Pale Meridian [Action RPG] (Gifs)

RangerX

Member
The new forest obviously looks better than the low bush thing you had before but I now feel it lacks a theme. There should less different graphics but immerse you more into being a forest.
In that regarde, Secret of Mana still wins in the example you showed. ;)
 
M

MatthewL019

Guest
I absolutely love the art style of this game! I was wondering, what image editor do you use?
 
N

NizarPlayz

Guest
Pale Meridian (Working Title. New name needed)
  • Action RPG in a massive world
  • Seamless. No loading, no room transitions
  • Three sided war. Your foes have more enemies than just you.
  • Non-Linear. Dozens of small to medium choices and a few major choices
  • Stealth or combat options
  • Strong focus on diplomacy and social choices
  • Full 1080p resolution with no forced upscaling

World Size



That bottom zoomed out portion is slightly less than 1% of the total surface terrain.
World Building
The ingame editor that helps me drastically. Here it is in action.

All terrain transitions are automatic.
Day-Night Cycle
No room transitions? How will you go in houses?

If you like the game, I have a lonely twitter that would appreciate any follows. Any feedback welcome!
That looks very nice game! Very well done
 

dadio

Potato Overlord
GMC Elder
Very impressive creative problem solving, tech implementations, and clean solutions here.
Keep up the good work!
 
The new forest obviously looks better than the low bush thing you had before but I now feel it lacks a theme. There should less different graphics but immerse you more into being a forest.
In that regarde, Secret of Mana still wins in the example you showed. ;)
You have good tastes. =)
Also, every SNES game out there did tree hallways for a reason...tread carefully, Rujik. Dundundunnnn
 

RujiK

Member
@iTzCallumUK Unfortunately it's one of those, it'll be done when it's ready. I actually started working on the game like 5 years ago, but didn't really get serious until mid 2014. Development has been pretty slow with a wife, kid, and full time job, but the last year I have really picked up the pace.

@RangerX It's a hard balance between lacking a theme and lacking variety. Thanks for the comment, that is something for me to think about. Also just for fun here is the secret of mana forest layout with my own art.

@MatthewL019 Currently just using the default GM image editor. I've gotten used to and just keep using it.
@NizarPlayz Thanks man
@dadio I finally got a comment from a mod! I'm in the big league now :p Thanks.
@RichHopelessComposer Definately a slippery slope these forest layouts...


Lately I've been working on the ingame editor. First, here it is in action:


Every unit in the game can have a bunch of variables changed and also have time based waypoints added. For example, the above dogman will patrol between the two warehouses all day until 8:00 at night, at which point he will just stand in his house until dawn. New waypoints are added just by clicking on the buttons and then the map. (The long numbers in the SCHEDULE buttons are linearized positions)




The waypoints themselves are just stored as a ds_list. Basicallyjust : if daytime > next_waypoint_time {move;} If several waypoints have the exact same move time, the NPC will treat the waypoints as a patrol route, and keep moving between them.


And that's basically it. Not very exciting, but definitely helpful. Thanks for all the comments.
 
Last edited:

RujiK

Member
@iTzCallumUK Necro-ing this post is cool with me. Shows that some one actually remembers it :)

Work has continued but has come to the "boring" part. I've been writing quests, building the world, and doing lots of maintenance.

Lately I've been working on strings. They had some formatting issues but now they should auto-adjust with almost any font or size. Everything is automated now and pretty dang flexible.



I also want messages to be handled entirely by themselves. So the file that contains all text can automatically handle an entire conversation and only show text that is appropriate without any extra outside code. Meaning if you say hello to a person who you are running an errand for, I want the text file itself to be able to tell if it should show quest finished or failed messages.

