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Plates of Arceus, Episode 1 Development Blog [E19]


BlueTowel

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Whether Arceus' will created it, or whether They were mute;
Perhaps it formed itself, or perhaps it did not;
The Supreme God of the world, all pervasive and all knowing
They indeed know, if not, no one knows

 

Hi! The first thing I should talk about today is splitting Episode 1 into two parts.

I think I'm going to be working on my app longterm as well, it won't be a launch-and-forget thing. Completing all of the new content for maingame (Cycle 2) and postgame (Cycle 3) for the 30th of September seems extremely unlikely. 

Episode 1 would be an update with content up to the first Champion battle, and Episode 2 would continue throughout postgame.
I'm still not quite sure whether to implement some barebones postgame content and expand it a lot in Episode 2, or to save it all for Episode 2. That's going to be a question over the next couple of weeks while work on PoA picks up.

 

Updating Old Maps! Some more!

 

Over the last couple of weeks I've worked on a few more maps, most of which are for new maingame content. I'd still like to keep them as a surprise. I'm happy to share updates to old maps, though.

Like the Southwest Undernet! 

unknown.png

This is a section of the route that was formerly from Onyx Trainers' School to Secret Glade. More of the decrepit railnet tunnels to explore, this time going all the way from Onyx Ward through Obsidia Ward and Coral Ward.

There will also be a timed event here for an early Qwilfish.

 

The Secret Glade is also less secret than before, but the map for it has not yet been updated.
It is now Byxbysion Pond, and accessible from Byxbysion Ward. Naturally, the connection to Byxbysion Ward is not accessible before the events in the main story, similar to the Isolated Farm and Route 1 before.

 

Mod Integration!

Another thing I'm comfortable talking about right now is integrating more mods into Plates of Arceus. 

For one, the Battle Bond Greninja mod! 

Sprites are currently WIP, but this won't be Ash-Greninja.

This will be Alice-Greninja, Ari-Greninja, Decibel-Greninja, Kuro-Greninja, Lucia-Greninja and Vero-Greninja. There will also be a base sprite to modify for peoples' custom trainer sprites.

 

PLA-style Move Relearning will also be integrated, and will be able to be disabled with a password (including as part of hard mode passwords).

 

The others being integrated are much larger and will be part of a future dev blog post later in August.

 

As i d̶   ě̸̻      ̸͔̄        f̸̖͝              r̵̨̻̝͂̔̓                     o̶̩͈̞̥̙͓͓̽͗̆͂̕͝                                  m̴̛̼̞̫͛

Spoiler

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that, well, I'm out of time for now so I'll see you next time!

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Wow it is really hot today. And yesterday. And the day before. Woo, heatwaves! 

 

Okay so, this dev blog let's briefly go over a couple of things or so!

 

Reborn 19.5

So the Reborn engine is being updated! A lot of code is being refactored and moved around and such to make the engine more efficient and usable. 

At the start of updating PoA to 19, I was working with the initial changes. They were a lot bigger than I expected them to be! Who knew so much work needed doing?

It's also resulted in some repeat work. Mostly I've tried to keep to working on mapping and graphics updates, but I've had to add Gen 8 and the altforms in twice now.

This is making it a little awkward to import and add game features for PoA, which makes this post a little awkward in terms of screenshots. In that there aren't any! 

But there are scripts.

This dev blog, I'll go over some of the new features and likely go into more detail when it's more convenient to get screenshots of them in action!

 

Crafting

I'd been expecting this to have to come as a small update later in Episode 1, but thanks to RadApe we can now include it in the initial release! 

The full details of what will be craftable are still up in the air. 

A crafting system will be in place largely for the new Plate Interactions items. Instead of a Type Plate giving an effect when held, there will be Activated Plates that are acquired through crafting. Resources for crafting these new items will largely be obtained through mining, as well as lesser used items already in-game. This allows for a greater variety of Plate Interactions, as well as keeping choices viable by restricting more powerful effects to later in the game.

Other craftable items will be revealed in a later devblog as part of a spotlight on another new feature.

