Weekly Blog 12/17/22

Got a lot to talk about this week, with Sweet Expedition, Dawn of Djinn, and even a bit with Overseer of the Elements itself. So why don't we just dive into it?

Paper Mario

Feels like I've kind of been all over the place with Sweet Expedition this week. Before I dive any deeper into that though, I figured it's a good time to remind you all that I've been doing a bi-weekly commentary series doing a full commentated playthrough of Sweet Expedition in it's current build. So if you're curious seeing more of the mod and some behind the scenes commentary on it, highly recommend checking it out. Obviously, it contains spoilers, but if you've already played the Game Jam release you won't really be spoiled on anything new plot-wise TBH.

Part 2 was just released last Tuesday, so you can expect part 3 to go up the last Tuesday of the month.

But I figured I should bring that up first because in part 2 I believe I mentioned that I had ideas of implementing an alternative way to get an otherwise missable key-item if you're a jerk and don't help Kolorado. Since the Candy Star dealer is a key factor to this idea, I spent an embarrassing amount of time this week working on updating things tying to him. The idea I had took way longer than I hoped to get working and even then it's implemented a bit more roughly than I would have liked. But it works.

While I was wasting my time on things I've been ignoring because they frustrate me, I also decided to resume work on a "new" item for Sweet Expedition tied to Candy Star. I teased it a bit in the playthrough that the current item was more of a placeholder to a more powerful version I wanted to use instead. It also took an embarrassing amount of time to implement, but I did it. It became a lot easier, when I realized Paper Mario Dark Star already made practically the same item I was trying to make, and I didn't have to completely rework the item tables like Dark Star did in order to use it... so I used the code and made the item.

It's still subject to change a little as I tweak it for balancing. But it probably won't be by much, as it is supposed to be a super powerful item in exchange for being super rare. Trading Star Candies will likely be the only way to get one, so you'll have to make it count. Assuming it doesn't murder you in the process. I don't know, as tempting as letting it hurt Mario makes the item feel too similar to Dark Star's Bomb Fruit, it is not only a fun effect for an item, but the drawback helps make it feel more balanced and helps justify how powerful it is.

Golden Sun

I actually did make some progress on Dawn of Djinn. I guess I got bored of working on classes, so I decided to mess around with bosses a bit. I do plan on copying a lot over from Version 1 into Second Mix since the class and Psynergy updates alone are going to add a lot of new elements into Second Mix. But I'll want to spend some time playtesting to make sure the new classes/Psynergy don't make those fights too easy or brutal (at least for the "normal" difficulty) and I'm sure I'll want to sprinkle some new twists to the fights along the way.

I bring this up because just the other day I was messing around with the first boss of Golden Sun. The bandit/Thief. There was the temptation to just copy it over from Version 1, but I did take some time to try and better implement some of the ideas I had for the fight. At this point, I honestly can't tell if it's better or worse than version 1, some features are implemented better than version 1, but it comes at a bit of a cost of the main gimmick of the fight not being as straight forward.

So basically, I made the calling ally ability an item they can use and that comes at the cost of them of not using the bombs they did in Version 1 in the same way. This makes the fight more dynamic and interesting, but I was pretty proud of how Version 1 was built perfectly for using the fight for teaching the player about new consumable items in Dawn of Djinn as party members came with the perfect number of items by default to counter the amount of times they could status you. Again, there's pros and cons between the two versions and I'm conflicted of which I like better. Especially since the fight still suffers a similar issue of "take it too slow and it gets overwhelming but power through it and the fight is too easy" that version 1 had, something I thought I'd fixed with the new ways I'm handling this version of the fight.

I think it's "good enough" for now and if I come up with a better idea later on, I can just go back and adjust it. Plus, I'll probably be making at least two variations of this fight in the end anyways since for second mix I want to make two different patches, one that feels similar to the difficulty of Version 1 (before implementing keys at least) and then a more "casual patch" that not only is closer to the difficulty of Version 1, but also brings back the keys from version 1 to better tailor your challenge to what you prefer. (Maybe I'll even make a third difficulty patch that's even more challenging for "the ultimate Golden Sun players" if I'm feeling super ambitious.

Also, I'm not sure if the game will let me, cause GS1 can be VERY finicky with text changes, but I spent some time messing around with adding some new opening text, since the plan is still to skip the prologue in 2nd Mix. I do feel bad as I know some people love it, it does leave a major impact on a first playthrough. But between being able to use prologue resources, like enemies, for other parts of the mod and how I rather focus on working with the elements that make Golden Sun stand out from other RPGs, it's just too hard for me to justify not skipping it. If people really want it, maybe I can make an extra patch just for prologue fans. Though hopefully my current ideas of sprinkling the story beats from the prologue throughout the rest of the adventure will serve enough of a middle ground.

Videos/Streams

We're so close, yet so far to the end of the Dawn of Djinn livestream. I beat the final boss, so all that's left is Vortex Island and the super boss that lies in it's depth. Not 100% sure if we're going to finish it next stream, but we'll definitely be finishing it before the new year and that's kind-of exciting to think about. A little too early to talk about what's next though.

Part 3 of the Sweet Expedition commentary is done, TBH I completely forgot I already had part 2 done ages ago, but I won't complain about being ahead. Beyond that on the editing side, just you're general progress with editing the streams down to Dawn of Djinn videos & some mis. Pokémon XG editing. Even recorded a bit more of Pokémon XG and am at the point where I can start to do things off screen, so I'm pretty happy about the concept of playing the game even when I don't feel up to recording, even if it is just doing mis. things. I'm kind of pondering if the Pokespot grinding should be off screen though considering how crazy some of the spawns have been... so I should take some time to figure out how I want to handle all that.

Art

I think the craziest part about this week, is that I've finally had a moment to get back to drawing, let alone random Overseer of the Element stuff. Finally finished up a couple big concept pages, which I'll be posting on Tumblr throughout the week. And I even got a small little daily exercise going where I draw a Golden Sun Djinn every day and then try to make it into a Sol Spirit. Ironically enough, I got too busy today to do it but I did it a solid 3 days in a row, during a work week even.

I'd love to share art on the site again once I find a new method to embed auto share it. DeviantArt used to be perfect because there was a built in app...but TBH I've been kind of iffy lately if I should share art on it anymore. :/ So we'll see what I do. Probably share it next blog if nothing else.

There's a blog specifically for Overseer of the Element posts, if that catches your attention.

Mis

I could talk about the games I've played, how much I miss big run as Salmon Run is just too stressful without it now; how Pokemon Go Community Day was kind of meh, but I'm bumming myself out just thinking about it. Besides, this blog already ran so long that it's taken me two days to write it.