Let's take this message from inside the text file:
Code:
{c_cody1} Did you get the windmill mechanism yet?
[|cody_a2a] [?:0,1 == 3] Here it is. //COMPLETED
[|cody_a2b] [?:0,1 == 3] Yes, but I want a reward. //COMPLETED
[|cody_a2c] [?:0,1 == 5] It's broken beyond repair. //FAILED
[|cody_a2d] [?:0,1 < 3] I'm still looking. //ACTIVE
[|cody_a2e] [?:0,1 < 3] I can't help you with this anymore.} //ACTIVE

//[?:0,1 == 3] converts to: if array[0,1] == 3 {show this message}
There are five options there, but since the quest is currently active (Not failed or finished) you will only see two options. Like this:



Next up, I've been meaning to get around to it forever, but I finally added momentum and acceleration. Kind of hard to show off but it FEELS much better. Here you can see the movement of the player with and without the new physics.


Also something kind of sneaky I was proud of. How many large (4x4) rocks are in this picture that have unique artwork? He he he...




This is kind of a boring update so here are some of the people you can meet.


See you hopefully before another 90 days passes!
 

cdgamedev

Member
@RujiK I do care about this project wayyyyy too much. Seems to be going fairly well. Can't wait to play it haha.

The 4x4 rocks, there's 4 but I'm assuming you're using tilesets... So there's 4 but they're all the same? (I think what i said makes sense)

Like @YanBG said are you using external files to store the dialogue? (Like all of it). If you're not, may I suggest it because it's sure make translations easier ;).

The new movement system looks good. You should make a demo of it :D

Loving the art style you have there too! The guy in the top corner looks like the guy in game of thrones (http://gameofthrones.wikia.com/wiki/Tormund)

Bye for 90 days :p. But yeah. Keep up the good work. I'm gonna wait patiently for release (or a demo at least) #IReallyReallyReallyWantThatDamnDemo :p
 

RujiK

Member
@YanBG Yep, I have one big text file for all dialogue. Like @iTzCallumUK said, it should make translations easier.

@iTzCallumUK Close on the rocks! There are only two rocks but all 4 halves are made to fit together so you can make 4. Beard guy does kinda look that like that dude from GoT, but it's not intentional. I haven't used any famous-ish people as references just incase of legal trouble. Thanks for all your kind words! I like your enthusiasm :)

@lolslayer Optimization is number one priority! It runs around 200-300 fps but that will drop significantly during large battles. Actually I don't think I've ever shown off how drawing works, which is a big part of the good FPS, so here it is.

This is what rendering looks like outside of the view:


Thanks for all the comments guys!
 
Last edited:

cdgamedev

Member
@RujiK That's a clever way of doing rocks... Makes 2^2 styles? So 4 xD. If you did 8 quarters you'd have 16 (2^4) different types of rocks.

Is the world written to a file? Seems like the only way to get it to load that quickly without frame drops... Maybe its just the way I use DS lists... Causing memory leaks and such hahahah

Enthusiasm is key. It keeps you going - or helps you continue make the game because you know people want it. Plus, it looks like a bloody great game :p (need a demo before I can say it is a great game :p)
 

RujiK

Member
@DividingByZero @lolslayer Cheers guys!

@iTzCallumUK

That's true about 8 quarters = 16 rocks, but the problem is getting 8 quarters to all fit together nicely. Even halves were a little tricky. Next, world data a is buffer that is written to a file. There is also a ds_map that holds lots of the special details as partially explained below. Thanks for the comment!

PSA: DON'T USE PHOTOBUCKET FOR AN IMAGE HOST.
They want money now so many of the images in this thread are messed up... Sorry about that.

ART TIME

Many of the older house/interior sprites were brown and pretty bland. Since much of the art will be re-used I need a lot of variety and details to keep each house interesting and somewhat unique. The old style was so boring there wasn't any visual appeal to exploring houses. Here is an old vs new:

My aim was to make houses look more cozy and lived in.


TECH TIME

Please direct your gaze at the image below and notice there are now actually 4 layers on some tiles.


