Oathguard - Part One v1.0 - Official Release
With a feather light touch and more than a little relief, mellytan uploaded v1.0 of Oathguard Part 1 as an official RMN download.
It had been a long time coming, and the game was by no means perfect. Despite hundreds of hours of heartache and toil, the reality of the final product did not match mellytan’s flagrant fantasies: whole scenes were missing, bugs and limitations plagued every aspect of gameplay, graphical errors were abound, and veteran voice actor Steve Blum had (politely) declined the role of Sepp von Domtrau.
In short, there were a lot of things about Oathguard Part 1 that mellytan was not proud of. And then there was that niggling feeling that the fact that the words “RPG” and “Maker” had anything to do with the game’s development made it an object of shame, something to be feverishly concealed like so many inside-out Haruhi hugpillow covers.
But there was something to be said of finally finishing something, of having a vision on the astral plane of Imagination and replicating it as closely as possible in reality. There was something very special about having other people play the game and experience that vision, and knowing that people where seeing and feeling exactly what they were intended to.
And so it was with satisfaction that mellytan closed this chapter of the Oathguard story, of her life, and giddily looked forward to the next.
* * *
KNOWN ISSUES
- SFX cuts out randomly; sorry for the awkward silences
- Jamming on the shift key (run button) at the same time you touch an event triggered by On Hero Touch condition will bypass it. If it seems you’ve skipped an event trigger, retrace your steps.
- On that note, do not jam on the shift key during cutscenes if you are playing the game via the RM2k3 editor; you’ll mess up animations
- The canyon ambush battle refuses to add LP to Gela…sorry!
- A lot of “mapping errors”—misplaced/missing/misused tiles, etc
- Stun Baton doesn’t always Daze, despite supposedly having 100% chance of infliction and the enemies being susceptible to it; I guess this is an rm2k3 bug
- No Bocheul/Rhedon portrait; thanks Ghost (jk jk :3)
- The Rhedon multipart battle is pretty phoned in. Sorry!
- Tossed Vorpal Sword and Stun Baton back in at the last minute. Hope they don’t break the game :p
- I changed one of the events that controls adding your weapon’s command in battle at the last minute; did testing, but not extensive. If you have two weapon commands, it means something went wrong…
FONT
If it looks weird, it means you don’t have MS Echoes font installed. It is included in the folder, or available here: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/18221407/MS%20Echoes_0.fon
EXTENDED CREDITS
I didn’t have time to re-do the credits image at the end, so here’s the full version:
Beta testers Eike, Ciel, Ocean, Electrical Kat, PentagonBuddy, argh, alterego, and Dyhalto. Thank you for your time and extremely helpful feedback, you made this game way better.
Thanks to Ghost for making the beautiful character portraits. I forgive you for not getting the last one to me. ;)
Special thanks to Ocean for making Gela’s sword-drawing animation, and designing the tutorial templates!
Thanks to alterego for the cool fanart (see it in the gallery). Now all Oathguard needs is fanfiction and I can die happy…
SOURCES
Graphics, music, and sound sources can be found in the readme included with the game folder.
SAVE PACK
In the game folder, there is a sub folder called SAVES that contain saves pretty much after every battle. Try one of those if you are a baby and can’t get past a certain enemy. They are in chronological order (first one lands you right after the intro, last one I think is right after Domtrau).
CUTSCENES
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktUqUW_bs4E
Here’s a video of all the cutscenes in case you really hate ATB that much.
FUTURE
Oathguard’s story certainly doesn’t end here; this is just the prologue. Something about the next part will be released sometime in Spring/Summer 2013. Sorry for the delay, but I will not have access to my PC for the next 13 weeks (at least), and besides, I need a break from Move Charset Up Right Down and Wait 0.0s….If you want to contact me about the game during this period, your best bet is to get my email or add me on Facebook, please PM if you want my contact info. I would enjoy discussing and idea jamming with others.
