#Riftcast Recut - PC/Android Virtual Pet

191 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

dapper arrow
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Welcome to my literal pet project thread! Here I'll just kinda be showing and talking 'bout some stuff concerning this glorified desktop widget every now and then, so long as miscellaneous vpet projects are still game here.

Slowly but surely working up to a big update this Summer and a site comeback. For sure.

What's On

  • Over 65 obtainable species
  • (Ad)ventures with day/night encounters and item drops
  • Starting homelands with exclusive items and areas
  • Basic amenities and item shops
  • Inventory system
  • Rotating quests
  • Unlockable areas/quest types
  • Training and Tourney battles
  • and a few other stuff...

What's Next

  • 44 new species (103 unique, 124 total)
  • 50 new areas (25 special, 70 total)
  • 18 new tourneys (40 total)
  • Gauntlet battles with special item rewards
  • Save and load a party member to file
  • Refusal, praising and scolding
  • Home/Battle/Venture Abilities for most species
  • Mood now affecting battle performance
  • The player and/or party members can now team up for Ventures
  • Player characters sometimes becoming unavailable
  • Dismissing party members
  • and some other things...

https://projectrevery.neocities.org/info/

frank loom
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That looks very cool! Definitely need to check it out. Can I ask what underlying tech stack you are using to do Android and Windows widget?

sullen viperBOT
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@frank loom has leveled up! (14 ➜ 15)

dapper arrow
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Ah, this ain't an actual widget, just a typical application that always stays on top (on Windows, anyway)

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Still, gotta figure out how to make an actual widget for the Android port

grave hatch
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Woah, this looks awesome!

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If only the VB BE had more battle features like this. At least on the app.

dapper arrow
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Adventures are meant to have actual encounters and backgrounds, that's for sure

grave hatch
dapper arrow
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Ehh, maybe if the Android version had more flair beyond a blank background (that isn't even centered), that and I'm not sure if I'd even be allowed to do that considering the scripts and tools used here

dapper arrow
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On Species Profiles

Take a gander at these two guides. What do you guys think?

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Feel like I ought to start with the monsties themselves instead of diving into something like personalities and food, 'cus there's a lot going on with each species even with how much isn't there yet, some of which left totally secret. Mayhaps the character stats say a lil too much, but again, personalities and mood have a big sway too.

With an expected roster of 220 by the minimum, there's no good way to have all these profiles in the manual without serious bloat over a sterile list of sprites and stats straight out of Excel. Hell, even just 40 was pushing it. What to do but to offload it onto the project's website, with some added flair of course.

Now, when the entries beyond 70 or all the art'll come to be is another thing, but there's still enough to gleam over at:

https://projectrevery.neocities.org/dex/species/

blissful warren
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Oh I love these

grave hatch
sullen viperBOT
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@grave hatch has leveled up! (2 ➜ 3)

dapper arrow
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Hmm, I have most of the base roster of 220 planned minus 20 slots - waiting-and-seeing if this'll be for random or event fan submissions/requests.

Don't have anything relevant to divulge beyond a sumo dino among the 200, but there's defo room for a martial artist dragon-like with those empty slots and/or mayhaps an expanded roster with subspecies

grave hatch
dapper arrow
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take a gander at this big boy

grave hatch
soft patio
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I'm getting King K. Rool/Emboar vibes. And I dig it.

dapper arrow
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On Battles

During tourneys, training and tours, two Reverians will face off 'til one falls in an automatic slugfest, starting with the fastest of the two (or the player/active's side if final speed stats are equal). Sometimes attacks miss too. So far, so good.

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Now where things get a lil' more interesting is all the other stuff affecting attack power, starting with gender dimorphism. Some species, whether male or female, deal a little extra damage than usual, with the opposing gender dealing a bit less in return. There's also the special case of male Cresluma - his attack debuff is much more noticeable.

As a side, all tourney battles defaulted to female opponents, but wild opponents and invaders vary as you'd expect.

The pic below isn't totally indicative - some species here (read: mostly the ones without different sprites) didn't yet have this stat bonus/nerf.

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There's also size playing a part in attack power, with larger opponents taking less and dealing more damage towards smaller species. Lessers and some Animals'll really fall off in tourney and wild battles due to this, but in return they'll also dodge more often. Not a lot of large species have great Speed stats at that, so that doesn't help their dodging chances.

