NEPETAQUEST 2011 Thread :33 < yes we're using the same pawful cat puns

[8oy Skylark]

NEPETAQUEST 2011

Back in early December, Hussie posted the following snippet to his formspring:

"There are major characters, and there are minor ones. If you're waiting for me to fire up NEPETAQUEST 2011, don't hold your breath."

Long story short: we're making this hapen. What started as a joke has somehow graduated into a full-fledged plan for an indie RPG game, with around a dozen active contributors. Below you'll find a rough overview of the project; if you want to get involved, reading through the OP should give you just enough context to jump right in. To save derailing the thread, feel free to PM me with any small questions you might have.

One thing that I think needs to be made clear: this project isn't a hopeless pipe dream. We've designed it from the ground up to be achievable by a relatively small and disorganised team. Don't worry about the things you contribute going to waste.

While the information in the OP here more or less informs you well enough to help with the project, we strongly encourage use of Our Wiki page for the sake of organization; we'll try and keep the OP up to date as well. If you post something in the thread please post it in the wiki as well, but unless it's been finalized don't delete any previous versions.

CURRENT FOCUS

We're currently working on the game's introductory level, Karkat's Lawnring. An exterior tileset has been sprited, and the level itself has been constructed from it; we've also managed to get a working interior and begun programming for cutscenes in the area. The interior is currently being touched up with various things to fill the space and possibly different ways of doing the map.

To do list:
- Spriting an accurate Thermal Hull for Karkat
- Spriting an Ablution Trap for Karkat's bathroom.
- Making a large variety of tilesets and props to be used for the Alternian Wilderness
- Enemy design and spriting for the Alternian Wilderness



Working interior:

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(for editing the black shading)








Possible alternative -

Any of the current walking animations could be adjusted if you feel it's necessary.

PLOT

A vast amount of the plot has been finalized thanks to a ridiculous amount of discussion. As such, we're not really looking for any complete rewrites, although if you have issues with the current ending feel free to bring them up and we can try to address them.

The levels:

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The introductory level is the town in which Karkat's Lawnring is situated. The town itself is a short walkaround segment in which Nepeta can examine things, save her game and find a few basic items. Once Nepeta finds Karkat's lawnring, she interrupts a STRIFE with his lusus. Her assistance with this STRIFE comprises the combat tutorial. Karkat decides to come along with her, in a teenagery "maybe I'll NEVER come back, THEN you'd be sorry" sort of way.

After a medium-length travelling segment ("the Alternian Wilderness"), the two of them arrive at a locked temple, sitting in the middle of nowhere. The fountain lies within the temple. To enter the temple, Nepeta must find four keys throughout the world, each of which can only be obtained by gaining "mastery" of one of the romance quadrants. Nepeta learns the coordinates (or perhaps just gets a map) to find each of the keys.

Cut to the level select screen. The levels are independent and can be tackled in any order.

• Hearts. Coordinates: Terezi's Hive. Nepeta finds Karkat and drags him into the woods with her, since she presumes a Karkat/Nepeta romance will be how she gains the key. She acts somewhat mysterious as to the purpose and destination of their jaunt and tries to persuade him not to think about it. So, she flirts with him in a gradually less subtle way throughout the level, and he begins to understand what is happening and tries to put her off.
  Just as they begin to get deep into the forest, a Cholerbear that had been stalking them for some time ambushes them. Karkat is shocked, but Nepeta, who was aware to some extent of the beast following them, launches into full roleplaying-mode, much to Karkat’s annoyance. They defeat the beast and continue on, but Karkat, twitchy after the attack, begins to think they're being followed. Nepeta appears to understand to some extent what’s going on (she did pick the direction they’re going in, after all) and begins to roleplay as being all protective of him (although it is apparent even to Karkat that a great deal of this is coming from her crush on him rather than just her vivid imagination) At that point, Terezi ambushes them in her dragonsuit, roleplaying herself as a jealous lover in a manner that fits perfectly into the scenario that Nepeta had been roleplaying throughout the level, infuriating Karkat (although he is relieved and happy to see her at first). Boss battle with Terezi (which is made clear to be roleplayed by the dramatic (or in Karkat’s case, insincere) roleplay-format comments made by the characters when things happen to them). After the battle is won, Terezi ends the scenario and invites them inside. Karkat, relieved to have a chance to get away from Nepeta, rushes in ahead of them. Before they enter, Terezi and Nepeta talk about how actually to win a matesprit, and how what Nepeta was doing was not it. Nepeta, with her considerable shipping acumen, realizes that Terezi might be interested in being alone with Karkat for a while and declines the invitation to enter into her hive, earning her the Hearts key.
  
