Frayed Knights: Going Alpha
More tales of the development of Frayed Knights, the comedy RPG. Or more specifically, the Frayed Knights Pilot - The Temple of Pokmor Xang!

This Week
I could tell you what I worked on this week. Which is to say, a little bit of everything. Just getting it so that the game could be completed from beginning to end without any major weirdness or bugs, up until the final "end game" menu (including stuff happening in town). I just got some new music AND a new tavern model, which required me to re-arrange everything in the tavern to suit. I really like the new tavern. A lot.


Last Minute Changes
I took Friday off, both for getting this alpha out, and for attending a wedding of two close friends of mine. This has turned out to be a good thing. Between the alpha and a bit of personal business, I ended up pulling an all-nighter, until past 6 AM. Most of the time was spent working on some major inventory screen bugs. I missed them back when there was only about a dozen things in your inventory, but with there being actual loot in the dungeon now, I discovered some problems.

I also devoted some effort to fixing odds and ends, and prepping the whole thing for alpha. I had to make some dialog changes (and I don't think all of the revisions actually made it into the alpha... oops!). There were way too many "known issues" that I just couldn't get to, but I needed to get people on the alpha. Some of the changes thrown in during the wee hours of the morning were pretty significant. I made some changes to how resting is handled that I still don't know the full impact of. And I know for sure the feedback mechanisms for some of the mechanics are woefully inadequate.

Getting the download size down from 120 megs to 71 megs was part of that effort. Writing something by way of instructions was another.

But the first alpha - and the invitations to the alpha test group - went out at the 5:00 hour. My apologies to the people who aren't in the first alpha group, but I really want to hold people in reserve as "Kleenex testers" for future alpha versions. Testers, check your private messages in the forum, and check to see when you get access to the Frayed Knights Testing and Feedback forum. Some people have it already.

The Road to Alpha 2!
Some things topping out my list for alpha 2 include such minor luxuries as actually having the item screen tell you what the item really DOES, so that you don't have to guess whether the iron mace or the broadsword does more damage. And having a visual display of how your maximum endurance drops over time would be kinda... I dunno... less confusing? And then there's the fact that players can get stuck inside of doors. That's not a happy thing. And some fixed combats end up taking place with the opposing forced practically across the room from each other but still swinging melee weapons. Yeah, that might be good to fix.

And actually implementing the weapon and armor proficiency restrictions might make the different character classes more interesting. Oh, and having the big bad evil boss guy actually USE the spells he's got in his arsenal... that might make a difference in combat. And the priests are actually supposed to drop loot once in a while. Now the operative word is only, "once."

This kind of torturous, bug-riddled gaming is what I subject my friends to. I am a bad man.

Development is going to continue at its previous pace for the next month, easily, so Alpha 4 should be pretty different from Alpha 1. My goal is to have each alpha released Friday-ish throughout March. Tuesday, April 1st, 2008 will be the public release date of the Pilot.

Placeholder Content FTW!
And just so all the testers know, Kevin wanted to make absolutely sure that they knew that the revised Tavern roof texture is only a stand-in.


Well, I managed to sneak in about three hours of sleep between 6:30 and 9:30. I have an appointment to meet someone in a couple of hours, and then I'm gonna try and get another nap in before getting ready for the wedding.

Have fun!

Labels: Frayed Knights, programming, Roleplaying Games

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