The 4 layers are needed for all the extra details in the houses. All of the details (Minus ground tile) gets crammed into a single ds_map value. Here is how the binary parsing looks:

Code:
var detail1  = (map_val & 4095);
var fore_val = (map_val >> 12)&1; //single bit
var roof_val = (map_val >> 13)&1023;
var detail2  = (map_val >> 23)&2047;
var zone_val = (map_val >> 34)&123; //for roofs
var anim_val = (map_val >> 35)&1; //singly bit
That means the max value can be 68,719,476,735 (2^36 - 1). Be aware that numbers that large make the decimals disappear.

Just an FYI, The maximum stable INTEGER in native GM numbers is 18,014,398,509,481,983 (2^54 - 1). If you go any higher than that the math gets really weird. Like if you add 10 it will only add 8 in reality. Just to be safe I wouldn't go higher than 2^52 without using int64(). But I still have some leeway if I need more digits :)


Finally, here is a failed experiment.
I thought I could save a ton of time using the draw_sprite_color() functions and use a single gray-scale image for a dozen colors. Like instead of needing a red, blue, and green floor tile, I could just make a white tile and save the color overlay into the tile data. Like this:


So I made this cool demo thing that lets you highlight portions of an image and color it however you want.


And then I realized something. Colorized images don't look as good as actually drawing the image in color yourself. They look dyed and artificial. So that was a waste of time.

If anyone wants the stupid color dying thingy I can send it to you. It's very easy to use with any images you have laying around and it would make me feel better for wasting a few hours.

Thanks again for your comments!
 
If anyone wants the stupid color dying thingy I can send it to you. It's very easy to use with any images you have laying around and it would make me feel better for wasting a few hours.
You're right that changing colors like this is going to look like crap compared to picking the colors yourself, but it'll still be a good tool to do quick color tests with. I'd be glad to take it! =)
 
Last edited:
R

Rukiri

Guest
Need to find a new image host, photobucket went to the graveyard ages ago....
and now you can't use it without their damn stupid 500 plan.

Game looks good though.
 

RujiK

Member
@lolslayer That's true, but the problem is all of the shader switching back and forth. Since I'm drawing a lot of tiles each step all those shader changes can be hard on the GPU. Probably safer to just draw it manually.

@Rukiri @RangerX Down with photobucked. Im using imgur now but am open to suggestions.

@RichHopelessComposer Color Dye thing: DOWNLOAD


I would appreciate any feedback on this art. The wife said the guys are good but the girls look like slightly feminine males.


Do any of those females look good? Any suggestions for which one or for improvements? Females are hard to draw since pixels are square and girls are curvy...
 

RangerX

Member
Honestly I found nothing better than imgur. Do yourself an account (free, obviously), the interface and all you can do in there is pretty cool.
Infinitely better than Photobucket.
 

CMAllen

Member
Shrink the hands on the female base character design. That's one part that stands out. Maybe reduce the feet a bit too. They're overly defined currently (flatten them vertically a pixel). If that still isn't work, #4 has the right idea for the chest, but the shadowing under the head muddies it a bit.

Maybe something akin to this (but obviously, adjusted to suit your needs):
 
F

Felipe Rybakovas

Guest
this is very impressive. For sure it´s HUGE but there is much passion in there.

But what it´s exactly the main mechanics / focus on this game ??
 
B

blackstrawhat

Guest
hi im new on GM and when i saw your map.. wow that great PS1 game RPG map
 
N

Necavare

Guest
This is a really cool game. I love the graphics and the building engine. Keep up the great work man!
 

CMAllen

Member
Finally, here is a failed experiment.
I thought I could save a ton of time using the draw_sprite_color() functions and use a single gray-scale image for a dozen colors. Like instead of needing a red, blue, and green floor tile, I could just make a white tile and save the color overlay into the tile data. Like this:


So I made this cool demo thing that lets you highlight portions of an image and color it however you want.


And then I realized something. Colorized images don't look as good as actually drawing the image in color yourself. They look dyed and artificial. So that was a waste of time.

If anyone wants the stupid color dying thingy I can send it to you. It's very easy to use with any images you have laying around and it would make me feel better for wasting a few hours.

