I'm using that Baker's Halloween Book.

Okay, so there's this local fast food chain called Baker's Drive-Thru that sells this Halloween book every year that has $300-ish worth of free things you can get and do at various different locations around Southern California.

For the past (hell, for as long as I can remember), I would just go for the free food and leave all the others at the wayside. That ends this year. There's going to be a day where I'm going to set aside and do as many things as possible in that book [within reason].

I've already set the day. It's going to be on Black Friday. Who's with me!?! Gonna be fun. :D (Maybe might make it a yearly thing.)

(By the way, if any of you have kids, I'll give away the Child's only admission stuff for free. Damn me being too old.)

Selatria will probably be my last RPG project.

I've determined that Selatria will probably be my last RPG project.

I'm pouring my heart and soul into the game and feel like I have done what I wanted to do with the genre. I've been in a team with very talented and understanding people and the project is coming along very nicely.

I have every intent to finish it by August 2013 with the best quality of a game that I can, but after I think I would like to develop more casual games on other genres. I would like to look into development for the Ouya since it's Android based and I can exercise some practice in Java.

I would also like to mention that I bear no ill will to RPG Maker or RPG Maker developers. I love the program, I think it's a great tool to simplify the complexity in all of the coding that is needed to make a RPG. My philosophy is not the engine or programming used to make the game (assuming not plagiarized or illegal), but the fun of the game itself.

That's all. :)

Selatria Progress 10/17

Some new shots of Selatria.

Ask Questions.

I had my feelings thoroughly hurt earlier today. I heard some unflattering things college classmates talked about me during my time in some of the courses.

I won't name off the courses it involved or the people involved with doing it, but I have two main philosophies.

1. I never say anything behind a person's back that I wouldn't say to their face directly.

2. Always ask questions. A stupid question is one that's never answered.

The first example is this person involved talking about my performance in a class in which I was this person's lab partner. The professor mistakenly assumed that everyone in the class had basic Electromagnetism experience and made sure they knew circuit diagrams.

At the time, I haven't taken the course, so trying to understand the lab instructions, I asked my classmate and they were not very much help.This continued on for the whole quarter or so, with me feeling stupid that I was behind that I felt like I haven't taken the relevant courses needed to feel successful in the class.

The second example was that I was put into a group with this person in another class. I, not knowing the language that they were doing this program in, decided to ask a lot of questions about it on their group forum that they made for the group project. I guess, one of the questions they determined to be too stupid and proceeded to laugh about it. (This was the one I just talked about.)

And this person proceeded to have a class with one of my friends afterwards and grilled me to the point where even he said he felt ashamed to be my friend.

That was probably the straw that broke the camel's back and made me want to write this.

Anyway, my philosophy. Always ask questions. There's always a right and wrong answer, even if someone says there isn't one. The wrong answer in that case is the one they do not want to hear.

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I guess that it was a few years ago now, so it's all water under the bridge. It's not likely that I'm going to see these people again, so I'm not going to publicly bash them on the interwebs. I'm not that type of person, that's why I kept the names and relevant classes out of it.

But I like to learn. I like to ask questions. If I don't understand things, damn well I will make it known.

It's never cool to be the subject of the guy that everyone is laughing at though. Makes me want to further improve myself. Expect some industry-related posts in the future. (Mostly for my reference)


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Selatria Auditions: Part III (Updated: 10/16)

Updated with new roles --  October 16, 2012
Updated with information on types of files accepted -- October 16, 2012

(Pronounced Sell-a-tree-a!)

Synopsis:

Selatria is an independently directed and produced role-playing game (RPG) published under the RPG Maker VX engine. Unlike most RPG Maker games, Selatria uses a completely original soundtrack, original monster art, unique sprites, an original spin on the battle system, and utilizes voice acting. Selatria has been in production since January 2011 and is expected to finish in August 2013. A demo of Chapter 1 can be played here.

The story revolves around two teenagers who are exiled from their home when it is taken over by an invading empire. Confused and enraged, they adventure and obtain the help from others who are involved in the conflict to try to reclaim their home and find out who and why this empire is attacking.

Chapter 1 Trailer:




Main Characters:







Expected Release Date of Game:

August 20, 2013. We are hoping to make a debut at AM^2 anime convention booth in Anaheim next year.


Payments/Commissions:

None currently. No one in the current development team is currently being paid for contribution. There will be a profit-sharing plan in place once the game goes live, and each team member will have a percentage in ownership of the game. Most of us are using this as an opportunity to expand portfolio/resume.