  
• Diamonds. Coordinates: Equius' Hive. Equius' central computer, located inside his hive, is heavily malfunctioning. His various otherwise dormant or incomplete robots have become haywire. Equius intends to forge his way into the computer to solve the problem -- either by fixing the computer, or destroying it. Equius, of course, demands that Nepeta not follow him, and Nepeta in turn insists that she come anyway.
  As the player progresses through the dungeon, it is revealed via several different methods, including cutscenes, malfunctioning terminals, and old pesterlogs that Equius, in typical, snobby Equius fashion, rudely demanded that Sollux help him with some issue or other on his computer. Sollux, angered by this, wrote and sent virus that caused the berserk robots in the first place. Nepeta, of course, scolds Equius for his rude and snobby tendencies and attempts to talk him into a more forgiving frame of mind. After this, Nepeta and Equius encounter Sollux at the terminal of Equius' central computer. Equius, feeling vengeful, attempts to attack Sollux, but Nepeta, restrains him. With great difficulty, she eventually persuades Equius to let Sollux give his side of the story before Equius gets into a conflict he could end up regretting. Sollux explains that (as is characteristic of Sollux) he felt almost immediately felt awful about creating the virus, but couldn't fix it from his home, so Sollux now has to do all of the repairs on-site -- which is why he's now at the mainframe terminal. After some initial resistance, Equius grudgingly allows him remove the virus.
  The haywire computer, however, at this point suddenly registers Sollux's intrusion, and sends Equius' biggest and deadliest robot to dispose of all three. Nepeta and Equius opt to buy time for Sollux to remove the virus by fighting off the robot. At the end of the battle, Equius jumps at the robot -- which is preparing one final attack that could easily kill Equius at point-blank range. Nepeta sees what the robot is doing and disables/destroys the robot at the critical moment. Through her timely intervention, the robot is unable to launch its final attack and Equius' life is saved.
  Finally, everything starts to return to normal as Sollux announces that he's fixed the problem (and quickly absconds before Equius thinks to punish him for writing the virus in the first place). Nepeta receives the Diamond Key for saving Equius from his aggression both by keeping him from attacking Sollux (thereby letting Sollux offer to help) and by saving him from his near-suicidal charge on the robot shows that she truly understands her role as a Moirail and is thus deserving of the Key.
  
  In terms of gameplay, the level is just a typical dungeon with a boss at the bottom.
  
  
• Spades. Coordinates: The middle of the ocean. Nepeta travels to Gamzee's hive, since she knows he has a seagoat lusus. He's reluctant to take his lusus out on any major trips, since the "dark Empress-in-waiting" has been murdering hundreds of aquatic lusii, and he has a bAd MoThErFuCkInG fEeLiNg AbOuT tHiS. Nepeta immediately develops a massive childish hatecrush on this mysterious Empress; she's a villain, and villains must be punished! She strongarms Gamzee into taking her to the coordinates, which turn out to be Eridan's shipwreck-hive.
  The hive itself is the level. Around halfway through, Nepeta finds Feferi, and jumps into a boss battle without giving her a chance to explain. Feferi survives and escapes, and the rest of the level is based on pursuing her, while she shouts for Eridan and sics monsters on Nepeta and Gamzee. The level's final boss is Feferi and Eridan fought as a team; Nepeta and Gamzee win, but some contingency plan (such as the intervention of Eridan's lusus) paralyzes them long enough for Feferi to explain herself. Nepeta learns that Spades relationships don't have to involve becoming some cartoonish antihero (or some similar realisation), thereby winning the key.
  
