That would be amazing! It would be really cool if there were updates that activated some time/date sensitive events. With Pokemon, it seemed like the only people who could participate in cool events were those who could physically travel to an events, which was totally impossible for most people. If events became available through eventual updates that *everyone* could experience on their particular devices that would be pretty neat (or maybe people would criticize you if they were mad because they missed a particular date, so maybe it would be better to open "windows" of time that could be taken advantage of not just once, but annually, monthly, or weekly, etc).
This sounds good so a timed an dated event every so often we could get news on the website of an event an what time an date it will be available an wich town/city in the game the event will be held. Or i dont know if this could be done but what about a multiplayer event were people can gather an take part in the event something like a hunt, the person with the most items at the end wins a prize or a special pokemon.
Hmmm, it feels like I covered a lot of these suggestions before. I'll cover the questions I've seen. If you guys (and gals if any) have any more questions, feel free to ask. Check out this thread from the CP forum (partially this post as it's the most update): http://www.calisprojects.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=60&pid=1131#pid1131 That is the FAQ managed by a good fan. It collected a lot of questions I got asked. Some of the questions even have screenshots, so be sure to check it. The money of the game world: The money currency in the game is called "Alt" named after the continent that Caladan (the state the game take's place on)- which is called Altar. You earn money from battling and helping people. Did I see something about time based events? The game used an in-game time/day system. This means it's controlled in the game, not by your real life. This gives me freedom to control the time for storyline (since it wouldn't make sense you go to Protector school at night right). The game world time is accelerated. It changes throughout testing, but right now, 5 real world seconds equal 1 game minute. The game features a day and night system which lights and stuff coming on at night. I believe in a part update I detailed time based easter eggs (people being around or saying different things based on the time), and there is actual time based stuff such as the school being locked after 9PM. You'll even notice some people have working hours, including the player's sister character. If you check your house after 6PM, I'm sure she'll be home from work lol. I'm not going to go into detail about key time based events since you don't want me to spoil it would you. What other questions where there? As I said, feel free to ask- but please, check out the FAQ. As passionate as I am with interacting with you and telling you about my baby (ZENFORMS: Protectors), I hate talking about the same 5 things over and over again (and yeah, that includes questions on release haha). I posted this on the CP forum the other day so I'll share it here. I was planning on just waiting for this week's "weekly update" but here it is. I've been getting more tile revamps done up. Making the game look a lot better thanks to the fantastic Yoel (my new tile artist and already my OW/NPC artist). This is "Andrea's ZENShop". This is taken from the map editor. I turned off many of the hidden layers you don't see (like collision, stand on events and so on), but I forgot to turn off the "People Event Data" layer. So that is that blue square on the counter. You won't see that in the game.
I believe the price will be $2.99 or less. Neo has also stated that there will be no IAP at release but it is something he would consider. However, there WILL NOT be IAP to get more of the story. The game will be small at first (in order for all of us to play it sooner rather then later) and will be updated frequently with more content, maps, and story. Think of a 'minecraft' like release.
Nice one TanTan. That's correct info. Thanks for answering it nicely ;-) June 29th Weekly Update First a heads up. I did an interview for Nick Ross. He asked me over Twitter (to the @CalisProjects account). I'll gladly do interviews for people, and I had fun doing this one. The screenshots look like they are from a website in the 1990s though lol. http://nrossreviews.weebly.com/1/post/2012/06/interview-with-creator-of-upcoming-app-zenform-protectors.html If you Like Calis Projects on Facebook ( http://www.facebook.com/CalisProjects ), you'll have seen a fun little status I posted this week. I said Game Freak, the developers of Pokemon, have 71 employees, Calis Projects is just me. No more asking the release date please. I did state I was trying hard and focusing on development this week. I'm always very honest with what I'm working on. So please respect the scale of the game and don't ask any more. I'm trying to get it in your hands. Takes time lol. I started off the week working on fixing the resources for the project. I needed to make sure all the game resources had the new tiles for the maps and so on. Little things like the background on the save screen to show what map the player is on had to be updated. Speaking of that, I also began revamping it, adding mini ZENFORM sprites to the scene beside their names, but I took it out. I wasn't happy with how it was looking. I still have everything there like normal, I just removed the mini sprites though. Doesn't look clean. I shelved that idea. I then focused on the storyline events. Here is the player's brother Steven talking to the player and Keith. I removed the text so not to spoil storyline. I focused on restricting and opening movement based on the storyline. So if you had to do something - in this game below, go home - it would stop you from going exploring onto other maps. And I saved the worst news for last. I done a lot of crunching this week, and after time play testing, I decided to revamp a lot of the story events AFTER the FIRST day of Protector school. I had a lot of text. There are a lot of interesting and new concepts in ZENFORMS for gameplay, but I don't want to explain it all with just text. I've decided to make it a bit more interesting and speed up some of the events and not drag out the gameplay. Sorry I had to do this. Just delaying the game as usual huh? But it is needed. I plan on just making things that should happen to the player quicker. Not explain so much to you. And let you just explore more and find out stuff yourselves. I love being honest with you all. The more I do testing, the more I spot things I want to change. Hopefully, like the graphical revamp, this won't take too long, and will have a positive impact on the game. That's it for this week. Thanks for reading!
