The Far Reaches Webcomic

Hey all! For ages I’ve been talking about how I’ve wanted to do a game, and how I’ve had a hard time with it because of my health. Well, the last few days I’ve been feeling a bit better and have been able to make more progress on my RPG Maker custom adventure RPG engine for the game. As alluded to I’m using a program called RPG Maker XP as the basic game engine and it’s really great to use for making classic retro-style RPGs like the old Final Fantasy games for the SNES. I’ve got some screenshots of what I’ve been doing. Almost all the graphics are place-holders, except the 3d stuff and the cool cyberpunk city graphics. Those I did. But there’s a ton of graphics that come with RPG Maker and even a ton more on the web, which has really helped put together my prototype demo that you see in the screenshots. You’ll probably notice that there’s typical fantasy characters in the battle screenshots, for example. You may also notice some classic Star Trek characters I did and threw in for fun in a couple of the screenshots.

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I’ve added a ton of customizations and new features to the game engine, most of which were programmed by the awesome and talented people in the RPG Maker community. I’ve customized these scripts and add-ons, and even programmed several of my own. It’s taken me over a year, off and on, to come up with the current game engine I have now. In addition to the retro cute SNES style looks, the game engine currently features:

• Cute chibi-style characters and graphics
• A simple and intuitive mouse interface, as well as keyboard controls
• Cool looking dialog portraits and avatar battler sprites for the menu and battle screens
• The ability to do both in-game cut-scenes and “comic-style” story cut-scenes
• Detailed monster or enemy graphics
• A fully-featured Final Fantasy-style real-time active battle system with limit breaks
• Weather and climate effects
• Day/night effects (if I choose to use them)
• A time and date system allowing events to happen on certain dates or times of day or night. It also allows the day/night effects, weather, and climate to change depending on the type of area and the time of year in the game (again, I’m not sure I’ll end up using this feature in my current game project, but it’s there if I want to use it)
• A mini-map
• HUD with character health, level, skill points, and experience meters
• A skill system with both battle and non-battle skills and abilities (in a fantasy game this would be like a magic system, but since this is a scifi game and I hate magic, the skills are probably more like special mutant or super-human powers (or maybe something like that) and are especially special maneuvers, abilities, and techniques characters can use in and out of battle. (e.g. a medic can heal, and an officer can use special battle techniques.)
• A map screen showing the current area
• Be the Captain of a starship that you can teleport up to and explore the interior
• Starships are like a special character that has it’s own weapons, shields, armor, and modules or upgrade slots, as well as its own statistics, and special skills
• Explore space and star systems in your starship, traveling between far off worlds.
• Starship combat system (this works basically like the character battle screens, only starships have special “skills” that are like special weapons, maneuvers, etc. unique to ships)
• “Beam” down to planets or stations and board other ships to explore and do missions (This is currently in my prototype demo)
• an adventure game style item-based puzzle system (e.g. find items and try to use them on objects, hotspots, npcs, etc. to solve puzzles like in classic point and click adventures)
• Combine items to solve puzzles or to craft new and better equipment
• Dialog choices that may effect aspects of the game or how npcs may respond to you like in many story-driven adventure games
• name your characters and ship
• characters and ships can be upgraded and advance in level with experience
• skill trainers where you can purchase new skills for your characters
• fun and detailed 3d and hand-painted backgrounds (eventually when I start the actual production of the game…when I’ve actually written the story and know what graphics and backgrounds I’ll need. )
• a character statistic system with abilities that effect your character’s prowess in battle and in other things
• control a party of four characters at once, but you can have up to eight characters in all and choose who will be in your party
• A simple quest journal to keep track of what you need to do next
• An award and achievements system where you can gain a higher score and special awards by exploration and completing quests
• High quality original music (I’ve actually composed and mixed some nice original music myself. I’ll have to share some of it. I’ll do more custom music when I have more of an actual game ready and not just a prototype)
• Gain ranks and titles as you advance your characters, e.g. rise from an Ensign to a Fleet Admiral. Other characters gain different ranks and titles depending on their class
• And a lot more stuff I can’t remember off hand

