Announcing “Monster Commune”

With the community coming back to life, I thought I’d share something I’ve been working on to further generate interest. Since SB4 released, I’ve put out some programs, including an RPG demo, heart function similar to LoZ, a map editor, etc. but haven’t released a full-fledged game. I took a break from the RPG and repurposed (and expanded on) the spritesheet. It wasn’t long before this turned into a new project- one that I am committed to finishing. I am happy to say, progress is going well it and it won’t take much more work to release. This project, named “Monster Commune” for now, is a monster-collecting game. You play as Dichotomy, a monster that escapes a lab and vows to release monsters from human captivity and relocate to a new settlement called Paradise, where monsters can roam free. To best accomplish this goal, Dichotomy enrolls in the 7 or so monster-fighting tournaments. The winner gets to give a speech and Dichotomy will use the opportunity to spread his vision of a free monster community, inspiring rebellion in the captive monsters. You’ll select a town where a tournament is hosted and begin your journey through connected dungeons to reach the town. Dungeons will look similar, with a background reflecting the terrain and tiled path that leads to the next zone. Monsters appear on the map- you can choose to engage or avoid them (however, they also move along the route, making avoidance tricky). If you engage an enemy in the map, you’ll be taken to the battle screen. Here, I tried to implement a unique system. There are 8 total units and 9 spots on the grid. “Strike” will have all allies attack enemy neighbors, “Rest” restores a little HP to units, etc. The other commands are basically what you’d expect. The positions on the grid only matter for boss battles. The boss will appear off the grid and you must be in a special formation for your attacks to hit. However, you’ll have to clear enemy units from the grid first. After a boss takes a hit, it will backfill units on the grid and a new formation has to be reached. This is a high level explanation of the game. It will have more features, such as recruiting monsters, Paradise, monster affinities, and more. This post is getting long so I’ll end it here, but if you have questions about gameplay or otherwise, ask away! I hope this captures your interest.

This looks super cool!

This looks pretty neat, looking forward to the release.

Haven’t forgot about this project. Most of the UI, etc. was text based. I’ve replaced it with sprites to be a little more visually appealing. I’ve finished coding all ally and enemy skills. I’ve implemented a simple elemental wheel with strengths/weaknesses for each monster. I’ve practically rebuilt the battle system due to an annoying issue. I haven’t done anything beyond the battle system, so a lot more work to put in yet, but one major component of the game is near completion. Here is an updated screenshot featuring enemies from a battle in the first dungeon. Every unit has a health indicator (divided by quarters). The yellow orbs on the left are action points- you get 3 actions per turn. The blue urn is the mana pool. There’ll be another piece of info displayed to the right of the urn, but that’s a secret for now (and has not been coded in). Also, the action list display window (and the other windows that appear) color is configurable. Also, here’s the title screen. It’s animated, but you can’t tell from this still.

I took a long break but I’m back at it. I had to redo the main loop and map transitions. Also, I changed the scope of the dungeons so that only one can be completed at a time (rather than running a chain of dungeons that must be completed on a “journey” as this takes a significant amount of time to complete and difficulty spikes from dungeon to dungeon can be frustrating). Anyway, enjoy this screenshot from the intro that summarizes the plot:

This looks Amazing! I hope this project goes well

This looks Amazing! I hope this project goes well

Thanks! It is going well. Only a couple barriers to work through, one being time. I work full time behind a computer and last thing I want to do is code work. So I work on this on weekends a bit. There’s not much left to do, though. I have to create the hub/base, remaining event scenes, and balancing the combat (this might take a while).

Finally getting around to adding the hub town. I’ve been dreading it because I struggle with creating an attractive UI and this was even more challenging with the sheer amount of options in shops, etc. I wanted to keep it simple and I don’t think it looks too bad so far. In Kali’s shop, you purchase new skills using Bribecoin (rare currency). There are four categories of skills: elemental/cyclical (fire, water, earth wind), opposite (light, dark), support, and physical. At Mimo’s Bottomless Pit bank, you deposit food (common currency). You gain rewards for depositing food. Having enough food for your population also increases Prosperity, which gives stat bonuses in combat. Mild spoiler image:

Spoiler

More hub facilities to share in the future!

This will be the last bit of info you’ll get for a while as I push through a large chunk of what remains. When you complete a dungeon, the enemies you’ve defeated are sent to the River Crossing to await departure to their final resting place. However, you can bribe Charon to return them to you… This will be how the recruit function works. The recruited monster will appear in the barracks- the place where you manage your party. That’s it for now. I’ve got a long ways to go yet but by the next time I post, the project will be about 90% complete! Right now, it’s roughly 75% done. Everything functionally works, but I have a bunch of data to add, balancing, and other tests.

I have reached 90-95% complete. Everything is in place and everything works. I am touching up some broken visuals. Next I will work on balancing combat and monster stats. This will be interesting due to the way I approached stats. All monsters start with the same base stats. Then, for every level, the monster has 20 points distributed to health, power, and magic. The number distributed to each stat is the same per level (meaning monster A’s health, power, and magic will always increase X, Y, Z amount respectively when leveling up); however, each monster distributes the 20 points differently. I’m curious how this will affect strategy over various different levels. I hope it’s not too broken, though I do want it challenging. Anyway, I’ve been working on this for over a year and this project is almost done (time mostly spent on custom sprites because I’m no artist). It’s not a huge game, but it will be complete. I’m excited to release it soon!

I know I’m kind of talking to a wall at this point, but I’ve uploaded the project to the server and requested a key last night, (though the project is still under review). It has been well over a year since I first started this project and I am happy with where it is now. I will create the project page when I get the key. As far as future updates, I will only be removing game breaking bugs. I have only worked on this project and I am ready to be move on to other ideas I have.