Fnrrf Ygm Schnish: Alleghany Hell School

...okay, so it turned out the blob game mentioned in the previous post didn't hold my attention as long as I thought it would (though I do still have ideas for that one bouncing around and do still plan on making it eventually.)  Instead, in the past couple days I've gotten back into working on Fnrrf Ygm Schnish: Alleghany Hell School, which is a game I've been (very slowly) working on since all the way back in 2008.

Though, in a way, it actually goes back to 2003.  Here's the full history...

Like I said just a second ago, FYS:AHS's origins can be traced back to 2003, when I was just starting my senior year of high school.  I'd been fiddling with the OHRRPGCE since its earliest versions (back in 1998) and had gotten a bit of practice with it, and after several fairly awful games that got finished (and several better ones that didn't) I had another idea for a game.  This one was to take place in my high school to start out with and then branch out to other areas (which turned out to be a big part of why it never got done--making the scale  too big didn't work very well, and the story ended up being pretty slapped-together and nonsensical.)  I did a bunch of graphics for the game, but never got more than a single school hallway into an actually-playable state.  I also made the mistake of letting people sign up to be playable characters in the game... of course, most of the people who signed up weren't people that really grabbed my attention in the "I could make a character based on them" way (it's hard to describe exactly what way that is, but some people just stand out to me in weird ways and ideas for characters based on them come to mind much more readily), so these sign-up characters ended up just being... the person they were based on, but with a sword! Or some other random weapon.  The characters I actually wanted to put in the game were still there (many of them based on actual people too), but there were a bunch of "extras" based on those who signed up, which made the whole thing kind of feel slapped-together in yet another way.  Anyway... I did a lot of planning for this game but not a lot of actual game-making, and it ended up never getting beyond the point of "one hallway with a Drunken Kangaroo boss randomly hanging out near some stairs" completion.  You could get one party member (picking from three available in the classroom you started in), but only one of them ever had any special abilities defined so when testing the game I always picked her.  Yeah... not a lot of this actually got done.  It DID, however, give me some of the concepts I used in later games--the Freaky Fungus enemies that showed up early on (based on an actual fungus I found a few times) reappear in FYS:AHS with a much bigger role, and FYS:AHS (like the 2003 Fnrrf Ygm Schnish game) starts out with the school experiencing one of its many sudden power outages.

The Australian science teacher tellin' it like it is.

Only two of the playable characters from 2003 FYS are still playable characters in FYS:AHS, and one of them doesn't stick around in your team for the entire game (though I won't post any spoilers as to why, or which character I'm referring to here.)  The others, however, still appear in the game as NPCs (or, in one case, a recurring NPC earlier on and a boss battle later.)  The power outage plot ends up being resolved very differently than the original version--rather than a demonic "Servant of Spongebob" (...yeah, I had Spongebob in the game as the "Lord of Moronism," or basically a guy who has power over stupidity and tries to spread it across the world as much as possible) tampering with the school's electrical systems in order to supercharge its own power, the power outage in the new game was a result of faulty wiring being chewed through (though I won't spoil how this is discovered or how it's fixed, of course.)

Anyway... onto the 2006 version.  After not getting far in 2003 FYS and eventually even deleting the game file altogether, I started on a new Fnrrf Ygm Schnish game in 2006.  This one, like the previous attempt (and the current game) started out in Alleghany High School.  Unlike the 2003 and 2008-to-present versions, it didn't start with a power outage but with a school dance... during which a couple students show up late and discover that all the other students have gone missing with no explanation.  This leads to an exploration of the school, and the character based on me briefly blacks out and has a journey through some bad places in his own mind where an evil duplicate of himself named "Edwin" is lurking.  After this, the two characters are reunited and go back outside, where they find a scary-looking dude in a Santa outfit calling himself "Blackbeard Santa."  He promises to "give the gift of Moronism" and then attacks.  If I had made anything beyond this battle, it would have been revealed that Blackbeard Santa was responsible for the disappearances, trapping all of the other kids inside his magical sack, and the dance proceeds as normal (the game would have faded out and skipped it, of course, but still.)  After that, things would have gone to a mostly incoherent story much like 2003 FYS but with a different plot that at least tried making sense this time.  Nothing past the point of Blackbeard Santa ever got done, though.  2006 FYS contributes a few things to the new game, too; some randomly-encountered enemies (like Possessed Mops and Roaches) have returned, as has Adam Nebozu and his awkward, random, golf-based fighting style, where he might unleash a powerful "Golfball Rain" upon whatever unfortunate critters he's facing or he might just hit a "Bogey" and end up smacking his allies (or himself!) with the ball instead.