With the exception of the original custom graphics (they’re all place-holder or test graphics in the screenshots), which I can’t start making until I write the story, all of these features have actually been added to the game engine now. They’re not a list of what I want to add. They’re finished and in my little prototype demo. There’s actually a lot more features that I’m playing with and I’m doing a lot of bug testing and experimenting in my prototype demo to see what I like and what will work for my game, but the engine is pretty much finished. Whether my first game will actually use all these features is still in question as I haven’t really written the story yet. But they’re there if I want to use them. Woohoo!

Right now I want to work an a short episode game for Legends from the Void, like a demo game with a complete short story. Btw, LftV is more like a brand name like Final Fantasy or Star Wars. I made it to encompass lots of different “legendary” scifi tales, no matter the format. So I could make comics, games, fiction, etc. and it would all be under the brand of “Legends from the Void”. It’s a cool and different name, and I’ve got the domain name, so I want to make the most of it. In fact, there is a legendsfromthevoid(dot)com you can check out though there’s not much there at present. I don’t want to do much there yet until I have more info to show.

So that’s my progress so far. Of course the most important thing in a adventure RPG like this is the story and the characters. I’ve got a bunch of different premises, which I’ll share another time, but this will give you a good idea on what I’ve been up to as to my game project.

I’ve been working on so many potential projects and as is my usual, haven’t made up my mind on which to go with. However, I have been trying to work out the Far Reaches story in a more solid story-driven way with Gilrec as more of a real hero, though still not the brightest star in the galaxy   However, I don’t think I could keep up with another webcomic. The scheduling and deadlines are too much for me right now. But also I’d like to do the complete graphic novel as an ebook and sell it on Drivethrucomics.com, then perhaps release on this sight a little at a time. The thing is that doing a regular webcomic just isn’t a good way to make an income for most people, but having a graphic novel to sell as an ebook which can be read on almost any device seems like it would be better. Even so I’m not entirely sold on doing another comic. There’ s just no money in it, and while I’m disabled at the moment, I’d really like to work up to making my own income.

That’s why I’m also considering make TFR into an adventure RPG using RPG Maker. I’ve mentioned this before, I’m sure. The problem is that there’s several types of games I’d like to make but I can’t decide on what story and premise I want to do. As you’ve probably read, I really really would like to do a game, and doing a TFR adventure would be pretty fun. But there’s also a Legends from the Void story, and a space faring story where you are captain of a starship and can do missions in space and them teleport down to planets and explore and adventure in space and on the ground sort of like Star Trek but in an original scifi world with a cyberpunk meets neo-Victorian flare.

Still, I feel like I owe it to all the loyal readers of TFR to do the completed story, only in a far better and improved way. I’ve got lots of ideas and I think it would be awesome. Either way I think I’m going to write up the entire TFR story in a more complete way and then decide if I want to do it. It’d be pretty cool to play as Gilrec and Bentley in an epic adventure that TFR was always meant to be. But I don’t want to talk about it more or make promises when I’m not sure my health will allow it.

Howdy all! I’ve been playing various games lately (too many, some might say ) and came across this really neat Indie game on Steam. It was 50% off and after playing the demo I just couldn’t resist. I can almost never resist a 50% off sale…except when I can (like if it’s some icky violent game with creepy graphics and blood and gore for example, I mean, eww).

Bastion, the first game by Supergiant Games, is absolutely beautiful to look at. The graphics have a colorful painted look to them and I just love that. Besides that, it’s a pretty fun game to play. Oh, wait! Did I mention what kind of game it was? No, I keep forgetting stuff like that. Forget my own name next. I know it begins with a “G” and is kind of a weird German name (no offense to any weird or unweird Germans out there). Um, what was I saying…

Quite! Bastion is an action RPG adventure game and has got to have one of the most unique flavors I’ve ever seen in a game of this sort. It’s not the typical fantasy with elves and all that ballyhoo, but has kind of a steampunk feel to it. You play “the boy.” I don’t think he has a name, unless it’s a weird German name…but I doubt it. What’s really cool is that the ground literally forms into place as he walks through the levels. So that as he’s walking, the level is actually falling into place in front of him. Apparently the world was nearly destroyed during something referred to as “the calamity” and it’s the boy’s job to rebuild the world.

