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Quote

"Yeah, yeah. That's nice. When the fuck is this game going to be released?!"

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Hmm, I don't seen that quote anywhere, or is it implicit in @c4ooo comments? Anyways, still plenty of time until next September,  IIRC

Is coming along quite nicely, tho. Please do keep it up!

We're slowly progressing through the spell animations. The logic is there, but now we have to render suitable bitmaps for animation frames. Iambian and Geekboy1011 have done a great job of animating some spells so far, but there's still much left to do.

In other news, I went ahead and put together a PDF manual for the game, which I've taken the liberty of attaching to this message. It's pretty barebones, but I think it does an adequate job of explaining the game's mechanics and prefacing the basic plot details.

EDIT: Updated manual to fix errata and expand on a few things, namely status effects and character-specific skills.

Update
* Most magic animations are now complete.
* Additional content added to Underdeep. It's now its own story arc.
* User and script-adjustable typewriter effect.
* Other things.

Demonstration of typewriter effect and some of the magic.
We have more down but I don't want to spoil too much.


Notes
Battle animations would've/should've been done sooner, but some of these things take a while to animate in a way that satisfies the whole team. There's still a few things left to animate, but it won't be long now before it's all done. After that and a few visual/bug fixes we get to do...

Cutscenes! Geekboy1011 is hard at work at the moment putting all the cutscenes together between the time you choose the "New Game" option to the time you gain control of your character for the first time. When I finish the battle animations and find myself satisfied with the system as a whole, I'm going to be jumping in somewhere in the middle to get the game's story stitched together. Zera/Escheron mentioned that the cutscenes he's been working on as of late are encroaching into Golden Sun-length territory. This could be a good thing.

There's also now no way in hell we'll be able to fit this game onto a normal TI-83 Plus without modifications. There's just too much content we want to add and compression we have isn't doing a good enough job. I mean, it's doing a fantastic job so far, but we just have so much to put in. I'm entertaining the idea of creating a miniature OS that contains just the basic calc functions so I can reasonably distribute this game as an OS update instead of an app. Something that would, on the surface, look just like the TI-OS until you try digging into the menus and realize they're all empty. While I do want people to play this game, I also want their calculator be usable as ... a calculator. This is planned after a release for the TI-83+SE / 84+(SE) monochrome calcs.

The Underdeep will have static floors interspersed between randomly generated floors which will also be randomly, but not repeatably, chosen where fun events can trigger and backstory can be told. Yes. The Underdeep now has its own story to it which further enriches the world of Escheron. I'm not privy to all the details for the same reason I'm not looking too deeply into the scripts for the game: I want to be able to enjoy playing this thing without too many spoilers once we finish coding the game.

TODO
* Remaining skill/magic animations
* Cutscenes
* Specialized transitions
* Update the Underdeep mapgen scripts

So, is there any sincere interest in this project, guys? I keep pushing Iambian to post these updates so the community can be up to speed with our progress, but here we are with little to no community feedback. We practically had to beg for beta testers, and trying to solicit any bug reports was like kicking a dead horse. The whole ordeal only detracted from the game's development. I've since taken on the additional workload of handling all the testing myself.

It gets under my skin, really. Iambian (especially!) and Geekboy1011 have poured their hearts and souls into realizing this project, and very few people can be arsed to offer them any positive encouragement? A little lip service here and there isn't doing anyone any favors. We'd love to see some real feedback for a change.

In case it's not clear, we ain't churning out some BASIC + xLIB "Super Autism Quest!" shit - Escheron is a goddamn behemoth of an ASM app that was forged from the blood of dragons, and you better believe Iambian's busted his balls off to get this game where it is now.

Let me reiterate that this project has come a very long way. All the underlying groundwork is there, and now all we need to do is finish scripting cutscenes and balancing the game's difficulty level. I do apologize that the biggest delay has been finishing up the writing, but Escheron has a novel's length of character interactions. Unless I start dropping amphetamines, I can't type this shit up any faster than I already am. But rest assured that Iambian, Geekboy1011 and I are proactively working our asses off to get this game off the ground.

tl;dr - A little encouragement goes a long way toward boosting morale, especially when games of this magnitude demand such an extensive amount of time and energy that they practically consume your entire life. Also, let me impart a word of advice to other aspiring indie devs: Be prepared to sacrifice your soul in the name of whatever creative vision you may have, assuming you don't want to settle for anything less than a *good* game.


