Livenotes & Nolwenn's "Did You Know?"

You'll be able to see the splash screen and main menu for Blanche Biche soon. :) In the meantime, I'll tell you a quick story.

You see, the opening theme is pretty slow, and since I've spent quite a lot of time working on it I was basically wondering how I could get the user to spend as much time as possible on the splash screen (without getting bored of course). At some point I threw on the table the idea of a "did you know?" that would show up at runtime, with fun and interesting facts about France and French (while we were at it). Then, Blueroze suggested it could be some sort of a blog of Nolwenn's (one of our female main characters), and soon it gave birth to an entire concept for a fictitious social media.

Introducing Livenotes!

As you can see, we like to go all-out with even the most trivial ideas—which is probably why the development of this game takes forever. :p

Now Nolwenn's "Did You Know?" is open for questions! If there's anything you'd like to know about France, or French, or Brittany, or pretty much anything really, ask away, and Nolwenn might just give you the answer! :)

More about Topics

Hello dear followers, and today we're going to take a closer look at Blanche Biche's founding concept, the conversation topics!

I was always bothered by the fact that, in a traditional visual novel, you are only prompted with a few more-or-less obvious choices at key moments. Granted, we're in a video game and it's scripted at some point, so you can't just do whatever you want and expect it to react dynamically to your behavior—however, the tracks don't need to be so reidiculously apparent either. So, I thought, what if, instead of choosing between two or three circumstantial responses, you had a permanent list of a dozen of options? Some of them may do nothing at times, but you couldn't know a priori, at best you could speculate using your brain.

That's the main idea behind the conversation topics—to get the player to think and make decisions based on the relevance of each topic in each situation. Forget about binary choices and just imagine that, whenever asked for a reaction, you can come up with any of the many conversation topics you have unlocked so far. If you're trying to keep a secret and a girl is being nosy, you may want to deviate the conversation to topics which have nothing to do with it. Conversely, if you think the girl is hiding something from you, you can beat around the bush, trying to get her to spit it out. The thing is, whatever you're hoping to achieve, you have a big number of options to do so, and it's up to you which is the best pick at that moment.

So you might say, okay, it's all very nice, but in the end, it's just a fancy way of choosing between a set number of routes.

But it gets better.

In my post about the Tone Wheel, I told you how the point was to give the player some intiative potential, that is, to allow them to start things, instead of always waiting to be prompted by NPCs. Well then, I thought, there are two people in a conversation (that is, at least two), and if one is always responding to what the other produces, this makes for a poor experience. So, the conversation is just getting started, you get to choose a conversation topic. The girl reacts to what you had to say about it. And then, the girl chooses another topic of her own to continue the conversation. You react to what she said, then it's your turn to choose a topic again.

But it would be pointless if the girl chose her topics at random. So what happens is that each girl is able to assess the relevance of each conversation topic depending on a number of parameters. And the main parameter is, what did we just talk about? Whatever happens, the girls will always do their best to choose a topic that makes for a smooth transition with the previous one. Think of the conversation as some sort of map, and each topic is plotted on that map like a city. The closer two topics are on the map, the more related they are. What you get is a nice maze to be navigated. When you move to a different topic, you get the conversation closer to a number of other topics—and away from yet another number of them.

This is an example of how a few conversation topics could be organized to illustrate the concept. Say you're chatting with the Artsy Girl and you choose to talk about Video Games. If she wants to talk about the Museum, for instance, she'll politely bring up Movies first, to try and get closer to it, without breaking the flow of the conversation. From there, you can follow her lead and go to Painting or Photography, but you could ignore her and start talking about sports. The thing is that, if you keep pushing the conversation away from the topics a girl wishes to discuss, that will piss her off—no matter whether you retain a Friendly tone at all times!

But it's not as simple as spamming topics that are close to a girl's interests either. Say the Artsy Girl had a fight with the Sporty Girl, and thus wishes to talk about her to ease her mind. So you'll try the Museum, she'll respond with Painting. You'll try Dancing, she'll respond with Martial Arts. If you are oblivious to the cue and try to bring the conversation back to the girl and her interests, the conversation will never turn out the way she intended. In other words, there is not all-purpose strategy to it—you'll have to watch for the girl's choices of topics, and cross-check them with recent events to understand where she's trying to go with that. Also, a girl might try to avoid a particular topic, rather than reach it, in which case she'll do her best to steer the conversation away from it, while still picking good transitions. Or you might be in a situation where you have a conversation with two girls at the same time—say, one who wishes to talk about a particular topic, and one who wishes to avoid that same topic at all costs, to make it fun. As you can see, many different situations can arise, and the idea has a lot of potential.

