SpritesMind.Net

Just a little JRPG-esque turn based combat prototype I've been tinkering with
Trying to experiment with making mechanics just a bit outside of the usual bare-bones turn based menus, so I ended up experimenting with a little QTE-esque mechanic to augment it.
Attacks for example take a three-sequence DPad QTE which change the attack's effectiveness - not landing any buttons causes your attack to miss entirely, but the number of buttons you land changes the attack's multiplier, letting you deal maximum damage when you land the full three button sequence. Enemy attacks can also be countered with a quick single-button QTE that lets you avoid the attack and counter with your own.
Not sure where this system ought to go but

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcGB6AZUqgg

Yeah, that's some old-school JPRG fighting there. Now all you need is the characters. Kinda reminds me of pokemon... and a dozen other games of the time.

Changing button combos would become annoying very soon. Paper Marios do it with one button, but have the timing matter, and it's only a bonus. If the button combo was always the same for a certain attack or spell, and wasn't required for it to land, I could see it working nicely.

Hm, I guess another option is making the combo technically optional (won't miss even if you just don't press anything), but landing the whole thing gives a sort of Crit-style bonus. Or just keep the incremental bonuses, iunno.
A little down the road I was thinking about experimenting with giving certain enemies like bosses a special status value that has to be chipped away using either fully landed attacks or magic damage (think the Defiance/Break Bar in Guild Wars 2), and once depleted would leave the enemy vulnerable for a few turns. Dunno if making the QTE non random would make that too simple though, but otherwise I see where you're coming from on that. hm.

A new iteration on the combat. Abilities are in, accessed under the "MAGIC" menu.
I rewrote the turn order system so now characters can have a speed value that affects how often they get a turn.
I've now implemented a status effect system - moves are allowed to inflict an optional status effect for a certain number of turns (as well as allowed to remove an optional status effect).
Additionally I've implemented the Daunting system. An opponent that has the Daunting status can't be hurt normally - instead you need to chip away at their Daunting status one of three ways:

1. By landing a full-qte attack,
2. By landing a counterattack, or
3. By using any MP-costing move that deals damage

Once an enemy's Daunting status breaks, they become stunned for one turn to allow you a free turn of damage. After some number of turns that depend on the enemy, the Daunting status will always return.

(although, that said, any status effects inflicted on an enemy WILL hurt the enemy regardless of their Daunting status - for instance the residual damage of Burn or Poison)

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZZ-ISaTASU

I planned to use the QTE combat mechanic in the Bull's Hour project too, althouht QTE in my project had to remind the fighting scenes from Shenmue or Punch Mania arcade game rather.

After looking it FROM INSIDE... Are you planning to move horizontally the mountain and terrain? Some kind of camera movement perhaps?

Not much beyond the camera shake I've already got in place for when you take damage.
I considered having the clouds scroll but

Oh, but also new video, this time enemies have battler sprites!
- Now there's three slimes to fight!
- I've also nerfed the effects of Poison and Burn, Poison in particular was getting pretty ridiculous.
- Modified enemy AI so that it doesn't end up sitting there casting status effects on you turn after turn after turn
- Changed the way status effects stack (the turn duration no longer sums, since that got absolutely nuts with a bunch of slimes casting poison on you, now if the turn duration is longer than the remainder the character has on that status have it just sets it to the larger value)

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeZuMj1tx2c

Got a bit of a silly thought in my head today and had to pursue it.

Had a bit of a concept for a game over screen where there would be animated beams of light shining from above, down onto a sprite of the main character, set amidst a black background.
So I wanted to see what I could do with palette cycling animations today....

video: https://streamable.com/yi33a

That's actually pretty cool.

Thanks! ^w^

Though..... there is something I'm doing for that, a bit silly, where I have stored in ROM just a big dump of 32 pre-calculated palettes I'm swapping in and out, and every frame I check and see if the animation counter needs to be updated and if so: whenever it updates I actually on-the-fly calculate three different faded versions of the palette, and then swap those out on various scanlines in my HBlank handler because the pure dithered fade wasn't quite enough / looked sort of bad.
The thing I'm very worried about with this is that I'm worried on real hardware I'll end up running into the CRAM dots or something :/

Though I also planned to put in some twinkling particles fluttering down from above so maybe I could kinda mask it with that?

That could do it. Like Sega masked CRAM dots in Sonic with the water splashes.

Haha so my Everdrive arrived today and I tested it out.
Oh there are SO MANY cram dots.
LMAO.

If you time it perfectly you can get rid of most of those dots, if you are really lucky and ingenious even all off them.
By time it perfectly, I mean rearranging instructions or adding padding instructions/loops; or both.