One of my favorite and most unique aspects of the game is the narrator. He has this cool bluesy sort of voice and he actually narrates everything you do in the game. You’d think this would be really annoying after a while but it’s done so well that the narrator seems to keep you company on your journey and tells the story of the game. Besides that he can be pretty funny at times. One of my favorites is when you fall off a ledge for the first time the narrator says in his smooth, deep, bluesy voice: “Then the boy falls to his death…naw, I’m just fooln’.” Then the boy reappears on the platforms. It was actually funnier in the game than how I’m telling it now. I’m always so serious in my writing I think I fail to capture the proper funness of a game, if “funness” is the word I want.

The game world itself is beautiful with floating islands of land falling into place as you go. The game play is fast and fun and I really liked the mouse and keyboard interface, except that using the W,S,A,D keys trying to walk in an isometric world took me a little getting used to, but then I’ve never been very good at action games. I’m more of a mash the keys, click the mouse like crazy, and basically brute force kind of player. I lack the subtlety of the skilled action game affectionado, but I still have fun anyway.

I always think music is a vital element of any game and Bastion has a great soundtrack with a sort of…well…it’s hard for me to describe. It’s got a bit of blues in it, and a lot of stomp and get-go and oomph and stuff…sorry to get all technical. I actually liked it so much I got the soundtrack, which was also 50% off on Steam, which I felt was very radical.

Anyway, if you’d like to check the game out, you can find the official website here. Check out the demo to get a good feel of the game. It’s a unique and fun experience with an intriguing and mysterious story (though my bet is that the Butler did it – I’m betting everything on the Butler ) and it’s amazing to me that it’s an indie game.

Hey all! As many of you know I’ve been really playing with the idea of making a computer game. It’s always been kind of this obsession with me long before I had wanted to do a comic, but I’ve constantly been in search of a good game engine.

Now I like two kind of games: classic style point-and-click adventure games, and RPGs, especially and mainly non-fantasy ones like EVE Online or Star Trek Online. As for adventure games there’s been some fun ones lately that I’ve played, such as “The Next Big Thing”. I’m currently playing “Kaptain Brawe”.

But now wait a minute. I like playing games, but to be honest the games I most want to play don’t exist. That’s why I want to make one, to be able to make the games I most want to play.

So I’ve found a really cool game engine that doesn’t require programming knowledge. I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned it before or not. It’s called Visionaire Studio. There’s a demo that you can try so if you’re curious about making your own adventure game, third person or first person, then check it out.

I’m only just getting into it but I really like it so far. My biggest challenge, though, is whether I can write a story and puzzles suitable for a third person adventure and whether I can make the suitable graphics for it.

One thing I look for in a game engine is whether it has been used for commercial projects. In the case of Visionaire it was used to create the professional game called “The Whispered World,” which you can find on Steam and other instant download stores. The game itself isn’t one that I want to play, despite having top-notch graphics, but it really shows what can be done with the game maker. It was also used to make “Eko Strange New World” that’s available on the Adventure Shop.

Now if I can come up with a short adventure scenario, then I’ll work on making a demo and seeing what you all think. The big challenge I’m facing now is simply coming up was a main character and setting that I’d like to use, particularly one that involves cool cyberpunk cities. Of course, that’s if I can ever stick with an idea long enough to develop it. I’m so indecisive and keep vacillating between ideas. I won’t mention them now because I don’t want to…well not jinx it per se, but not to take the creative energy out of the idea.  Now I just have to take my occasionally fluffy mind and write.