The difficult part, of course, is that you're not getting a map such as that one in-game. It's all up to you to evaluate how related two topics may be, and what other topics may lie in the direction the girl is trying to take you. So, as you can see, it turns into a nice little mind game between the player and the computer, where you can count on nothing but your wits and keen sense of observation. :) Oh, and did I forget to mention that, just like each girl has her own idea for moods, she also has a personal appreciation of the distances between topics, making a single topic very easy to bring up with one girl, and very difficult with another? Well, there you have it. :)

Anyway, that's about it about conversation topics. Hope I managed to pique your interest, and until next time. :)

More about the Tone Wheel

So, we've been telling you there would be a way to adjust the way you interact with girls in Blanche Biche. Today I'm going to explain a bit more about that aspect of the game.

First, the idea behind is to provide the player with ways to take the initiative. In a classic dating sim, when you're presented with a choice, you always end up reacting to what's happening in the game. There's no way to do something like stop the game at any point and boom! do something—no matter how insignificant—that will have any effects whatsoever. In Blanche Biche, topics are a way to achieve that (like, you get to choose whether to stay in line with what your partner was saying, or you can break from it completely)—tones are the other.

In concrete terms, you will have a Tone Wheel at your disposal, which lets you adjust your tone at any point in the conversation—even mid-topic, although we're still discussing the relevance of allowing that. That means, if the girl is teasing you, you can go for a teasing tone as well, then if she has a bad reaction, switch to a friendly tone, then realizing the conversation isn't serious enough to your taste, and so on. The tone you choose to assume affects both the girl's immediate response, and her feelings toward you in the long run. That means, if you're constantly teasing a girl, she might not get angry at first, but at some point it will upset her. Conversely, if you're generally being friendly and choose to be teasing for once, she might be offended at that moment, but stay in good terms with you nevertheless.

The Tone Wheel works as a two-dimensional representation of mood, as shown below:

• From left to right: how unpleasant vs. pleasant the mood is.
• From bottom to top: how casual vs. serious the mood is.
• Hence, the Friendly and Hostile tones are extremes on the plesantness axis, but neutral on the seriousness axis.
• Just the same, the Casual and Serious tones are extremes on the seriousness axis, but neutral on the pleasantness axis.
• All others tones are a combination of the two scales: the Intimate tone is somewhat pleasant and somewhat serious, the Teasing tone is somewhat unpleasant and somewhat casual, and so on.

At first, each girl will be Neutral toward you. Then as you start playing around with tones, you're going to affect how she sees you, dragging her mood around the two-dimensional space pictured above. Your ultimate goal is to push toward the Intimate quadrant, which is what you want to be for romantic involvement. So being Friendly won't be enough, you'll have to get your relationship more Serious (and conversely).

Sounds easy enough? Did I forget to mention that each girl has a distorted, subjective vision of that mood space? Simply put, a girl might think of the Provoking/Outgoing axis as her own pleasantness scale—which in turn makes the Teasing/Intimate axis as her seriousness axis. So if you're trying to be Intimate, in her eyes you will actually be Serious, which isn't bad, but not exactly what you wanted. And then, you might end up lacking pleasantness in your relationship to become romantically involved with each other.

SO, it won't be just as easy as spamming the Intimate tone to get in a girl's good graces. For some of them, you may even have to resort to unpleasant tones to earn their respect! What you WILL have to do is to watch closely for each girl's reactions, then try and guess what tones work for her. A whole world of experimentation lies ahead! :)

That's it for the most important aspects of Blanche Biche's mood management. There are still a few hidden mechanics to it I'm keeping secret for now, but this should give you a good enough preview of how things are going to work. :) Don't hesitate to share your thoughts or ask questions in the comments!

A Facebook page for Blanche Biche

As the development of Blanche Biche is going, we feel the need to tell the world about it. To that effect, I created a page on my blog, and also a Facebook page! Please visit and like and share all you can to help us reach as many people as possible. :) Thank you in advance for your support! :)

[Update] Live2D modeling progress

So, I announced Blanche Biche will be a Unity game due to its support for Live2D, but you might still be wondering what Live2D is all about. Simply put, it's a 2D animation software. But its specificity is that it's not a frame-by-frame animation tool. What it does is, it allows you to create a model which deforms itself according to a variety of parameters. Thus, you can effectively open and close the eyes, tilt the head, stretch the mouth, and so on, pretty much like you would with a 3D model--except there's zero 3D in there. So it's just animated 2D, but cleverly so. Models created by professionals may look incredibly lively and give an impressive illusion of depth.

Pretty nice, huh? Well, that's just what we're trying to do with our own graphics. My partner Blueroze is currently spending all of her free time rigging her first model, and she's not quite there yet, but most of the face is ready to be animated already. Here's a quick video from the editor to show you how it looks like so far.