Roles Available:

*Denotes a long term role. The game has six chapters and each chapter takes roughly two months to complete. New lines may be provided every two months until completion of the game in August 2013. Keep this in mind. We may keep in contact with you!

***Prospective voice actors and development team members must look over and agree to our development team agreement after being cast.***

-Narrator/Morgen (Old friend of Luis)* (Male or Female) (Audition Script) 
-Evil Dakk'rian Emperor/Empress* (Male or Female) (Audition Script)
-Cannoneer (Male or Female) (Audition Script)
-Resident (Male or Female) (Audition Script)
-Heiveir City Chairman (Politician like role) (Male or Female) (Audition Script)
-Doctor (Male or Female) (Audition Script)
-Delusional Fairy (Male or Female) (Audition Script)
-Engineer (Male or Female) (Audition Script)
- (NEW) Young Morgen (Male or Female) (Audition Script)
- (NEW) Faylien Soldier A  (Male or Female) (Audition Script)
- (NEW) Faylien Soldier B (Male or Female) (Audition Script)
- (NEW) Faylien Soldier C (Male or Female) (Audition Script)

Other Positions Available:

If you're looking for other positions related to the game that aren't voice acted. We can use you! Please come to this link for details.

Submissions:

Submissions for auditions can be emailed to "groverwimberly@gmail.com" or "ultknightgrover@gmail.com". Please use subject line "Selatria Audition: [Insert Role Here]".

Alternatively, submissions can be sent via the Voice Acting Alliance thread Jabari will be posting. (I'll provide the link once it goes up.)

Formats for submissions accepted: .mp3, .WAV, .ogg


Deadline for submissions will be Thursday, November 8, 2012 at Midnight (Pacific Time).

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Good luck on your auditions! I'm looking forward to hearing from you!

-Grover, Selatria Producer/Director


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Selatria Team

The one problem with having an ambitious project is trying to keep a constantly changing team motivated throughout the whole process.

You know, that's arguably harder than developing the game itself.

In the future, I'm going to stick to projects much smaller in scale. Ones that can probably be completed in a year or so.

Game Design Philosophy: Open-World Content

See also: Eastern RPGs vs Western RPGs

 
I've been playing a lot of Xenoblade Chronicles lately. ...A lot. What really attracts me to the game is the nice vast open world gameplay. Something that's really missing from the newer eastern-RPGs. (I think you all know what I'm referring to when I mean that.)
 
(Xenoblade Gameplay -- by CoreysCollection)

 

Final Fantasy XII does a similar world-design concept, and I think Xenoblade was heavily designed by it. XII was then inspired by XI's world design, which was an MMO, to give the player an impression that they had a lot of areas to explore. That there were areas to go to that weren't even part of the main scenario.

Players are encouraged to explore not just the areas they have to go to, indicated by the pointer in Xenoblade or the icon on the minimap in XII, but to check that crevice to the side, those mountains over there, or to just uncover the map in order to find new things or secret monsters.

(Final Fantasy XII Gameplay -- by aalsebti)

   

I'm also a giant fan of Rockstar's games, Grand Theft Auto, Red Dead Redemption, Midnight Club, etc. Their various games have a lot of content to do in an open world that gets wider as you progress through. Midnight Club stands out as a racing game which allows you to go whereever you want and not along a defined track, as long as you the racer hits all of the checkpoints along the way.

The Zelda games particularly stand out as a sore thumb, but to the opposite extreme. I think I was turned off by those games by the un-explained nature of the earlier games. You're kind of just thrown into the middle of the game and expected to find things on your own. I was told this aspect was fixed in the later games in the series, but haven't had a chance to get around to them just yet.  
 
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As much as I love exploring and searching every little thing in games, one thing that stands out in most of the examples is that the beginning is treated with a little too much freedom. I believe that the early parts of a game should be hand-holding you through the process and kinda push you where you need to go until all of the basic game mechanics are explained or at least your main quest/objective is outlined.

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I almost forgot to mention western RPGs into this equation. A lot of those games do the very things I like. Open world gameplay and lots of freedom-of-choice. But I guess what keeps me from enjoying them is that there's no emphasis on a central story. I like seeing a game that has a story and the side-quests are used to advance the overarching plot.

I would like to see more games out there like Xenoblade. Games that have a central emphasis on a plot with well-defined characters that are present of eastern-RPGs, yet have the open-ness and freedom of western-RPGs.

That would be one hell of an obstacle given that one aspect inevitably takes away from the other.

Anyway, what games do you guys suggest that has a good balance between character development and open world story content?