Aeges Road Weekly Update

What happens when a programmer tries to go cartoon artist and make some basic weapons and armor icons? Well, something like this. The saddest part is, I kinda like it, and it certainly doesn't seem to be what most people want in their RPG. So among other debates going on right now, I am trying to figure out a weapon line that will let me salvage a few of these masterfully sloppy creations and use them in the game.

Among other things wildly in debate, I have been trying to tie up all loose ends on the UI so I can move forward and stop looking back. It has been both artwork and programming intensive, not to mention the constant second guessing and do overs. I have found myself to be a horrible boss for me, and my goal is to have this 100% done and ready to shine in a weeks time. Once this is done, I will be free to finish up the back end systems, get events rolling, and focus entirely on content and level building.

Music has been holding up progress on finishing the UI so far this week. With some spare time, I began exploring different alternatives for music and sound production much like I did with art software. I hit the internet and looked for wisdom. One very notable find, was all the royalty free music out there, and surprisingly, a lot of it is pretty incredible. I even managed to find 5 tracks that would closely fit the mood of the game.

Of course, not being totally satisfied, I started looking into how these tracks were made. I myself am a musician, but I am limited to pretty much one instrument. I know how other instruments are supposed to play out their part, but I can't play them well enough to record a production track with them. I have played with midi sequencers in the past, but the results were always very basic and lifeless. Fortunately, there is an incredible application available right now that does a great job of putting life into software music, FLStudio.

I have been playing with the demo, trying to get the hand of how everything plays out, and it is very impressive, and surprisingly easy. Today I decided I should try and compose a simple song that swung through a few moods, and the results were surprisingly so-so for just 45 minutes of fiddling around with my mouse. The tonal quality of the loops is incredible, no complaint there. The so-so comes from my loopiness, the song plays out like a cheap Japaneese animation, lots of repititious loops.

So once I get some things squared away, I plan on putting FLStudio to work on making the sound track. I have a general theme in mind, I am just not sure yet, as to how far into left field I want to take it. Right now I am more concerned with just making sure the quality is good and the melody and beat make the player feel something in accordance to the rhythm and groove of the game itself.