So, I don't know about you, but as far as I'm concerned I'm a huge fan. And if you were wondering, it's her first shot at it, so I can't wait to see how it turns out in the end. :)

[Update] A name for Project Conversation

So, we've been thinking for a while about a proper title for our dear Project Conversation. And we've found it. Moonpearl and Blueroze proudly present: Blanche Biche (French for White Doe).

We'll leave it up to you to speculate about the implications of that title for now, and what on earth this has to do with a dating sim. :) But I'll provide a few elements of context as hints. Let us know if you have any theories in the comments!

La complainte de la blanche biche (The White Doe's Complaint) is a medieval ballad from Western France. Here's a link to my personal favorite performance of it, along with a translation of the lyrics.

Those who go to the woods

Those are the mother and the daughter

The mother walks while humming

And her daughter sighs

"What's with the sighing

My white Marguerite?"

"I have so much turmoil within

And do not dare tell you"

"I'm a girl during daytime

And a white doe at night

The hunters are after me

Barons and princes

And my brother Renaud

Who's the worst of all

Please, mother, quickly go

And tell him

That he must stop his dogs

Until tomorrow morning"

"Where are your dogs, Renaud

And the hunting gentlemen?"

"They are inside the woods

Chasing the white doe"

"Stop them, Renaud

Stop them, I beg of you"

Three times did he call them

With his copper horn

At the third time

The white doe is captured

Let's summon a skinner

To skin the doe

The one who skins her

Says "I'm at a loss of words"

She has blonde hair

And breasts like a girl

He drew his knife

And sliced her into pieces

They made a supper out of her

For barons and princes

"Here we're all sitting

Save for my sister Marguerite"

"You just have to eat

I'm the first one at the table

My head is in the platter

And my heart on spikes

My blood is splattered

All around the kitchen

And on your black coal

My poor bones are roasting"

(back to 1st verse)

[Update] A node-based editor in Unity

As I announced in my previous post, we were considering a switch to Unity, mainly because of the Live2D support. So I've been poking around, trying to assess whether the Unity framework and C# was for me. To be honest, I think if I'd tried it a few years ago, C# would've turned me off. But I figured, I have so much experience in programming, and I wish to go into business as a game developer, I can't just stop at the difficulty of a new language. Plus, I learned Python so easily that it encouraged me to take the plunge.

So I need to recode everything I've done for Project Conversation in Unity/C# and it's probably be tedious and boring (rather than actually challenging, since I merely need to translate scripts from a language to another). But first I had to recreate a visual novel-like gameplay, and that's when I realized Unity allows one to do something very cool--you can program the editor itself! If you remember my works for RPG Maker XP, you should know that I like to hijack the system to make the game designer's life easier, like I did with my Balloon System or the Party Interaction System. So the mere possibility of messing around with the editor was the ultimate argument to win my heart, I guess.

Thus, the first challenge I set myself was to create a node-based editor to make it possible for me (and more importantly, for my partner) to write dialogue scenes in a simple, visual fashion. I know such a system already exists in the Asset Store, but it's paid, and I don't like how it works, and I couldn't just build a game for someone else's scripts and call it mine anyway. So I gathered my courage and well, I made it. It's quite crude by the time I'm writing this, but the basic concepts are there. You can create dialogue boxes, connect them in the order you want them to appear. And more importantly, it all converts into game logic which make the scene unfold exactly like you've set it up when you run the program. To be honest, I was surprised it actually worked (almost) at first, with so few bugs. :p So I'm quite proud of my work. :)

So, unless I run into a huge problem, you can expect Project Conversation to go to Unity. :)

[Update] Project Conversation's first mockup screen

So, I can finally show you what the game might look like, or at least what you can expect from the interface.

First thing you may notice is that the girl is gorgeous. :) I was already in love with that character before she even had a face, but now I am even more. :p But enough eye candy already, let's talk a bit about the interface elements.

1. Whenever it's your turn to submit a conversation topic, you may choose any of them among those you have previously unlocked (as long as your conversation partner has something new to say about it).
2. You are also required to choose the tone you want to use for that segment of the conversation, among 8 possible tones (for instance, "Teasing" in orange is a combination of "Hostile" in red, and "Casual" in yellow). This will influence what your character will say, and in turn, how your conversation partner may respond.
3. The objective gauge depends on the conversation situation, but the general idea is that you have to reach an objective before it fills up. In this case, you have to follow the trail of topics that the girl is giving you, in order to reach a particular topic that's not on your list yet. Each time you choose a topic, the Annoyance bar will fill according to how far you're straying from the path she has in mind. So, by cross-checking what the girl chooses to talk about, and how annoyed your own choices make her, you should get a pretty good idea of where she wants the conversation to go! (well, at least that's what the game will be expecting from you :p)

Note that this is a Ren'Py screenshot, and well... I'm a bit annoying with my changes of heart, but I think we're going to move on to Unity. The main reason we may want to do that is because we wish to animate our characters using Live2D, and there's a Unity plugin that allows full support for it. So, if all goes according to plan, our game should be GORGEOUS.