Finally, in 2008 I started working on Fnrrf Ygm Schnish: Alleghany Hell School--and this one, I'm not going to give up on or cancel.  Finally I've got a storyline that both actually makes sense and keeps itself fairly contained rather than trying to sprawl out across the whole world; in FYS:AHS, almost the entire game takes place within the school and surrounding areas.  The "branching out" occurs when you go into secret dungeons and cave systems under the school, which lead you to some more unusual places.  In the case of one line of caves, you'll be able to reach the outside, but only one mountain wilderness area is accessible this way--the important stuff is going on back at school (or below it, or in the sky above it...), so you can't just wander off down the highway or anything!

FYS:AHS has gone through some changes since I first started.  In early versions, the graphics were too bright and almost had a "pastel" look to them... which was completely unintentional, and a result of the old, worn-out monitor I was making the game on (which made everything look darker and bluer than it actually was.)  This has since been fixed.  The game also had some kind of awful-looking walkabout graphics in its earliest stages, and lazy battle graphics which were just "extended" versions of those walkabout graphics.  The character portraits (which everyone has this time around, not just important characters!) were pretty crappy before, too, but I've remade them to more closely resemble those in my other game Okédoké! La Leyenda Mexicana.  Here's some comparisons...

Eddie battle sprites.  Above: new version.  Below: old crappy version.

Old version walkabouts. Look how crappy they are.

And here's the newer and better versions.
Mouths! Noses! And no more big goofy eyes! Yay!

Old portrait graphics.  Some of these are seriously ugly.

And here's some of the new portraits.
Older versions than what's currently in the game, but still better than the ones above!

Anyway... it feels like my work on FYS:AHS is finally picking up steam.  The school's maptiles are all set up so that I won't need to make many new ones to finish up the classrooms and such (only for actual new areas, like the secret lab under the school or the outside.)  Just last night I finished up an area that was left half-done the last time I really got any work done on this game, and I've also fiddled around with the Cafeteria Dungeon so as to make it easier to avoid running blindly into battles with Yuckow Foods that burst out of trash cans and boxes when you open them (and these are very difficult to beat at this point in the game... probably impossible if you don't equip some items to give your characters poison resistance... so preventing people from stumbling into them without saving first and then losing all of their progress is a good thing.  If they were warned, they can't whine as much. XD)

And now, some more screenshots of recent additions to the game! Those of you who know me on Facebook will probably have seen these already, but hey.

New addition: use bathrooms to restore your HP and EP.
Female party members will use the girls' bathroom, of course.
If you're above 50% HP, the message here sounds a lot less urgent.

Nebozu apparently doesn't know the blue-haired ninja.
Either that, or he's just being a jerk.
...okay, yeah, probably the second option.

Fartbean Enterprises is a name that comes up a lot in my games, as you may have noticed.
FYS:AHS and Okédoké take place in the same world, and both feature Fartbean technology.
Fartbean is someone's last name--the company has nothing to do with farts.  Or beans.

First look at a new (but also, sort of old) OHRRPGCE project I'm working on

Our blobby heroes.

You may have seen these guys before--I've posted them in a couple places, and if you know me in person you've probably seen me draw them at least once.  They're from an OHRRPGCE game that I've been tentatively calling "the blob game" ever since 2011 or so when I first starting the earliest work on it, but now for the first time it actually has a real title: "30 Plagues."

As the presence of a title suggests, it also has a storyline now.  It's pretty basic, but what I'm going for with this is not really a long story- or character-focused game (like Okédoké was) so there's nothing wrong with that at all.

Basically, the story goes that some time in the not-too-recent past an evil sorcerer named Valnabbath unleashed thirty powerful monsters upon the world (these are the "30 Plagues" the title mentions) and caused all kinds of random destruction, wiping out civilizations and basically scaring the crap out of everyone.

Here's a few of them (there are, of course, 30 in all... but I'm not going to post all of them here. XD)

"Death Machine" Droulodos

"Plague Carrier" Kolodor

"Sky Invader" Vuumfata

"Demon Judge" Waldohrer

And then one day, out of nowhere, Valnabbath just kind of vanished, leaving his monsters behind to wreak havoc without anyone directing them like he had done before.  Eventually things calmed down a bit--the Plagues settled into certain areas and didn't travel outside their territory much, and so people relocated to avoid the territories of the Plagues and rebuilt society.  Things were at least sort of peaceful, the occasional random monster attack notwithstanding.  Years pass, and eventually the 30 Plagues seem to be stirred up by something once again, showing up in populated areas to spread chaos more and more frequently.  This, of course, leads to various random heroes forming groups to head out and track down the monsters to fight them off.  Which is where the little blob guys from the picture above come in!  Here they are again so you don't have to scroll all the way back up:

As you can probably guess by their appearance, the blobs are set up like different RPG character classes.  They are (from left to right in the above picture, top row first)...

WARRIOR: Focused on physical combat.  Lots of HP, high attack and defense, but fairly slow and has no magic capacity.  Wields axes, equips shields and helmets.  Has a Defend command which temporarily provides a defensive boost (increasing raw defensive power mostly, but also slightly increasing the chance of dodging or blocking attacks entirely.)

