Up until now, he had been in silence, a deafening silence interrupted only by the sound of his own footsteps on the rocks. There was no breeze here - the air was still and lifeless. The faint huff of his breath was the only motion that air saw, and its steady rhythm was almost reassuring. Then he heard something slip against the dust on the floor, quickly, as though it were running, or sliding, away. Or toward him. But he only heard that once. He sighed, and continued onward, fully expecting t
Eventually, he reached the horizontal shafts of a mine he swore must have been in the Old World, the place nobody was supposed to go. The tunnels snaked around him, meandering along the now-extracted ore veins. He wandered through it for only a few minutes and found himself lost. Even tracing his path back to where he started, he couldn't find the ladder. So, half out of desperation, he kept going deeper into the tunnels. Everywhere around him, he found lightstones. Nobody who had mined on Ste
He had been wandering through the abandoned obsidian mines north of the village - nobody had even bothered to visit them since the Awa-kava crews stripped the whole range bare. They had left the temples there, though, so at least the island wasn't completely useless. Still, he felt uneasy exploring the temple in the valley - the miners had dug so much of it out that the pillars that held the temple aloft were now themselves standing on pillars of mountain stone. But that wasn't what made him n
Sorry I've been so silent lately - between life, new projects, and a whole lot of complications with the Beta Testing process, I haven't gotten much done with the game in the past... well, it's been a long time. Anyway, there is good news: Act III will be released, and soon. Very soon. The plan is to have it out next week. Until then, stay tuned!
Well, we're still in testing. Apparently there were a few little coordination issues to sort out, but hopefully that's all worked out by now. Anyway, I mentioned that next game update in a post in the topic, and I've decided to reveal another little feature that'll appear there, one that I've been working on for the past few days: A minimap for the overworld, to make sure that you don't get lost while exploring. If you've played Final Fantasy VI, you know the kind of minimap I'm talking about,
First off, the Beta has been in testing for a little bit now, and that's all good news, although I think this may take longer than I had anticipated, since we've been running into some technical hiccups getting the program to even install or run on some of the computers involved. As for what I've been doing since, I can't say everything, but I have been working on things like the mp3 version of Act III's music, including the theme for a really epic piece of music, among other themes here a
All right! I've been keeping this system secret for so long, but It's finally time to reveal what it is: You will, as of Act III, be able to summon the Toa, Guardians of old, to aid you in battle. During your quest, you will find Great Kanohi, which belonged to various Toa. Each of these, when equipped, will teach a Kanohi skill (something I'm revamping for Act III) and a Summon skill, which allows you to use that Toa's signature ability. These powerful attacks will use a lot of Stamina with
Alright! We have more progress going on. As of now, the only puzzle-type gameplay left to do is a little bit in the Library. Other than that, there's a bit of story work left to be done at the very end, the tileset I mentioned earlier, and a few other little bits to round up here and there. As far as teasers and things to show, I don't have anything at the moment, what with half of Act III being top-secret, but there is one bit of good news: I've decided to re-open the topic a week from Monday
Well, I said I'd update when that dungeon was in a screenshot-worthy state, and sorry it took so long, but here we go: That's right - you haven't found all of the secrets of the Library yet. I also have another bit of good news: Aside from some small very-end bits, whose tileset I haven't even made yet, Act III is fully mapped. All of the dungeons, islands, towns, etc. are in the game right now. Most of what's left is puzzle and story event programming, with some minor graphics (apparen
Whew... Brickshelf finally got over its server issues, so I can finally make this post properly (I was originally planning to do this on Monday, maybe Sunday). So, without further ado, the new title screen for Masks of the Elders: The logo will also appear in the opening cinematic. I'm also thinking of adding some animations to more clearly show transitions between acts. More on this as it develops (or doesn't, but I'm leaning toward adding them in right now). Also, the second dungeon o
What's this? An update not too long after the last one? Scandalous! Absurd! An affront to all that is... I think you get the picture. Anyway, I've been busy with a couple of things in Elders. One is mapping the pre-dungeon area of Stelt, which is looking excellent, by the way. Oh, here's a preview: The image is too big to put into the post itself. The other thing I've been working on is updating the title screen. I recently added a graphic for an in-game item (whose identity I cannot reveal
Good news: Work on Elders has picked up its pace over the last week or so (translation: work is actually getting done), and I've made some good progress, most notably: I've gotten the first dungeon of Act III to the point where I can test it properly (for continuity, difficulty, balancing, etc.). Unfortunately, I didn't balance the dungeon very well, and a quasi-boss battle ended in disaster. The balancing part still has quite a bit of work left in it, apparently... I've also gotten some more
This past couple of weeks has been incredibly busy for me, so unfortunately Elders got pushed out of the way to make room for all the frantic game designing and Finals that dominated this week. Between all the classwork I've had to do (which spontaneously included writing most of a game soundtrack from scratch) and finishing off Skyward Sword, well, I think you get the picture... Luckily, I managed to get most of Act I's first dungeon finished off before the madness began, so there's just one
