Thanks! Working on a new version with one single giant world map with open seas and island to explore by boat.
And in the new version you will be able to go behind trees and similar objects.


Thank you! Yes you get better in your skill by using it, then you have your regular attributes such as STRENGTH, DEXTERITY and INTELLIGENCE that increases for each level depending on which class you've chosen. Not sure yet about the class-system, but I also have a lot of families of creatures to work with, so need to keep a bit simple in the beginning in order to balance it well.

Thanks for the feedback! Yes I'm definitively going for the cute look, but it will get more serious as you become higher level.

Comments on the bad:
- I agree that some things aren't really intuitive, I will have to rework some interactions and add some tutorial messages.
- The walking isn't as smooth as I want it to yet, perhaps it is due to server response, I will hopefully improve it soon.
- Larvas have been weakened now in later versions and all classes have more health to begin with.
- I want to encourage players to do quests, so if you take the first quest from the wizard worm and go kill those 10 larvas, you will get a reward and enough xp to level up. All skills also level up as you use them so there will be reward messages popping up.
- There should be a level up sound and a shine that appears around the player, perhaps a bug in the earlier version.

Comments on the ugly:
- This bug is now fixed
- I will fix the layout of the option menu
- These bugs are fixed now
- Chat has been cleared of such status messages to not spam too much, instead you can see all attacks appearing above the targeted creature.

Thanks a lot for testing it! The server is still running and will be for now, so just try whenever you want, hopefully there will be others online as well.

Looked around the web for good ways to package the jar-file with its libs to an exe file for windows and app-file for mac. But can't find any good tutorials for any of them (launch4j, izpack...). It would be awesome if you could add JRE with the game or a java installer, because many have problems with installing java. Do you know any?

We are becoming quite the party, 10 players online at the same time is the record at the moment!

After one and a half years of development, the first playable version of Blue Saga is finally available for download.

It is still an alpha so nothing is really 100% accurate and many bugs hides in the bushes. So download the game at www.bluesaga.org and enjoy!

So remember, since it is an alpha anything can happen, so here are the rules:

If the client crashes, restart.
If you lose connection, restart.
If something waaaay crazy happens, laugh at it, restart.

Happy gaming!

Got the new bounty system to work now, so you will be able to place bounties on each other next week:

Thanks! I'm releasing client v0.3 to you all really soon (in a week or so)!

Yes the GUI is movable, but thanks for the offer!

Here is a new video showing the newbie island called "Chompa Island" with its village, forest and caves.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/TUQ5OHA1kAQ?version=3&amp;hl=en_US&amp;start=" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/TUQ5OHA1kAQ?version=3&amp;hl=en_US&amp;start=</a>

Finally settled all the fuzz with creatures, families, classes and so forth. Creatures will be part of a family (Forest, Mountain, Sand, Snow etc...) and each creature will have a specific class orientation. So in the beginning of the game you only have to choose a name, a family and a creature. Here is a screenshot of the character creation screen. The creature you choose also have some restriction in what type of skills it can learn, for example a fire blob can't learn ice-magic.



Finally made a new spell "ice bolt" which let you freeze the target. This makes the target unable to move or attack, but I wonder if I should let it use magic, what do you think?

Added some simple fog to make the cave look more colorful:

Redid the art for the inn as well, would be cool if you could talk to the snail and get quests from the actual inn-building and not only people inside it =D

Redid the shop in the starting area to fit the forest-theme a bit more:

Wow thank you! Of course I will add your name in the credits. I really appreciate any help that makes the game better. I will put it in the game right now and see how it feels.

Good idea, funny skills are awesome, I'm bad at sound effects but will try and find fitting ones.
I will try and remove the black outlines in some of the graphics to make it look more even and I will have to redo the UI-graphics, don't know if I like those fat pixels, they clash a bit with the finer pixels in the game graphics, or what do you think?



Haha yes nothing wrong with that, it just seems that players today are used to creating elements such as all minecraft-clones which makes this game feel a bit uncreative. There will be crafting skills later on, need a fun crafting system and you will be able to build your own house etc. But I don't know if it is a good idea to give players the option of destroying everything in the world.

Yes you're right, the graphics are all over the place, I really need help from someone who can look over the graphics and do graphics for the whole game. If anyone is interested just let me know.

All content is in place, it is just some bugs that needs to be fixed, then we can all test it. And I would really appreciate ideas for features from you that can make the game funnier. Because it feels a bit oldschool mmo right now, with only quests and levelup skills and so forth (like the diablo-games I guess).

Thank you!

Here is a new screenshot of a new area I've added, showing some height differences:



Got some help with the pixelart from my friend Otto.

I've also added a cave, will post screens of that soon.

Other than that I've fixed health and mana regain when not in combat, added all quests for the first public testing. So there isn't much left to do except some tweaking and adding of particle-effects =D

Thanks for the kind words! I want exactly the same thing as you with the game. I want players to be able to customize/specialize their character as much as possible!

