 What is this game? Hell Diary is a PC adventure game that's been in development, as of this writing, for almost a week. You play through three different characters' stories, solving mysteries and learning more about the game's world as you do so. It's not a fantasy world in a strange vacuum of kingdoms and grand evils, but then again everyone says that so...! Technical Features
The limitations were chosen to emulate the experience of playing it on a PC-8801MkIISR as closely as possible. The actual gameplay is in 640x400, but I tried to make sure fullscreen images and portraits are done with tall pixels/scanlines to appear 640x200 (which is the actual resolution of the PC-88's V2 mode). Some liberties are taken, such as a good framerate, decent (no) area load times, and smooth scrolling. Plot and Setting The game is set in a fictional country called Galwihanawe through early-mid 1979. Lots of stuff is going on—civil unrest and strife, the rise of microcomputers for home and business use, and people vanishing without a trace to a place called Naraka or Hell. The story and world is explored from the point of view of three different characters, between February and August 1979. There is some overlap between the stories, but this section is a bit of a WIP as I don't want to spoil anything and I wanted to get the technical stuff out of the way first. Playable Characters (in order of appearance) Kekoha Tanmun: Born 17 June, 1950. A professor of mathematics at Lanmun University. She's not very religious, but she does have the odd tendency to nationalism. Despite this, she's dating a foreigner. She begins the game out of town for a convention. Eun Utai: Born 10 February, 1954. She's a programmer working at the DelmunSoft offices in Nampodon, a suburb of the capital city. Comes from an impoverished background, very religious with strong ties to the clergy. Her sister is in the Royal Legion, which has become more of a secret police force. Anastasiya "Nastya" Falken: Born 21 March, 1965. A red-haired foreign high school student with a huge interest in computers and electronics on a class trip for immersion study. She's a wizard with electronics and tools and can't wait to get her hands on something more advanced than a dumb terminal. Gameplay and Features Gameplay's done from a top-down perspective in a tile-based 2D world. There's no fighting; you examine characters and collect key items and documents to help solve puzzles, mysteries, and cases. I wouldn't call it an "art game" at all, though. A planned feature is the inclusion of a Sound Source Select setup/option, like on vintage home computer games; then the player can switch between 6-channel mono OPN sound, and 16-channel stereo OPNA (YM2608) sound. Two guesses at which one's gonna be done second! The composition style is intended to be a mix of jazz, funk, and 80s RnB—80s music made heavy use of analog drum machines and the Yamaha DX7, which provided groovy FM synth basslines. Also it's loving baller! Preview tracks: (EDIT: MMLTalks seems to be down, so you can listen to it at my Soundcloud instead) Preview shots:   The intro, but in video form Releases? The game will be released for free, probably through multiple online outlets like itch.io, gamejolt, etc. Full disclosure: I have made previous incarnations of this game, which turned into spaghetti thanks to feature creep and not working off a design doc. So you may have heard of it before. Links
 Q&AWhy do retro at all? Everyone indie and their mom does a "retro" game. True. But I think the PC-8801 is vastly underappreciated, and a lot of great series and names forged their beginnings on PC-88 (Yuzo Koshiro, Nobuo Uematsu, Square, Koei, etc.) and it's so drat charming! I love the PC-8801, you might say it's my fetish. "Delmun" sounds familiar... I used that name in my Cities: Skylines mod. The imports shop. What makes you so sure you'll actually finish the game this time? I broke it up into manageable chunks and reduced the scope from "life sim and investigation game and and and..." to "Investigation game". Also everyone I hang around seems to love the PC-8801/early 9801 aesthetic. I work really, really fast when I'm inspired. Who else is working on it? It's just me. I'm the coder (actually scripter), writer, artist, and composer for this game. And for all my other games. What engine does it use? Do I really have to say? Fine, fine fine... RPG Maker VX Ace. It's good for this kinda game and if you can program you can do neat stuff with it, I swear! Like switching BGM banks, and that super neato PC-88 dither-dissolve up there in the caps! Will it be on Steam? Probably not, I don't trust my luck to get it greenlit. Besides, it's freeware! Noyemi K fucked around with this message at 15:34 on Mar 20, 2016 |
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May 7, 2015 20:55
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One screenshot and already I am in love with the art style.
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May 7, 2015 21:00
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This looks suuuuuuuuuuuper cool. You have a fantastic art style that should help distinguish it from other indie games. If you don't mind me asking, is there a reason you're not trying a paid release? Just what you've shown here is pretty far ahead of a lot of releases on Steam.
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May 7, 2015 21:05
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Zombie Samurai posted:If you don't mind me asking, is there a reason you're not trying a paid release? Just what you've shown here is pretty far ahead of a lot of releases on Steam. The first couple incarnations were freeware, and I promised the previous audience who have mostly forgotten about me at this point and moved onto "horror" games with lolita protagonists it would be freeware and I'd have a hard time actually charging for it in any way. It's an honour thing.
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May 7, 2015 21:09
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Was preparing to berate you for shilling but this actually looks pretty neat. Out of curiosity, why make a thread for it so early? Or is it one of those dealies where it will help you to stay committed if you have goon encouragement.