I will be posting about a more in-depth overview of each game mechanic later. Don't hesitate to leave a comment to tell us what you think about that first mockup screen, and Blueroze's beautiful art! :)

[Update] Project Conversation underways!

Okay, so I've been itching to tell about this for weeks. I can't say there's much to see yet, which is the main reason why I've been waiting to make a post in here. But what I can't show yet, I can already tell quite a bit about.

Perhaps you remember me trying my hand at Ren'Py about one year ago, messing around to create a prototype of a conversation simulator. It was a timid attempt at impressing the game-making community, and it didn't work out as well as planned :p, but I wasn't just putting up a style exercise. I was intent on building a whole game out of it.

And that's what's going on in my life right now.

I've paired up with the talented Blueroze, who turned out really enthusiastic at the game I had in mind, and we're in the process of building it as I write this, stone by stone. The programming is actually well ahead, so I'm waiting on my partner to produce a few screenshots (no pressure, mate). :p

So, what's the deal? Project Conversation, as we're uncreatively referring to it, will tell the story of a scout camp taking place on a fictional island, off the shore of Brittany, France. So yeah, you'll get characters with French names, baguettes and cheese, obscure French songs at the campfire. And strange phenomena that might be explained by local folklore. Maybe.

Gameplay-wise, it will revolve around three main concepts:

1. Topic navigation, where each conversation is essentially a maze you and your partner try to walk by taking turns at submitting conversation topics.
2. Mood management, where you get to choose your tone at each topic, which in turn influences your partner's mood, and the way she will react.
3. Memories making, where each conversation goal you manage to achieve lets you bond deeper with each girl, and improves the chance that her artificial intelligence finds you good enough to be her lover.

That's right—you're looking at the early development stage of a next-generation dating sim! Forget the routes, forget the branching plots, forget the hours of reading through hundreds of endless, boring dialogues, just to wake up every now and then for an obvious choice before going back to sleep again. This time around, you will actually be required to think, to feel, to read between the lines, to adapt your decisions to each situation... and to live with them!

No screenshots yet, but you'll be seeing more of Project Conversation very soon! :)

[Review] Doki-Doki Literature Club

Hi guys,

Wow, it's so dusty in here *grabs a spider web* I wonder if there's still anyone visiting anymore. Anyways, for those who read this post, you'll be happy to know that I've found an illustrator. You know what that means? THAT YOU'LL SOON BE SEEING AN ACTUAL PROJECT OF MINE!!! Didn't expect that after all these years, eh?

Anyways, in the meantime, I've been thinking about posting reviews of games I liked. So, today, you're in for a special treat. It's called...

Doki Doki Literature Club

Ok, so this is a bit awkward, because Doki Doki Literature is actually very hard to describe without utterly spoiling the experience. From reading the description on its Steam page, you might think it's just another regular, overrated dating sim. Well, it's not. Definitely not. It's all a set-up. The game actually tries very hard to make you think it's dull and harmless, and it just makes it all the more effective at what it does.

Which is—take your sanity from you.

Believe me, this game is the work of a mad genius. If Frankenstein had made a video game, it would have been this.

I know what you're thinking right now—yeah, right, like a game could be that disturbing, I've played Slenderman, I've played Amnesia, I've played Layes of Fear, I've played Outlast, I can take the cute girls, dude, bring them on! Well, that's the mindset I approached Doki Doki Literature Club with, and frankly I ended up more disturbed than I cared to admit.

Because no matter all the horror games you've played, there are things you haven't seen yet. Take it from me. Mad genius, I'm telling you. And that includes genius.

So, heed the many warning signs that have been placed on your way to the game, and if you think you have it in you to see it to the end, then by all means, be my guest. You won't regret the journey.

So, why should you play Doki Doki Literature Club?

• Because it's a unique experience
• Because it's free
• Because sanity is an overrated commodity anyways
• Because the developers have poured their heart into it (and probably sold their soul to the devil at some point), and they deserve a thumbs up :)

Stay tuned for more reviews, and news on my latest project to come! :)

War Wind Sprites Rip

This is an ooold stuff from an ooold video game called War Wind. A few years back, I found a way to extract all sprites from the game's archives, and I posted them online on a different blog, and now people are asking for it again. So, here it is. :)

War Wind Sprites (as separate images)
War Wind Spritesheets

Update on the Conversation Simulator

Following a comment I got on a forum regarding my recent Conversation Simulator, I devised a new condition, which is actually the exact opposite.