Thanks again for your comments!
If you don't include any colors, I've found that you can get better results by colorizing the original sprite (if its greyscale) and applying it to itself in bm_add blend mode. Of course, I'm still tweaking a shader that can take in multiple color values and use them to adjust a greyscale image, letting different tonal ranges have their own color. For example: you might pass in a brighter/less saturated color for higher tonal ranges (0.65 and up) and more saturated mid-tone for the darker tonal ranges (0.35 and below), with notable shifts in among the three color values. Better contrast, less uniform color.
 

RujiK

Member
@YanBG Boobs limited to 10 pixels are dang hard...
@CMAllen Thanks for taking the time to draw that out! As to the large hands and feet, it is a bit cartoon-ish, but the large hands are needed to not look super weird when holding a weapon. The large feet kind of even it out. Again, thanks for the drawing.

As to the colorizing thing, I've thought about using shaders but I'm not sure how heavy it is on the GPU to be constantly switching colors. In the end, I just decided it's easier to just draw the sprites myself.

@blackstrawhat @Necavare Thanks guys :)
@Felipe Rybakovas It's going to be an action RPG with an emphasis on story and NPC interactions. Also some fighting of course!

Okay, here is my "Update" if you can call it that. Pale Meridian is a pretty big game. I suspect I still have a year or two of development time and I'd like to be able to say I've finished something before 2020. After a lot of thinking I've decided to take a few months break from this game and work on a much smaller game.


I'd love to hear your comments on my new small game if your bored. Link:
https://forum.yoyogames.com/index.php?threads/sock-sock-goes-pop-pop-gifs.36711/


Thank you all for the support but for now, I guess Pale Meridian is:
 

Gamerev147

Member
@YanBG Boobs limited to 10 pixels are dang hard...
@CMAllen Thanks for taking the time to draw that out! As to the large hands and feet, it is a bit cartoon-ish, but the large hands are needed to not look super weird when holding a weapon. The large feet kind of even it out. Again, thanks for the drawing.

As to the colorizing thing, I've thought about using shaders but I'm not sure how heavy it is on the GPU to be constantly switching colors. In the end, I just decided it's easier to just draw the sprites myself.

@blackstrawhat @Necavare Thanks guys :)
@Felipe Rybakovas It's going to be an action RPG with an emphasis on story and NPC interactions. Also some fighting of course!

Okay, here is my "Update" if you can call it that. Pale Meridian is a pretty big game. I suspect I still have a year or two of development time and I'd like to be able to say I've finished something before 2020. After a lot of thinking I've decided to take a few months break from this game and work on a much smaller game.


I'd love to hear your comments on my new small game if your bored. Link:
https://forum.yoyogames.com/index.php?threads/sock-sock-goes-pop-pop-gifs.36711/


Thank you all for the support but for now, I guess Pale Meridian is:
WHAT?! NO NO NO!!
I've spent how many months waiting to see at least a demo and you do this to us?!
How rude... I saw your other game. Looks great!
 
F

FROGANUS

Guest
haha sorry, but against your other beautiful artwork, the lady seems to need some work.
i'd drop dem boobs down a pixel, hips out a pixel, shoulders in a pixel. (i'm looking at #2 and 2b i guess if i had to pick)

i'll check how sock sock's doing.
it sure can help to refresh your mindset on a different project.
(or in my case you can jump around too much and get nothing done anywhere lol)
 

jobjorgos

Member
It is insane nice to see such a big world, from far above. The graphics is really lovely, and seems that all graphical parts are perfectly optimized to each other.
As I see those gifs I just think the graphics could use some more variation, and I wonder what kind of combat system you gonna use. I hope this would be real time and not a turn based mini game combat system.
 
S

Salvakiya

Guest
@DividingByZero @lolslayer Cheers guys!

@iTzCallumUK

That's true about 8 quarters = 16 rocks, but the problem is getting 8 quarters to all fit together nicely. Even halves were a little tricky. Next, world data a is buffer that is written to a file. There is also a ds_map that holds lots of the special details as partially explained below. Thanks for the comment!

