Unka Josh

ImaginAsian TV is pretty close to that. On the other hand, I could pretty much do that, due to circumstances that I didn't duck fast enough. It's pretty pathetic, actually. I have way too much anime in my house-- most of it only one disc of a series. In many cases, a screener disc with only one or two episodes.

The final episodes of the first El-Hazzard OVA series, and the final episode of Irresponsible Captain Tylor. Both are awesome series, beginning to end, mind you-- but the final episodes of both are just perfect wrap-ups to the series as a whole. ...and in both cases, well, I really wish that certain studios had realized that.

Yep. Here in flatland, or, as some folks call it, Illinois, there's this Anime Convention once a year, up in the mysterious lost city of Chi-town. I went to this convention when it first started up, and kept going. And then, one year, they said "Hey, a lot of our volunteers can't make it this year! Help us!" to me, so I signed up to work the video rooms. I did that for a few years. Then both of the guys who had successively been my boss at Acen wound up getting moved upstairs. And somebody said, "Hey, Unka Josh, you can run this department, right?" I didn't have the good sense to flee screaming into the night, so here I am, having to learn the content of more different shows than you would ever believe, contacting Anime companies, and trying to stretch my shoestring budget to show as much stuff as possible.

Oh, yes. See the Eternal Night thread...

Well, maybe. I don't know how much experience you have-- I just don't have as much free time to work on games as I'd like, between my job and getting ready for Anime Central once again.

This sounds pretty darned cool, if you ask me. Have you settled on which options for races/classes or whatever that you're looking at?

With the right setting, the idea could be interesting. I'm imagining something like the Utena movie, where the living and the dead are all hanging out together...

Yes, and they all look very cool. Kudos!

Yeah, this could work, although you might wind up needing to deal with the maximum values of your character's characteristics, such as HP, at some point.

Welcome aboard. Said the guy who actually joined later than you.

It's funny that middles are such a pain for me, but that's a big part of pacing, and character development. But that's where I often get bogged down.

This is a very, very cool idea. You could use it for a Chrono Trigger-like New Game+ function, couldn't you?

Edit: I like it, but there's one thing that it could really use, for internal game symbolism reasons. Is there a way to add a crescent moon? Ironically, most of those gameovers don't fit this specific game. Everybody sleeps in a coffin in the land of Night... There's a couple that still work, though.

This is what drives me insane about VX: It's a new version. Let's add new features! Oh, and while we're at it? Let's get rid of some old features! Terrain tags? Who needs 'em! Actor Battlers? Oh, you can script that if you want to use them, I guess... Fogs? Who uses fogs for anything, right? On and on. And they do this every single time they come out with a new product. Why? Why remove capabilities with a new version? This isn't like some space-limited Atari 2600 cartridge-- it's a Windows program, fer chrissakes! Make it a couple of megs bigger, and keep everything! How hard is that? (Pant, pant, pant. Huff into a paper bag to calm down.) So... yeah.

I'd love it! Thanks, guys!

Well, I'm going to do a little more work before I put the game up for a download even of the early chapters-- right now, there's way too much that's unfinished. However, screenshots! Mandatory title screen bit. For no reason. Timothy first meets Angela... and faces an urge he didn't know that he had. The first of many decisions you make throughout the game that ultimately determines the ending... but many of them are more subtle, and what you're choosing isn't obvious. Timothy and Angela run into Chalcedony. Yes, the sexy one is the childhood friend character. Because cliches are good to mess with. The combat system at work. And, on that subject: How I did it, or, Unka Josh isn't much of a scripter, but can improvise a few tricks. Of course, everybody's seen those animated sideview battle systems, where you make those 44-frame character sets. But I suck as a pixel artist. Such is my suckage that I'm reduced to ripping off a Gaia Avatar maker (located at Tektek.org) to create battlers of my main characters. I lack the skill to create those fancy animated systems, to use them properly, or to create charsets for them. So I cheat. I know enough scripting to move the battlers up onto the battleback. That's easy-- I just altered a couple of lines of code in game_actor. Then I create attack animations that are unique to each character, by copypasting the battlers into the animation frames, and then using Hide Actor to make the characters charge the enemy, weapons swinging. Result: Kinda FF6-ish animations, with almost no scripting on my part. The battle system is similar. I used my minimal scripting abilities to eliminate the "Attack" option from the menu. I begged someone to give me a script where MP are restored by defending. And I went through and made slightly more complex enemy AIs, as well as a lot of assorted skills to cover all the effects of "normal" attacks. Finished it up by adding a parallel process common event that recovers the entire party. Result: Both PCs and Monsters can only use skills. HP and MP are restored between fights, but characters don't have lots of MP, and neither do Monsters. (Everybody follows the same rules. Fair's fair.) A combat system that, in theory, requires a little bit more care and resource management. Still look interesting?

