Housepets! Tails of Babylon! * Developer's Thread *

[GameCobra]

A basic idea of what accessories would do: Give bonuses that armor and stuff wouldn't cover, but mostly bonuses that prevent things like status elements, give magic protection, give special in-battle commands, grant extra gold and EXP and increase critical strike.

[D-Rock]

You know, some of the collars provide specific bonuses already, so if one wanted to, they could stack bonuses to really cover "inadequacies", like maybe give Tarot huge boosts in attack. That would of course mean that one would have to give up magic bonuses, and since her physical ability isn't that high to begin with, probably a waste.

That's just an example, really. Though a challenge section would be interesting to implement where only specific characters could be used and one had to set up a lot of their gear to cover certain aspects. Maybe that could be the suggested Heaven Coliseum.

[GameCobra]

There will be a few accessories that will do that such as battle bracelets, but considering that the majority of characters are melee-based, i plan on just making a few.

HOWEVER!

I don't mind you guys if you wanna add those kind of accessories. :3

[D-Rock]

Alrighty.

I'll be honest, though, even with Kingfan's list, I'm at a loss. Most of it is clothes, something that I can't really do yet. I didn't really like how the Spot (Superdog) Cape came out, and almost feel that it should be redesigned as a separate collar and cape. Add in the fact that it's incomplete, and I feel that I don't have a decent direction to go off of.

[Unusuallynamedperson]

really? I thought a cape would be easy to do, so I made a small jpeg of one

[D-Rock]

It's just that what I made doesn't feel up to par, and I've never drawn cloth before.

[Unusuallynamedperson]

yeah, I think you're right. no collar and it'll look better. no tag either.

[CHAOKOCartoons]

I have returned, what is my primary objective?
...
I mean hi, I remembered I still have many things to draw for this game, and I'll do another batch today! Thanks for making all those lists, it's super helpful

[Unusuallynamedperson]

who? me GC or Rock?

[CHAOKOCartoons]

I was speaking in general but I was referring to anyone who made a list of any of the characters/villains, there where many.

[D-Rock]

Yeah, you've missed a lot. As you've mentioned elsewhere, life does that.

Weird thing to admit, it makes me realize what little of a life I have. I'm here just about daily. I have a job, but once that's done, it's right back home. Unlike my older brother, I don't typically hang out with others in my free time.

[CHAOKOCartoons]

Alright I know I said I'd draw a whole batch, but I foolishly decided to start with Teox thinking "Oh, this will be easy, he only has 3 colors in his palette!" and 3 hours later my hand now hurts

I thought I might as well make Teox a boss that takes up the whole screen to emphasize how much trouble you're in, plus there's not very many of these in ToB (The Monolith, Nue&Olde "Final Form", and Barghest "Final Form" are probably the only other ones I'll make this big). I'll have to draw some more bosses and enemies tomorrow, no way I'll be able to continue drawing for now, he was WAAAY more detailed than I anticipated.

[D-Rock]

Dude looks incredible!

...Wait, does he have hair here? Anyway, I'll make a banner for him after work if I don't drop dead tired when I get home.

[CHAOKOCartoons]

In a few shots of the comic, you can see that part of his headpiece has a lock of hair/fur hanging from the back, along with a cape. Sometimes the hair piece isn't in some panels, and it isn't there when he's sitting with Sabrina (without the headpiece) so it's probably not hair. Regardless, it looked cool, so I kept it in

[D-Rock]

Just checked and you're right. It does seem to be a part of the head dress. So, what should his drop be? First thought his blade, despite it being ethereal, maybe the real one was recovered as part of the exhibit, or a piece of the treasure.

[Fireball]

Hi! can i help for the game?

In what can i help?

[Unusuallynamedperson]

that looks really cool Chaoko! what are you good at Fireball? Art? story? music? programming? I'm sure our programmers could use help...

[SuperStar]

UP, Chaoko has been doing the main art for the whole project for awhile now.

[Unusuallynamedperson]

yeah, I know. But despite that, it's not a bad thing to have more and it's not like were paying anything for it.

[D-Rock]

I think what Star meant was that we could use more help in the art department. Star and Chaoko, and I think Kitsune mentioned this, are doing the programming. Enemy art, all Chaoko, as well as sprites and maybe animations.

Anyway, Fireball, whatever way you think you can help, it would be appreciated, from programming, art, or even suggestions.

Also,

[CHAOKOCartoons]

The only thing I'd be comfortable with other people doing art wise is the sprites and the portraits, as all you need to do is know how to edit well and I can probably teach that (just for the portraits). The sprites would need to be done by someone who is good at sprite work though. Besides that and the weapons/items, all of the art kinda has to be done by me for consistency in style. If someone else where to take up enemy art, I'd have to teach them my style, and I kinda hate teaching people stuff

[Unusuallynamedperson]

not necessarily they could figure out your style on their own, but not to worry Chaoko...because I highly doubt someone else will start on enemy art. especially after all this time.