Everyone would beta test for free, but he only wants family and friends to beta test this game. We just want him to take his time and release it when he feels like it is the right time.
Seriously im not a very patient person but with this i can be. The more we wait the more it starts to look even better. Hahah i was reading the interview an had a look at your old video of pokemon protectors, looks so much like pokemon ruby. Anway as soon as i get some pennies sometime next week im gonna donate... lol
This is very interesting so far thanks for the update news i appreciated. Are you goin to add real pokemons on the game like to get them as a rare prize but hard to find
@Bardock29: Most unlikely. He's trying to keep this game as ordinary as possible. Though, I think he made a April Fool's joke involving a pikachu in the past.
I posted this recently on the CP forum and I wanted to share it all with you. This is a photo I took of me running a really old build of the game in August 2011. This was just 2 months before the reveal of the project online. The game got a serious revamp (one of many lol) only a few weeks after I took this. The graphics were a lot different. Of course, the Newborns have funny names, and their sprites are not as cute. Very alien looking. The battle ground doesn't have the 3D effect it has now- but it kinda is the same design. And the User Interface has this "glass" feel to it. A few concepts were not around in this build. FP (Focus Points, the energy used when attacking) was not used in that build. Although Star Ranks and the 3 stats were.
The game sounds and looks amazing I'm still waiting for the release date hopefully we get a date soon but I gotta be patient. I just hope we get it by the end of summer. Anyways looks and sounds great!
Update: July 6th 2012 First up, I'm sure some of you saw this on Facebook/Twitter, the Newborns got a sprite revamp.... Yeah, more updated artwork hahaha... Before, the ZENFORMS were not actually sprited by the lead ZENFORM sprite artist. It was kinda getting to Yoel (the Tile Artist/OW Artist) and I. He asked could he revamp them and I said sure. He did do great work on the remakes, but still didn't match the style. I decided to just contact the lead ZENFORM spriter and get them remade. Above (actually the "Team" menu icon lol) is the new sprites. They look a lot better not. Now only do they match the style, but they match the "HD" artwork of the Newborns (the images beside the CP Mask). I have some good news..... I've decided to knuckle down and get this battle system finished!! Ha yes! After so long- one of the only things holding back release of Version 1.0 - the battle system is getting worked on. It has a lot of stuff that was half baked or just not actually coded yet. So I'm getting around to it. A lot of work needs to be done, but it's getting to a playable state and getting depth. I've locked in some ideas I had. You might remember I've said in the past that ZENFORMS can have 1 of 3 movepools each, meaning 2 Rinbas could have different moves. You might also remember I mentioned that each ZENFORM before the Adult Stage ("Element stage") of evolution can be found in 3 colorsets in the wild - well that is how you'll know which movepool the ZENFORM will have. An example would be, Freno and it's evolutions before Adult stage are primarily red in color. If you see a blue or green Freno or one of it's evos, it has a different movepool then the red Freno. Make sense? I've also added the possibility of 2 enemy ZENFORMS showing up in the wild. You can see the second ZENFORM is Frex- a Child Evo- that is green in color - movepool 2. I've also began finalizing the gameplay and animations for capturing ZENFORMS. I did ave a mini game in place, but the more I tested it, the more it really annoyed me. I decided to remove the mini game and keep it quick and clean. An animation will play out. If will work out if you captured the ZENFORM and that's it! The mini game was gimmicky and didn't add to the experience. I'm still working on capturing ZENFORMS in a multi-battle situation. Currently I have it so there is a random chance the other enemy ZENFORM will get scared and run away. I might have it so you always keep on battling the second ZENFORM, it really depends on testing so I'll keep you posted on that. Finally.... A lot of people ask me about battle animations for attacks. They won't be in Version 1.0. They might be added later on in an update, but I have no plans for a while. When a ZENFORM gets attacked, it kinda gets hit (animation of it moving back - like getting bumped), it's HP bar shows and drains down, after the HP bar finishes draining, the game will tell you how much damage you did with the attack. Hope this clears up that issue. Any way, I hope everyone had a good week, and enjoyed this update.
This update is getting really good every update that you show. Good job on your hard work. This game is going to be very playable for life i guarantee it :^)
Thanks again Neo for keeping us in the loop We all hope you will be continuing keeping us up to date with what you're working on even after the 1st version is released
I really like this game so far. Just one question about the battles. If you use an attack, say "bite", in Pokemon, you see fangs biting the enemy pokemon. Is there something like this in zenforms?
