Universal Adventure To Fate : Core Quest (Development Blog)

Now that Adventure To Fate Lost Island has gained its footing and I am happy with how its game engine is working I will be starting on remastering my older games.

The first up is Adventure To Fate : A Quest To The Core. QTTC was the first Adventure To Fate game and my first game released on the app store. It was released about 10 years ago (after about 2 years of development)

The game engine for QTTC was custom written in objective-c and xcode and is still in use today. The engine has been under constant development and has matured quite a bit. Most of the upgrades of the system have been done for VoiceOver accessibility. 

Now that the game engine is much more accessible for all I feel it is time to remaster the original game and bring it up to par with the latest release. QTTC was not accessible at all so a majority of the audience (VO users have not been able to play the game).

The game itself was removed from the App Store by Apple a few years back so this is even more incentive to bring it back and up to date.

A problem I have run into is that I no longer have the original game on any devices and the old code is so old from the previous game. So this means I will be manually comparing the data files (rooms,npcs, items and skills) to recreate the game. Not to go into too much detail but I’ll basically be reforming the data sheets to match the input of the new engine while trying to keep everything true to the original atleast to start.


I am still a little unsure how I will approach this so I’m sure things will change during the development process. Some of the decisions I must make are below



How many changes will I make?

Well this was my first game and I can honestly say it was lacking beyond just the engine in quite a few ways. So I plan on getting the game back to the original state and then going from there with changes.

I will likely include new features such as pets and crafting and all the features of the newest Lost Island. It will also include all of the QoL features (most importantly the accessibility engine) but also things like the directional pad, bestiary, and updated menu interfaces.



What will stay the same?

I will plan to use all the old classes and monsters but if they are a bit boring I will try to enrich them a bit. I also plan to slip a few current classes in.


What will the game cost?

As for the pricing I plan on a flat rate of $1-$2 (depending on how many changes I make and features I add). I may also add a donation / tip area (there is even a chance I do this and make the price free).

When will it be ready?

Well on this one I really have no idea. It’s dependent on the problems I encounter and the amount of new content I add.

The plan now is to get the game as close as possible to the original content wise and then evaluate from there.

This thread will serve as a blog of sorts for me to share and log progress.

Thanks as always for the support and feel free to ask any questions that might pop up.

 

6/9/24

The first thing I wanted to do is reshape the games data files to fit the new game engines parameters.

Basically the old data files are setup in an excel sheet.

For example a monster file has each monster on a row and the columns are its attributes (strength, gold dropped, exp, item drops, image etc). Over time I’ve added and changed these attributes (QTTC didn’t even have intelligence as a stat!?!). The original monster file had about 40 attributes while the current lost island has about 60.

Because of this I need to reshape the old files 1 by 1 to make sure they fit. This also means I need to go back and make sure each image exists in the project folder (I had deleted unused images from previous games to save file space).


Rather tedious but also exciting to go back and explore how I created things 10+ years ago.

I’ll be honest I likely had not even played the old game for about 5-7 years so it was fun to explore the content and think back on my mindset back then.


So I was able to get about 95% of the map working. This meant reshaping the excel file but also going and finding and upscaling about 70 image files (back then the room image sizes were 24x24 and now they are 144-144) so I went into gimp and manually resized these images (otherwise they would be blurry).

So I managed to complete that and I was able to walk through about 95% of the map after turning off monster encounters since the same will have to be done with them.


Good progress and it’s fun to experience the map once again.

 

thanks for the support! It’s been a little slow going so far shaping the data files but I’ve already got some good ideas to spice things up and make it unique!

 

12-14th of July.

Still working on remodeling data sheets for the most part. While working through these I’ve had some ideas about alternate bosses to spice things up a bit. Trying not to jump the gun on making any changes but it’s hard haha.

Going through old files to find and match up music / sound effects.

Next ill be lining up the classes skill code to make sure all that still works.

 

July 17-18th.

A little bit of a slow last week as I was still finishing up some udpates for Lost Island. However yesterday and today I made some great progress.