  
• Clubs. Coordinates: The ocean, near a coastline. On a cliff above the coastline, Nepeta stumbles across Eridan dramatically brooding. He's unhappy that his spades-crush, against whom he's about to fight a Flarp sea battle, is gradually losing her enthusiasm. Nepeta somehow convinces him to take her along such that she can try to fix his relationship; Eridan likely rationalises her as "cannon fodder". The seabattle is of course fought against Vriska, and Nepeta does of course fix their relationship in some capacity, although the rest of this plot hasn't yet been finalised. Vriska will likely be playable, as well as Eridan, and the player might be given the opportunity to "pick a side" (and therefore a party member).

Ending:

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Opening:

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One dark night out in the wilderness where Nepeta's cave is, she's curled up with Pounce De Leon, when suddenly the floor rumbles and a crash outside is heard. She goes out cautiously to investigate, and quickly finds that the rumbling was caused by a meteor, containing a chest with Nepeta's sign.

Inside, Nepeta finds a map to the Fountain of Cute and a note from her ancestor cryptically promising that all of Nepeta's questions will be answered in due time. Nepeta quickly packs the essentials and leaves to follow the map.

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Having helped Karkat deal with CrabDad and dragging him along for the ride, Nepeta finally reaches the door to the Temple containing the Fountain. The Temple declares that it requires four keys: one for each of the quadrants, and that the keys can only be obtained by showing true understanding of the corresponding quadrant.

Aradia then trolls Nepeta, cryptically noting that she knows what Nepeta's doing and that she can provide coordinates for each key. Nepeta asks how Aradia knows these things, and Aradia shrugs it off in the usual manner by saying something to the effect of, "The spirits know all the answers."

During adventure:

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Nepeta finds the temple and the four keys necessary to unlock it, and so on. Along the way, she's trolled by Aradia, who acts as something of an unseen guardian for Nepeta over the course of the adventure. Providing helpful information and advice, though always remaining mysterious as to why she's taken such an interest in Nepeta's adventure. She may hint sometimes that she's really acting as a sort of messenger for somebody else, but her motives are never presented in definite terms.

Periodically, Aradia also poses questions that make Nepeta stop and think: Why is Nepeta searching for the Fountain? Why is she going through of all of this?

What does she hope to accomplish by finding it in the first place?

Nepeta is puzzled by these questions. It's the Fountain of Cute, isn't it? She's searching for it because, well... Why is she searching for it? Surely it must be something great and awe-inspiring like the legends say... What exactly is she doing all of this for?

Nepeta doesn't let the questions bother her too much, but she realizes it's food for thought and starts asking herself about what she might do when she finds the Fountain.

Journals:

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Journals are scattered around the level and help add interesting information and depth to the story, if not necessarily required to understand the plot. Because it's possible to miss them on the way, the journals shouldn't draw on information solely available in other journals. So on and so forth.

Many of the journals will be by Nepeta's ancestor, older than Nepeta, if not by much. She's on a mission from the Architect to scatter the various keys around the world and make sure they're secure. Nepeta's ancestor has trouble grasping the need for all four quadrants to be important. Like Nepeta, her writing shows a marked preference for red romance, but she also notes that as she goes to hide the keys, she sees in some of her friends a strange happiness and sincerity in black romance that makes her think there might be more to it than her initial prejudices might admit.

In this way, we can kind of use the ancestor-descendant parallel to have Nepeta's ancestor act as a rough proxy for Nepeta's own inner thoughts. Just as Nepeta is now going through her quest and learning that there's more to the quadrants than she thought, Nepeta's ancestor also learns and has to reassess her original views. We can use Nepeta's ancestor as a way to help further characterize Nepeta, while also working to provide subtle hints as to her life and the Architect's.

There will also be journals by the Fountain's Architect, noting that the Fountain is nearly complete. What exactly the Fountain does could be vaguely or specifically described, but in any case, the Architect notes that the Fountain has given him a measure of faith in troll society once more, despite his being low on the hemospectrum and possibly unlucky in love.

At the same time, though, the Architect is worried that the Fountain could never be uncovered, because it would most likely be destroyed if it were. He decides that he may just have to accept the fact that the Fountain will probably end up hidden forever after his death or destroyed and becomes increasingly despondent. Additionally, he suspects that his fascination with the good in troll society and romance is becoming increasingly noticeable, and wonders if at some point he'll be culled. The combination of all these factors make his tone notably more somber and worrisome as the journals proceed (chronologically).

