Moonchild New Year's Update Post- What I've gotten done and Demo Announcement

Well, since it's the end of the year, I figure it's time to give a lengthy update for the few people who check this blog. (Sorry about that, by the way.)

First, let's sum up what I've been working on over the past few months.

MECHANICS:
A big part of what I've been working on is the general mechanics of the game. Making a turn-based RPG is a lot more complicated than I anticipated, even with the generally simple battle mechanics- especially given my commitment to quality of life features to make the game more fun to play. Making all these things play nice together can sometimes be tough. Thankfully, RPG Maker MV has tons of plugins available by a wide variety of authors to make things easier.
Here's a list of things that I've currently successfully implemented, to give you all an idea of what's going on under the hood.
-Passive buffs gained upon reaching specific levels are now fully implemented along with a detailed status screen to review them all.
-Limited inventory space is a feature present in this game, along with a storage box system to contain excess items.
-Great care has been taken to prevent softlocks or losing of items with the limited inventory. For example, if your items are full when opening a chest, you'll get the opportunity to put an item in the storage box to prevent losing items. Note that items equipped on your character do not count towards the total.
-Full keyboard remapping is now in, accessible from the options menu.
-Most enemy encounters are visible on overworld, and get knocked away from the player upon escaping battle to prevent instantly being put back into a fight. The only exceptions are scripted fights or boss battles.
-There's a Battle Retry feature on boss fights now to allow for skipping of pre-battle cutscenes.
-Animated battle backgrounds are making good progress, to add flavor.

This is a fair amount of stuff, but thankfully most of the kinks are ironed out and things should go more smoothly from here. Now, with that, I have an announcement to make!

DEMO ANNOUNCEMENT
That's right- in the near future, there WILL be a public demo of Moonchild for you all to play!
I've hesitated to make this announcement for a while, but now I think I've finished enough that I know it'll come out. I can't announce a release date yet, but in lieu of that I'll give an outline of what the demo will contain, and what's still left to do.
DEMO FEATURES
The demo will consist of Moonchild's first area- Tritown, Max's hometown. It contains the main town with many NPCs, a short introductory area to get the players into combat, and the game's first dungeon, Tritown Elementary.
Only one party member out of four will be present in the demo.
The Passive Buffs system is fully implemented, and the player will most likely get to level 6 by the end, with all of the
WHAT'S LEFT TO DO
-Cutscenes. This is a game with a fair amount of story, which means that cutscenes are somewhat frequent. These tend to take a fair amount of time, but it'll add a lot to the presentation, so please bear with me.
-Animated Battle Backgrounds. There's a couple of these left to make for the first area.
-Music. You may have noticed that I've been uploading a lot of music on the Frog In A Box YouTube channel- that's all for this first area. There are only a few tracks left to make, but they're the most important ones. These will be uploaded as they're completed.
-Enemy Balancing: This can take a while. To make sure the enemies are fun and fair to fight entails usually fighting them over and over again to make sure everything flows nicely. Most of the enemies are fully programmed, however, so all that's left is making sure the numbers work out.
-NPCs: NPCs are the lifeblood of Moonchild's areas, and Tritown is no exception. Making sure it's populated and fun to explore is the most important thing. This is the one part of development that is highly subject to change based on how many ideas I have, but typically it goes quickly.

I hope this update is informative. I'm going to be on vacation for the next couple of weeks, so updates on my Twitter will stop for that time, but expect more frequent posts pertaining to the demo on there once I get back.
Thank you all for following the development of Moonchild. Look forward to the demo's release!

INTRODUCING MOONCHILD

Hello, everybody!

This is the first of (hopefully) many blog posts detailing the progress of my hobby game, Moonchild.

WHAT IS MOONCHILD?
Moonchild is a turn-based RPG inspired by Earthbound, made in RPG Maker MV.

Taking place in the year 200X, it follows the adventures of four children trying to save the world from aliens from the moon.

WHAT’S UNIQUE ABOUT THIS GAME?
Combat uses an emotion-based attack type system. There are four emotions- Calm, Sad, Happy, and Angry.
Each of the four party members uses one of the four emotions for their psychic attacks, and enemies have strengths and weaknesses to each. The complexity comes from figuring out what party members to use in which situations.

For this first blog post, I’ll be talking in detail about the four party members, their personalities, and the basics of how they operate in battle.

MAX

An average boy from Tritown. After a friendly alien crashed in Max’s backyard, he was granted psychic abilities, and told of a prophecy involving an alien invasion and three other children. Now, he’s embarking on a journey across America to find the other three heroes and save the world!

Max is a bit quiet most of the time, but his actions speak louder than his words. When he actually talks, it’s usually for important things. In battle, he uses light guns and other such accessories to attack, channeling his psychic powers through them in bursts of energy!

In battle, Max is the most balanced member of the party, having a good mix of healing and attack abilities, and a well-rounded defense. His speciality, however, comes from his Calm powers, which range from preparing a more powerful attack on the next turn to turning completely invisible to the enemy!

SOPHIE

An introverted artist from Quadocity. Sophie has a bit of trouble expressing herself and making new friends, most of the time preferring to let her art do the talking. However, she quickly warms up to Max after he saves her from a raging elephant, and slowly the shell starts to wear down.

Sophie’s very shy by herself, but when she’s with friends she opens up quite a bit. She channels all her feelings into her art, and evokes powerful emotions in anyone who looks at it- which, given her newfound psychic powers, does actual damage to enemies!

In battle, Sophie has some of the most powerful psychic attacks in the party, but her health isn’t the best. In addition to this, however, she has several moves designed to debuff enemies’ stats- opening them up for more powerful hits.

THOMAS

An amateur chef from Pentopolis. Thomas discovered his psychic powers through his cooking- after his dishes started having magic effects on whoever ate them, that is. And after hearing about the lunar menace descending upon the world, he jumped at the chance for adventure!

Thomas is boisterous and loud to the extreme- often to the detriment of his friends’ eardrums. He can always be counted on to lighten up the mood, even in the darkest of times! With his trusty frying pan, Thomas’ cooking skills both cheer up the party and disgust enemies!

In battle, Thomas is the party’s tank. He has many moves designed to heal or defend party members from attacks, but in terms of attacking, he isn’t very good as a result. However, he can soak up hits that would otherwise down a party member, freeing them up for follow-up attacks.

DIVA

A punk-rocker from Hexaport. Diva just showed up one day in a club, calling the act on stage “f***ing losers”, then blowing them away with her own music. Now, she’s a regular fixture there, regularly drawing just enough audience members to pay the bills and getting into shouting matches with hecklers.

Diva is a headstrong girl that on the surface, seems very unpleasant. However, get on her good side, and she can be very loyal and trusting. After the party saved her from being possessed by the aliens, she joined them out of gratitude, albeit trying to deny her feelings. Now, she channels her rage through her electric guitar, breaking the eardrums of all enemies who hear it.

In battle, Diva is by far the most powerful physical attacker in the party, and her psychic powers are near the top as well. The problem comes from her recklessness- a few of her more powerful attacks either miss frequently or damage her after use.


More frequent updates will be posted on the Frog in a Box twitter account, with more detailed updates coming here monthly. Stay tuned!