This isn't really told anywhere beyond the website (and kinda sorta some art pieces floating around).

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Last and certainly not least is type effectiveness. A species can have up to two weaknesses and resistances, one of a specific element and another of a specific attack type (Blast, Blunt, Stab and Edge). Lessers only have elemental weaknesses and resists, with most everyone else having two types to consider.

Expect to see super or even critically effective attacks often from the player character and fully evolved battlers - they have a tendency to use whatever's the most effective attack out of their 4 choices.

Mind, if there isn't an effective move to use, they'll default to throwing moves at random like any other unintelligent species would, even ineffective ones. That'll have to change for the next update, that's for sure.

How emotions and Abilities will shake things up next update remains to be seen. Stay tuned for more.

modern notch
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that's so cool dude, I'll try it out tomorrow

dapper arrow
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say, might it be worth doing beta builds every now and then?

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there's some real serious bugs and oversights in the latest revision, including incorrect attacks, unreleased species in some areas and certain items for delivery quests just not being available for certain homelands

dapper arrow
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Currently side-tracked on novel planning and world building, good time to expand on all those homelands with some splash screens

dapper arrow
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Passively Picturesque

An upcoming ArtFight and some job interviews has me wondering how much game dev I can put out, so why not spend those creative juices on those missing art and then some?

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More feature talk after this.

dapper arrow
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On Versions and Homelands

Rule of two is a big thing in Recut. Maybe not big enough, with a lack of dual raising, double battles and Venture duos (yet), but there's version exclusives at least.

Virtual pets do that a lot.

First and foremost, whichever version you chose out of Red or Blue affects what homelands (and thus their related areas, species and items) and shells you can pick from. Species have their biases, as do areas (sometimes), but items at least aren't meant to be intentionally barred off. Shells also don't matter for anything, they're just there to look pretty.

does anyone know how to design good shells by the by

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Admittedly I'm not sure what species are just straight up unobtainable on the opposing version (besides the Gilex line being impossible to get on Red, unless you import from the original during save creation) - with Lessers' evolutions not always sticking to the same version bias (or even a bias to begin with) and Invaders ignoring versions entirely, it's not too hard to find something that doesn't mesh with your selected version - but then there's the question of available areas.

Depending on your settlement, you'll have access to different areas based on a general continent, plus the odd case of Stratospire Ridge and Fortstead having access to areas biased towards the total opposite version.

Some settlements are also just kinda smaller than others. By all means there's more going for you if you pick the cities of Dawnshire/Duskwick as your starting location, with the most items available at the shop and access to areas of the same version regardless of how far it is - at the cost of missing out on some exclusive areas packing valuable drops and rare species.

You gotta wonder if there's much of a point to having 20 areas and over 100 items if most of 'em just, can't be accessed. Thinking of just having a random selection of areas at least available to pick from during tours in the next update - plus some decay boosts/nerfs based on settlement types.

More on this tomorrow.

dapper arrow
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Fun fact: launching the game with the system locale set to Japanese changes up the intro screen to something more regional.

Launching the original with an American region also made Meicynia and Valzaios unavailable as potential starters.

Merry 4th of July.

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anyway

On Items

Read: almost like 90% food.

There's 200 items currently implemented (albeit not all are actively obtainable) rare treasure only good for selling and healing potions functionally identical to both drugs and gauzes, but not much else to work with at the moment.

You'll regularly find whole meals and drinks at your homeland's Eatery, with less foods and ingredients mostly found at the Alterworks Depot at a marked up price or as a common find in some areas.

It's well worth looking into stocking on anything you can get your hands on - food make party members real happy and most drinks replenish their energy, but beware - not all foods sit well with all species, particularly bread and dairy.

There's also a few items with special effects that haven't been elaborated on anywhere nor had any effects, including:

B. CAKE - a real valuable item that bumps up the age of whoever eats it. It'd be worth much more once child forms enter the mix.

COCOA - Unlike every other drink, this outright saps the energy of whoever drinks it. Not particularly useful nor common, really.