I figure it's probably a good idea to get in as much progress as I can manage before Skyward Sword (not Skyrim - I don't have much interest in The Elder Scrolls at the moment) devours what little free time I have left, so how about some details about the first dungeon of Act III? I'll be as non-spoilery as possible, mostly because I don't want to reveal what this dungeon exactly is (like that one dungeon from Act II). First off, the dungeon is divided into three parts: Caves leading to its ent
Well, before I begin, I have to say that progress has been slow lately. The semester's getting really busy, and time to work on Elders has been in painfully short supply, mostly because I've been working on homework for game design courses in the time I had originally set aside for working on Elders. I actually just now had to remind myself where I was and what I was supposed to be doing in regard to the gamemaking. Thankfully, there are still plenty of things to talk about in these updates, not
A few of you intrepid computer sleuths may have found out by now, but RPGMaker pulls its media directly from a file on your computer, contained in the folder you installed when you set up the game. This means that you can find and open those files. Because of this... let's call it a 'feature,' I've given the Enhanced version of the soundtrack a full set of ID3 tags, containing the track title, album information, composer information (when I'm certain who wrote the original versions) and context
A sharp thud boomed throughout the room. He glanced up from his research to find a small crack in the stone door that sealed him within the chamber. Another thud shook bits of rock from the crack, widening it by several inches. He gulped, the terror of his knowledge finally reaching the front of his mind. Silence took hold for a moment, but he kept his eyes on the door. Slowly, a deep, droning sound began to grow, at first a quiet hum. Soon, it grew in volume, shaking the entire structure and
A ship, no bigger than a Takea fishing boat from back home, flew along the water, the sea tunnel's walls barely visible on either side. At its prow, a tall figure clad in red and gold armor stood, his gaze fixed on the dark horizon and his hand on the rope that stretched above him. "You can already see the smoke on the horizon." A voice behind him shouted over the waves. "I can't believe there's that much manufacturing going on over there. Where does it all go?" "To whoever has the money." He
A creature hobbled into the chamber, its eyes wide and its breath sharp and heavy. "Master!" it shouted, "Master Ilidran! I have a message for you—it is most urgent." Its master sighed, rising from his chair and turning to face the creature. "Tell me. You know not to hesitate with important news." "I remember, master. The message comes from above. The entire organization is to meet in Metru Nui. Our leader has an announcement for us." "Then we must depart at once." Ilidran reached for his
Well, it's been way too long since the last update, but you all should be happy to know that Masks of the Elders is still being made, despite all of the forum problems. The next Demo should finally be up by Friday (more to give me time to prepare/do school work than anything else), and the teaser stories should start up on Wednesday. Now, for progress: The forum downtime got me thinking seriously this summer, and I've decided to make some fairly radical changes to the way Act III plays out. Or
Good News! Act II was sent off to the Beta Testers last weekend, so release should be soon.
In the meantime, I've started working on the first part of Act III, and while I can't say much about it, since it's going to be downright awesome (in every sense of the word), I can reveal that it will kick off one of the more unusual facets of the storytelling: Because there are going to be more than four party members playable in Act III, the script will have to accommodate this, meaning that you'll
For this update, I have a bit of a theme going: Audio/Video. What exactly do I mean by that?
Well, for Audio: If anyone happened to find, in the music folder of the mp3 version of the game, the soundtrack, and listen to the music outside of RPGmaker, they might have noticed some strange things in the ID3 tags of the tracks--things like "V[number or letter]" at the end of the title, missing or inconsistent artist information, etc. Well, when the Act II mp3 version is released, I'll be recifyin
In the words of a certain aging, lunatic mad scientist from the future: Good news everyone!
Act II is almost done.
Once again, I have to say I'm sorry for not getting this update out sooner. My workload from school really piled up this past month, which pushed Masks of the Elders to the bottom of the priority list. Fortunately, I was able to squeeze in little pockets of time where I could work on the game, and right now the three big things left to do for Act II are the story sections of d
First off, sorry for the long wait this time. Between school taking up far longer than I'd thought and getting sick not long after the last update, gamemaking hasn't been as big a priority. That said, this past week I've made some excellent progress, especially in the second dungeon—in fact, aside from a battle background and an overworld graphic (both of which are set to be done for all of Act II en masse), it's done. Hooray! To celebrate, here's a spoiler-censored screenshot:
What's he no
Good news: Progress is happening! The first dungeon, in case I hadn't mentioned it earlier, is almost done, and just needs enemies to be inserted. The second dungeon's chipset is FINALLY complete (after all these months), and needs its earlier puzzles programmed. The third dungeon... it's a bit lower in terms of progress, but it's getting there. It needs three more puzzles designed and implemented, so it's getting there. Now for the bad news: I've misplaced the design document detailing the puzz
