[DEMO] School Wars!! (high school adventure with time travel)

M

milch

Guest
Editing this for an announcement:
School Wars in on Kickstarter now!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/happybroccoli/school-wars

Any support is appreciated, thank you so much :D



________________________________________________________________


Heya!! :D
I started making my first own game and since I'm not a programmer, I have to teach myself...
Because of this I wanted my first game not to rely too much on the coding and more on the art.
Which is why i decided to an rpg/dating sim (think of it as harvest moon without the farming in addition to timed events like in majora's mask).

Just like in majora's mask the days will start over (in my case after 5 days) and the same events will happen each day. People won't remember what you talked to them, but you get to keep the items you got from completing the quests.


I used this dialog branch system for the dialog and options:
https://forum.yoyogames.com/index.php?threads/easy-branching-dialogue-system.707/

and it works quite well!


Follow: https://twitter.com/AnnikaMaar

Please let me know what you think!
 
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M

milch

Guest
I've been working on the tab menu the past days. it will have a character tab with the portraits and score for each NPC, one calendar tab where the events will be shown and an inventory tab.
for now the characters get unlocked once you talk to them for the first time and get shown in the tab. i managed to store the calendar in a ds_grid and make it draw boxes according to the time and length in the tab. next thing i want to do is make you be able to also scroll through each event and see the details about each of them. this is a mockup i made for the calendar:


the character is a placeholder! :D
i've been thinking that this UI looks way too serious and sci-fi, so i will change it later probably...
 
W

Wraithious

Guest
I like the graphics style and the carácter size to background looks good, I think your calander does look quite sci fi, maybe change it to a 'little black book' scheme or something?
 
M

milch

Guest
I like the graphics style and the carácter size to background looks good, I think your calander does look quite sci fi, maybe change it to a 'little black book' scheme or something?
ah that's good to hear about the character size, I had it more zoomed in before, but I also feel like this works better!
you mean have a journal look to it? that's a good idea, I will definitely try that :D

sounds like a great idea. please do work on it. i will follow
thanks!! right now it's looking good since I'm super motivated and have some time for working on it :D
 
M

milch

Guest
i reworked the artstyle for the character sprites... made new animations for the player, the two npcs still have the old placeholder one

i will have to adjust the dust cloud position according to what direction he goes, but for now i'm happy with the animations :D

what do you guys use to record btw? i use hypercam and its so laggy :/





 
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G

Guest User

Guest
i work on a netbook that doesn't have much power for recording while playing a game, and i've found that Bandicam and OBS are very lightweight. Bandicam is faster and more lightweight (no lag for me whatsoever) while OBS is noticeably more demanding and can also stream. perhaps one of these might work out for you.
 
M

milch

Guest
You could try ManyCam for recording.

Art style looks unique. I would play this, or at least give it a try.
thanks! :D very happy you think that, i was expecting people to compare it to other games

i work on a netbook that doesn't have much power for recording while playing a game, and i've found that Bandicam and OBS are very lightweight. Bandicam is faster and more lightweight (no lag for me whatsoever) while OBS is noticeably more demanding and can also stream. perhaps one of these might work out for you.
thanks, i'll give bandicam a try, the interface looks nice at least!

looks great, thanks for workin on it.
thanks, glad you're interested in this! :D

I think it looks very interesting. Specialy love this little animation:)
To record gifs i am using LICEcap, for videos Gregion, its not perfect but free:)
ahhh thanks so much! licecap is amazing, I will use it from now on to show off some animations :D

here is a better view of the animations: not 100% happy with the walking up animation, especially about the dust in that direction... it feels like it's in the wrong perspective

paul animation test3.gif
 

Tim

Member
Best of luck on your game! I check out your main website and really amazing art there. What is here looks like a great start too!

-Tim
 
W

Wraithious

Guest
If you want to make animated gif short movie clips, LICEcap is really great, very small fast loading program and it works awesome, and you can adjust the fps to your liking.
 
M

milch

Guest
Best of luck on your game! I check out your main website and really amazing art there. What is here looks like a great start too!

-Tim
aww thanks so much! :D i'll definitely work hard on this one

If you want to make animated gif short movie clips, LICEcap is really great, very small fast loading program and it works awesome, and you can adjust the fps to your liking.
ah thanks, someone just posted about that one here and i'm using it now, it's awesome!
 
M

milch

Guest
Got the inventory implemented! working on a cool animation now that will be played once you receive an item
:D
screenshot3.png
 
M

milch

Guest
Cool! You adding controller support so Q and E turns to RB1 and LB1? or something. Would be cool!!!
ah yes exactly, i already have that in! :D
this game will be a bit of a pain to play with the keyboard probably anyway...
 