[D-Rock]

Boss drops for Teox.


In hindsight, should have added a sort of "aura" around the ethereal version. Which version do we want to use?

[Unusuallynamedperson]

I am thinking the first looks better...it seems more detailed

[D-Rock]

It's actually a lazy attempt at detail. Used a few different effects to get it to look like that; frosted glass on the main blade with a solid color on a layer underneath, dream effect on the outer "spikes."

[Unusuallynamedperson]

yes, but the player won't know that...they may notice if you just shroud the other one with an aura tho.

[D-Rock]

Still think the right one would look better with the aura, though. It's not too detailed because that's how Chaoko drew it up.

So yeah, I'm taking the designs that Chaoko has been submitting as the basis for the boss drops, especially with Efran's Spear, as I never conceptualized Efran with a weapon. Blu-e was someone I needed to speak with Chaoko about, though, as I had nothing until he suggested the scented car freshener.

[CHAOKOCartoons]

And I drew it up like that cause that's how it's drawn in the comic.

Also, you need me to add an aura? I can do that really easily.

[D-Rock]

Sure, go ahead, it's late for me and I have work (I think, my boss didn't post the schedule before I left work on Sunday, though that's normal. At least working on a Tuesday is a safe assumption).

Also, maybe we should make sure if the ethereal blade will be the drop. Kind of cool to think of the cast keeping a spiritual sword on hand, though.

[D-Rock]

Well, got the Spot (Superdog) Collar.

[Unusuallynamedperson]

Looks fine, but are you still adding the cape then?

[D-Rock]

Maybe eventually.

[D-Rock]

Well, have no idea how good this is, but here's an attempt.

tybalttestsheet.png (4.61 KiB) Viewed 8332 times

Simple color swaps of Marvin's sprite sheet. It also imported Res' hands and feet instead of going through entirely making them new. At best, a beta attempt, as I didn't bother to try to make the alterations to the tail and the really black parts of his bangs.

[D-Rock]

... you know, I know that I was granted permission to post multiple times if I have something new to show, but it still feels really off.

Anyway, got these for accessory ideas.

Shirts based directly off of the belly shirts that Rick has for sale over here.

I cheated so **** hard on these. while the shirt pattern itself is my own making, I just copied the "belly" designs from the website.

I've been talking to Star and Cobra about their possible uses. Suggestions they've sent me are;

Grant the wearer the ability to use the weapon type of the corresponding pet
Alter the appearance of the character for the shirt to actually show up on the sprite (I already shot this down, though)
Grant the wearer the LV 1 stats and first learned ability in a New Game+

That's really about it. As for the last shirt, I had my own idea. It could be the drop from Bahamut. As for what it would do, I had a thought from a Megaman game I played; it would reduce the users max health all the way down to one, but grant an experience boost or even heightened attack and special attack. One-hit Wonder right there.

Speaking of which, got an image for what the player could interact with to buy them.

merchandisepage.png (1.3 KiB) Viewed 8297 times

Star, maybe these two computers could be together, the one with an image of the forum being an Easter Egg as mentioned before, this one where they could actually buy it. I made a HEAVILY modified image of the merchandise tab and shrunk it down to fit on the computer.

[CHAOKOCartoons]

I always liked the idea of "special condition items or gamemodes". You can probably make whole runs based on those items alone. I'm totally down for these items.

[Saturn381]

Nice job with the shirts, D-Rock.

[D-Rock]

Alright, finally something.

This was used as the base.
Before anyone says anything, I asked for permission from the original artist before redrawing this. Just make sure that Rittik-Designs is given proper credit on this thing.

Here is Heaven's Tears. Suggested perk; boost in defenses and quicker recovery time from status effects. I'll think about making rings and necklaces into more accessories. Already found a few in one of the HP books. I think it was book 4 that had a thing on the back with a cutout of King that one could decorate. I could make a few based on some of those.

[GameCobra]

Sure thing. =)

Now lately i been thinking of an idea: I want to start making a database for monsters like i mentioned a few weeks back, but here's what's slowing me down: We need a firm grip on what stages this game will have and how strong these stages will be before i start coming up wit ha good list for these. Once we get that sorted out, i can start coming up with a list of possible monsters for the game in certain areas and start seeing how this will work out.

Now to be fair, we don't have anyone that's in charge of level design as far as i know. who mostly does the stages again?

[D-Rock]

That would be Chaoko doing level design. It was supposed to fall on Kingfan, but life tends to take a lot of time. We have the list of bosses to work off of, that's the most bare-bones map we have at the moment.

By the way, working on some rings. I decided to see if I can make different birthstones to start with, being at twelve. I had the idea that they would either resist or apply a certain status change. I might make the gems simply recolors or go with a handful of different designs (won't likely make twelve unique gem cuts). Let's see what ends up happening.

[GameCobra]

Alright, then i guess the best thing i can do is focus on the mall monsters and items and play around with the accessory stats.