Week of 10/8 - 10/12
had technical difficulties with recording a video log so all you get is more development jibba jabba (basically me talking to myself, story of my life etc). yes i know i keep calling it “bocheul battle” even though it’s really a battle against rhedon. it makes sense in context ok
just about as much sense as any anime demons plot can make anyway. good night
Week of 10/1 - 10/5
more battle balancing madness.
my current motto is “doesnt have to be perfect just has to be done”
i’ve been letting go a lot….it’s very zen
*ohhhhmmmmm*
(SPOILER: yes, gela did turn out to have a resistance to the conditions that items inflicted upon her and thats why they missed. IE i am a SiLLY GOOSE)
Week of 9/24 - 9/29
“im workin ok”
gettin into that “agile game design” stuff, with regards to “sprints” or “scrums” lately. so for example, each of the boss battles remaining is a “sprint” that i have one week to do; during this time, i develop it to a level of quality where its doable in one week, yet not a steaming pile of crap. (the trick is, of course, alotting the right time box/deadline to begin with.) quality and development, what a tricky balance!!
long story short, having
- a goal to work towards
- limited time to do it (both in terms of having a deadline and having nO TIME BECAUSE IM BUSY WOW LOOK IM A BUSY ADULT WITH ASPIRATIONS AND GOALS LOOK IM SO IMPORTANT AND MY EXISTENCE IS VERIFIED VERILY THANK YOUetc)
has really helped me accomplish more gamedev during the past 3 weeks than i ever did when i was a shut-in. a wild bear in a cage. now im a wild bear outside of cage who comes back into cave only to sleep and gamedev.
the glow of my computer illuminates the rock den walls
this is cool ok
fck oatguard i gotta sleep zzz
5ever/ago - 9/19 updates
……..h..e……l…l………o……
..h…e……l..l..o…!……….
……..h..ey…….
yes hello. its me. im not dead. just “”“”busy”“”“”“”
been on a bit of a game sabbatical too. mostly “reading books” and “listen to music”
anyway i dont remember exactly what i did lately except implemented/tested a boss battle, but im still working every few days, just even slower than ever.
release goal: release final version before 2012 leaves this mortal coil
ha. ha. like that will happen
but i can dream cant i
8/25 - 9/1 updates
(got this idea from dhm’s starless umbra updates! so simple. why didnt i start doing it sooner.not everything i post has to be prefaced by 349802 words wordspew.
ok this is wordspew but i promise no more next time)
This week I…
- implemented new battle system in all but 2 boss battles
- added custom menu functionality to all maps
- made the rmn gamepage not look as awful as before
- (yes after implementing the new battle system,) waffled more on the battlesystem, between the new and old; now making yet another prototype as a compremise between the two
- and last but not least………….sent a secret info document to a potential new composer who is a very cool composer dude!!!!! :o
well i know i am………..do you know how awful i feel when i realize oathguard’s “soundtrack” is a bunch of stolen (yet well placed~) anime and japgame songs.do you.
probably similar to an average rmvx designer who in an anomalous bout of self-awareness realizes his game is just a bunch of rtp faces
well
not that bad
blurbs: the reckoning
AUGUST 22, 2012
progress is marching steadily ahead…….positively goosestepping i would say
yes so fast in fact that i have realized that i really need to update the oathguard gampage content on rmn to better reflect the current game/series!
so, taking a break from my bug-crushing and battle-balancing, i redid the overall blurb to reflect the fact that the series is about myunh, and more importantly, made one for the prologue. this is important because the prologue a)doesnt involve myunh really, and b)its the rm2k3 part ive been working on for 100000000002438908 minutes and thus the only actual “game” i have made so far. anyway here take it!!
main series blurb
The Oathguard series primarily follows the life of Myunh Yala, an Oathguard who is accused of subversive activity in her home country of Sinolor. Knowing she is indeed partially culpable, and fearing the punishment she faces if convicted, Myunh reluctantly flees to the neighboring Thassadia at the behest of Alrion Yala, her mysterious cousin.
Four years later, the machinations of ambitious men in every nation have caused the continent’s political climate to shift drastically for the worse, and Myunh’s connection to Alrion—perhaps the most ambitious man of all—will take her back to Sinolor, the stage for the upcoming conflict. There, she will confront her past choices, reunite with old friends and foes alike, and find herself becoming more than just a witness to history in the making as she fights to repel a relentless invasion.
