Planned changes

FnrrfYgmSchnish · Posted: Sat Jul 29, 2006 11:43 pm Post subject: Planned changes

1: Completely new maptiles, which are more along the lines of what you'll find in Fnrrf Ygm Schnish rather than The Kirby Lands.

Floors in Barney's robotic fortress now have texture to them, rather than just blank gray. Walls are now shaded and robotic-looking, rather than just a rectangle of gradient'ed grays. Chests are now more technological looking--a black box with a glass-ish dome thingie on the top and a screen with Matrix-like scrolling green symbols on the front. There will also be more variance in the rooms--some rooms will allow Frankfurter to swim through pools (probably replacing the random water areas in the original) and others will have different machines, holes, spikes, and stuff like that. More of the tileset will actually be used this time.

And the area where the eels live is probably going to change even more than Barney's area does... it looked like absolute crap in the original.

2: More items. There will now be healing items now--different types of soap (soap flakes, soap bars, liquid soap, soap on a rope...) for the two eels, and more "normal" foods (Rat Food and Chicken Sandwiches) for Chaos Rat.

There will now be shops--a Black Market shop somewhere in the robotic base, and a Knife Shop and Soapsmith's Shop in the eel town. The Black Market will sell all kinds of stuff, while the Knife Shop sells weapons for Frankfurter. The Soapsmith's Shop is a bit different--you can buy some Soap Flakes here (or find them somewhere else) and then trade varying numbers of them in for better soap-based items. Soap Flakes only heal 20% of your HP, but some of the better items can heal 33%, 50%, 75%, or even 100% with one use... but you need to trade in Soap Flakes to get them.

All the armor (and the Sword of Stupidity) from the first version will probably stay in, with the addition of some new ones--such as "Ratty Clothes" (ratty as in "for rats," rather than the other meaning) for Chaos Rat and some items that must be stolen from enemies or found somewhere else.

3: More attacks. Frankfurter can now Snag items from enemies in addition to his jumping attack, Chaos Rat can poison enemies with Radiation, and Bob has a much wider variety of healing abilities (including a much-needed Life spell).

More attacks for enemies, too--no more "regular attack over and over again".

Also, elemental types will actually have a point now (some of them weren't even used in the original!), and enemy types might actually be used this time.

Along with all this, battle balance will probably improve, and fights won't be as much of a "use Jump then mash the spacebar" as they were before.

4: Stats will be balanced out a little better. Since Frankfurter and Bob can equip weapons now, you won't get stuck doing single-digit damage to enemies as much as before. Also, enemy stats will get fixed (especially the HP on some of the later bosses).

5: No more "everyone's text gets stuffed into one box." After a few years of using the RPG Maker series (where you can't fit that much text in one box), I've gotten used to NOT doing that, so it'll be easier to read stuff now.

Along with that, there should be more there to read now.

6: More space between bosses. I'll probably put some actual stuff in this time, not just "Random battles, hallway, random water section, boss, item" like it was before.

7: A general boost to the quality of all the graphics (not just the maptiles). I've gotten better at it since the first time I made the game, so there won't be any more critters with no shading whatsoever. Vomit won't be just a random airbrush blob now (it has an EYE!), and the Barney battle will look better (it won't be so easy to tell what part is the background and what part is the enemy).

Speaking of backgrounds, those horrible blurry airbrush things are going to be gone now. Not exactly sure how I'll do the Nyurr/Gyah and Barney fights without them, but I should be able to figure it out.

8: Since most BAMs sound sucktastic when played in the Windows versions of Game and Custom, most of the music (except the basic battle theme and robotic base song, which somehow actually sound *better* as BAMs) will be MIDIfied. I've already got all but two (the title music and "big boss" song) done.

The eel's town music will probably change, instead of being Humoresque No.1 from the default music package. Frankfurter's House might actually have its own music this time, and stuff like that.

9: *gasp* PLOTSCRIPTING! It seems so much easier now that I've tried poking around in RPG Maker XP's scripting language...

So no more "Push a button to advance a frame" fakey text box movies!

10: I might actually add something else in after Barney. Possibly just extra bosses, or possibly an actual extension to the story.

And... that's about it. Except to see "Frankfurter's SUPER Quest for Soap" downloadable before August is over, or maybe September at the latest.

FnrrfYgmSchnish · Posted: Thu Aug 03, 2006 11:23 pm Post subject:

Progress report!

* Frankfurter's House/Eel Reef tileset is (pretty much) done.

* Barney's Base tileset is about half-done. The floor tiles are better now. There are now computers, with various different things on the screen--scrolling text, TV static, or blank (turned off/not working). More random details that didn't exist before, such as windows (on the upper levels).

* There will be at least three or four more tilesets for some of the new areas.

* Healing items exist, and can be dropped by/stolen from a decent amount of enemies (so you don't need to find your way to one of the two food-selling stores in the game just to stock up).

* New attacks for previously-existing characters:
Frankfurter's Snag (steals an item)
Chaos Rat's Chaotic Goo (damage+poison)
Chaos Rat's Shredder (removes enemy's stat-boosters)
Chaos Rat's Radioactive (poisons all enemies)
Chaos Rat's Recharge (recovers a small amount of MP)
Bob's Fizzy Peroxide (cures poison)
Bob's Unstun (cures stun)
Bob's Life Fizz (revives heroes)
Bob's Uberheal (stronger healing spell)
Bob's Barnacid (weak spread attack, more damage vs. "Barnoid" enemies)

* Enemy changes:
Stat-boosters--some enemies will now use attacks that boost their stats
Counterattacks--some enemies, especially certain bosses, will counter certain types of attacks
Healing--A lot more enemies will heal themselves/their allies now.
Anti-Spacebar--Some enemies (including at least one or two bosses) are completely unharmed by basic attacks, so smashing the spacebar won't always work this time.
More attacks--Enemies don't just have the same attacks you have anymore. In the original game there were a FEW attacks like this, but for the most part, if an enemy used it, you can get it eventually too. Not anymore.

* New character: Hadada the wizard. Who may end up being an optional character, depending on how I do certain things.

* Maps are greatly expanded, probably with lower encounter rates to go along with it.
Rather than just making the graphics better and leaving the base's map as-is, it's getting totally redesigned. The first floor is *COMPLETELY* different from the old version already.
There's more interesting stuff to do on the side, instead of just empty rooms or "boss rooms"--you can get some information on Barney's plans through computers, for example.
The robotic base is now 6 floors long, rather than only two, and there's more variety to them--one floor is a weapon factory, another is a genetics lab, and the last floor of the first base is Barney's personal living area (so it looks pretty different from the rest).

* Save points. You can't save within the base (except in a few specific parts), but there are save points, and probably a few places to restore your HP/MP as well. You can still save wherever you want in the eel town, though.

* New area: ancient underground ruins that Barney's base was built close to.

* New area: Barney's backup base, located somewhere very far away from the original one. This is where the final battle with Barney happens.

* Storyline is expanded even more than the maps--Barney's plans are actually explained (why'd he want all that soap in the first place?), Chaos Rat has a reason for being in the base (two reasons, actually), most of the bosses aren't just "GRAHHHH RANDOM THING WANTS TO KILL YOU!" (though a few still are, of course), and so on.