(Also, don't take my little tangents personally. I'm just tired from all this goddamn writing. And I really, really need some caffeine right now.)

I'm definitely interested in this project. It looks amazing so far and it will continue to be. I have been very busy. Not even my own projects are getting much attention because I'm too wrapped up in life right now. If I can find time, I'll definitely text some more

So, is there any sincere interest in this project, guys? I keep pushing Iambian to post these updates so the community can be up to speed with our progress, but here we are with little to no community feedback. We practically had to beg for beta testers, and trying to solicit any bug reports was like kicking a dead horse. The whole ordeal only detracted from the game's development. I've since taken on the additional workload of handling all the testing myself.

It gets under my skin, really. Iambian (especially!) and Geekboy1011 have poured their hearts and souls into realizing this project, and very few people can be arsed to offer them any positive encouragement? A little lip service here and there isn't doing anyone any favors. We'd love to see some real feedback for a change.

In case it's not clear, we ain't churning out some BASIC + xLIB "Super Autism Quest!" shit - Escheron is a goddamn behemoth of an ASM app that was forged from the blood of dragons, and you better believe Iambian's busted his balls off to get this game where it is now.

Let me reiterate that this project has come a very long way. All the underlying groundwork is there, and now all we need to do is finish scripting cutscenes and balancing the game's difficulty level. I do apologize that the biggest delay has been finishing up the writing, but Escheron has a novel's length of character interactions. Unless I start dropping amphetamines, I can't type this shit up any faster than I already am. But rest assured that Iambian, Geekboy1011 and I are proactively working our asses off to get this game off the ground.

tl;dr - A little encouragement goes a long way toward boosting morale, especially when games of this magnitude demand such an extensive amount of time and energy that they practically consume your entire life. Also, let me impart a word of advice to other aspiring indie devs: Be prepared to sacrifice your soul in the name of whatever creative vision you may have, assuming you don't want to settle for anything less than a *good* game.


(Also, don't take my little tangents personally. I'm just tired from all this goddamn writing. And I really, really need some caffeine right now.)

I've been in love with this project since it was Lost Legends, and I think you guys know how awesome you are for making this beast. It's amazing to see it have come this far. In regards to testers, people only have so much free time to volunteer. I know it sucks, but that's just how it is. I've mentioned it before to geekboy, but if you guys really need more testing done I am willing to help. Spoilers will suck, but if it's needed and will help with getting the game out, I'm here.

Yea, it's hard to say at this point. I really do like how everything looks, feels, and plays in the current build though. I do think an in game map to show where you are in the world would be a big help, and I mentioned this to Iambian yesterday. I will also mention that I was a bit worried about how the battle system would play/feel. After playing though I have to say those worries seem to have been unfounded. I like it quite a bit. What will be the real test though will beto see how natural leveling up is as you play through the game, and if the difficulty curve needs to be adjusted any. It'll also depend on what skill set the characters actually have, and how soon they get them in game. We aren't really at that point yet though.

Quick update on my end...

The game is now fully scripted. All of the character dialogs and cutscenes are written, but their actual incorporation into the project make take some time, since working with the cutscene engine is a nightmare in itself. (And luckily, that task falls upon Iambian and Geekboy1011 instead of me, since I'm not as technically oriented with the systems)

That's awesome! Another step, huh? And how recent is the new CSE build on le secret beta build distribution site?

Ya'll keep up the good work! I've been watching this for about a year now, and I can't wait till its finished. It really looks amazing! It really is inspiring to see such a well thought out quality game unfold. The graphics are the best I've ever seen in a calc game. There's a lot of time spent on plot and character development. I wish I had half the talent ya'll have, I'd be programming all the time. This will very likely be the most advanced calculator game that will ever be made.

I do have a question though. I remember ya'll saying it will be too big for the TI-83+, but would it work for the 83+ Silver Edition? I presume it will work fine on the TI-84+. I have all three, I was just wondering.