Z

zendraw

Guest
i personally am excited about the 5days thing and the dialogues.
 
W

Whirlpoolio

Guest
ah yes exactly, i already have that in! :D
this game will be a bit of a pain to play with the keyboard probably anyway...
Yessssss! Most games don't do this. Maybe if this is successful enough, you could port to console but make it the other way around - you can play with keyboard on console. Games like Fortnite do this and it is quite nice for us console users. Hope to see more developments and success in this project!
 
M

mysticjim

Guest
Not a massive fan of this sub-genre of RPG, but the graphics look brilliant, and your art portfolio is awesome.
 
M

milch

Guest
Not a massive fan of this sub-genre of RPG, but the graphics look brilliant, and your art portfolio is awesome.
hehe I know what you mean, I don't think there are too many people on this forum who are into dating sims, but maybe the time mechanic and style will make it look interesting enough for some to give it a try :D thanks!!
 
M

milch

Guest
I made a tileset for the grass and animated the trees a bit! Also here is a mockup for the first page in the tab menu (ignore the darker sillhouette in the background :/ accidently merged a layer)
Also I have the receiving an item animation implemented, but I will upload a video next time

school mates tab test.jpg
tilesettest.gif
 
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0

0.Bytes

Guest
I loved the art, it is a style that it is really cool, overall it is looking promising, keep up with the good work !
 
M

milch

Guest
I loved the art, it is a style that it is really cool, overall it is looking promising, keep up with the good work !
thanks so much!!

here is the animation for receiving items and the inventory that i animated a bit using this plugin: https://marketplace.yoyogames.com/assets/208/tweengms-pro


that stupid shadow behind the name doesnt scale according to the name length, will have to put that in :D

edit: a friend of mine who is a composer suggested to do the soundtrack and soundeffects for this game!! this means i wont have to use the royalty free garbage that everybody heard a million times before! xD thats amazing, i'm very excited... this is his soundcloud btw if anybody is interested (doesnt really have any game music up tho): https://soundcloud.com/neversleepboy
 
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0

0.Bytes

Guest
It is looking great, the game is so cute =D

And you friends sounds like a very talented musician, good luck to both of you, it seems like you guys are going to make a great game, I am looking foward to see the final project
 
M

milch

Guest
It is looking great, the game is so cute =D

And you friends sounds like a very talented musician, good luck to both of you, it seems like you guys are going to make a great game, I am looking foward to see the final project
aww thanks so much! :D cant believe people actually want to see this


I started with the design for the poor school, any critique is appreciated! that thing on the banner is an armadillo btw

grass_concept_test.png
 
0

0.Bytes

Guest
aww thanks so much! :D cant believe people actually want to see this


I started with the design for the poor school, any critique is appreciated! that thing on the banner is an armadillo btw

View attachment 14679
Your game looks pretty interesting, there is any other place where people can follow your team's progress ? Like a twitter or whatever ?

The art in this picture looks really good, the only thing I would suggest (Not that I am in a position to suggest anything lol) is little bit of shadow on ground close to the tree and maybe some shadows or anything on the grass in order to not look kinda "dull", besides that it looks awesome, your art style is really good imho
 
M

milch

Guest
Your game looks pretty interesting, there is any other place where people can follow your team's progress ? Like a twitter or whatever ?

The art in this picture looks really good, the only thing I would suggest (Not that I am in a position to suggest anything lol) is little bit of shadow on ground close to the tree and maybe some shadows or anything on the grass in order to not look kinda "dull", besides that it looks awesome, your art style is really good imho
man i'm super glad you're interested! :D I will put up a facebook page and everything once I have a tiny demo and some more art!
if you want you can follow my art page for now, I will post some bigger updates on school wars there as well: https://www.facebook.com/annikamaarart/?ref=bookmarks

good point about the shadow below the trees, I added some now! the grass in the back is just a placeholder tho, I already made some grassblades and different tiles to mix it up, I think it shooould be fine... you can give me critique on the actual tiles of course once I put the maps together!





Here is a preview for the poor school's interior. It's very empty still, but I will add more items later of course. I was thinking of bins, shelves, heaters, plants...
If anybody has some suggestions for cool decorations, let me know!

preview interior.JPG
 
0

0.Bytes

Guest
man i'm super glad you're interested! :D I will put up a facebook page and everything once I have a tiny demo and some more art!
if you want you can follow my art page for now, I will post some bigger updates on school wars there as well: https://www.facebook.com/annikamaarart/?ref=bookmarks

good point about the shadow below the trees, I added some now! the grass in the back is just a placeholder tho, I already made some grassblades and different tiles to mix it up, I think it shooould be fine... you can give me critique on the actual tiles of course once I put the maps together!