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May 7, 2015 21:14
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Fuligin posted:Was preparing to berate you for shilling but this actually looks pretty neat. Out of curiosity, why make a thread for it so early? Or is it one of those dealies where it will help you to stay committed if you have goon encouragement. That and my track record is pretty decent, most stuff I announce becomes playable at some point and this project needs to be made. I made sure to bust it up into manageable chunks and I'll soon have loads of free time to just work on it 8+ hours a day if I really wanted to.
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May 7, 2015 21:19
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man, Galwihanawe? that's a mouthful. This looks like it could be a better version of whatever yume nikki was supposed to be.
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May 7, 2015 21:20
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MinibarMatchman posted:This looks like it could be a better version of whatever yume nikki was supposed to be. Funny you mention that, the original game from 2011/2012 was a Yume Nikki clone in RM2k3 with bad graphics and poo poo music.
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May 7, 2015 21:22
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looks rad as all hell, lot of potential just from the dedication to the art style alone
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May 7, 2015 21:22
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Really excited for this, I love the aesthetic and both the gameplay and the world sound fantastic. Can't wait to see more!
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May 7, 2015 22:58
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Followed on Twitter, I await updates. I spied a thread with NEC in the title and was destined to be trapped like a moth in a bath.
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May 7, 2015 23:50
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Watching a let's play of your other game and it looks really really good. Anyway, love the art style and music. Best of luck. Sephiroth_IRA fucked around with this message at 00:20 on May 8, 2015 |
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May 7, 2015 23:58
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Just for shits'n giggles, here's some stuff I made before with the same aesthetic:   The problem was last time I didn't use a YM2203/emulator, I used an SB16 GM wavetable (soundfont). I'm not entirely sure how I'll do Hell this time around since I only have RGB primaries to work with and Hell is supposed to be ludicrously dark in most places, as there's no natural light. It'll be a bit before I have to do up shots of it though, so I guess that's plenty of time for me to experiment and get some input 
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May 8, 2015 08:23
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This reminds me of the old Final Fantasy Legend GameBoy games. And as far as I'm concerned, that's a very good thing.
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May 8, 2015 16:46
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One thing that just came to mind about this game was that, in a much earlier version (0.02x) I had characters who had unique gameplay "tools" for dealing with various puzzles and problems that come up in the game. I think I could bring that back in a big way, with each of these three having a unique set of skills and tools specifically for solving the game's puzzles. Kekoha would have her charisma to help her gain clues or influence people (tentative, seems to be the least game-changing since her scenario takes place fairly far-removed from the other two) Eun can use some magic spells and her martial abilities to overcome obstacles (tentative, may or may not fit with the overall theme of the game despite a heavy fantasy element) Nastya uses mechanical hardware knowledge and skills to her advantage (tentative, since the whole system of three different characters experiencing largely separate scenarios with different skillsets may be a bit much) I think this could be used to reduce workload and generate player curiosity by having characters share some locations that they're active in, and the places on the map you can go would be dependent on which scenario is currently active. From a technical standpoint, it's not very difficult to do at all, but from a gameplay standpoint, I'm wondering what it adds to the adventure gameplay I have going.
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May 9, 2015 12:36
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I realize I'm a bit late with these but here's the sprites for Kekoha, Eun, and Nastya respectively:   They've been done for a few days now but it just now occurred to me to make little gif previews and upload them. 
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May 13, 2015 02:52
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I managed to MML up a new track today. It's called The Professor. I'll probably make another version where it's slower and more melancholy, like how some of the songs in Snatcher had a couple of variations.
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May 21, 2015 01:08
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Noyemi K posted:The problem was last time I didn't use a YM2203/emulator, I used an SB16 GM wavetable (soundfont). I'm not entirely sure how I'll do Hell this time around since I only have RGB primaries to work with and Hell is supposed to be ludicrously dark in most places, as there's no natural light. It'll be a bit before I have to do up shots of it though, so I guess that's plenty of time for me to experiment and get some input 
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May 26, 2015 10:23
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Ayin posted:My immediate thought was "Mike Mignola's art" Also, having black be the dominant 'color' and silhouetting/hatching with other colors seems like it could work. Good luck That's an interesting idea. It'll look a bit surreal and that's what I'm going for in places. I'll have new screens up a bit later but for now enjoy another track preview!
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May 27, 2015 21:17
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I'll have some more screenshots up soon (tiles are a hell of a lot easier to do than almost everything else) but in the beantime, there's a new music track.
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May 30, 2015 02:52
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I've slowed down a bit because of commissions but after some wrestling I've created... police cars! And police!
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Jun 3, 2015 16:47
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Will the police cars make a "woop woop" noise, since that's the sound of the police?
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Jun 3, 2015 16:54
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This is the sound the police cars make:code:Noyemi K fucked around with this message at 13:44 on Jun 5, 2015 |
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Jun 3, 2015 17:18
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Cooool stuff. The PC-88 aesthetic is rad as hell. I'm really glad to see something like this being worked on and keeping that style going. Early Japanese PC stuff is one of my favorite eras, despite me not having played much of it. How long have you been working in this style of pixel art and chiptunes?