I hope that one of these days the original company will relent, and somebody will pick up the license. ...and hopefully not censor and/or alter it. Zoicite was male, damnit!

Beyond Midgard, there are two worlds-- the land of Day, and the land of Night. Humans sometimes make the mistake of regarding Day as a land of good, and Night as a land of evil, but it is not so-- Day is a land of peace and order, but rigid order. Night is a land of violence and chaos, but absolute freedom. The King of Night, by definition, is the strongest in that land, and the current King of Night has held that position for untold years. Now, it is said, he seeks to make all-out war upon the land of Day. But is his true purpose something darker? Timothy Shaper is the son of the King of Night. Timothy is a strange child-- he doesn't sleep in a coffin, can't drink blood, can't change shapes or summon the dead or tear his foes apart with claws. He is regarded as incredibly weak, and feels like he doesn't fit in. Where does he belong? He uses a crossbow, as it's one of the few effective weapons that he's strong enough to wield. Chalcedony is a succubus, and Timothy's childhood friend. She wants Timothy to become strong-- strong enough to challenge his father. But Chalcedony is of Night, and perhaps has her own plans. Angela was sent from the land of Day in response to the King of Night's efforts to raise an army-- sent to kill him. Her expedition failed, however, and she was captured, soon to be killed and eaten by her captors. Timothy rescued her, however, and agreed to help her against his father. But can a child of Day and a child of Night really work together? Eternal Night uses a combat system that I threw together, where every action costs energy, but energy is fully restored between fights, and all attacks have elements. It will also have five different endings-- Timothy's path is not fixed at all, but is determined by an series of choices that you make throughout the game. A key aspect of the game is getting allies to help in your struggle. But allies won't help for free... Sound worthwhile?

Hm. Maybe I should actually post stuff about my current project. Getting some feedback might help me focus a bit...

I may wind up begging for some character sprites... character_maker only goes so far, after all. I've picked up some tricks with eventing, at least.

Wise. Very wise. A fella could get to dislike hackers.

Yeah, tell me about it. I discovered that creating a game goes so much faster if I just use the default battle system, skills, animations, whatever... but that doesn't work for me anymore. I've learned how to do more, and I like the results of the slightly-different-bashed-together battle system that I use. But now it takes three times as long to do anything. So, new map. New monsters. Well, I can't use the ones that came with the game. Or most of the ones that I've seen online, because I just had to go and create a sideview battle system. So I need to figure out what I can do with the graphics. ...and those monsters need skills. And those skills need animations. And that means that I need to create custom animations, and also custom animation framesets, because my fancy-shmancy half-assed battle system works better with them. And on, and on, and on... The results, I hope, will be worth it.

It is a shame. You might be able to find used copies on Amazon, though. Or, uh... (No! Mustn't advocate piracy!) Well, there's ways of finding it. That's all that I'm saying.

Aside from the obvious fact that it's been hacked by an obnoxious hacker who brags about it, no.

The major benefits of getting married relate to visitation rights in the hospital, certain companies providing benefits to spouses, and the like. You pay a marriage penalty at tax time, as I know full well, the hard way. Anyway, for me, it's a tossup between one and five. In the first place, why not? On the religious argument: Any religion, any church has the right to marry or not marry anyone they like. That's their business, and no proposal has ever been made that would change that. On the other hand, the country that I live in (Hint: It's pretty big, and very unpopular, and it's in Region 1) has this clause called Separation of Church and State. As I see it, that means that the principals of any given religion should not affect our laws. Thus, gay marriage. If a given church doesn't want to perform the ceremony, fine. There's other churches that will. Lots of 'em, too. Or somebody could get a civil ceremony, just like lots of straight folks getting married. It's a legal process, after all.