A few small graphical updates this week. Nothing new enough to warrant screen shots.

Tanessa's overworld sprite is finished. I messed with the animations a bit (on both their sprites) and I think they look better now. That's all that's really new in the zip. Also in the last few days I have been writing a bit to myself about combat system stuff, and worrying out some details for upcoming stuff. I also have started work on another NPC sprite to make Shoda's Brook a little less empty.

Unfortunately, my next week is going to be super busy so I probably won't really get a lot of time to work on fun stuff until Friday or Saturday. This is why I am posting now, a few days early, rather than waiting until Wednesday or whenever. Hopefully next weekend I will be able to get some work done that I can actually show off.

Not a whole lot done this weekmonth, but here it is.

Download this week's alpha release of Geas!

I've finished Kiel's sprite, and done half of Tanessa's. I am in the process of planning/mapping out the first dungeon area, which will probably also entail adding a battle system of sorts (which of course brings up stats, items, etc. etc. etc.) so assuming I actually get some time and energy to put towards Geas something should be happening in the next while.

That's all I really have to say this week. Here's a closer look at the overworld style sprites if you're interested.

Excitement.

Download this week's alpha release of Geas!

This update adds new portraits for Kiel (which I don't really like better but they are more consistent with Tanessa's portrait), every house in Shoda's Brook has an 'inside', and you can now leave town. Unfortunately, the overworld is still heavily in progress so you can't get BACK in town.

I've been sitting on some of this stuff since Christmas (for some reason) and some of it is more recent. Lame, I know. Anyway, I like how the overworld graphics are shaping up, though the mountains are somewhat busy. I love the little short sprites and I want to get to animating making more directions for Kiel and a new sprite for Tanessa.

In addition, the download this week features an absolutely up-to-date copy of the verge engine so it is possible that it might be a little broken for some people. Please let me know if you have any problems! Also, if you are into this sort of thing, you can look at the directory structure and see that it is SO MUCH CLEANER now that maps can be stored in subdirectories of the root.

Lastly, as I mentioned last post, I am looking into writing some documentations. I hacked together a quick system to help me write them and make them accessible, and I've put up an index of topics I intend to write on, in some sort of semblance of order that halfway makes sense to me. You can check that out at...

I'd like to hear some comments, if anyone has them, on the topics and the ordering. Please let me know if there's something I've left out or you think should come earlier or later. I'm very much wanting to produce a tutorial that focuses on getting a game made, rather than focusing just on the scripting. Hopefully it works out.

Hi everyone.

I don't have pretty pictures or a downloadable thing today, sorry. I don't really have the time before I need to go sleep to get that stuff together, and I'd like to do some bug-hunting and graphics clean up before I release what I've got done. So I'll talk about it instead. With bullet points.

On the Geas front, since the last actual update I have accomplished the following:

• The interiors of Shoda's Brook are basically complete. By "basically complete" I mean that I have pretty close to all of the tiles done that I need, but they aren't stocked with people or actual useful treasure chests or anything like that.
• I've added a map exit to the overworld map. You can't get back in yet, because the overworld is still very rough. Getting it in a good state, at least for the area around Shoda's Brook, is my next step.
• I've updated my internal code to use vx instead of my own wrappers. I'm interested in reducing library splintering so I thought it best to switch now rather than later.

Okay, maybe I can include one picture. This is a frame from Kiel's overworld sprite. Isn't she adorable?

Anyway, on the not-just-Geas front, I've also experienced a renewed interest in fixing Verge so I've been trying to put time into bug destroying and that sort of thing.

• Fixed an issue with the updated Script Engine which was throwing errors when you correctly wrote to a global engine var.
• Fixed an optimization so that it a) was actually an optimization and b) didn't prevent you from clearing the screen.
• Made some miscellaneous fixes to some problems in newly-introduced code involving images with alpha channels (which aren't fully implemented yet sorry).
• Sprites now use a std::vector for storage instead of a static array, so we no longer have a hard limit for number of sprites at a time. I want to do this for entities too but I haven't gotten around to it (it's a bit trickier).

So anyway! The upshot is that even though I haven't posted about Geas in months I am feeling pretty good about the last week. I hope to have this trend continue.

Some new art. Tanessa has returned. I even added a speech portrait for her.

Download this week's alpha release of Geas!

Sorry about missing the update last night, and the relative lameness of this one. Hopefully I will feel better soon.

Discussion

I am quite happy with both the sprite and the portrait that I came up with for Tanessa. I finally dragged out my tablet rather than half-assing everything with a mouse. Hopefully I can continue to make good portraits in the future.