All data sheets are officially transformed (Skills, Items, NPCs, Rooms)
I officially created the app on the connect developer page and have it running on my test devices.
Worked on a new icon and title page (they are almost where I want them)
The first 20 floors are all connected with new optimized much sharper images. I am able to walk through and trigger battles. I have all the npcs working correctly under the new system.

Next up finishing up the final rooms and going through and playing the game a few times to find out where balance is at and what needs to be added.
After that I will work on importing the old music (with maybe some refreshes)

 

July 20th-23rd


Initially, I was going to release a classic version of the game along side the enhanced version so people could play the classic game. After running through these first few floors I have noticed the game is missing sooo many features and has so little depth I am moving away from the idea to release the classic version. At this point I think it’s best to just release an enhanced version while keeping most of the bosses and core enemies intact.

Along side the enhanced adventure I plan on offering alternate game options.

Endless arena mode - you can simply select the monsters you want to battle in any order you want and level that way. This is normally just offered at the end of the game but it’s been highly requested by the voiceover community since exploration can sometimes be a bit difficult. So why not just allow people to battle right?

Battle / Wave Arena - this will work like the free games. There is still limited exploration but here you will face set waves of npcs that progressively get stronger. You’ll also get upgrades (such as new pets, choose treasure and forging) as you progress.


So that’s where my thinking is at 3 game modes so people have options and more ways to explore the game.


progress wise I am though about 5 of 35 estimated rooms on the enhanced adventure mode. I have some really cool and unique ideas im adding in that I’ll share as I complete. Thanks for following and supporting my work!

 

24-25th

Made some more good progress these last few days.

I finished up designing and implementing the first zone and have played through a few times to loosely balance.

The more I play the more satisfied I am with how things are turning out. I want there to be a good amount of new features and contrast between this and lost island. But I also try to keep in mind that this is a remaster and not a completely new game so I can’t go too crazy. I feel like the first zone with a few more tweaks accomplishes that.

Hoping to polish everything up tomorrow and then balance / fun test with a few classes over the weekend.

If I can get everything finished I’ll try to post a quick video without monster encounters and describe some of the floor layouts.

I may try to do an early beta that just includes the first zone but there is still lots to do so that will likely be next weekend or after.

 

July 26th


Made some great progress yesterday and I am fully in testing mode for the first zone.

I’ve fleshed out a lot of the New story and an awesome new feature that I think may be the defining feature of this game. I don’t want to give too much away until I’m fully able to accomplish it but it fits perfectly with the story and hopefully isn’t too hard to achieve with this framework.


This project has shifted from make the game accessible and make a few changes then release. Now it will likely be an entirely new game with some of the older content (npcs, items, classes).

I’m really excited about this but it is going to be longer than the 1-2 month initial estimate since so much is changing and so much new content will be coming. Should be well worth the wait and testing will hopefully start next weekend or shortly after that for my early testers.

 

July 28th-Aug 2nd

I spent a good amount of the week brainstorming and prototyping some new systems as well as polishing up content after a few more play-throughs. I've begun implementing the new spirit mercenary system (replacing the pet system).

I worked that new system into the intro story and created a framework for the ongoing storyline.

I spent a lot of the week trying out new systems to find what fit and just today finally figured out which ones I wanted to use.

The rest of the weekend will be spent implying these ideas into code and polishing up the first zone / the starting experience. If all goes well I should have the first round of testing next week. Sorry for the delay but it should be worth it!

 

Aug 8-9th.

Good news a big milestone has been hit. First phase testing has started!

This includes a ton of new features such as spirits, new equipment slots, new skill sets types and much more.

So far testing is going great tons of good feedback and already a large list of fixes that should keep me busy for the week.

from here I’ll likely fix bugs / and polish up the starting zone a bit more and then expand testing while I get started on the second zone content.

 

Aug 11-14th.

Finished up fixing most of the reported testing bugs as well as making suggested improvements (thanks testers!).

Now working on a new search and find mechanics for the desert zone (should be lots of fun).

Also mapped out all the floors and rooms in the desert zone.

Next up test out the original monsters and drops in the area and modify them as needed.