Saturday, August 07/2010 Back In Business
Well, I've been out of the loop for quite some time when it comes to game dev. I even stopped composing music for awhile, but about 2 months ago the
interest sparked back in me and I've been steadily reworking on Amethyst since then. Mostly, I've been doing maps, tiles and scripting events. In all honesty,
the actual engine has been finished, or at least extremely close to being finished, since I first released the demo way back when. (Going on 5 years now...)
That being said,a lot has gone on (a lot does go on in 5 years :P) so I'm a little out of sorts at the moment. I don't really know
where to begin to describe the state of everything...so, let's start with the website.
A few years ago the original host I was on went down. I don't know any of the story, just that it doesn't exist anymore, and I lost
a lot of files I had. I was able to keep a majority of the source files, but all images went away with it. So that's why there's a lot of broken images, links, etc.
floating around the site. I'll squash them when I can, but for now this site will stay a little broken.
As for life, well, a lot went on. I also became addicted to WoW and spent basically all my free time on it. I haven't played in about 7 months now
and really don't miss it. When I first announced that I had gotton it some comments I received were "Say goodbye to doing anything productive ever again." and at the time
I thought it was an exaggeration. But it really wasn't. It's easy to be swept up in that world for rediculous amounts of time, and the next thing you know...it's been 4 years
and you really haven't done anything with your life. :P That's not to say it was all bad, I met my girlfriend of the last 2 and half years during that time, and it was probably
her influence that broke me away from it consuming everything I did.
But enough about that. I could go on forever. The next update I do will try and outline all the changes that have been made to Amethyst since I last released the first demo
all those years ago. It had promise then, and I'd like to think it still does.
In the meantime, I'm going to try and fix this site up a bit. Originally I was just going to use Wordpress and do a blog/site, but I decided against it. I have the know-how
to just type what I want to say in a textpad file and upload it. I suppose I won't have an RSS feed, but then, I don't update enough to warrent one, really.
Okay, I'll stop rambling. RysenSoft is back, Amethyst isn't dead and neither am I!
Tuesday, February 28th/2006 Rysen Ranch Crashing Fix
It's come to my attention that Rysen Ranch likes to crash a lot during screen transitions! After much investigating it's turned out to be
the sound engine. Some how or another the .dll for it became corrupted and wasn't function the way it was supposed to. At any rate, you can download
the fix here: fmod.dll.
Replace the one in the main directory you extracted RR to with that one, and the crashing should stop.
Thursday, February 16th/2006 New Rysen Ranch demo
So much for the "once a week update" thing....hah!
At any rate, I've uploaded a new demo for Rysen Ranch. There are quite a few bugs in this release, but it's getting difficult for me to catch them all.
Meaning! If you've played the game, and find something out of whack that isn't glaringly obvious, ie. I'm well aware of quite a few all ready. ^_^, feel free to send me an
e-mail. In the meantime, you can get it:
Here
Thursday, January.12th/2006 What? An Update?!
Happy New Year everyone! I hope that everyone's holidays were fun and eventfull.
I must sincerely apologise for the lack of web updates. I don't imagine that this page is all the popular in the first place, however I do
receive bits of e-mail here and there from various people regarding the state of my projects. I do update my LiveJournal with more
game information than I do anywhere else, but I'm hopeing to make more of a habit to update this page as well. In any event here what's new:
I've recently revamped the entire Magic system in Amethyst. There were a lot of criticisms (myself included) about how flawed the Learn system was, and so I've completely redesigned and reimplimented it. Now
there are three trees for each character to learn, and instead of being able to use an ability while learning it, you're getting just straight AP points to learn from. Here's a screen to show you what I mean:
All characters now have 3 specializations that they can follow. In this case, Charity can learn Fire, Ice or Lightning, until reaching her "ultimate" spell. The difference is that despite which tree you follow
you'll still eventually learn all the skills in the game. You can be diverse, or powerful, it's up to you. (With power comes higher MP costs, however.) It'll be illustrated much more clearly when I release the next demo
but really, there's not much more to it than that.
For Rysen Ranch, appearntly the latest build of v3 includes an option to make movement tile-based. Once this is implimented and I finish scripting towns people (some day...*sigh*) there will more than likely be a new release for that as well.
I'm also putting together a new Amethyst web page, once I finalise a few more things about the general gameplay.
In other game dev news, I was composer and sound effects guy for a Independant Games Festival contest entry, and we find out our results on the 15th of this month! The game is called GrassMania: Need For Grass and you can download/check it out from that link.
Wish us luck!
And that about wraps it for me. I'm sure there's more to tell, but until I actually have something worthy of release I'll bite my tongue. I hope to update at least once a week now. It's my New Years resolution.
Cheers!
Friday, June.24th/2005 Web Updates and Puzzle!
I finally snapped and decided to try and polish off this here web page. So the links section is now up, and the Rysen Ranch section is now a little more complete (though it still needs quite a bit of work).
Still no Amethyst page, but I assure you it is in the works. In the mean time I'm going to be starting an internship at a game studio this summer where I'll be
composing music for professional games! Hurrah! So, I'm not sure if I'll have too much time to dedicate to RysenSoft for the next little awhile. However, I have been working
quite steadily on Rysen Ranch, where I've managed to add livestock. So, hopefully I'll be able to release a new demo of that this summer, and try and work on Amethyst as much as I can.