Here is a preview for the poor school's interior. It's very empty still, but I will add more items later of course. I was thinking of bins, shelves, heaters, plants...
If anybody has some suggestions for cool decorations, let me know!

View attachment 15007
Good to know ! I will follow your work.

the 2 new screenshots looks pretty good, I loved how you made the wall look kinda old/used/destroyed, pretty cool, the desk also looks great.

The decoration itens are pretty much the ones you mentioned, maybe some random science project, maybe a wall poster of something school related would be cool, even some bags thrown on the floor would fit the game theme.

Keep up the good work, it is looking great !
 
M

milch

Guest
Good to know ! I will follow your work.

the 2 new screenshots looks pretty good, I loved how you made the wall look kinda old/used/destroyed, pretty cool, the desk also looks great.

The decoration itens are pretty much the ones you mentioned, maybe some random science project, maybe a wall poster of something school related would be cool, even some bags thrown on the floor would fit the game theme.

Keep up the good work, it is looking great !
i love those ideas for the items! will definitely put those in, thanks :D
 
F

FROGANUS

Guest
looks cool!

reminds me of the 'Social Link' feature from Persona 3, where you have to decide which friends to hang out with as time progresses (also of course Japanese school setting). they had a good knack for simplifying the scheduling and the pacing. (breaking the schedule down into 2 slots per day- daytime and evening, letting you know when an action will make it progress to the next time, reminding you of your scheduled 'dates').

is there an overall story? how do you foresee the dating happening?
may we take Chantall out for ramen AND go for a stroll in the park and does that count as 1 date?

i love the idea of choosing dates and getting to know certain characters better and maybe learning clues to certain game mysteries, or whatever.. sounds like a lot for a non-programmer's "first own game" though, so beware the feature creep!
 
M

milch

Guest
looks cool!

reminds me of the 'Social Link' feature from Persona 3, where you have to decide which friends to hang out with as time progresses (also of course Japanese school setting). they had a good knack for simplifying the scheduling and the pacing. (breaking the schedule down into 2 slots per day- daytime and evening, letting you know when an action will make it progress to the next time, reminding you of your scheduled 'dates').

is there an overall story? how do you foresee the dating happening?
may we take Chantall out for ramen AND go for a stroll in the park and does that count as 1 date?

i love the idea of choosing dates and getting to know certain characters better and maybe learning clues to certain game mysteries, or whatever.. sounds like a lot for a non-programmer's "first own game" though, so beware the feature creep!
I'm totally inspired by Persona! i definitely want that "cool anime high school" type of feel, but less serious and more comedic. I will group most events into night and day to make it easier to keep track of everything.

Yes, there is an overall story! It will be about beating the rich school at the school festival in 3 different categories, these will also be the clubs you can join: art club, sports club, music club
I got inspired by this from majora's mask, where you have to beat the 4 temples to complete the game

the calendar's events will get updated if you get a hint/quest from a character or see something happening you could prevent by traveling back in time for example. there will be certain dateable characters that you can ask out, once you've reached their max score with them (5 hearts here), but each character will have one prechosen type of date, otherwise this will be way too much for me haha! during the date you can make choices or answer questions and depending on how well you did you will receive friendship badges.

so in general it will go like this with each dateable character:
meet, do their quest, answer right dialog options, date, make right choices there as well, receive friendship badge, unlock next area for new characters

Ohh about the feature creep: definitely D: i already had to make some cuts, but I will try to stick to the plan that i have right now and that should be doable.

This game looks amazing! I love the art
Thanks so much! :D




Here we go, I put in an outline shader for when you approach interactable objects



for anyone else who wants to do this:
https://marketplace.yoyogames.com/assets/5888/outline-shader-by-matharoo
this one's suuper easy to set up!

made some more character animations, I have a day and night cycle now where certain objects get deactivated/activated during day or night (like doors you can only open at night)
also started writing the first quests and dialog!


I'm looking for a LUT color grading plugin btw :/ I found one on the marketplace, but it seems like it doesnt work for GMS2... I mean I could code a simple shader that puts a blue tint on everything for the night time, but it would be nice if I had a prettier solution for this and then I could also improve the colors of all the areas during day time as well :D
sooo if anyone knows anything like this, let me know!
 
M

milch

Guest
added a tab to the menu!
now that i have 4 tabs i think the way i have the navigation is right now is too confusing tho... i think i will just have 4 icons on the top that light up depending on which tab youre on

 
Z

zendraw

Guest
maybe make somthing like a couple dots and a selected icon on the tab that your on, like on the phones. i have a samsung and there are 3 dots on the bottom representing my 3 active tabs that i can slide betwean.
 