 

Mining Overhaul

Another mod being integrated into Plates of Arceus is the Mining Overhaul mod by AiedailEclipsed! Starry_Knight_Constellations has been working hard on graphics for it.

Rare new mining stones will be available containing later generation fossils, new coloured shards, crafting resources and other mining items. These will mostly be spread around new areas, and will be in limited supply until postgame. 

 

Plate Interactions

I'd expected these to also have to be cut until a later update due to wanting to make them a crafted item, but now they can come back in with the initial release!

With crafting allowing for staggered availability, we can add a lot more Plate Interactions to the game, affecting both Abilities and Moves.

There will be an Activated Plate for each new effect. 

For example, the Hive Plate empowers the Honey Gather ability to trigger an additional half-power Attack Order with every attack made.

We'll wait until testing to see if the 20% type power boost remains with these effects.

 

That's all for now! 

Hopefully we can have more screenshots for next dev blog!

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Hi! I'm afraid there won't be a dev blog this fortnight. 

I've been feeling particularly unwell this week.

It is looking like September is an unlikely release window for Ep1. Maybe Oct/Nov like initially given is more realistic. We'll see.

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Hello.

 

This dev blog I'd like to talk about release dates, delays and ask for help.

 

So firstly...

 

Release Dates and Delays or why Ep1 is now coming out after SV release

I'd initially been very keen to get Episode 1 out by 30th September specifically for three reasons:

1) In October, the cost of living in the UK where I live is expected to rise again, reducing the amount of time I can use the PC to work on anything.

2) Also in October, further disability modifications are being made to the house, which will create a lot of noise and disruption for a couple of weeks or so.

3) I wanted to release Ep1 far enough from SV to give people a chance to finish a playthrough before it.

 

However, life has been difficult. Without going into too much detail, every time I thought things were going to get easier, a new obstacle appeared. Nothing given without something being taken. It's been a real struggle for me to find time and energy to work on this with everything else in life going on. The new Reborn engine is still a work in progress as well, making it awkward for me to work using my typical scattered method.
I honestly thought I'd have more time and energy this year, and I was only half right. While I have more energy, I'm spending a lot more of it dealing with my health issues, my friend's health issues, and the cat's health issues. Added pressure to generate an adequate income to offset the cost of living increases has not been helpful. At the start of this year I thought I was working towards long-term prospects, not medium-term survival.

I really don't think a release before SV is likely, even a simplified one.

It's not the end of this project, though. Far from it. 

 

I'll be postponing the release of Episode 1 until after SV releases, and including Gen 9 in it. Which makes sense! Full array of latest generation starters to pick from at the beginning. 

 

I'm also asking for help. 

 

Recruitment to help speed up releases

There's a lot I'd like to do with this mod. It's quite ambitious, even. Expand on existing mechanics from Reborn and the Plates, add more generations to Reborn, integrate game mechanics from across the generations, expand on and continue the story of Reborn, as well as add more Rebornian and exotic regional forms, and maybe some more fan forms such as Megas and Gigantamax.
It's a lot to do. It's practically a fangame in itself. There's also the issue of having to wait before working on a lot of aspects of it due to a shifting new game engine.

 

When that game engine is finished (at least to a degree that games are releasing using it), and when SV releases, there will be a lot to do. There will likely be cross-work between the Rebornian games, with Rejuv and Deso sharing the same base game engine as Reborn now. However, some PoA mechanics need importing as well.

There's also a higher demand for sprites when creating new forms now, with the addition of more icons and egg sprites.

Making new content also takes up a lot of time with mapping and eventing. There's a lot to come across the episodes, with adding new maingame content towards the PoA sidestory and adding new character interactions with the Reborn cast, and adding anomalies and other events for Gen 8 and 9 legendary Pokémon across postgame. There will also be new content following on from postgame, with an increasing level cap.

It's a lot to do, and it may come very slowly without help. But it will come. 

 

If you're interested in helping, please consider applying to join the team. 