Class-specific Meals (C. KIBBLE, H. MIX, B. FLAKES and T. FOOD) - greatly increases Mood and slightly increases Duty with party members of the corresponding class, but upsets those of the wrong class. More on Duty next time.

B. FUEL/ACID - An odd food/drink exclusive to Metalox... who isn't legitimately obtainable as a party member as of yet. It almost always instantly sickens anyone else who eats it, so consider using it to off a party member while the DISMISS action's still MIA.

**TREATS/HAMPER **- These act the same as most other foods, but they're the most filling foods around with a whole lot of uses before they're used up and can be eaten by anyone. They're about as costly as you'd imagine for that, but there's other Feast items such as LUNCH BOX, OMNI POT and CORNUCOPIA.

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As a side, with how trivial it is to deal with hunger compared to Energy, might be worth making that decay with time instead of staying completely frozen outside of the homescreen, and maybe bumping up some item prices.

More after this.

dapper arrow
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The Hip-Happening

Been a hot minute, eh? Here's some of what's been going down in Recut...

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On the Codex

There's a dex that can be accessed from OMAKE or in-game in the MENU tab, letting you see the current roster and check basic info on most species (read: whatever's meant to be recruitable). There's not much to be seen here, but it's straight to the point.

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On Area Info

Before you set off on a tour, you can now check the information of the area you're about to go into, including what continent it's on (greatly affecting how long it takes to even get there), its rank (which affects levels of encounters and general rarity of found items), biome and entry ability - should it require one to get in.

There'll be a symbol on the continent if that matches with your homeland - travelling somewhere else rolls the clock by around an in-game day.

Also consider the rank and biome - the former dictates the average level of opponents, while the latter makes party members who like that biome happier.

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Something about Speech

Some, but not all sapient species are capable of speech. I'm not sure on how workable this is on account of the small screen, but it'd be cool I think. Already thought up are some introductions, battle cries, hunger/energy alerts and other random responses, just remains to be seen if it's worth it.

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Broken down text is also an option, though that requires some meticulous formatting for each and every line of dialogue.

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Anyhow, last but not least...

On Venture Duos

It's all in the title - the player and/or party can Venture off as a pair now, and can be switched out whenever while on the field. Beware of entry actions - it's all or nothing.

Not sure what else to add here, really.

modern notch
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Hi! I tried downloading the lastest windows version and it keeps giving me 404 error cryogre

dapper arrow
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Ah heck, forgot I had rearranged all the current builds to another folder

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Download links are back up on the main site now

modern notch
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thanks dude! gomawave

reef pelican
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Any chance we can get this on linux? I am a really big fan of retro gaming handhelds and I think this could be pretty cool on Anbernic style devices.

dapper arrow
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Oh sure, gimme a bit today and I'll whip up a build to test, don't have a linux device myself but exporting seems quick and easy

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also eh, come to think of it, kinda itching to show something after all this time since the latest major update

reef pelican
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nice!

dapper arrow
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Porting and Peeking

Listen up fellas, here's some test builds for Windows, Android, and of course, Linux. There's also both a 64 bit and uh, non-64 bit executable. Really curious to know how window dragging works on the latter platform, too.

Some new features are either sealed off or functionally useless, and a few sprites lack animated frames, but otherwise species/area/item data's all set and ready to go. Typings and attacks have shifted around for some species too, so keep that in mind.

Old saves should be compatible and patched accordingly once loaded and overwritten, but mayhaps it's best to backup before you save over them in-game. Take a peek at SNAPCAST.txt for (somewhat) more detailed patch notes and notices.

https://projectrevery.neocities.org/info/preview

reef pelican
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Going to try to see if someone can help me get it up and running on an RK device. Will let you know.

hidden spoke
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not sure how possible this is but just as a random thought, would love to have customisable keymaps for physical buttons on android version and a way to like zoom in "full screen" without the onscreen controls and to control just with physical inputs, i switched over to a japanese flip phone recently which has the normal 9 button input and no touch screen and playing gb/gba games on it with the keypad has felt realllllllly good and the first thing that came to mind was i'd love to play this like that - but again i know nothing about this sorta stuff so idk if thats even possible at all haha

dapper arrow
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Hmm, no comment on custom keybinds, but zooming into the screen sounds doable and keypad buttons are usable