Instead of trying to reach a specific topic in the best way she can think of, Kiyomi will now try to avoid it at all costs. But, following as previously, she will still try her best to pick a smooth transition from the topic you brought up. So she will do her best to come up with the best compromise between a topic that is close to yours, and one that is as far as possible from the target topic.

In termes of gameplay, it makes for a greater challenge, since unlike the previous version, Kiyomi will never ever bring up the target topic on her own. So you have to try and narrow down the "area" she seems to be steering away from to guess what the target topic might be. Once you know what the target topic is in the fixed condition, you can play around by trying out topics you know to be very close to it, and see how smoothly Kiyomi tries to steer the conversation away.

The links were updated, enjoy. :)

A Conversation Simulator in RenPy

Hiya! Missed me? Well, I'm back, baby!

I've dropped RPG Maker and found a new toy: Renpy! Actually, I'm surprised so few people use it. It turns out Python is A LOT similar to Ruby, so RPG Maker scripters should feel at home. Plus, there's a nice set of tools for debugging and stuff, I'm really enjoying myself so far.

Anyways, to the point.

This is not exactly a project, or more precisely, it's a demonstration of a script I could use in a future project of mine (as well as me tinkering to see how far I can get with RenPy).

This is a conversation simulator. Now, don't get me wrong, it's not like you get to type in what you want to say and the computer answers. But, rather than choosing between a few dialogue options (which is how it's classically done), you get to choose what topic you wish to discuss, among a number of them (20 in this demo). Nothing groundbreaking so far.

It turns interesting when the computer answers. You see, the conversation is two-way, and the person you talk with will also pick a topic in turn. Of course, the computer doesn't pick at random (which would be pointless). Actually, the NPC is anxious to discuss a topic in particular, and the idea is that you score points if you manage to get the conversation to that topic. But since the NPC doesn't want to make a harsh transition, they will always try to come up with a topic which is relatively close to the one you picked, and yet drives the conversation toward the desired topic. And it's the only clue you're gonna get.

In short, it takes conversations in role-playing games to a new level. It's not about choosing between a few predetermined lines, which are always obvious by the way, to get what you want - but rather, it's some sort of mind game where you have to read between the lines, and use everything you know about the NPC to understand what they're trying to tell you.

I hope you'll enjoy the concept in its current form, though I have quite a few ideas to make it even better. For now you just have to exhaust all topics to find the right one, but in a real game situation, you would have a limited number of tries before the NPC gets tired and walks away. Also, you would start off with a limited number of topics, and unlock them one by one, as you get to know people/places and events occur. So the first conversations would be easy to handle, while you could very well end up with dozens of topics, and have to tread carefully when you're in a critical event with just 3 tries. Also, what you can't for now because there's just one NPC to talk to, is that she has a personality. That is, she has her own favorite topics, and the one she'd rather avoid. A different NPC would make different picks in the exact same situation.

I've prepared 2 situations, with the exact same scripted dialogue. The difference is that in one, the girl wishes to discuss a predetermined topic which is always the same, so once you've found it you can try different approaches and see how she tries to draw closer to it. In the second, though, the desired topic is chosen at random, so you can put your guessing abilities to the test!

The point of this demo is not to put up a challenge. You will find it's pretty easy to reach the desred topic, mainly because there are too few topics. You have to imagine how complicated conversations could turn with about 40~50 topics, and a limited number of tries for each.

Anyways, here's the download link. Don't hesitate to let me know if you like the idea and how you'd like to see a full game based on this system. :) Cheers!

Download PC version: http://www.mediafire.com/file/xc41cfcma2h4428/Test-1.0-pc.zip
Download Mac version: http://www.mediafire.com/file/48mzab68mnsrn8q/Test-1.0-mac.zip

AFK

Hi guys,

As you may have noticed, I've been away for, uh, quite a while. No particular reason to this, I'm just quite busy (I'm a divorced father of two young kids if you have to know) and, well, game-making doesn't seem as thrilling to me as it used to. Sooo basically I'm posting today to say goodbye for an indefinite period of time. I'm not closing this blog because I want people to be still able to access my contents even though I'm away - but on the other hand I won't be active here until further notice. I know I'm going to leave some users disappointed because I've received lots of requests for help in the past months that I let pile up, and if I'm addressing one I'm going to address them all, and this is too much for me right now. I also saw lots of nice comments I'm not going to give individal replies to, but be assured I read them and it meant a lot to me.

So, thanks to all of you faithful and casual readers for your support and feedback and positive thoughts. I hope I was able to provide enough contents and help to leave good memories wherever I have posted too. I'll be thinking back of my experience as an amateur scripter with a smile on my face - and who knows, maybe we'll meet again in the future, here or elsewhere.

Take care.

