So these gameplay movies of the new FF:Revenant Wings for DS came out: Link

The reason it’s worth noting is primarily because of the pacing. It is an action tactics game, so based off of the same gameplay as FFXII. In making a semi-real time (’real time RPG’ just sounds so dirty and so irrevocably Star Ocean 3 / Diablo / Final Fantasy Adventure any other PS1/PS2 RPG that eschews ‘choice’ or even ‘reaction’ for plain and simple ‘action’ (X button to slash) that I refuse to use the term with the ’semi-’) game, one of my primary concerns was the appearance of the pacing.

The concern is that players are not used to and will not welcome a game that they feel is moving too slowly. There is a visceral joy in fast paced combat that draws in even the non-RPG otaku into a game (this is why this formula rose to the top), and the truly calculated turn-based game has a love amongst the civilization / wargaming fanatic who wouldn’t be adverse to the idea of Play By Email. So the question is whether the middle ground would have any supporters or would it a traitor to both camps. These clips of Revenant Wings, even though the gameplay is fundamentally still FFXII (don’t know how much pausing and wait mode come into effect - the reason I can enjoy FFXII), the appearance of a slower pace (even if by accident due to the number of pixels/percent that enemies can even be ‘visible’ at for the characters to still be of a discernable size) makes some of my fears subside.

I recently purchased this book: ActionScript 3 Cookbook and it’s been an awesome investment. Since so much of AS3 is still badly documented/exampled, this has been a livesaver on some things. The book agrees with me that Flash’s startDrag() and stopDrag() are fundamentally broken, and provides a simple replacement that I’m going to base my code on.

I’ve started doing some widget coding since flash could definitely use some of these. The last example (the color picker) uses a RibbonWidget (basically something that updates or triggers on first mouse down or anytime mouse is down while you’re over it).
It has to use my MouseState utility class which I had to write (along with KeyboardState and KeyboardMap). It’s truly a travesty that I have to write these at all, but AS3 seems to turn a deaf eye to stateful programming in favor of completely loopy event-only coding. Using those singleton classes as a base instead of Keyboard and Mouse in AS3, I can treat them as button matrixes and just poll them at event time to see what their state is.

I’ve got a lot of new year’s resolutions surrounding Gemini, so I’ll definitely be posting more often.

Great article on The Escapist about Boutique MMOs (like our concept), and a follow up article.

The Escapist - Boutique MMOGs

Tips on making your own MMOG

Guild Wars is having another Preview for their new Nightfall game/world/expansion.  I’m going to be on it some of this weekend to play around.  IM or phone me if you want to hook up on it and pwn some n00bs.

Was at Border’s yesterday and aside from picking up my usual Future Music and Imagine FX periodicals, I picked up European Art of the Sixteenth Century. Not the best book on the art of the period by far, but for 20$, it packed almost as many useful pictures, quick blurbs and artist lists as the 90$ coffee table variety.

I’d always studied art as art before, my art history had always been more of a tree diagram of ‘ism’s than having much in the way of dates and context as without a reason for exploring context I tend to find the socioanthropology side of art a bit dry. So I was a bit astonished to find that Giuseppe Arcimboldi, one of my favorite pre-Surrealist Mannerists lived smack in the middle span of the century in question: 1527-1593.

A bit about my creative vision for the art (2D or otherwise):

I’d like to carry over the sense of purpose and weight from the Late Gothics, the Mannerists, and the Venetians, while highlighting saturated color and playful chaos. Basically trying to take the subtle but intense power of the art and sprinkle it with the insanity that would’ve been had their skills turned to magic power. I also really like the ‘fire’ of gold paint in ecclesiastical art, where it feels like pieces of the art are being lifted off from it and coming to play with you. I would like to replace this gold with swashes of uninterrupted color, in a very design-school oriented manner, as if someone had taken bits of stained glass and infused and highlighted parts of the otherwise subtle world of oil and canvas. Like the magic is poking through.

A Kaleidoscope of Chiaroscuro.

I will attempt to make an example piece using the magic of photoshop and tracing at some point soon.

Been doing a good deal of research into the setting and mood of the game.  I still believe that a pre-Steampunk-ish Renaissance-based game (14th-17th century timeline) is what I would like to see. The closest interactive/game that I feel has been created is Arcanum and I feel that this should be on our list of requisite games for developers.

One thing I am naturally researching this for is for setting (which technologies spanned which time periods, the art and architecture, clothing), but there is something that interests me more (as setting is truly our whim).

Thought landscaping, and mechanics that can be derived from.   Humanism, modern philosophy, science and the Scientific Revolution occured during this time period.  Problems and theories that were forefront during these times: political ones, economic ones, scientific ones, cultural ones.

Battles that changed the sociological landscape.

First-ever concepts in economics.
Some things we can use as a guide for making our own initial political structures in the game.

I’d like to highlight a possible extrapolation:

The high concept of the game is rooted in the concept of the Guild, and the era and setting simple follow suit to the most interesting time dissection of that concept.

One set of possible mechanics to derive from this:  In the rise from Apprenticeship to Master Craftsman you need to go through a Journeyman stage.  When you attempt to become a Master Craftsman you must create a unique Masterpiece which could be unique and patented to your character, such that you have a lasting effect on the world if you achieve this position.

Just some Wiki-food for thought.