M

milch

Guest
hey guys, its been a while!
i completed writing a first quest and implementing it with placeholder artwork (and a ton of bugs...)
so there was nothing interesting to show really, but now I'll start replacing some of the placeholder art to make sure the portraits change accordingly etc

sooo here ya go, 2 new character sprites and a logo!
I absolutely hate how the guy has his hands in his pockets tho when he talks to people x'D everytime i see him pop up in the dialogs i'm like "geez so rude!" so yeah I will change that...



oh also you can follow my twitter, i brought it back from the depths of the internet to post updates on school wars https://twitter.com/AnnikaMaar
 
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M

milch

Guest
I added the dorms for the poor school, here is the progress:



full video is here:

next up will be a shop, woooh :D then I will have to see what to do with the inventory if it gets full though... and implement deleting items
also different reactions for when you give people presents... so much to think about!
 
S

SmashArtist

Guest
This game looks really interesting! I love the pixel art, good luck to you! :p
 

Carloskhard

Member
I added the dorms for the poor school, here is the progress:
full video is here:

next up will be a shop, woooh :D then I will have to see what to do with the inventory if it gets full though... and implement deleting items
also different reactions for when you give people presents... so much to think about!
Great timelipse!Thanks for sharing :D Looking great
 
M

milch

Guest
here is the animation for my kraken character! :D
one part of the animation with the arms curling in and everything was a bit overkill for an idle animation, so i added the second part of him just bobbing up and down, and the curling will only have a 20% chance or so of playing afterwards.
I'm not 100% happy with this, its a bit clunky here and there, so i'll refine it over time


 
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Z

zendraw

Guest
how do you animate it that its hard? typically you wuld first just lay the bare bones of the animation, just lines like stickfigures, and then add substance.
 
H

hajfajv

Guest
i reworked the artstyle for the character sprites... made new animations for the player, the two npcs still have the old placeholder one

i will have to adjust the dust cloud position according to what direction he goes, but for now i'm happy with the animations :D

what do you guys use to record btw? i use hypercam and its so laggy :/






I dont know for these types of videos but I would assume that OBS can record this just fine. That's is what I use for streaming and youtube videos and its free, https://obsproject.com/
 
M

milch

Guest
I dont know for these types of videos but I would assume that OBS can record this just fine. That's is what I use for streaming and youtube videos and its free, https://obsproject.com/
thanks for the tip!

here are some more gifs! :D I added some more portraits and environment assets, also updated the tab menu (feels so much nicer now with the slide and dots)







I'll post the imgur link, since they're too huge to insert here...

https://imgur.com/a/quUfs7Z
 
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M

milch

Guest
added some pop up boxes for the shopping!
thought about having an actual shop menu, but I like having items lying around like this better

 
M

milch

Guest
hey guys, long time no post!
i've been working at a studio the past 3 months and saved enough money to take on a lot less commissions until the end of the year, so i will have tons of time to work on this project :D i'm super excited and i'm having tons of fun with it.
unfortunately i had to ditch the old shop boxes, since i think a shop interface like this would work much better. also added some fun coin particles (that were suuper easy to implement... here is the code if anyone didn't do particles before and want to try:

create:
// these particles will be drawn on the ui layer

part1_sys = part_system_create()
part_system_depth(part1_sys, -2000)
part_system_automatic_draw(part1_sys, 0);
part1 = part_type_create()
part_type_sprite(part1, sprite_shlotinki, 0, 0, 0)
part_type_scale(part1, 1, 1)
part_type_size(part1 , 0.5, 0.7, -0.005, 0)
part_type_speed(part1, 8, 10, 0.1, 0)
part_type_direction(part1, 0, 360, 0, 0)
part_type_gravity(part1, 5, 270)
part_type_life(part1, 15, 40);
/// emitter ///
amount = 2

// this will increase the coin amount if the price is higher than 10 in my game. leave this out or add your own variable
if (item_use_box.price_deduct) > 10 {
amount = 6
}

part1_emit = part_emitter_create(part1_sys)
part_emitter_region(part1_sys, part1_emit, x-20, x+20, y-40, y+40, ps_shape_ellipse, ps_distr_gaussian)
part_emitter_stream(part1_sys, part1_emit, part1, amount)
alarm[0] = 15

_____________________
alarm[0] :
part_emitter_clear(part1_sys, part1_emit );
alarm[1] = 30
___________________
alarm[1]:
instance_destroy()

_________________
draw gui:
part_system_drawit(part1_sys);




 
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