While she is initially more or less only along for the ride thanks to her sibling-like relationship with Alrion, various meetings, happenings, and revelations during the course of the series will lead Myunh to take a more active role as a leader.
But whether she finds herself to be a hero by the story’s end is another matter entirely.
prologue blurb, its a little more awkward (if you can imagine)
The Prologue takes place 23 years before Myunh’s return to her homeland, during the height of what would later be called the Fortnight War.
While skirmishes rage elsewhere, a veteran Oathguard of Sinolor has embarked on a mission to apprehend several “Compremised” Oathguards who appear to be defecting to the enemy nation, Heiml, via the treacherous Banda mountain range that forms a natural border between the countries.
Sinolor’s military leadership, preoccupied with the main war effort, issues this otherwise-critical mission with indifference. However, it is of great personal importance to one they have dispatched to complete it—for the most powerful of the targets she relentlessly pursues is also her husband, and she has resolved to end his life if he really is a traitor, in order to protect their daughter. More than anything, though, she seeks the truth.
She is Ordinator Gela Yala. The fugitive is former Ordinator Bocheul Yala. Their daughter Myunh is yet an infant, but the events that follow her parents’ confrontation at Banda Pass will shape the course of her life, among many others’.
The year is 781 S.A., and the continent quietly teeters on the end of an era.
whew! wordy worlds. but i think these best represent the direction and feel of the game’s/series’ narrative. and im all about narrative swag~
anyway its back to “actual” oathgaurd work with me. very excited to release the final demo!!
in the meantime, here is my moment of irc zen
[00:08] <mellytan> its cool being at a point where i forget what my exact original vision was in making some scenes tho, bc like now looking back at them, they are not disappointing at all, whereas at the time i was like “this is not it.this is bad.this is bad. this is bad.i quit” but now i dont remember what nitpick i was so mad about
keep cool my babbies
hey bb
AUGUST 11, 2012
[recited in iambic pentameter to the beat of FinalFantasyTacticsOST.rar]
h..e.y……….i forgot i had this “blag”….its actually kinda cool….
but im kind of torn about how to update people on oathguard stuff
i mean tumblr would be a better tool for random updates but i think everyone who follows this game’s (non)development is on rpgmaker.net
i admire what TFT (http://audiomew.tumblr.com/) does by updating both his tumblr and rmn page for Rainbow Nightmare but man im so lazy and busy and thats just a bad combination
maybe i will just write up draft posts here then post a more coherent version on rmn
ACTUALLY TALKING ABOUT OATHGUARD NOW
so i wrote this huge useless post on my post-closed-beta development shenanigans but i’ll save us all some trouble and just say this:
still making steady progress
the key to keeping my sanity and moving things forward lately has been ruthlessly dumping cool ideas/plans/features that aren’t 110% necessary to the release of the game.
this, as any developer knows, is a very painful and soul-crushing yet ultimately liberating and very necessary process
oathguard’s final version will not be pretty and that constantly rankles my perfectionist sensibilities
but with this “lets get this done i just want it done i dont care anymore gogogogogo” mindset i’ve been able to focus on the critical bug fixes and elements that are absolutely necessary for the game to run smoothly from beginning to end, and i hope that’s what matters
also some things “IRL” have come up that have made finishing oathguard part 1 ASAP absolutely imperative, and that’s helped a bit
so….hopefully…..this month……oathguard public beta………….
see you then digital cowboy
[Game of Bugs][S02E17][1080p][HDTV].mkv
APRIL 4, 2012
as seen in rm20xx
well, i continue to let myself be terrorized by my ever-expanding list of bugs. Yes I often go through and tackle a good chunk of them but end up finding 10 more for each that i fix. So i suppose the list is more like a One Step Forward Two Steps Back Accordion (buy one of your own for $400 at Guitar Center, eligible for installments paying plan).
i’ve also been taking a lot more on “”IRL”“” that I really have to dedicate a lot of time and brainspace to, so it’s hard to immerse myself in the gamenetherworld without falling behind in other areas. (carefree days at school when i could zone out during lectures and scribble “oathguard skillz” notes and dungeon designs in the margins of my notebooks seem so far away….)
