I decided to go from remaking the 2k3 version of Island Sky to go back here. Kind of confusing, but I didn’t think I’d get some help with the battle system so I think the VX  version is what I’ll go with now. I’m still in some planning stages, but I have the general systems planned out already. With some feedback from Paradise Blue, I’m now going to allow some more customization of the characters, and have armors that are more than just upgrades, but that have different effects.

This is how it looks now. I’m going to have tilesets, and some upper tiles for things that don’t fit into neat squares. Should be enough space, but I should still be careful just in case. I can always use panoramas if things don’t go according to plan though, so I’m not terribly worried.

The menu system is not upgraded yet, but I want it to have a Weapon slot, Armor slot, Token slot (this is like the class slot in Paradise Blue), Command slot (same as in Paradise Blue), and accessory (The support slot in Paradise Blue). Your selection of classes is more limited per character (4 classes for each), but none of them overlap. Sabrinas more the light attacker, while Angela is the mage and Karen is the heavy attacker. I want to have these balanced too, but I’ll worry about that during testing phase, and the game is no where near that stage.

Linkz0r made me a nice battle menu!

So I’m getting around to making the item/spell menus and stuff. I’ll anticipate those who will say “The menu pic looks too big for the command” and say that there’s a max of 6 commands so I’ll need that space.

I set up the turns, so now you can pick whatever 2 characters you want and the turns will take place correctly. I haven’t made the enemy turn yet (and that may require some AI eventing) so it just stops at the enemy turn for now.

I have to make the regular attacks too, that can be done without the menu.

Still a long way to go before I can get this battle system up and running.

I got around to making the movement system work. There are still some minor issues but I’ll iron them out once I get away from the hard coded variable values I have. Those are mainly just for testing purposes.

I need to make my own HUD script so I don’t have to go around relying on other scripts, I’ll be working on that later. Oh wait I said that before. Well, I figured since I’m calling the script, I might as well write that now before I have to replace more than 2 call script commands.

The mountain map is finished. Now the Ruins map and the Seaside city map will have to be done so I can be where I was demo-wise. Of course I’d need more than graphical work done though.

I am nearly done with the shop. I thought I was done before, but turns out it shows you the stats of all 4 characters and that doesn’t fit in the menu screen. I’ll have to chop that off. Besides, it tells you the stats of the equipment on top and there aren’t many. You’re limited to buying/holding 9 of each item. You can buy items wherever you are though, so you won’t be in a position to be at the end of the dungeon and run out of items. Even if that were the case, you have 100% escape chance so going out and going back wouldn’t be a pain.

I am working on the battle system now. So far you can select which characters you want to be in battle, there’s a HUD (which is a public script, I may replace this later), I added a limit and movement number to the HUD (they work too), and the 1st character can move around until their movement steps runs out. I have yet to apply it to the other characters though.

Then I have to make an in battle menu. I don’t think this part will be terribly hard, except for thinking of how to do the spell list. I might make these script commands instead of pictures, but I’d have preferred to do it as pictures. I could do them as pictures if I have the players gain the spells linearly. For example, instead of learning a specific spell from a quest, you can gain a spell orb and it’ll teach you the next spell on your list.

Pixel art by Ocean’s Dream

Full name: Cristina Angela Dias
Age: 28
Gender: Female
Weapon: Ruler
Abilities: Teaching, Foreign languages
Likes: Relaxing by the beach, Coffee, History
Dislikes: Math, Snakes, Heights, Worms, Dark, Being alone
Home town: Cuinara, Luzal (birth), Marsall, Azulea (lived for 10 years)
Personality: Angela is her middle name, but everyone calls her that. She’d prefer that to people mispelling her first name. She’s a teacher, and a good friend of Sabrina. She’s nice and outgoing. She’s not as outgoing as Karen but she doesn’t have much trouble talking to others. She is a coward though and afraid of many things. She’s friendly and fun, so people tend to forget that she’s a teacher.

Pixel art by Ocean’s Dream

Full name: Vivian Polonia
Age: 25
Gender: Female
Weapon: Watergun
Abilities: Math, Music
Likes: Thinking of evil schemes, Videogames, Skateboarding, Playing Guitar, Watching TV
Dislikes: Crowds, Standing out, Staying at home
Home town: Seaside City, Azulea
Personality: Vivian is a good friend of Karen, and is related to Sabrina. They’re both gamers so they get along well. The games they play though are very different usually. She’s the quietest in the group usually, but a lot more outgoing when paired with Karen. She’s also more mean and evil than the rest of the group, though Karen and Sabrina tend to enjoy the evil scheme discussions as well.

Art by BlaCkCentuRies

Full name: Sabrina Amber Roselle
Age: 24
Gender: Female
Weapon: Game Controllers
Abilities: Computer skills, Music, Art
Likes: Being lazy, Food, Her computer, Art, Video games, Staying at home
Dislikes: Surprises, Having to leave her room, Art History classes
Home town: Pertida, Azulea (birth)/ Bolvar Woods Village, Azulea (most of her life)
Personality: She’s a very calm girl, but generally shy. Pretty lazy as well, but smart and knowledgeable about computers. It’s hard to get her away from technology. If she doesn’t have a computer around, she’ll bring some other device that has internet or music on it. She values her friendships and likes to enjoy life. Especially by playing videogames.

Art by Ocean’s Dream

Full name: Kalena “Karen” Ramos
Age: 24
Gender: Female
Weapon: Her fists
Abilities: Martial arts
Likes: Bothering people, finding out what goes on in peoples lives, drinking
Dislikes: Learning, having to do work, silence, anything that requires patience
Home town: Seaside City, Azulea
Personality: Karen tends to do what she wants with little fear. She wants to dance around and sing? She does it. She can be unpredictable at times because of this, and sometimes she can embarass the people around her. She’s not patient at all though, and has a poor attention span. She can be fairly fast to temper when things don’t go her way, and she’s into martial arts so you don’t want to upset her. An interesting note: Her name is actually Kalena, but everyone calls her Karen and she prefers Karen, so she tends to forget that her name isn’t actually Karen.

I’m working on the mountain map now. The layout is the same as in the demo pretty much (same with the Park), so that’s mainly a graphical remake.

Example.

I have sprites for all the main characters, so that’s 6 / 18 or so sprites that I need. I have to work on Vivians sprite a bit more costume wise, but otherwise it should be okay. I’ll have some character art up here soon too.

Here are the spritesheets for 2 of the characters (Sabrina and Angela). I have Amelia done as well, so that’s like 3/18 done I think. I made a template so it makes things nicer.