Daily Life Project (part 1 - time and lighting)

It feels a bit strange that, after all this time, I finally get to repost the script that started this blog, a long while ago, long before I had made myself a name - that is, long before the ACMS. :p The loop is getting looped, and it feels like a nice parting gift with all of my faithful RMXP followers.

The Daily Life project initially is my own attempt as a day/night system. If you would like a day/night system and...

• you think most of those look ugly or otherwise unrealistic
• you would like to control the flow of time
• you would like to make variations on events based on the time of the day or day of the week

OR

• if you would like a realistic, dynamic lights system

Then it is exactly what you need.

---

Features

---

Event-controlled time.

• time does not advance automatically - unless you command it to with a parallel event. You get to control how time changes with game variables, down to the second.

• a wide range of variables and switches allows you to set event to appear/occur only at specific times - specific hours and/or days in the week and/or months and/or years...

Natural-looking day and night.

• progressive transition between dawn, day, dusk and night

Progressive change in daylight on a summer solstice

• progressive change of daytime duration according to the season (daytime lasts longer in summer)

Progressive change in daylight on a winter solstice

• fading overlay effects according to time of the day (sunbeams at noon and haze at night)
• events named "Shadow" automatically fade out as night gets closer

• day/night can be disabled when inside closed spaces, and luminosity set manually

Closing the curtains forces the luminosity to zero despite the fact it is noon

Realistic, dynamic lights

• any number of light sources can be set and blend naturally into each others

• real-time calculation allows light sources to flicker and even move around
• adjustable radius and strength
• lights tear through darkness but do not overlay ambient light

---

Known issues

---

• This script is known to make the interpreter lag, depending on the user's machine. It is not the script's fault. RPG Maker's graphic engine has such poor performances, that how the script works will necessarily confront it to its limits sooner or later. It is pointless to ask me for an optimization, since there's absolutely nothing more I can do to address this issue. However, here are a few guidelines to avoid lagging:

1. More light sources mean more calculations - do not make too many of them
2. Map scrolling requires recalculation at each frame - avoid making maps that exceed the screen size
3. Having light sources flicker or move around also requires frequent reclaculation - do not overuse those effects
4. The darkening overlay which gives the illusion of night is arranged in small blocks. The DARKNESS_PRECISION constant in the Constants - Custom entry controls the size of said blocks - the smaller they are, the better the quality and the worse the lagging. It is set to 2 by default, which I found to be the best quality/performance ratio. Setting it to 1 will make the overlay appear blocky but will cut the load in quarter.
5. The DARKNESS_FRAME_SKIP constant in the Constants - Custom entry allows to force the calculations to wait for a set amount of frames, thus effectively cutting the load. It is set to 0 by default (no skipping) but you can set it to small numbers (like 4 or 5) so that the overlay does not appear too jumpy, and you gain a little performance boost.

---

Download

---

The following link provides a script bundle meant to be used along with the Script Manager. Terms of use and instructions are provided within. Please credit me if you use it in your own project. A nice comment is always appreciated.

Download MP Daily Life (10 KB)

The following link provides a demo for said script.

Download Daily Life Demo (1 MB)

The Variables Binder or How I Made Something Easy Even Easier

Faithful users of my works know that I like event-controlled system, when appliable. For example, my Balloon Messages System relies not on clumsy commands input in messages or stuff like that, but rather on regular switches and variables, which are easier to handle. Those switches and variables are then read by the scripts which in turn do their job. To achieve this, the scripts have to know which switches/variables were appointed to this or that purpose, because from one project to another, a same switch/variable may very well have a different ID - like, if I use switches #2 and #3 in my demo, they might already be allocated, and you'd like to use other ones instead.

Up to now, you had to manually set up constants for that purpose. You had to choose free switches/variables in your project editor, then you had to open the script where the constants were set and replace each of them with the ID you'd chosen, and then it was all cool and easy. That was, until I decided I was too lazy to do the manual part anymore. I decided it was not that hard for the scripts to find the matching switches/variables after all and they could very well do it on their own. From that decision, a new script was born. Behold... here's the Variables Binder!

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So what does it do?

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Basically, automate the process of binding switches/variables as set in the project editor with the scripts. Say you install the Balloon Messages System to your project, you run it just after, then return to your project editor and poof! a couple of variables and switches which control this system have installed themselves in free slots, saving you the trouble of naming them manually. From then on, those switches/variables will automatically be recognised by the script you've just installed and you don't need to worry about that anymore. So, in short, it's simple as 1-2-3.

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Any recommendations?

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The Variables Binder will never ever mess with switches/variables which already have a name so it's absolutely safe to use on a project you have already started a while ago - however, it decides whether a switch/variable is free based on whether its name is empty or not, so make sure all of the switches/variables you're using at this time have a name, otherwise you could get surprises.

