26 Apr 2024

My indecisive ass can't decide if I should make a battle system or not, I already added and removed a battle system at least SIX times since I started making this game. It's not that is hard to do (it kinda is) it's just that... it doesn't feel right, you actually shouldn't be fighting anyone. I can't shake the feeling that I need to add some kind of action element to the game because otherwise people might think it's boring.

The main aspects of the game are the aesthetics the prerendered backgrounds carry, the music, and the story itself (hopefully, because getting feedback for something I don't want to spoil is hard), I often think of Apfel Project as a "Visual novel-Walking simulator", and not in a bad way. "Adding a battle system will feel crammed in!", I think everytime I choose to remove the battle system, yet some months pass by and I decide to implement a battle system again?!

Yes, this game is by definition an R-P-G, a Role-Playing-Game, you play the role of Apfel, and sometimes Blume and sometimes blahblahblah... traditional RPG mechanics are... guess what... battles! But I really just want the player to move around and unravel the narrative of the game. Maybe I'm just overthinking, could a "walking simulator" actually be fun to play? Let's be honest, the graphics are really not that impressive, even if my skills have improved this past year, I still think they are kind of mediocre.

Anyway, if I hold on to this decision for a couple more weeks I'll release the battle theme song I made which I think is fucking amazing, to be honest.

TLDR: "Oh no, the battle system doesn't feel natural, I'm going to remove it... but... wait... now there's no action! Oh no! I'm pretty sure that people don't want to play a walking simulator, they will think my game is boring!"

To be honest, I should just learn how to ignore others' opinions and make a game that I myself would play.

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24 Apr 2024

Still thinking about what kind of battle system would fit into Apfel Project, I feel like turn based combat has been done to death and it's boring, after all, my main objective is to make the Apfel Project a game that I would enjoy playing myself.

It also has to be, like, "customizable", I don't know how to explain it but to put it in a way, you don't find as many mods for custom Dragon Quest battles as, for example, Undertale. Undertale did this amazingly, it has a simple, yet broad battle system with a lot of potential for customization.

I also want to implement alchemy into the battle system, obviously. I have to get out my head that alchemy is only; earth, fire, water and air, alchemy has a lot of interesting things that can be used for a battle system yet I can't think of none.

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24 Mar 2024

Making some progress with the prerendered backgrounds, I have done like 20 out of 45 I have on my to-do list (There will probably be way more than 45 but hey, not bad.)

Thinking about that, not only I have to make backgrounds, but animations too... That's going to be a lot of work; Battle animations (Which I don't know how will I make them work since they are prerendered, and putting in there a battle background is going to be hell.) Scene animations, pixelart animations... all this without taking into account all the other things like coding, making the music, the sprites, translation... I'll get this done, sooner or later, it's too late already to give up on this project after the immense amount of hours I spent on it.

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07 Mar 2024

I decided to get all the Apfel Project backgrounds and rescale them down by 50% so they actually match the pixelart size, and to be honest, I like how they look now, plus, the file size got decreased by 75%.

Then I remembered that I wanted the overworld sprites to be 3D prerendered sprites and they will probally not look as good at 50% of their original scale. Such a shame, since making 3D animations is waaaaay easier than pixelart animations. Who knows, maybe I'll revamp the graphics for ACT 2 & 3, for now, they'll stay pixelart.

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04 Mar 2024

I spent all of yesterday making this low-poly Apfel model, which only has 662 triangles! I will probably use it for the prerendered battle sprites, though at first, I was planning on using it for the overworld sprite. I've been thinking about switching to a 3D prerendered model instead of the pixel art look. I'm still considering it.

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29 Feb 2024

I'm planning on revamping how the battles will look so they are actually 3D within GameMaker capabilities. For the demo I will code it all by myself, but after the crowdfunding ends I will look for coding help. So if by any chance you're an experienced 3D GameMaker developer capable of porting the battle system, hit me up.

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28 Feb 2024

I've created a new section to track the progress of Apfel Project. Honestly, seeing all those numbers is kind of depressing. I would have thought I'd have more tasks completed by now.

Also, in May I'm attending Animayo, it's an event where a lot of animators gather. It's an opportunity for me to distribute my portfolio to professionals who may consider hiring me. So, yea, I'm working on my portfolio to have something more professional to give them. This might slow development... Unless the animations I create are directly Apfel Project related.

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28 Feb 2024

I'm making an HTML5 mockup for the battle system so people can try it easily and get some feedback. Coding this is honestly hard as fuck LOL.

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27 Feb 2024

Apfel Project ACT 1 development is progressing quite well. I finish a couple of backgrounds per week, and I'm polishing the new battle system, which I think is very neat. I don't want to make any promises, but I genuinely aim to release ACT 1 this year. Releasing it in 2025 would be, uh, rather unproductive on my part.

There are a lot of projects that I want to start working on, like the Sinesperia webcomic, now that Nekoweb got released. But I gotta finish Apfel Project first!

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