####---- Application Form Link -----####

 

Applications will be open for the next 2-4 weeks! 

Please let me know if you have any questions!

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Hello!


I'm happy to announce that applications to join the team have closed, and several people have joined the development team! 
Before I let them introduce themselves, I'd like to take a moment to update on what I'm up to.

 

The short of it is that I can't use the computer as much anymore, which is a real pain. That time is going into more self-care and while life is a constant rise of stress and responsibility, I'm managing to deal with it fairly well. As long as I don't stare at the dark swirling cloud up above. 
The app is still a work in progress, largely due to disruptions and honestly trying not to burn out. It's coming along pretty nicely, but trying to sprint to releasing it seems unlikely to work out. It's not something I'm going to be talking about much if at all in future, but it feels right to me to get it out there that I'm still working. I'll be trying to balance working on PoA with working on the app and hoping nothing dramatic happens to make things even more difficult.

 

Now here's the team!

Spoiler

Adam:
Hello folks. It is I,Adam, one of the legendary posters of rejuvenation General, poster of my cats, also a doofus according to posty(this is a fine label btw). I will gladly help with the data and I will try my best with trainers .

 

Candii:
hi i am candii, i make sprite edits and mostly post them in the #sprite-edits channel on the server, if you are a veteran on it you may remember my mega-lanturn sprite (mod pending). i am doing pixel-art for almost 2-3 years and i am an #asprite-stan. i love visually pleasing color schemes which most of the time includes various shades of blue all of which you'll see in my work. in addition to that, i am working on my game and helping blue in whatever way i can!

 

Dred:
Heyo, my name is Dred, I've been apart of the Reborn community since the release of E19, and now I've gone on to joining the Plates of Arceus development team.
My main work will be redesigning and updating a good chunk of the maps, such as totem maps.
This is the first ever full on dev team that I've been of as well! So I'm looking to hopefully learn alot, and meet some awesome people!
Here's a quick preview of a recent map that I redesigned, which would be the Obscure Oceanfront:

Spoiler

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Felicity:

Hello! For those of you that don’t know me, I’m Felicity, for those who do, You’re welcome. I love movies, literature, music and art. My interests range from Paris Hilton’s reality tv shows to reading fairy tales in their original language. My favourite food is lasagne, my favourite colour is purple and my favourite Pokémon is Dewgong.

Generally helping out with anything needed, sprites, character design and any writing.

 

GHOST CHAN:
Helloooo,my bame is Ghost (They/He/Xe) and I do a bunch of spriteworkTM with almost all of it posted in the #sprite-edits channel on the reborn server along with posting them on my Tumblr.I tend to lean more towards monochrome,gen 1 color pallet and 'aura' shinies!

 

Starry_Knight_Constellations: 
Meow :3 I'm Starry a mew enthusiast. I've been around for awhile many might recognize me from online play threads helping out there. I'm working on sprites mostly but might dabble to other areas occasionally :3

 

RadApe:

yo! I'm RadApe, been in rebron for a long time, currently working on polishing and porting a crafting system for PoA (and hopefully other fangames too!) and eventually move on to help out with general programming. Can't get a live example atm but here's a small showcase of the crafting at work

https://imgur.com/a/x2zjs3l

I'm really glad to have so many wonderful people helping bring this project forward! 

 

I'm running out of time again so here's some quick feature hype!

 

Totems and other Boss Battles

Thanks to the amazing work by the Rejuvenation team, especially Azery, and with permission from Jan, we can bring forward a lot of future planned game mechanics into Episode 1!

Totems with SOS calls is the big one there, as well as raid-like battles.

While Episode 1 will largely focus on maingame content, there may be room to implement Dynamax thanks to this and allow for a few more kinds of boss battles aside from Totems.

Episode 2, though, oh boy, so much Dynamax! So many raids!

 

Battle Bond Greninja and new Partner Pokémon?!

With the fantastic help of GHOST CHAN and Candii, spritework on the Battle Bond Greninjas has leapt forward, as well as adding other new forms.