You can see that your newly named switches/variables have got a tag before their name. This makes it easier to see which variables group together, but it also works as an identification code. That is, you're free to rename the switch/variable as long as you keep its tag intact.

If you were already using one of my event-controlled scripts prior to the arrival of the Variables Binder, please make sure the variables you've set manually have the exact same name (without the tags) as in the original demo, since when the tag is absent, the Variables Binder will identify them based on their name, and automatically add the matching tag - so you end up with the exact same settings as if starting a fresh new project with the scripts' latest version.

If the switches/variables have not been installed prior to the Variables Binder's first launch, it will claim the first free slots it can find, so you might want to have several of them in a row so that they don't get scattered. Also, make sure you have set the maximum number of items so that there's enough room for the newcomers in the first place!

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What if I still want to set the variables manually?

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If you're not satisfied with the Binder's automated setup for whatever reason, there's nor problem at all. Just cut/paste the name of the variable you want to move to another slot. Since the setup is dynamic, the script will recognize the newly named variable as if it had set itself up on the next time you run the game.

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Where can it be found?

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The Variables Binder is part of the latest version of my Common pack. You should re-download it to ensure compatibility with my future scripts.

Surprise on the Moon!

Hello folks,

Recently I was announcing I'd lost some significant contents that was supposed to help me complete the oh-so-awaited update to the Script Manager. This led me to question some choices I had made at the time, since I was to remake them anyways. And so, I'm pleased to announce that I've AT LAST succeeded at making the Script Manager as versatile and powerful as I wished it to be. Though it's not quite the all-in-one utility I had in mind at first, I think it's all better as it is now.

From now on projects are going to be hybrid, meaning you can run them as regular projects using their featured copy of the scripts they use, or run them using the Script Manager, with no modification whatsoever. For example, when I release a new script, you can try it out downloading it as a plugin and launching your project with the Script Manager - this will read the newer version you've downloaded instead of the older one from your script editor, without replacing it, so your game still runs the same as before. Additionally I've made a tool to export scripts from your projects (read scripts from the script editor and export them as .rb files, so that they can easily be used along with the Script Manager), as well as another one aimed at importing the .rb files used by the Script Manager into your script editor, all of this automated of course.

I will not be going more into detail tonight, I was merely to excited about this new achievement to wait any longer to let you know. I will be replacing all of my Script Manager-dependant demos with hybrid demos you can run as they are in the following days. As of right now only the newer version of the Ballon Messages Demo is available for download. You can try it out, check that it does actually run on its own, and have a look at the scripts inside its script editor, all of them imported automatically from external .rb files. :)

Have fun!

Even More News From The Moon

Hey guys,

Today I wanted to complete the update I'd promised a loooong time ago on the Script Manager, but I realized I had failed to update my backup copy with the latest version of my works. Fortunately not everything was lost, but I have a lot of catching up to do and I must confess this sad event has killed the little courage I was able to gather. So probably still no update before a while.

Regarding OpenRGSS, a friend of mine helped me through the process of writing the C code I need, but now we're stuck at the compilation step, which really seems to be a pain with Ruby in a general manner. Also, I'm considering dropping SDL as OpenRGSS's backbone and replacing it with SFML at the suggestion of a community mate, but I still need to investigate its features and of course, to install it succesfully before making a decision. This would mean rewriting the low-level engine, but hey, life is an eternal starting over.

So, lately, I feel the urge to create something, but nothing seems to go right. Anything for me to do, anybody?

More News From The Moon

Hey guys,

I know many of you await news from the OpenRGSS project. Sadly I haven't been any further than what you have seen already. The main reason for this is that I'm stuck with technical issues. Simply put, there are things I will not be able to implement in Ruby, not because I cannot do it, but because Ruby is very slow and even with optimal programming, some processing-heavy functions slow down the engine too much. So, I would need to implement some of it in C++, which is Ruby's "parent" language. The problem is that I don't know the first thing about C++. So, if anyone who is knowledgeable about C++ happens to pass by, your help would be very much appreciated on those issues, it's mostly about investigating the Ruby/SDL gem's source code and helping me with syntax and stuff - nothing too time-consuming, really. Also, if you know someone who might be able to help me, please do spread the word. As soon as I get past those lil' setbacks, I can resume OpenRGSS's development.