The skilltypes you see on the screenshot will level up as you use abilities of that skilltype (maybe I should call them schools instead of skills?). There won't be any classes as I've said before, instead you're free to use the abilities of a school and get better at them as you use them. Higher level in a school will enable you to acquire more powerful abilities of that school.

The effectivness of a weapon or an ability is also dependent on either your STRENGTH, INTELLIGENCE or AGILITY stat. For example a wizard-type player can also use a two hand sword if the strength is enough but it won't do as much damage as if a warrior-type player with higher strength uses it. Same thing if a paladin-type uses fireball compared to a fire mage.

Then I have the different resistances/defense against different damage types. These will be different depending on the type of creature you've chosen and the equip you have.

So I think the character development will be quite interesting. I'm working right now on new damage formulas and it is proceeding well =).

Yes, named them: Blades, Bows, Blunt weapons, Unarmed, Lightning magic, Fire magic, Ice magic, Axes.

Here is a screenshot with the skills and their sp-bars:

Decided to drop the classes, instead players will be able to place their STRENGTH, INTELLIGENCE, AGILITY stats themselves.
When you create a new character, instead of class you get to choose a starting weapon.

Here are some icons for the different ablity-types, can you guess which one is which?

It is an online game, so there will definitely be multiplayer =) The server/client works real well now, so I just need to fix some more bugs and add some content, then I will try and put a server online so you can test it.


Yeah, I would love to have someone making the art for the game, so much work doing everything by myself. But I don't have that kind of money to pay an artist, so all I can offer is percentage of potential money the game may make =)


Thanks!


Ah sorry of course I should have done that, thanks for fixing it!

Thought of posting here instead of Showcase since I don't have a demo yet.

Here is the latest screen of the game


Changed the whole UI so it is more adapted for mouse, with items stats shown in popups when hovering the mouse over items.

You can now drag and drop equipment from your inventory.
Updated the shop to work with mouse as well.

Left to do on the ui is the actionbar, working on drag and drop for that one as well.

The five equip boxes are for helmets, weapons, offhands, amulets, artifacts.

Changed the whole UI so it is more adapted for mouse, with items stats shown in popups when hovering the mouse over items.

You can now drag and drop equipment from your inventory.
Updated the shop to work with mouse as well.

Left to do on the ui is the actionbar, working on drag and drop for that one as well.

The five equip boxes are for helmets, weapons, offhands, amulets, artifacts.

Haha we still havn't decided if the boobies are too much, perhaps the nipples needs to be hided, but it feels lame. I mean this is an indie game, so no rules I guess =)

Hahaha, creepy is nice!


Nice! Sounds creepy! These two will be npcs so they will have more personal names, but I like the name Grimpling, so maybe we will use that for a monster-type. Otto is working on some monster designs as well, so we will see where it can fit.

Here is the beginning of some art for the game made by my friend Otto:



Link to larger version:
https://twitter.com/skullboxlabs/status/256439844300017664/photo/1/large

The starting area will be the forest, so a few npcs are needed, no name for these guys yet. Any suggestions?

Just PM me your mail and I will add it to my closed testing group.


Haha maybe so, thanks for watching them!

The game engine is practically finished so it is the actual content that is missing such as story elements, quests, monsters, areas, items and so on.

Another thing I can mention is that I have decided of 5 equips for the characters:

Headgear
Weapon
Offhand
Amulet/Necklace
Giant Artifact (which is worn on the back)

I skipped legs, chest and shoes as other rpgs since I want all monsters, wheather they are big boned or tall and skinny to be able to nicely wear them.

I will discuss a lot of story elements/areas/characters with the others this weekend so hopefully I will advance a lot on that front. I will share the ideas with you and perhaps you can give me feedback.

Just posting to say that the project is still in development.

I actually got help from a friend with the coding, and another friend for graphics, so it feels really professional now =)

I've gone through and updated nearly all my code in the game that I've done during the past year, correcting the structure to make it fit more the changed concept of the game.

The basic concept is that the game will revolve around different creature families. You will be able to choose a family in the beginning of the game, and then all quests and actions you do will affect your reputation with other families. This reputation will give access to other quests and areas.

I have also reworked the whole Monster/NPC thing. Now any monster can give quests if your reputation is good enough. So a monster can change status from being aggro, to give you quest, to finally sell items to you. I think this will be quite unique and give the game an interesting touch.

You will even be able to battle NPCs, which will most of the time be very powerful.

A lot of this inspiration comes from all the hours I've spent playing Dark Souls.

My coder friend has made a particle system for the game that will add some nice effects instead of my choppy sprite-animations.

Hope anyone is still interested, and I will try and post some new content soon!

When I write:

g.setFont(FONTS.size12);
g.drawString("åäöÅÄÖ", 100, 600);

I see the letters, but when I have a:
input_field = new TextField(app, FONTS.size12, X, Y, 100, 30);

and write into the field, it shows all letters except "åäö".




      

Started working on the start and character selection screen.

Had a lot of work done on the database and old code clean-up from the old battle system.

Now you will be able to have up to 8 different characters on the same account.

My idea is to have the clouds, water and birds animated, and when you select a character the camera will slide to the side and show the island the character is on.