In his last journal entry, the Architect decides to go for a walk to clear his head... After that, the fate of the Architect is unclear.

Ending.

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Nepeta enters the Temple, which is decorated with quadrant motifs, the sign of the Architect, which might be obscured somehow, and maybe the sign of her ancestor.

About halfway through the dungeon, Nepeta could be forced to face a trial of sorts to prove she's truly ready for the Fountain. A figure resembling a shadowy version of Nepeta appears, and it's made clear that the figure represents Nepeta's fears, flaws, and misconceptions. Conquering these will be essential for Nepeta's growth as a person and preparing herself to claim the Fountain.

Right before the last room of the dungeon, Nepeta is pestered by Aradia, who announces that she's relaying a message from somebody before Nepeta reaches the Fountain. The message tells Nepeta to be ready for what she faces in the final room, and that the mysterious author of the note believes in Nepeta. Nepeta tries to ask about what's going on, but Aradia disconnects without a response. Nepeta shrugs and continues forward.

In the final room, Nepeta finds the Fountain, and it looks every bit as glorious as she could have imagined. However, before she can run up to it, she's interrupted by a ghostly, not-quite-solid figure that's revealed to be the Architect of the Fountain. It's not truly a ghost, but more of a living memory. An imprint of sorts left by the Architect before he was culled. Though it might at one point have been intended as something far more benign, years of imprisonment combined with the Architect's fears that the Fountain would be discovered and destroyed have turned it into little more than a fanatic guardian of the Fountain -- dedicated to expelling all intruders at any cost (insert possibility that it randomly sputters distorted quotes that might have originally been by the Architect giving it a sad, decayedish feel). Cue final boss fight.

At the end of the final boss battle, the imprint of the Architect is fading away, but still hangs on, regretting its failure to protect the Fountain. Aradia then shows up., and it's revealed that Aradia's been channeling the ghost of Nepeta's ancestor, acting as something of a go-between to relay messages from the ancestor to her descendant. Through Aradia's ability to contact the dead (and possibly an innate ability of the Temple itself), the ghostly form of Nepeta's ancestor appears in front of everybody.

The ancestor's first order of business is reassure the despairing imprint of the Architect that he did everything that could have been asked of him. The imprint recognizes Nepeta's ancestor and calms down considerably, though he's still clearly worried as to what will become of the Fountain.

With that done, Nepeta's ancestor begins to explain the story behind the Architect and the purpose of the Fountain: a continuous record of all of the romance and inherent virtue of the troll race. Nepetancestor and the Architect collaborated on building the Fountain and defending it, but could never bring themselves to reveal it to the rest of the world (out of fears that it would be destroyed by the vicious and bloodthirsty system that dominates Alternian society). Nepeta's ancestor believes that the Fountain should not be forever forgotten, which is why she's been helping to guide Nepeta and encourage her to grow through Aradia.

Now that Nepeta has gained so much understanding of the quadrants and grown over the course of her adventure (as evidenced by her collecting all of the keys, defeating her Dark self earlier in the Temple, and finally making it past the Architect's memory), Nepeta's ancestor believes that Nepeta is worthy of being heir to the Fountain and all the records of the goodness of troll society -- telling her that she is free to use the Fountain however she wishes.

The Architect's imprint, which has been noticeably silent during all of this, finally admits that Nepeta is deserving of claiming the Fountain, and muses that it's good to finally know that the product of his life's work is in good hands. Nepeta's ancestor then bids Nepeta farewell, telling Nepeta that she knows Nepeta
will make the right choices. Both her and the Architect's memory fade out together.

Nepeta then looks into the Fountain, and through its waters we are treated to a sequence of endearing scenes from throughout her adventure. She stares into the waters for a long time. Her partners tell her that they'll be waiting outside, and Aradia (who is now in control again) watches passively. Nepeta finally appears to come to a decision of sorts, and leaves. Aradia watches her leave, and as the door to the Fountain shuts and everything starts to fade to darkness, Aradia fades out as well.