While I'm there, I would like to share my feelings regarding something which has been bugging me. I know the Script Manager has rendered the installation of my scripts less intuitive, especially since I have still not released the update like I had promised a while ago. Still, as open to criticism as I might be, I do not accept comments like "I don't understand the first thing about your site, make another tutorial". I can understand your frustration and I'm honored you absolutely want my scripts in your games, but I am not a company, I am not making business out of scripting, I have not sold anything to you and I am not an after-sales service either. I have made those scripts for the sake of making them, and nothing forces me to share them in the first place. I might as well shut this blog down tomorrow and close my MediaFire account just because I feel like it, and keep my own scripts to my own self, and there would be nothing to lose as far as I'm concerned. Because I share my creations does not mean I have pledged to have them work perfect in each and every one's games. If you address me without the slightest "please" or are implying that I did a poor job, you're welcome to look for scripts elsewhere and I will definitely not mind you not using mine, really. People who have no respect for others' works do not make games I like to play, anyways,

So, basically, if you have no consideration for me, don't expect me to have consideration for you and your game, either. And don't come bragging about how you will never use my scripts to punish my arrogance, because frankly I don't care. People who have addressed me in a friendly, respectful manner, can testify I sympathize with others' issues and often do my best to help them while there's nothing for me to gain in return. The others can keep on asking and complaining as long as they like.

Sorry about this little digression, nothing has changed towards my faithful readers, and I'll make sure to let you know it as soon as I have solved my C++ issues.

Take care in the meantime.

OpenRGSS Progress Report - Sound & Music

I'm still doing a lot of behind the scenes work, so nothing really new since last time except for the addition of sound and music, which was kinda piece of cake as compared to the graphics engine. So this time you get to watch a small video to see how all this blends together (please watch in HD).

Comments in the video say it all I guess. If you listen carefully, however, you might notice that the music sounds a bit different than what you are used to. So you might wonder what I did to those music files to improve their quality. Well, nothing actually, and that leads me to a very interesting fact I'd like to point out.

You have surely noticed that MIDI files (.MID) tend to have poor quality. On the other hand, they are tiny in size, but then many people wrongly assume that there's a link between the two. This is true for sound files, like .WAV of .MP3 files, because the bigger they are, the more information they have, and thus the better the quality. Well then, a MIDI files does not contain sound. It's merely like a sheet music, it just stores what note it's supposed to play at what time using what instrument, and that's the reason why it takes so little space. This is also why you can easily tweak pitch, tempo, volume, instruments... track by track, using the proper editor, while sound files are somewhat "merged", raw sound, with no concept of notes or instruments in the first place.

So you're probably going to wonder, how do I get to hear a MIDI file then? Well, you just need to have a synthetizer to read the sheet music and play it back. It will do so using a sound bank, in which samples for each instrument are stored - meaning, if you followed me, that if you use another sound bank, your MIDI file will start and sound differently all of a sudden. This is very much like using a character font for text - the text data remain the same, but it's rendered differently according to which font you pick. What I previously called sound bank is sometimes referred to as soundfont, by the way.

So the reason why your MIDI files sound bad is because the default synth featured with your system has a crappy sound bank. Get a good synth and they will sound better just like magic, with no addition or tranformation whatsoever to the files themselves. The good news is that it is possible to replace Windows's default synth with another one that supports soundfonts, then you get to choose the soudfont most fitted to your taste and computer performances. The bad news is that MIDI files will still sound crappy in RPG Maker. This is because RPG Maker does call the system synth, but rather uses its own, internal synth, which sticks to the crappy sound bank, and there's nothing you can do about it. But then again, another good news is that, of course, OpenRGSS does call for the system synth to play back MIDI files, which means it does support soundfonts as long as you have a software synth installed, which supports them itself.

For this video, that's exactly what I did - downloaded a software synth (namely Coolsoft VirtualMidiSynth), downloaded a soundfont (Merlin Gold v4.10), set the synth to use the soundfont and use it as default synth for MIDI playback. Now all MIDI music that will play on my system, wherever it might come from (except for RPG Maker of course) will use the soundfont and sound nice. Note that this applies only to MIDI files, though, and that it depends on the user's system - meaning if you install the synth and soundfont to get your MIDI to play nicely, it will still sound as bad as always on the computer of someone who hasn't.

I couldn't resist recording a few pieces using either the RPG Maker playback, or the synth/soundfont combo, so that you can hear the difference. I'd like to insist that those renderings were obtained using the exact same MIDI file with no adds or modifications whatsoever.

	RMXP playback	OpenRGSS playback using VirtulMIDISynth & GeneralUser GS FluidSynth v1.44 soundfont
001-Battle01.mid RMXP
012-Theme01.mid RMXP
026-Town04.mid RMXP
034-Heaven01.mid RMXP
039-Dungeon05.mid RMXP
044-Positive02.mid RMXP
062-Slow05.mid RMXP
GRABBAG.mid Duke Nukem 3D
STALKER.mid Duke Nukem 3D
ALIENZ.mid Duke Nukem 3D
EXRUM.mid Monkey Island 2
LARGSTAB.mid Monkey Island 2
HITGM.mid War Wind

So, I hope this post shed some light on the MIDI format and gave you a better opinion of it. More progress to be shared soon, so stay tuned and have a nice listening-to-better-MIDI experience in the meantime.