In other game news, Khross has released a new version of Puzzle! which is a Columns varient, and features a soundtrack by yours truly. You can find it here: Puzzle!
Cheers!
Sunday, April.17th/2005 Amethyst Demo: Reactions
The reviews are in! Here's what people are saying about Amethyst:
"I really enjoyed this. The entire demo was quality." - Omni
"This is a quality work and i hope, and i mean HOPE you continue this. Or i will haunt you for the last of your days. " - Syn
"The whole game had a professional feel with the right music playing for each scenario, and the dialogue was deep. I hope to see more." - RPGKing
"The music is original and is very good -- Amethyst probably has the best original music I've heard in a VERGE demo." - Gayo
"Rysen rocks my balls. Good work mate." - Troupe
"Keep up the good work Rysen, you are doing awesome <3" - Lina-chan
And of course a lot of awesome and constructive criticism. Thank you all for your kind words and helpful comments. It's stuff like this that not only helps me to
improve my games but inspires me to work on them more!
I've also got two new web pages in the works. One soley dedicated to Amethyst and the other dedicated to my music. Hopefully they'll both be up with in the next
couple of weeks.
Also, Happy Birthday Mom ^_^;
Cheers!
Sunday, April.10th/2005 Amethyst Demo Release
Come one, come all and download the very thing that I never thought I would ever release! Yes
the Amethyst demo is uploaded and ready for download. There is quite a bit that could be polished and
a few issues that I know about, however, I don't have as much time to work on it these days and I really
wanted to release it.
Please read the "readme.html" file included in the downloaded before playing. Enjoy!
Amethyst Demo (April.09th/05 release)
In other news I also updated the Music section with a couple of new tunes including a bitchin'
Orchestral remix of Aurora. Enjoy!
Tuesday, January.25th/2005 Amethyst
Coming soon...
Sunday, December.19th/2004 New Song
Not much to report game wise. University has been kicking my ass for last couple of weeks. The good news is that I got a B+ on a
term paper I thought I was going to do incredibly poorly on.
In any event, the song is called Silent Hearts. It was a Christmas present for my
close friend Nicole, and is one of the best things I've ever composed. So download it, if you feel the need, and enjoy. :)
Alternatively, I have my own spot at CTGMusic which will be updated far more often with
my latest music than this site will be. My artist page can be found Here. Merry Christmas!
Tuesday, October.26th/2004 New Rysen Ranch Demo
I've uploaded the new Rysen Ranch demo to v-rpg. You can download it
Here. I'll update more when I'm not feeling so tired. On top of homework,
band practise, tutorials, and studying for a mid-term, I've put a lot of effort into this thing, so, yeah. I deserve a rest after all the stuff I've produced in the last few
months damn it! :P
Anyway, enjoy, and send me an e-mail if you have any problems. :D rysenATactionsketchDAWTcom. (Take that spambots!)
There were a couple of major bugs in that release. You can download the patch Here
Sunday, October.3rd/2004 Verge3 Tutorial
On top of Rysen Ranch, the
Verge 3 FAQ and the CHRMAK Documentation, I've been spending
a lot of time writing a Beginner's Guide to V3 tutorial, to help any aspiring game creators
get their feet wet with Verge. It's by no means complete, and I could go on about the spelling, etc. but I've really mentioned
that on the index page. So! If you've stumbled upon this site by mistake, and want to learn how to make games with
Verge 3...Clicky!.
Saturday, Sept.25th/2004 Rysen Ranch update!
Yes, work has began anew on Rysen Ranch. I've spent what free time I have
polishing it up and squashing some very annoying bugs.
At this point, it has about the same functionality as the origianl WinV2
version, but there's quite a bit more. Most noteably are things behind the scenes that don't affect that player at all, sadly. However!
You can now leave your farm, and a majority of the sprites are finished.
I'm not releasing it just yet. I want to add a bit more functionality to the town, and I still need to finish off
quite a few frames from the sprites, so I reckon it'll be another month (thanks to school) before I release the final tech demo.
My plan is to release the tech demo, then release parts a season at a time. Spring will be first, then once I'm finished
that, Summer, then fall, then winter. Overall...once the actual gameplay parts are finished (basically by the time "Spring" is released),
there won't be much left to code other than events, and festivals, so the actual game shouldn't take long to finish once that is out of the way. That's the beauty of
"sim" games. The output is totally up to the user. ^_^
Wednesday, July.21st/2004 Phoenix Flame!
I never did do an update about this. Phoenix Flame is
a short RPG I did for the first ever V-rpg HoV contest in celebration of the release of Verge 3!
It placed first! :D Click here to see what people
had to say about it. :) (Also, you should download and play it. ;P)
Furthermore, the IRC quotes section is now up, though sorely lacking. =/
Monday, July.19th/2004
Okay well basically all that was functional before the move is now working again.
In other news Troupe and myself have
created a groovy medley
of songs found in Final Fantasy Legend II . So go download
it!
I also decided to take comments off. Maybe if I actually do stuff that's productive and this sites popularity
grows, but for now they're kinda of pointless. ^_^
Friday, July 16th/2004
It's been like forever since I've updated. I won't make too big of one right now
as there's quite a bit to talk about. The most exciting news is that thanks to RageCage
and Troupe I am now on a new server that is ever so sweet. So please be patient for the
next little while as the site is definately not even remotely operational. I shall try my best to get everything fixed and working again
within the next little while. w00t!