In a sort of epilogue finish, it's revealed that Nepeta decided to avoid outright revealing the Fountain's secret to the world, but works to make sure that the memories it contains survive and spread throughout Alternia, believing that someday her work to keep the record of Alternia's virtues alive will help to change things for the better. At the end of things, Nepeta reflects on her journey and is grateful for all the fun times and exciting adventures she had, and hopes someday that she gets to go on such an exciting adventure again.

Since the plot is more-or-less one massive fanfic, we're going to be writing a lot of dialogue, and doing a certain amount of choreography for the field scripting. If that interests you, you're welcome to chip in.


PROGRAMMING

The game is being programmed as a standalone Java application. It will therefore be playable on any major OS.

We currently have two programmers; Frost, and Geekthras. The distribution of work, and the fact that they're well on top of the workload, means that we're not looking for additional programmers.

An up-to-date testing version of the game will be kept track of here. Here are the most recent test builds, for bug reports.

Most recent update includes a version of Karkat's Hive interior and is now webcam friendly!

It's functioning on a WSADEQ control scheme, with E being the action command. If the game isn't loading the field test or the battler and is stuck on the menu, rename the file to nepquest.

Frost has also recently released a Field Editor which can be used to make levels. It can be downloaded here (warning, large download):

http://www.mediafire.com/?16grgzybktb3y29

This isn't quite finished.

[8oy Skylark]

GAMEPLAY

The game will play as a fairly typical 2D roleplaying game, along the lines of Paper Mario, Golden Sun or Final Fantasies one through six. The player will adventure through levels and dungeons, collecting treasure, fighting enemies and bosses, and holding big plotty conversations. Thinking of Final Fantasy VI for the walkaround segments, and Mario RPG for the fighting segments, wouldn't be too far off.

For simplicity, we're going with a two-person party: Nepeta and one other troll. Based on the above plot summary, the playable trolls will be Nepeta, Karkat, Equius, Gamzee, Eridan and Vriska.

While our ideas for the battle system are condensing relatively slowly, we know the following things:

• Most battle abilities will be interactive. For instance, if the player presses the correct key just as a troll's attack connects with the enemy, that troll gets a free second attack.
• The battle options will be Fight, Special, Run and Item. Items will play a non-trivial role, and will be used for offense as well as healing. Ideas include using tea for various effects, and having attack buffs.
• The only equippable items in the game are fursuits, worn by Nepeta. Each fursuit influences her stats, and is represented on her battle sprite by a palette swap.
• Each troll gets their own special attack. These aren't quite finalised, but our most current ideas are below:
  
  • Nepeta gets Roleplay, an ability based on her current party members. It will likely be themed on a companion troll's zodiac sign or lusus. For instance, Roleplaying with Vriska might produce a "Spider's Poison" attack.
  • Karkat gets Rage. We've discussed several options for this, none of which we've found to be very satisfying. A slots-style attack that generates a random ability; a party-wide buff or enemy-wide debuff; a Bide-style ability; or an ability that allows Karkat to counter when attacked until his next turn. In terms of animation, opinion is split between "Karkat rants at the enemies" and "array of spectacularly violent physical attacks".
  • Equius gets Strongjump; he leaves the field for twenty seconds or so, then returns to execute some sort of powerful attack on the target.
  • Gamzee gets mIrAcLeS. This allows him to use some type of item that isn't accessible through the Item command to perform various effects. Some possible effects are below.
    
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    "Chill Gamzee" effects:
    
    Sopor Pie - Pie all around! Gamzee cHiLlAxes with the enemy. Causes one random enemy to not move this turn.
    Wicked Elixir - Gamzee slams a Faygo. Heals a fair amount of health to himself only.
    Honk - Suddenly, Gamzee HONKS!!! Inflicts a negative status effect on all enemies.
    One-Wheeled Device - Gamzee does an ACROBATIC FUCKING PIROUETTE off his one-wheeled device and crashes into a single enemy for high damage.
    Double Rainbow - (Stolen from Dudemaster!) Damages all enemies for decent damage. Ignores enemy defense.
    Pretty Lights - Gamzee stares at his Miracle Modus. The lights. They're so pretty. Does nothing.
    Special Stardust - Gamzee splashes special stardust into his + his party member's face. Buffs the party.
    
