I think I said sometime in the last centuries that I wouldn’t post unless I had something to show. I kind of want to take that back because I have been working a lot on the game, but just not on things that can be shown with a screenshot. Mostly, I’ve finished (re)designing world-map so that it’s hand by hand with the story.

Before, I thought I had to choose which one was going to be the other’s master (if world-map determines story, or vice-versa), but I realised having a world-map beforehand would’ve helped get the story going much faster. They’re kind of the same in their own way; I’ve had to write a backstory for each important place. I’ve also come up with a 500-year timeline that made entwining the conflicts of the Valley much easier. I updated a few details in the game info page to share a bit more about the story, but I really can’t say much without taking away a few surprises. There’s a pretty big one that, I hope, you won’t see coming. If you do care to play the game when it’s out, I’ll be anxious to see if it worked out for you.

I get self-conscious when I talk about my things (I’m beginning to think this update is not such a good idea). But I’d rather keep updating the blog with somewhat useless posts than leaving things still. What’s kind of a relief is that there’s practically no expectation for the game, so the pressure to make something ‘worthy of playing’ is off in that regard. The good news is that I’m forcing myself to have this done by the end of this year. I hope that’s what actually happens.

Edit: I just realised I could’ve made an april fool’s “the game’s released” joke…

A map screen. I’ve finally added something I’ve been wanting to add since the mesozoic. The engine is quite nice and updates automatically, so I only have to fit the rooms in a structure editor and everything else is done by the engine. This is also something good since it’ll take away the responsibility of doing a map that fits. I still need to finish the world to see how big it will get; I think it will be considerably huge. I’m trying to have the world-map be open-ended so you don’t have to do much (tedious) backtracking.

Well! I finally installed a plugin to prevent spamming; comments are now allowed on news posts Nevermind.

Also, I disallowed registering most names in the forum because of spam. Alas, I can’t use plugins with it, so I don’t know how else to prevent bots from registering/spamming.

As for development updates go, I’ve kept on working. I’ve been having some steady free time, so I use it to work on the game or on film projects. The testers have been giving some feedback and I’ve been modifying some things, adding items to the inventory, etc. Still, there is one thing that is turning to be another project in itself: the animated cutscenes. I chose to draw and animate them only with pixel perfect tools and chose somewhat of a simplistic shading style. It is still a monster to do, though: once spriting the character’s actions is over with, I take it to After Effects to add some touches and then to SoundTrack to do the audio design. I decided to leave all this till the end and deal with it then, but it’s still around 22 minutes of animated cutscenes at at least 12 FPS. Maybe I need to find someone to help me with that or change the stylistic approach altogether. I’ve not explored vector animation too much–maybe this is a better option. Most of the time there are automated cutscenes within the game itself; maybe I should scratch the animated cutscene idea and only have in-game cutscenes. I’ll decide it later on. Otherwise, things are manageable.

(I’m sorry if this has turned into a diary of sorts. I’ll try to do this as less I can.)

Thanks for reading!

Things have been going well. I’ve added a video cutscene system (there will be some hand/computer drawn video cutscenes), increased the inventory to around 250 items, added screen-captures to the quests/errands you can schedule, added screenshots for the savestates, replaced several sounds for better-sounding ones, replaced some graphics in the title screen. Thanks to an extension that UltimateWalrus recently released, the game supports full-screen without losing its aspect ratio. It seems to run slow if the zoom is set at 3x and above, but I suppose the burden of choice is on the user now . I struggled a bit with a villager-routine system (which lets me have npc’s with predetermined 24-hour routines, kind of like Majora’s Mask), but I finally got it to work properly. I optimised the engine as much as I could, but I don’t know if speed is still an issue. The testers shall be the judges, I suppose.

In regards to the story, I’ve nailed a couple of things that had been bothering me for the past months. I still need to figure out what ending to choose. I’m trying to make of the story the best aspect of the game; I think you will like it

Otherwise, things have gone smoothly. The last semester of my career starts in a couple of weeks and I won’t be able to work on hfa as often as I would like, but I hope, as tentative a date as I can give, to finish the game by the end of 2012. If the world ends not. We will see.

The forum is back up! The link is up there ^
Hopefully, it’ll be harder for bots to spam them. I could always be wrong, though!

Oh, and:
Sometimes, dead enemies drop a bag with 1 out of 100+ possible items!

I don’t think anyone reads this, so the post won’t be too long x). There are times when I don’t get to work on the game at all, and times when it’s the only thing I do. This game is taking its time, but it will be done one day. It’s been almost 5 years since I started working on it; of course, I haven’t worked steadily on it for the past four, but I suppose it’s still a considerable amount of time anyway.
In any case, I’ve understood something: I’m not a game developer–I don’t need to polish everything so much. The reason the game’s taken so long is precisely because of this reason. I’d forgotten I started this game out of fun, and considering that it’ll be a free release, I don’t owe anyone their money’s worth . I’ve thus taken my liberties, and I just hope there’s at least someone who enjoys it when it’s done. This will be the only game I make, I think, since I’ve dedicated myself to film. I’ll try to update this once in a while.

Thanks for reading! I’ve also opened a Twitter account for the game that I probably won’t update very often at @HFAgame.

New short video: a short segment of the game showing the dialogue system and a bit of the back-story of a tragic character. Sorry about the quality and lack of sound (there’s no music for this part yet, anyway).

I don’t have much to say that I haven’t said about the game already: I’m still working on it, have tweaked things here and there, etc. I’m sorry about the lack of updates; sometimes I do not get a chance to work on hfa for weeks. When I do, I don’t think it’s worth your trouble to read what I’ve done. Still, here are three screenshots to show you more of the game. Also, the domain hfalicia.com is back online.

If you helped test the last beta, could you please send an e-mail? The forums are down and I lost contact.
Alonso.

Edit: I have closed the comments section because the spam is exasperating. Thanks for the replies!

Have been working steadily on hfa. I’ve added a bunch of things the game missed the first time around and have started level design from a scratch. Most importantly, I’ve been reworking the story. Seeing that I’ve not the best of graphics, the system is not the most sophisticated, I’m not the best at level design, etc., I’m relying on the story to make this game different. Film (which is what I do for a living) is about telling interesting stories, so I’ve been sketching out the plot like a screenplay or a small novel. Right now, I’m not sure if the story is too much for a game like this, but I think you’ll like it if I can make it work. I’d really like to tell it you to get some feedback, but I suppose that’d be like shooting myself in the foot.
That said, I’ve reworked the technical aspects of the game: you can now customise the keyboard controls as you wish or can play with a gamepad. I’ve also added a small and basic inventory and a scheduling system to justify the day/night cycle. I had added a 7-day calendar to complement the ideas of the plot, but I removed it and sticked to the 1-day system because things got too massive to work. Some characters in villages or cities will have schedules throughout the day, etc. I’ve added more power-ups to the engine to make it more balanced. The next update will have a screenshot

HFA is still being worked on. I didn’t want to update until I had something to show, but alas, time does not give. I still receive nice and encouraging comments about the game, which is always nice

About the status of the game, I decided to restart level design from a scratch; the engine was a bit unstable when special conditions came forth; I’m also planning on adding a map system and redoing the cutscene system. I’m wondering about the day/night system; I might remove it because, as of yet, it hasn’t much use. Anyway, I will update sooner or later with more stuff to show. Thanks for reading.