PSA: DON'T USE PHOTOBUCKET FOR AN IMAGE HOST.
They want money now so many of the images in this thread are messed up... Sorry about that.

ART TIME

Many of the older house/interior sprites were brown and pretty bland. Since much of the art will be re-used I need a lot of variety and details to keep each house interesting and somewhat unique. The old style was so boring there wasn't any visual appeal to exploring houses. Here is an old vs new:

My aim was to make houses look more cozy and lived in.


TECH TIME

Please direct your gaze at the image below and notice there are now actually 4 layers on some tiles.


The 4 layers are needed for all the extra details in the houses. All of the details (Minus ground tile) gets crammed into a single ds_map value. Here is how the binary parsing looks:

Code:
var detail1  = (map_val & 4095);
var fore_val = (map_val >> 12)&1; //single bit
var roof_val = (map_val >> 13)&1023;
var detail2  = (map_val >> 23)&2047;
var zone_val = (map_val >> 34)&123; //for roofs
var anim_val = (map_val >> 35)&1; //singly bit
That means the max value can be 68,719,476,735 (2^36 - 1). Be aware that numbers that large make the decimals disappear.

Just an FYI, The maximum stable INTEGER in native GM numbers is 18,014,398,509,481,983 (2^54 - 1). If you go any higher than that the math gets really weird. Like if you add 10 it will only add 8 in reality. Just to be safe I wouldn't go higher than 2^52 without using int64(). But I still have some leeway if I need more digits :)


Finally, here is a failed experiment.
I thought I could save a ton of time using the draw_sprite_color() functions and use a single gray-scale image for a dozen colors. Like instead of needing a red, blue, and green floor tile, I could just make a white tile and save the color overlay into the tile data. Like this:


So I made this cool demo thing that lets you highlight portions of an image and color it however you want.


And then I realized something. Colorized images don't look as good as actually drawing the image in color yourself. They look dyed and artificial. So that was a waste of time.

If anyone wants the stupid color dying thingy I can send it to you. It's very easy to use with any images you have laying around and it would make me feel better for wasting a few hours.

Thanks again for your comments!
What you need is a palette swap. then you can directly choose what colors are going to be swapped with what. no artificial looking tiles because the colors are hand picked... yet you can use the same art at the same time.
 

Lolligirl

Europe Travel Girl
You did a good job at making the houses look lived-in; that's a great solution to making sure houses don't run together when the player explores them. :)
 
A

Alexandrowich

Guest
based on the images and gifs i can say that it captures the old RPG feel evyr well. i love the room transition a lot, keep up the good work
 
M

Master Maker

Guest
Is this game still under development? If not, how much would it cost to pay for the code, to work on in my time, and have you in the credits? I'm willing to pay upwards of $300
 

Roa

Member
Is this game still under development? If not, how much would it cost to pay for the code, to work on in my time, and have you in the credits? I'm willing to pay upwards of $300
LMAO, 💩💩💩💩ing what???

Yeah, she is going to give you her 4 years of progress, the rights, and all her creative assets for half a months rent <_<
What an insult. You cap 300 bucks, I wouldn't go lower than 3k even if I was tired of the project....
 
@Roa @Master Maker:

Yeah, I wouldn't call the offer "insulting," either. Way more than $300 worth of work has been done on the game, but you never know without asking - plenty of creators *give engines away* when they're done with them and have no plans for them. Actually, RujiK is one of those creators cool enough to share how they work their magic pretty often!

That said, if RujiK was done with this and wanted to sell it, she'd (is RujiK a woman?! I thought they were a dude this whole time) probably be much better off selling it for like $10 to everyone who wants a copy of it. They have plenty of followers on Twitter, and the engine looks great. It'd probably sell pretty well.

Last I heard, they were planning on coming back to it, though, which is great, because I really liked this project!
 

Cpaz

Member
Especially seeing as the latest update was over a year ago.
Maybe because games take time to make? Or they has other obligations outside of just this project?

Also, in general, pretty disrespectful to just make these sorts of offers publicly. We have DMs. Please use them.
 
Top