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Jun 3, 2015 17:53
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Takanago posted:Cooool stuff. The PC-88 aesthetic is rad as hell. I'm really glad to see something like this being worked on and keeping that style going. Early Japanese PC stuff is one of my favorite eras, despite me not having played much of it. I've been doing this sort of pixel art since late 2013. The actual creation of chiptunes to this spec is a lot more recent though, only since april of this year. In speaking of, I've created a soundcloud playlist for people who can't run MMLTalks or have performance issues with it 
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Jun 3, 2015 19:54
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This game looks gay. Best of luck. Gay things own
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Jun 3, 2015 19:55
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I listened to the tracks on Soundcloud and they're pretty awesome. Well done! I'll give this a play for sure when you get it finished.
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Jun 5, 2015 06:38
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An interview is up on Siliconera if anyone had any other minor Qs. This probably answers them for now!
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Jun 6, 2015 05:33
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Segmentation Fault posted:Will the police cars make a "woop woop" noise, since that's the sound of the police? I appreciate this post.
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Jun 6, 2015 06:49
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Haven't gotten a chance to work on the game lately (trying to fulfill a patreon goal I haven't actually met) but as a consolation I did manage to make an AdLib version of The Professor.
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Jun 25, 2015 14:41
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I haven't had time to really work on the game much (since I'm searching out various odd jobs to help support me) but I did manage to knuckle down and learn how to write MML for the NRTDRV compiler and assembler kit. What does this mean? It means I can write music that will play back on real hardware. Here it is running in one of the recommended X1 emulators, though: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLbLPprbdXk Yes, it's "The Professor" again, I needed a test song that I could quickly transcribe to see if I was getting the hang of it.
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Jul 1, 2015 03:44
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I don't really have anything to say about your posts because they're mostly way over my head but I wanted to let you know that I read and appreciate them, and also this very cool PC88 thing you're making. Keep it up
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Jul 1, 2015 04:28
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I don't really have anything to say because the old PC Engine chipsets are something I missed; AdLib was the earliest I ever had sound that wasn't 'the pc speaker squealing something that sounded like it was trying to murder you through your ears,' and I didn't even have one of those for long before Sound Blaster changed PC sound entirely. On the other hand I love chiptunes nonetheless and your stuff's great! Keep it up!
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Jul 1, 2015 07:13
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Hey fellas, new update! After a bit of coding and wrestling with documentation on all kinds of stuff, I've managed to get PMD music files working. .M and .M2 files are compiled from MML source that I write myself, through a utility that I run through DOSBOX (but will also work on PC98 DOS). These files, since they are meant to play on PC-8801 and PC-9801 machines, are extremely small, normally under 4kB. Since the actual PMDwin driver is used to play back these files, Hell Diary contains a virtual OPNA chip that will run it basically 1:1 without the problems of interpreters (my initial idea) as if you were playing it on a PC-88 emulator. How's that for a technical feature?
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Jul 7, 2015 13:34
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This game looks cool. I really dig this kind of stuff.
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Jul 7, 2015 13:49
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Looking forward to this, I love the PC-88 artstyle and the music too. Much appreciation for the respect to Yuzo Koshiro and his old soundtracks like Misty Blue. I was wondering where all that awesome HELL CREW art came from in people's avatars and now I know. Thank you for putting hard work in on this game! e: I have to ask how you're composing the music. I kind of hope it's with some kind of tracker; I'd love to screw around with the PC-88's sound chip but I have no technical know-how whatsoever. Also, I think the sample music links are broken? I tried clicking on them and got 404's. Electric Lady fucked around with this message at 14:05 on Jul 7, 2015 |
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Jul 7, 2015 14:03
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John Quixote posted:e: I have to ask how you're composing the music. I kind of hope it's with some kind of tracker; I'd love to screw around with the PC-88's sound chip but I have no technical know-how whatsoever. Also, I think the sample music links are broken? I tried clicking on them and got 404's. Looks like MMLTalks is done for  I'm not sure what happened, very sudden disappearance of the site. But you can still hear the OST preview for this game on my Soundcloud. To answer your question about composing, I originally used SiON MML but now I'm using straight-up PMD98 MML to compose the music for this game. It's a kind of programming language that many japanese PC game composers used for PC-88 and PC-98 game music. Noyemi K fucked around with this message at 14:18 on Jul 7, 2015 |
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Jul 7, 2015 14:15
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Noyemi K posted:Looks like MMLTalks is done for So nothing short of straight programming the music, huh? drat =/ oh well. Guess it's just messing around in DefleMask for me still. Regardless, it makes listening to the soundtrack preview a lot more impressive knowing how difficult the process is. Thanks for linking the SoundCloud!
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Jul 7, 2015 14:20
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A big reason I use MML is because I actually prefer it to trackers. Different strokes for different folks!
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Jul 7, 2015 14:23
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I transcribed The Professor to PMD98 and also did an entirely new song that also plays in Kekoha's chapter. They're paired together here as they are both character themes and I'd rather upload less videos than more.
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Jul 8, 2015 03:24
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