    "Dark Gamzee" effects:
    
    ENGAGE MURDER MODE - This is completely terrifying! The screen glitches out. After it's done, all enemies take high damage and are inflicted with fear (or something).
    Jokerkind - Massive physical attack combo to single enemy, possibly with different weapons.
    
    Also, everytime mIrAcLes is used and a "Chill Gamzee" effect occurs, the chances of a "Dark Gamzee" effect occuring on next use goes up. After a "Dark Gamzee" effect occurs, the chances of it occuring resets to 0. This would give people an incentive to use mIrAcLes often despite its utterly random nature.
  • Eridan gets Improvvise. This allows him to reverse the effect of a given item, using up two of them in the process. Potions deal damage, antidotes inflict poison, and so on.
  • Vriska gets Steal. This might steal items, attributes, or exclusively luck. Vriska's Fight command will also, of course, be modified to reflect her unique weapon. It's possible that stealing luck will cause the Flourite Octet to conjure more powerful effects.

In terms of "bonus content" and replay value, we seem to have boiled it down to two things: A "Replay Mode" in which you can play through any of the levels with your choice of party member, and a single challenging secret boss in the final dungeon, who can only be fought if the player has scored 100% completion.



GRAPHICS

The game's graphics will be low-resolution; that is, the game will be rendered onto a halfsize framebuffer, giving it a "pixellated", "retro" or "scaled up" look. This should make graphics creation much faster and more straightforward.

The following pieces of artwork still need to be completed:

• Field and in-battle sprites for various trolls (see below).
• Field and in-battle sprites for each of perhaps 25 enemies; robots, pirates, wildlife, and the residents of the final dungeon. We might get lazy and do some palette swaps somewhere. The game has only three bosses that are going to require difficult oversized sprites: Crabdad, Equius' Computer, and the final boss.
• Sprited tilesets for each of the game's settings: Karkat's hive, Karkat's town, The Alternian Wilderness, the Temple's exterior and interior, Terezi's forest, Equius' hive, Eridan's hive, and the High Seas. The Lawnring's exterior tileset has been completed; the next one we'll be working on is a tileset for the interior of Karkat's hive. If you're interested, be sure to speak up.
• Digitally painted battle backdrops for each of the above.

All of the game's graphics have so far been developed collaboratively. If you expect your contributions to be heaped with praise and used without question, you're going to be extremely disappointed. Please don't donate artwork to the project if you're uncomfortable with the idea of it being butchered beyond all recognition.

Our talksprite graphical style will be similar to this.

Below are the idle versions of battle sprites; for the most part the animated ones are done and the others aren't quite finished (although animations can be edited, and Eridan's cape isn't done yet obviously). Feel free to play with these at any time. If you wish to work on an attack cycle, however, it needs to be discussed among the thread; rather than spriting it propose your 5x attack combo with a storyboard.

Proposed battle animation storyboards:
Nepeta
Karkat

Just to be clear, the sprites posted above aren't guaranteed to be the most recent revisions. If you're looking to modify any of them, you should probably post to ensure you're working with the most recent version; if you modify an out-of-date sprite, your work is likely to go to waste.

We also have a certain amount of field work done beyond what's necessary for Karkat's lawnring.

Field sprites:

Generic troll base for NPCs:

Field walksprites (Please if you're going to edit these put them in the format of the first one):

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Tile work:







MUSIC

Music is now being produced at a fairly rapid rate, but more contributors are of course welcome. We're looking to have at least one walkaround theme for each level, probably multiple battle themes, and of course auxilliary tracks for things like the introduction and main menu.

Spoilered below is a near-complete catalogue of which tracks we'll require for the finished game. Some of these tracks have already been created, which I've indicated where appropriate. Bear in mind that many such tracks are in the WIP stages, and some tracks (particularly those from Hearts onwards) could be replaced outright in the finished game.

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Introductory Animation:
Introductory Cutscene: Good Morning by Geekthras.
Fountain Exposition Cutscene: Crystal Cat by konec0.

Main Menu:
Shopping: dO YOU WANT TO BUY SOMETHING, mAYBE by Mr_Ham97.
Fursuit Crafting: Kanaya the Seamstress by Veritas Unae.
Level Select:
Victory:
Game Over: Maybe Next Time by VeritasUnae.

