Update on what's going on.

Okay, okay, okay, so. I said I was going to be working on Shield High when I got back from my holiday, and I've really been slacking on that. Part of it was you've all been reporting a glitch I had no idea what was causing. Turns out the glitch was being caused by the fight with Sasha, and when you tried to fight Karen a bool from the Sasha fight wasn't reset, so it thought it had to display a bunch more text which it didn't and since it had no text to display it just died. Big thanks to that fan who found that it was only caused when you fought Sasha, explains why I never caught it. Also big thanks to that guy for the huge donation.

So, despite not programming I have been working on Shield High. Primarily in that I've been attempting NaNoWriMo with a Shield High story, to help myself establish the lore. It's going well so far, and at the end of the month I'll put it up. I might see if I can find a place to put it up for sale for like, a dollar or two, we'll see. If I do that I'll throw up a preview thingo on the blog so you know what you're in for.

Anyway, that's the deal, once I'm done with that I'll try to be back on track with development.

Sorry for the wait!

Pudding Earl

News

HOLIDAY STATUS: OVER
JET LAG STATUS: OH GOD WHY
SHIELD HIGH ENTHUSIASM STATUS: HIGH

I think that covers everything. I'll be doing some more writing very soon, and resuming programming after the jetlag.

That is all

Pudding Earl.

As promised. 0.603 brings crappy menu screen and resolution options.

I was going to call it a title screen. Then I remembered I haven't even put a title on it. That's how lazy I was about this. But, the game should now change resolutions based on the options you pick in the options menu. I should note I haven't tested these options, so some look stupid. 800 x 600 is particularly bad. Also the text doesn't change sizes. Let me know which have problems, and I'll make text fixes later. I've decided on matters of resolution appearances, my computer can't be trusted, and I have to see what you guys are getting.

Anyway, download: http://www.mediafire.com/download/at0jbdswz4nd3fw/Shield_High_JS_0.603.zip

I'll be putting in a bit of work on 0.61 this week, before I'm on holiday for the weekend. Remember that girl I mentioned who inspired Shield High? Probably not. Those of you who do, I'm off to see her. Once I get back I'll hopefully be more motivated and ready to work.

Enjoy!

Pudding Earl

0.602 arrives. Not a lot added.

Okay so, I've finished up 0.602. Had some issues with getting all the fiddly bits to work. Next days and stuff were iffy. Also the whole, re-working all of the interface to be adjustable in size. That was a pain too. It'll probably be changed again too at some point to allow you to set your own screen size. But luckily the way I've got everything sorted out now that should be a fair bit easier and less time consuming. Other than that I added the first Karen fight. That was what kept me from hitting my goal. Combat dialogue is a lot more time consuming than it used to be, seeing as I've gone from writing 20-ish entries for a combat, half of which were just other entries cut off early, to writing 62-66 entries per combat, with half being variants that need significant changes. It's tricky to keep motivated through all of that.

Anyway, here's the download: http://www.mediafire.com/download/o7kb6ca9qu1qhjy/Shield_High_JS_0.602.zip

Be aware that it'll open in a little window. Hit space bar to make it full screen. I'll probably set that to happen automatically next update. Also, the character art hasn't yet been updated. That'll also be happening next update, where I'm aiming to have Karen fight two, Courtney and Olivia added, and hopefully some keyboard controls added as well.

Enjoy, sorry for delays, I'll try and rush out the next update before I go on my holiday in two weeks.

Pudding Earl.

I never asked for this

...but you guys did. So I made it. Shield High should now function on all resolutions. It'll also be full screen. It can be un-full-screened by pressing spacebar. But it doesn't like that. Really, it's only a thing to make alt-tabbing less of an issue. Also to make sure you don't get caught with naked girls on your computer that you can't quickly escape from. The escape key will also close the game. Once I add something that feels like actual content I'll make a release. Sorry for the delays, this had me stumped for a little bit, and then it was painful. Also I lost my cable for my second monitor right as Dreamhack started. Dreamhack was really good by the way. You should all go watch the replay of the stream. INnoVation vs MMA was amazing.

That is all.

Pudding Earl

Yo, Real Talk Time

Okay so this is like a super short post to just give you a heads up of where I'm at and stuff. For those of you who read my long spiel about myself, you will remember Shield High was like...therapy, to get over this girl.

Well...we're talking again. Which is normally fine and dandy but right now it's not and I'm in no state to work half the time. So yeah, that's why 0.61 is taking a while. Mostly that. I'm still putting in time on good days. It's just that good days are rare.

0.61 Still delayed. 0.601 comes out instead.

So, I hit this point where I was planning to release tomorrow, but instead of getting the final content together I ended up just adding more and more features. Not a bad thing, just, y'know, you can't fight Karen yet. And that's what I wanted for 0.61. So that's been put off. Instead you get to see what I have done.

FEATURE LIST KGO:

-Classes are working right now, but I haven't yet added which class is next to the interface. The first day keeps the old line up, but each day has a different set of classes now. The game also has an actual date system now, so no more vague times being given in dialogue, people will use actual dates and stuff.

-Combat interface has been updated. I think I need some more number tweaking that I only just remembered I forgot, but since I've published and everything I'm just going to leave it for the moment.

-Combat AI has been improved. It no longer picks actions at random, but instead has preferences for attacks. This is obviously far from the final form, as I need to give it cues to strip, or ways for the character to toy with you.

-Events are working. There's only one event in at the moment, it's the first encounter with Karen, but it's mostly just to show the interface, and how that all works. I'd recommend submitting to her.

-SUPER DUPER NEWS! There's now pictures for every character. Jessica is always visible, and during dialogue you can see the character you're talking to. So far I've made the pictures for 9 characters, of which 5 are in the game. Pictures are also available in combat, and yes, they do get stripped down. Some of them will probably be changed as time goes on, as getting good expressions for them is hard, so right now it's a little disconcerting to see someone naked and smiling.

So, that's this week. Next week I'll be fixing up the combat numbers a little, since right now they appear to be not functioning correctly, add on the Karen fights, and I might get around to further improving the combat set up. Also bug fixing if you all report anything.

DOWNLOAD LINK: http://www.mediafire.com/download/014phn78cdhv1v3/Shield_High_JS_0.601.zip

Enjoy

Pudding Earl

P.S. If you're having trouble running the game, try picking up the XNA framework, which you can get here: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=20914

P.P.S I'm sorry as102, I'll try and release a variable-size version next week at the latest, I'm just trying to work out which part of the interface I can cut down on. As soon as I've found something I can shrink without completely re-writing large portions of the code I'll release it. Or if I do decide to re-write the code. Either or.