First update of 2023. I've spent most of the past month fleshing out the game world, so there's now a LOT more to explore than before. Main Street and Second Street are far more interesting now, and you can buy different things at each of the shops. And yes, there are two different coffee shops that serve different kinds of joe. One of them even has a seasonal menu (so no Pumpkin Spice Lattes in spring!). I also made a big riverside park to explore, although there aren't any people there yet.

Ian, Cody, Kaitlyn, and Paul can now join your party! Ever since I started working on this project, I had a feeling that Kaitlyn would be a popular character because she learns Osmosis earlier than anyone else - though it's also true that she has a unique weakness that will trip her up against certain enemies! I think Paul will prove to be a valuable addition to most parties as well. Also, Gabriela has all her sprites now, so she won't randomly turn invisible if you try to use her in battle.

I changed some single-target attacks/buffs to multi-target. This might require more fine-tuning later on, but for now I'm calling the character movesets complete.

I added a few new enemies and added more sprites, music, and sound effects.

I made sure that you can use items in battle to heal status effects or debuffs, so you're no longer limited to items that recover HP/MP. This means that items like Antidote and Syrup of Ipecac work now. (Antidote is a better version of Syrup of Ipecac - as in real life, ipecac is risky and is rarely recommended in the Career Fantasy universe.)

I squashed a few more bugs:

• Reduced the cash reward for defeating enemies (it had been much too high)
  
• Fixed a weird bug where CPR/Revive would affect the wrong character if used on obj_battle_player2
  
• Fixed a nasty bug where using an item in battle would cause that item's count to fall all the way to 0 - if you had 30 Potions, and used one in battle, you'd end up with 0 Potions! (Using items from the pause menu still works fine, of course)

Slowly but surely, I keep inching a little closer to the finish line. There's still a lot of incomplete/placeholder stuff, but I have reached a big milestone: I can say that the game is playable from beginning to end! You can advance the plot without having to use debug codes - beating a big boss changes the game phase, and certain NPCs now prevent you from accessing certain areas before you're supposed to. Of course, it's entirely possible that creative players might still find some fun ways to sequence-break the game!

Over the past month, I've been focusing on some other boring but critical things, like making sure that walls work! Now you can't run around on desks or beds.

The college campus has a lot of new buildings to explore. I didn't do much with the town area, though, aside from adding more signs and decorations.

Now you can sleep in the bed in your dorm to fully restore everyone's health and MP (an important addition, needless to say!).

One possible playable character starts off as a bit of a ne'er-do-well, but he eventually decides to get his life together and start studying! As such, he can reclass near the end of the game, making him a lot more powerful. I wish all my real-life friends would get their act together, instead of becoming less mature as the years go by!

Rumor has it that I made progress on a fun little secret dungeon.

Also, I enabled Vsync - it makes the game look a little smoother, at least on my PC. Let me know if anyone has any issues with this.

Sounds like it's coming along well. Hoping it comes out soon!

@fireball3k It's getting there!

I finally finished the first dungeon of the game! That's a big step in the right direction. It's crazy to think that I came up with the idea for this dungeon nine years ago, and now I finally translated my vision into reality. Better late than never, or maybe never better than late.

While testing the first dungeon, I made a few tweaks to the game mechanics. I made a script that reduces the enemy encounter rate if your party is significantly overleveled. This way, you won't constantly get pestered by random encounters with weak enemies if you're much stronger. I also made it so characters that have fainted recover 1 HP after a battle ends. However, you still won't be able to use regular HP recovery items to revive a fainted character during a battle, so characters who learn Revive (and similar moves) are quite desirable.

Other new stuff:

• Created lockable doors
  
• Worked on dungeons 2 and 3
  
• Created the remaining buildings for the overworld
  
• Verified that every enemy I've created appears in the game
  
• Made certain graphics prettier
  
• Added a bunch of new random items you can find on the ground - thanks Miles for helping come up with great ideas that made me totally crack up

Fun Fact: One character gets paralyzed for several turns when she sees the first boss (this is something I'd been meaning to add for a while)

I'm finally able to play the game for sustained periods (30+ minutes at a time), which is important for tracking down some nasty bugs that had been in hiding for a while.

• Fixed a bug where you couldn't scroll down the list of key items
  
• Fixed a nasty bug where poisoned players could keep losing HP after being defeated, potentially causing battles to last forever
  
• Fixed a bug where characters' HP would stay at 0 after a Game Over
  
• Fixed a bug where MP got reset to max after each battle
  
• Fixed a bug with the wrong character getting healed in certain scenarios - if a character in the back row tried to heal themselves, the character in front of them would get healed instead
  
• Fixed a game-breaking bug where the battle selector object would occasionally get upset while looking for the fourth enemy in the enemy party if there wasn't an enemy at that position - apparently I didn't fully understand how the is_undefined function works

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Edited by: Bibby, Apr 7th, 2023 @ 1:33 pm

Dungeons 2 and 3 are still in progress. They're not done yet, but they're getting there.

In April I added lots and lots of NPCs! That's been fun. I'd like to add some more, but I've finished adding all the important ones. Recruitable characters now appear on campus (not just in the test room) and have their own unique text when you talk to them.

I've made a bunch of improvements to the dialogue system. Now certain characters say different things if you talk to them multiple times. Also, questions work more smoothly, and some inanimate objects (like bookshelves) can use the dialogue system as well.

I've reduced each player's accessory slots from two to one. This is something I'd been planning to do for a while - I felt like having two accessory slots could make certain players overpowered. I might change it back - who knows!