Lawnring Walkaround: Carcrab by seramis.
Lawnring Boss Battle (Crabdad): Gettin' Crabby by konec0.
Wilderness Walkaround: Beginning of a Mew Advenpurr by Dudemaster47.
Wilderness Battle:

Hearts Walkaround: Hive Covered In Leaves by The Z-W.
Hearts Battle:
Hearts Boss Battle (Terezi): Terezi: Sentence the Criminal by Green Z (provisional).

Diamonds Walkaround: Doomed and Dreadful by seramis.
Diamonds Battle:
Diamonds Boss Battle (Computer): Doomed and Dreadful Remix by seramis.

Clubs Introduction:
Clubs Walkaround (early): Plank Hopping by VeritasUnae.
Clubs Walkaround (main):
Clubs Battle:
Clubs Boss Battle (Vriska): All the Levels (All of Them) by Dudemaster47 & konec0 (provisional).

Spades Introduction:
Spades Walkaround: Ghost Shipe by Dudemaster47.
Spades Battle:
Spades Boss Battle (Feferi):

Temple Walkaround (exterior): Clockpurrk Ruins by Dudemaster47.
Temple Walkaround (interior):
Temple Battle:
Temple Boss Battle (Negapeta): Negapeta by konec0.
Temple Boss Battle (Final): Snow Crash by konec0 (provisional).
Ending Cutscene:

IRC: #nq2011 at Esper.net

DevBlog: http://nepetaquest2011.tumblr.com/

Thread 3: http://www.mspaforums.com/showthread...awful-cat-puns

Thread 2: http://www.mspaforums.com/showthread...ridan+portrait

Thread 1: http://www.mspaforums.com/showthread...PETAQUEST+2011

Google Docs For Script: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...thkey=CJ3BsMEN

[Snuffleheim]

I modified my ending slightly. This post may be deleted if need be.

Ah! This new thread is so roomy!

[Snuffleheim]

Your spoiler tags are a little screwy on the interior tileset so that it has nommed up part of the plot section.

Thanks for linking for us thar, Ham. Much more useful than my notification up there. X3

[8oy Skylark]

Damn I was having a lot of issues with the BBCode. I think it's all cleared up now.

[Mr_Ham97]

Under the programmers, it says "myself" and Geekthras. You'll want to change that.

Also if you or Snuff can break up the ending into paragraphs that would be great, as text walls turn people off.

[Snuffleheim]

I think Skylark's still busy finalizing the OPs.

Speaking of which, maybe only the quadrant levels and Tutorial level should be lumped in with "what we already have".

*Bother* *Poke* *Criticize*

EDIT: I did that with mine, Ham! A separate spoiler for each section of plot. So did Obsel.

[Mr_Ham97]

No, I mean under the spoiler that says "Final Level" on your ending. It's a pretty big unbroken text wall.

[Snuffleheim]

Hm. Might be difficult, and would require Skylark to change it again. I'll see what I can do, but you might have to wait until tomorrow.

[8oy Skylark]

I found a break in the thought process to put a paragraph split in. If you can write it up more cohesively it'd be better but that should break it up okay for now.

[Mr_Ham97]

Also we have a side-walking sprite for Nepeta already; it's in the build (although I don't know where the gif is).

Although I'd prefer it if we can edit that SUPER SMOOTH Karkat one for Nepeta's use as well, it's just really awesome.

[kgy121]

Figured that I might as well repost the direct link to the IRC.

http://01.chat.mibbit.com/?channel=%...=irc.esper.net

[Snuffleheim]

I found a break in the thought process to put a paragraph split in. If you can write it up more cohesively it'd be better but that should break it up okay for now.

It wasn't as hard as I thought. Really, the stuff on the Architect's writings should have been its own paragraph from the start. Also, I made some other changes before then. I'll edit into my last post on the other thread for easier access.

[8oy Skylark]

Okay, replaced Snuff's with the most recent fix to it.

[Mr_Ham97]

Don't forget to PM a mod to lock the old thread once you're done there.

[elementalpenguin]

We're the 100th thread in Fan Projects. MAKES ME PRETTY HAPPY.