Just know that production will never cease until I’m done….and stay frosty
-mellytan
FEBRUARY 4, 2012 -
ugh
Feeling very “uninspired” today. Like the kind where you sit in front of your computer for 3 hours and have nothing but bleary eyes and a dry throat and an existential crisis to show for it.
(actually that’s a lot of physical and emotional phenomena to get out of something isn’t it)
I’ve just really been stuck on designing this last battle of the Oathguard demo. Like I don’t want it to be Attack Bolt 2 Observe Battle Observe Battle etc. I want it to have a cool mechanic like my other boss battles do. But the well is dry…the tank is empty…the thriller is gone. So I feel like I just lost a whole day I could have used to bring this release forward…
Hopefully reading some old design docs and playing some inspiring games will get things going again.
Confessions: The Hit Album
FEBRUARY 2, 2012 -
Forgive me reader for I have sinned…
I confess: I didn’t work much on Oathguard this past weekend (Saturday/Sunday evening is my typical game dev work time), and naturally forgot to update this blog as well. And what little work I did do for like 15 minutes I barely remember. It’s like my memory of that time was smudged with a blur tool and I can’t hit Ctrl+Z. (Do you ever find yourself itching for keyboard shortcuts when you’re reading/writing paper media? …….no me neither I don’t know who does that weirdos probably aheheheh….look a new paragraph!!)
Anyway, I’m sure I’ll remember what I did if I start prattling on and on about it. Ok so I think I worked on…
- made some animebabbe sprite close her eyes in a cutscene (she’s on her deathbed, i’m trying to appeal to the subset of shut-in anime fans who like that don’t you see)
- laughed at an old overlay; then deleted it with extreme prejudice
- cleaned up equips/item descriptions (this had needed doing but i avoided it for like a year because who cares)
- revamped/cut mercilessly big parts of the script
Hey, so I actually did do things and stuff!! Cool. Another step closer to a new release! （゜ω゜）ｖ
Next time, I’ll report on something somewhat less asinine! Take it easy.
-mellytan
Self-Cremation: The Next Step in Human Evolution
- Enemies turn into item boxes upon death. The parade of messages and tutorials at the end of battles was getting excessive with nonconsensually shoving so many item-get notices and text boxes in the player’s face.
- The encounter system now features a “freeze” system that prevents more than one enemy from chasing you at once and messing up the battle/postbattle events; when one enemy is chasing you, all others freeze and cannot be engaged. I know having more than one enemy gang up on you and attack in a big group would be cooler (ala Crimson Gem Saga, which was the original model for my encounter system), and yes of course it’s possible to do in RM2k3, but it would just take too much time because of the nature of RM2k3.
- I am not very good at spriting but I love adding animations in situations where I think they can enhance the feel of the game. So I added some needed animations to the cutscenes and in the field, yes including that silly jump-down animation as seen in the video.
More on what I did during that Winter Wonderland of productivity—and continue to do, however slowly—next time.
——
An(other) Introduction
JANUARY 26, 2012 -
Hello gentle reader. Here plastered across the screen before you is the latest in my string of attempts to inform the world at large (however little of that world cares) about the progress of my RPG Maker 2003 project, Oathguard. Deja vu creeps across my mind like tiny green slimes.
As ever, brevity and consistency are my goals. As ever, they will probably not be easily attainable. But I hope that focusing on making periodic 10-minute micro-entries whenever I work on Oathguard—instead of publishing my usual Iliad-length posts only once in a blue moon—will keep those looking forward to the release informed, and that posting briefly like this will sustainable for me in the long run. Perhaps I may even be a Jordan Mechner about it and occasionally confide in you my hopes and dreams amidst an entry about player-NPC interaction in snowy villages.
Hopefully, with a little time and content and a more “Oathguard-looking” layout, this will turn into a comfy place for me to tell you about my irrational creative obsession de jour of the last 4 years. Take off your coat and stay a while…
——
Sample of Jordan Mechner’s Journals During Prince of Persia’s Development
Broken Moon Development Blog (Example of a good dev log layout tailored to the subject)