Three Pokémon with six new forms each form a special starter trio, in addition to the Partner Eevee and Partner Pikachu from the Let's Go games.
These special forms will only be accessible before postgame for those who select their species as their starters at the beginning of the game; their Partners.

I'll go into these in more detail in a future dev blog! Things are moving!

unknown.png

Vero-Greninja vs Deep Volcanic Magcargo,

by GHOST CHAN and Candii respectively

 

Okay, that's all I have time for right now! I have to go cook.

I'll be updating the development tracker in the first post over the weekend, as for when the next dev blog will be... 

Let's say the 11th day of November?

 

Have a good one!

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Hey! It's the 11th day of November!

 

Two weeks is probably too short of a time to make dev blog posts, haha. I see why they're generally a month for the main fangames!

Let's make this a light one.

 

I've mostly been working on adding in Gen 9 content from the leaks, but since there aren't sprites for them yet there's... not a lot to show there! 

Graphics work has mostly been new altforms. The team have been working hard on sprites for them! While it looked like there may not be time for a lot of new altforms, there will be a good number of them in Episode 1 after all! 

 

The game engine is still a work-in-progress as well, and I'm afraid there's no images of gameplay this time. What a pain!

 

Let's come back on the 2nd of December with a more substantial dev blog post. 

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Hello!

 

Now you've surely noticed there isn't a header image for this post.

Does that mean it's not a substantial dev blog post?

The answer to that question is... actually kinda yeah, sorry about that.

 

So the building work I mentioned a while back is now actually happening! I haven't been able to use the computer much, it is physically inaccessible for most of the day and I'm having to do an awful lot of noise-avoidance and cleaning up. 

When I have had access, I've been working on implementing Gen 9 for the most part. We've all been generally living life and playing Pokémon SV. 

 

So let's talk about implementing Gen 9!

 

As you may or may not know, there is an engine update for Reborn underway. Rejuvenation and Desolation are using this new engine, and Reborn will be getting an e19.5 that updates with it. 

This new engine allows for the games to share scripts more easily, which is great in that it enables us to implement features from those games, such as the new Boss Battle system, with much greater ease.

It also means the scripts can be worked on by more people, becoming more efficient for better performance and so on.

For my part, I'm working on implementing Gen 9 into this engine. This means that when it releases, the code will be freely available for anyone to use for creating or updating Reborn mods with Gen 8 and 9 content.

Hopefully this helps people out with the transition to the new engine! Current mods will be very broken otherwise. This has been a struggle for working on PoA this year.

 

For how it'll be implemented into PoA, I think the main things people are wondering about are nerfs and Terastalization.

Movepool wise, we will not be removing access to any moves. There will be only gains.

Protean is getting nerfed, but a new Plate Interaction will restore it to its pre-nerfed state.

Other nerfs will be getting implemented fairly straightforwardly.

Battle Bond Greninja will still be a form change rather than a stat boost.

 

Terastalization will not be immediately available, it's likely to be added in an Ep1.5.

Pokémon will have Terastal types rolled from their current types, it may replace Hidden Power types. 

Pokémon with different Terastal types will be available at certain points in the game.

Items to change a Pokémon's Terastal type will also become available at certain points in the game.

 

Snow may end up being implemented as a different weather to Hail, which may remain. This will be decided in testing.

 

As for working on PoA, I'm taking December for it to be the only project I focus on. The new engine is starting to feel pretty stable, and alpha testing has technically started for PoA! 

However, due to the difficult circumstances IRL, I can't so quickly grab some good images of it. There is also a lot of work still to do on it.

 

One last thing before I have to rush off once more...

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Forecast Meganium (Winter) by Candii and BlueTowel

 

If dev blogs are now monthly, does that mean the next update will be on the 2nd of January? 

Maybe, we'll see! 

Then at the latest for sure.

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On 12/2/2022 at 3:30 PM, BlueTowel said:

If dev blogs are now monthly, does that mean the next update will be on the 2nd of January? 

Maybe, we'll see! 

Then at the latest for sure.

Sunday. 

:)

sorry

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