Anyways, Eridan with a bit less jarring cape movement. I think tomorrow I'm gonna move the cape closer to his body so that it's less distracting, but I'm leaving it here so any other comments can be posted throughout tomorrow and I can attempt a SUPER MASS REVISION COMBO.
Also, for the OP, take this: it's the idle Eridan without the cape. Pretty finalized, might change the shoes a bit.
EDIT: Oh man it's hilarious how there's 5 Eridan sprites in my post I love him so much xD

[Snuffleheim]

Okay, replaced Snuff's with the most recent fix to it.

Yayzors.

Are you gonna do this, too?

Speaking of which, maybe only the quadrant levels and Tutorial level should be lumped in with "what we already have".

Also (geez, I'm critical) I don't see anything on the Temporary Weapon Buffers items or the tea...

Temporary Weapon Improvements: Consumable items that temporarily buff the regular attack. Think poison slathered on a blade. Obtained via enemy-specific drops, and weaker kinds might be able to be bought in Tavros' shop.

Tea: Undecided. Either a healing item or a buffing item. Obtainability unexplored.

@eP: I think the cape looks a little too long.

[8oy Skylark]

The battle options will be Fight, Special, Run and Item. Items will play a non-trivial role, and will be used for offense as well as healing. Ideas include using tea for various effects, and having attack buffs.

Admittedly a bit short, but not much is finalized.

I'm pretty sure I did that for the finalized plot stuff as well.

[Frost]

That ericape is much too energetic. As I see it, when it comes to cape animation, you have two options:

• Subtle movements. The cape swings back, swings forward, and repeats, probably in sync with his idle animation. I'd strongly recommend this, but it takes away the "hyperdramatic" feel, and to look realistic it'd require that you sprite the cape to appear much heavier (that is, it hangs almost straight down rather than flowing out behind him).
• Moving as though it's very light and the wind is very strong. This is what you're aiming for right now, but you've made two errors: firstly, you haven't included enough frames (so the cape looks like it's spastically shivering rather than blowing in the wind), and secondly you've made the movements far too vigorous to be realistic, even if the cape was as light as tissue paper (look at the corner of the cape that's furthest from Eridan, for example). Convincingly animating cloth in this way is extremely challenging, and I'd strongly advise against it.

Also, that idle animation is faster on the "rebound" (hips go down) than it is on the "upswing" (hips go up). I also think you've put a single "pause" frame just before the upswing, and it doesn't really work. The end result is more-or-less "Thrust. Thrust. Thrust".

[Mr_Ham97]

Here are two things I did that seemed to get lost in the other thread:

Possible menu animation mockup:

I think it would be good to get what we want it to look like down before we start programming it, which is why I made this in the first place.

Karkat with a not-as-curved or long sickle (made because of that sickle discussion):

I personally like this more than the current one, as it looks more like it may actually be able to be slashed with.

Any critiques/comments would be appreciated.

[8oy Skylark]

I put in the sickle thing.

As for the opening thing, I didn't put it in because I wasn't sure whether or not concept art should be put in.

[Mr_Ham97]

I'm not asking you to put them in the OP (although you can if you really want to), I'm just asking for comments/suggestions for improvement because only one person commented on that menu animation and nobody commented on the shorter sickle Karkat.

[8oy Skylark]

Ah. I think that the symbols would benefit from being shrunk down and treating them like coins/gems. That is, when they're selected, they spin once and glint. Just a thought I had a while ago.
Either way I'd suggest shrinking them a bit.

I think a subtler transition would be beneficial for the title bar, as well.

[Cucurbita]

I guess I'll have to settle for the Aradia in Snuffs ending. Admittedly my addendum did shift the focus quite a bit. Oh well, we still get the bittersweet touch, right? That's really all I want.

Ham, the sickle is good. Try maybe making it a bit longer?

EP, I'd try something like this for the cape.

As for the art for the title screen, I'm pretty sure there's been complaints regarding Nepetas posture. I may work out some quick sketches for alternatives. Currently I'm thinking either Jumping into the air with one of her fists raised, or curled up in the fetal position, depending on what kind of theme we're using for the title screen.

Skylark, I've been having the same thought as you regarding the symbols. How big do you think they should be?

[8oy Skylark]

I'd probably cut the size in half, maybe a little more. A little shorter than the lowercase lettering in the text right now, I think.