ARCHER: Focused on physical combat... at a distance.  Less HP and raw strength than the Warrior, but faster and  better at dodging attacks.  Wields a bow and arrows, equips hats.  Has a set of "Sniper" abilities which allow multiple arrows shot in one turn, special arrows which do more damage against certain types of enemies, and other special effects along the same lines.  Equipping a better quiver allows you to use these techniques more often, though for purposes of making the Archer less annoying to play as you'll never run out of regular arrows entirely.

BANDIT: Not as good at fighting compared to the Warrior or Archer, but faster and with slightly better defense than the Archer.  Wields swords, equips bandannas.  Has a Steal command (which, obviously, lets you steal stuff from enemies) as well as Dodge, which sends your chances of dodging incoming attacks through the roof temporarily.  Equipping loot bags will made the Bandit more likely to succeed in stealing, or effect what you end up with when stealing (you'll either get more items or more money, depending on which bags you equip.)

WIZARD:  Focused on attacking with magic, to the exclusion of almost everything else.  Very low stats (aside from magical power, which is the highest of all the blobs.)  Wields a staff, equips hats.  In addition to using magic to attack (using fire, water, earth, wind, lightning, and more) the Wizard can also use a variety of spells that weaken enemies.  Equipping a magical symbol allows them to restore their MP once per battle, while equipping a magic book provides a degree of resistance to the type of magic the book teaches.

PRIEST: Focused on healing and defensive magic.  Very low stats, though slightly better in the area of defense than the Wizard (though balanced by lower magical power and speed.)  Wields a staff, equips hats.  The Priest's magic is a bit more varied than the Wizard's, with a variety of different healing spells, some defensive and strength-boosting ones, some that weaken or disable enemies, and even a few that attack enemies (though not quite as directly as the Wizard's spells, and often not as reliable.)  Like the Wizard, they can equip books and magical symbols which provide them with some extra options.

SUMMONER: Uses magic which summons other entities to fight for them.  Stats are a little better than the Wizard or Priest, but still not enough that they can fight very well without the aid of their summoned creatures.  Wields a staff, equips hats and beads.  Unlike the Wizard and Priest, a Summoner doesn't have the option of a MP-restoring item... but instead, they have a "Barrier" command which gives them a good chance of avoiding incoming magic attacks.

NINJA: A combination Bandit and Wizard, basically.  Fast, with decent attacking power.  Wields a sword, equips headbands.  Can use some magic, including a few types nobody else can (mostly disabling/weakening types, with a few strengthening and direct attacking spells mixed in) and has a Dodge command, but doesn't have the ability to steal or to restore their MP mid-battle if they run out.

PIRATE:  A combination Bandit and Archer, with a few odd little bits mixed in.  Slower and sturdier than either of those two classes.  Wields swords, equips hats.  Has a pistol as a secondary weapon, which works similarly to a magic attack (but doesn't work very well on every enemy.)  Like the Wizard and Priest, a Pirate can equip an item (an ammo bag, in this case) that allows them to reload their pistol once mid-battle.  Equipping  better pistols is also a possibility.

PALADIN: A combination Warrior and Priest.  Less attacking power than a Warrior, less magical power than a Priest, and very slow... but with good HP and defenses.  Wields swords, equips shields and helmets.  Like the Ninja, they can use some magic (not as much as a Priest or Wizard) including a few spells that only they learn, but they don't have the ability to recharge their MP mid-battle and can't equip magic books like the magic-focused classes can.

CHEF: One of the oddballs.  Stats are decent overall (with HP being above-average and only speed being very low.)  Wields frying pans, and equips hats and aprons.  Rather than magic, Chefs fight using food, rapidly preparing various recipes in the middle of a fight in order to heal or strengthen their allies or even attack! Of course, you need the ingredients to do much of this...

BERSERKER: Another oddball.  High HP and attack power like a Warrior, and also a bit faster, but with weaker defenses.  Wields an axe, equips masks and capes.  Berserkers start out like faster but less-sturdy Warriors, but gain access to the ability to go into a rage and fight like a monster as you begin to defeat some of the 30 Plagues--a Berserker will eventually become able to imitate the abilities of 24 out of the 30.  The only downside to this is that when in a rage, you can't control what they're doing until they snap out of it...

BUFFOON: The joke class, pretty much.  Weak stats all around (though their HP and speed are above-average.)  Wields scepters, equips hats.  They can use a limited selection of magic, but unfortunately this isn't very reliable as their spells are chosen randomly at the beginning of the game... and when you try to get them to use magic, which spell you get is also random.  Their one real advantage is the ability to equip a flask of some strong alcoholic beverage, which can be used once per battle to fully restore both their HP and MP.

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Right now this one is definitely still in the "planning/setup/graphics" stage of things, but hopefully I'll have a shell of a demo set up soon so I can start testing out the battle system and see if things will work out the way I planned (or if I need to fiddle with stats and such again to get them working better, heh.)