Overview/Current Development

Little bit of background: I wanted to create this blog to give those who were interested a look at some of the underlying development work going into Bevontule. As many of you already know, Bevontule is an upcoming RPG being developed using the Unity game engine. As it stands, there are currently two of us working on the project and as such, we have tentatively set a conservative release date of October 19th, 2082, which is only a few short years away.

Working on an ambitious project with two people has its drawbacks, obviously, especially when we are both primarily programmers at heart (although Andy is capable of some really nice stick figure art when he gets going). Content creation is, and will always be, the most difficult part of this endeavor. The nice thing about Unity, however, is that, upfront, you have access to an insane amount of content (models, animations, particle effects, et cetera). These may not be the best assets ever (or even really make sense in the context of Bevontule), but they are passable for now.

Having access to so much content already allows us to focus our efforts on the underlying systems and framework. Since this is a development blog (and possibly a confessional on some days), we should probably talk about actual development. Here is a list of some of the features and modules that we have implemented:

-Waypoint handling (Unity makes this a breeze)
-Cut Scenes (Unity makes this less of a breeze and more of a strong gust)
-Dialogue and associated GUI elements and scripting
-Interactions with objects (treasure chests, dialogue, custom events)
-Items/Inventory System
-Skill/Attribute System
-Character controllers and subclasses (CharacterBattle, CharacterAlly/Enemy, etc.)
-Scene transitions/screen transitions (fading, swirling, etc)
-Custom animator controllers
-GUI Elements (Status window, Item window, etc)
-Enemy roaming, chasing behavior
-Battle system (About 75% done)

Additionally, we have created the following cutscenes:

"Intro" (Need to sharpen this up with a better camera positioning/interpolation script)
"Outside Atonia" (Needs touch-ups)
The smash sequel: "Inside Atonia" (Needs an exit transition)

And the following actual scenes:
"Atonian Wilds (Shoreline)" (Still needs enemy placement, transitions)
"Atonia Interior"
"Cephaline" (Needs... a lot, still)

Our current development efforts are focused on two primary goals: finishing and tweaking the initial implementation of the battle system and creating a prototype GUI system to be used when in the main menu. Specifically, the battle system is functioning, more or less, as envisioned. It is now possible to queue up commands to be combo'd, and the battle-specific GUI has been polished (still far from being final). This is not to say that it is anywhere near being finished, as a whole, as there is still the massive question of enemy AI. But for the most part, we are quite pleased with the way it plays thus far.

In terms of the main menu GUI, the status panel has been finished (displays character attributes, EXP levels, etc.) and the item panel is mostly functional. On that front (are you really still reading this?), we still need to design the equipment and skill panels (will likely require a few weeks of work) as well as connect the internal skill system with the display itself.

So now that we have discussed the past and the present, let's talk about the past again. Our long-term future development plan for Bevontule is to first and foremost, create a playable demo, comprising nearly four to five hours of solid, balls-to-the-wall, edge-of-your-seat paranoia and existential doubt.
Basically, what I'm saying is, if you don't need a gallon of Peptol Bismol after playing our demo, then we have failed.

We expect to have the following features implemented (we set a hard seppuku-related deadline of six months, so expect us to deliver or de-liver):

-Random encounters / World Map
-Basic quest system (We are NOT going down the Xenoblade/Skyrim/Farmville route)
-Crafting/Gathering (Expect more details on this mini-game one day)
-Dynamic leveling of enemies / time-based respawning, randomization
-Lots of custom inspector panels
-Branching dialogue / options
-Saving/loading game data
-Finished/polished battle system

While this may seem like a short list of features, it kinda is. That's because I have probably forgotten a million things. Nevertheless, the bulk of our work will be in creating this 'c' word we keep referring to: content. But, basically, the overall goal is to whittle Bevontule down until there is nothing left to do, save for the actual content itself. And we got our whittlin' gloves on.