devious than before! ^^ For example, I’ll update my Sylph Mage enemy, who I was already very happy with, so that when she’s alone she’ll never use mere stat boosts or inflict status effects.

Battles are the centerpiece of Dreamblazers and of basically everything I’ve ever believed about RPGs, so features like this are very exciting for me. : D