Now it can rain! Rain occurs at predetermined times depending on the game phase. Also, I added music just for rainy outdoor areas.

Plus a few other things:

• Made the music player a persistent object so sounds (like slamming a door) won't abruptly stop playing when you change rooms
  
• Added a nag message in the admissions office - the game strongly encourages you to choose a major, since "undeclared" characters don't learn skills
  
• Added a sound for the start of boss fights and for opening treasure chests/getting items
  
• Added more music

Dungeon 2 is now complete!

That's the main thing I've done this month, and it's a pretty big thing. At this point, finishing the final planned dungeon is the last major thing I need to do before I have a "minimum viable product" ready to share.

It's possible that my motivation will totally run dry once I finish the final dungeon, but I'm pretty sure that I'll keep on adding "nice to have" features over the coming months. Fingers crossed. Those things are usually more fun to make than, say, debugging the menu system.

Also, a sound now plays when you heal characters from the pause screen, and I tweaked the way sounds work with the text boxes.

The final dungeon is finally complete, aside from finishing the boss sprites and testing everything!

As for less exciting progress, I fixed a bug in the in-game clock and added some more stuff to the library.

This game is tantalizingly close to what I had envisioned for it. I'd still like to spend a couple more months polishing up the game, adding new "nice-to-have" features and making sure the balancing is reasonable.

Let me know if anyone (besides the usual suspects!) would like to beta-test this in the near future.

Fun Fact: Today marks 12 years since I first started this game. Better late than never... or never better than late.
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Edited by: Bibby, Jun 15th, 2023 @ 11:33 pm

I poured some time into testing dungeon 3. I hope it's a bit fairer now - the original encounter rate was ludicrously high in certain hallways, and one enemy spammed a very powerful attack. Also, your HP and MP now get fully restored before you fight the final boss. You don't even have to ask - it happens automatically. It's the least I could do for you!

Speaking of final bosses, Fireball3k gets a massive thanks for composing an awesome track for the final boss!

Now you learn certain moves at earlier levels - previously, it would've taken some major-league level grinding to gain enough levels to unlock the most powerful moves in the game. Also, I reduced Luck stat growths for players and enemies - this way, the critical hit rate won't become too high at higher levels.

There's a new status effect! An extremely harmful status effect, I might add. Fortunately, you might never see it.

I fixed a bug where a sound loops on the battle screen when you get a game over. Now game overs are slightly less irritating!

The bonus dungeon is complete aside from testing. Testing this is gonna take a while, in part because the balancing is probably totally out of whack!

I added more NPCs, especially in the library and theatre. I had fun.

One of my goals for this game is to show the passage of time - the game takes place over the span of several months. Accordingly, the game's graphics now reflect the changing seasons! For example, the grass looks different in different seasons, jack-o'-lanterns appear in the fall, and some trees drop their leaves in winter.

Since Career Fantasy takes place in "20XX", your character owns a cell phone! It might not be a bazillion-dollar iPhone 23 Plus Premium Max DX Director's Cut Platinum Edition, but it is powerful enough to have a few "apps" on it. I programmed some apps. They may or may not be useful apps. Either way, me programming silly stuff for the game is a good sign that this game is almost done.

It probably sounds funny that I saved this for the very end, but some enemies now have special animations for when they're attacking. I might still need to tweak the timing and the animation speeds, though.

Expect a full version of this game to be ready in late August! Until then, I'll be testing stuff and adding nice but nonessential things.

You know this crazy game I've been working on for 12+ years? It's almost here! Really. Version 1.0 will be ready on August 28, 2023.

I'll be sharing Version 0.99 to a select group so they can test it out and yell at me when they find something that's irritating or broken.

Since my last post, I finished the bonus dungeon. It took a while to get the balancing just right. It's still probably on the tough side, of course - this is no cakewalk.

I played through the game twice with two different parties to make sure that no nasty bugs reared their ugly heads and to make sure the balancing is reasonably sane. Each recruitable character has their own style, but I don't think any one character is massively stronger or weaker than any of the others. Just make sure that you have a reasonably diverse bunch - a team of characters with similar skills will struggle.

I tweaked a bunch of moves to make them more or less powerful, or to reduce their MP cost.

A few more NPCs joined the fun.

I installed the gmsched extension, which fixes an issue where gameplay often drops to 45 FPS even on powerful PCs.

I changed the LoadGame script so it always returns you to your dorm, preventing a rare but game-breaking bug. (Don't worry - if you lose to a boss or otherwise get a Game Over, you'll also return to your dorm, but you won't lose any EXP or items you've collected.)

I tried to make menus slightly prettier. I fixed an issue where occasionally an item name would be visible outside the menu border, and I tried to make the color contrast better. I can't believe I ever thought that having dark blue text on a light blue background was a good idea.

Each boss room now has a recovery portal. Should make things a wee bit gentler.

Several bugs got squished:

• Fixed a major bug where you couldn't scroll down the list of key items if it grew too long (whoopsie - that's why you test these games from beginning to end)
  
• Cure-All shouldn't half-revive KO'd characters
  
• Now the poison script won't reduce your HP at the end of the battle

I tried to fix a rare bug that prevents you from equipping an item you should be able to equip. If the game ever tells you that you can't equip an item you want to use, and you think your character should be able to equip it, try again and see if it works. Either way, you should let me know - this bug occurs so randomly that I've had a hard time confirming my proposed solution worked.

I haven't been posting because I'm a severe lazy-bones but I have been reading each and every update post with much excitement. I'm really looking forward to playing this.

Congratulations on getting this project to this point after all that time!