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no clue what counts as good keypad controls though, don't remember how flip phone/j2me games did theirs way back when

hidden spoke
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i think the standard layout with a numpad like 123 on top, 789 on bottom usually does like, 2 for up, 4 for left, 6 for right, 8 for down, 5 for confirm and then everything else is kinda free game for whatever works

for me personally with the GBA style of like directional buttons + confirm/deny, i've just been doing something more akin to WASD and doing like

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5 up, 7 left, 8 down, 9 right, and then 3 for confirm and 6 for deny - might not be ideal for everyone though and defo isnt standard but works for me

dapper arrow
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man, now i gotta wonder why keypads on keyboards are kinda flipped with 123 at the bottom

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wide view is absolutely scuffed at the moment

dapper arrow
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i missed the mollusk talk in non-digi-vpets right when i had all these slugs to show off, i am not happy

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Anyway...

On Backups

Here's something that's been on the chopping block for a long while - saving and loading party members. Deep in the Terminus Crossroads (PLAY → TRAVEL → SPECIAL → TC), you can seal away or call a party member from a file in the same directory as the other save data, among some other thing.

Just don't go trying to import a party member while they're already there on your current save file.

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In other news, all sprites and menus are completed for the update as well as inventory/pouch fixing and miscellaneous additions like held items and re-nicknaming. All's left is raids, Venture bosses and Abilities, and this is gold for October.

More on those soon.

pallid rapids
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🤩

charred quarry
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You've done an amazing job on this! I love the personality how interactive it is, it has me wanting a physical version! I'm very excited to see how this project evolves!

dapper arrow
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Hehe, cheers man, goodness knows how much I want to make this more tangible, no comment when or how though...

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Still, reckon I can get this all out by the 13th, almost done with raids and bosses now and now just finagling with the two item inventories on top of that

dapper arrow
dapper arrow
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Fellas, I have a serious question that will pay great dividends in the future - the heck should the player character be exactly?

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Now long ago I wanted them to be any random old citizen, specifically those underpowered, regular old schlubs up there (but later and currently any final stager), but at the same time I really want to make a story or oneshot(s) with a summoned human-turned Reverian, PMD style?

I really want to make the player character more than just some flaky faculty, what do you guys reckon... and does it even really matter concerning the game itself?

dapper arrow
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...ay, i don't know why i bother talking sometimes

tough bobcat
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Yooo I’d love a monster collector where the player is a monster themselves for once,,,

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I’d love a PMD style story to it as well that’d be unique

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late as hell butAAAAAAAA

dapper arrow
charred quarry
dapper arrow
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Quick question, should time skipping be its own toggle or part of some separate mode?

Trying to spitball a hard(er) mode with restricted player choices, party-wide stat decay (maybe diluted as the slots fill up) and less straight-forward evolution conditions, but real time stat decay might be a bit much with a full party of 20 and varied hunger, energy decay rates to think about

maiden jacinth
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Maybe have a hardcore mode using stat decay, I could see some wanting it but it would def need to be an opt in

charred quarry
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I could see more abstract evolutions requirements being fun in base too tbh
Imo it helps define a creature when they have some unique way to obtain them

dapper arrow
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Oh, for sure

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Even now there's already secret conditions for discovering certain invaders during Ventures like having a party member hold food or being sufficiently hurt already, but otherwise there ain't much on the actual evolution side beyond minimum level, plus either holding a specific item for or paying a hefty fee in-game for a select few rare weirdos

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...don't think i even made mention of the latest major update with said new encounter/evolution conditions and whatnot already being out there here, actually

reef pelican
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@dapper arrow linux 64 download link is MIA

dapper arrow
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oop, gimme a sec

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just came to mind that the website itself was still on R26 and not the latest 27, so that's fixed too

reef pelican
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Is this open source?

dapper arrow
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nah, at best there's just the source of the old (windows-only) original

reef pelican
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Thanks! I found it. Just wondering what format the linux versions are compiling to. There is no file extension.

dapper arrow
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i have no clue how exporting the thing to linux is meant to be, .x86 and .x86_64 don't leave much to the imagination beyond bits

wary pendant
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This is super sick.
I've got a galaxy watch on it's way, bet I could get this going on WearOS with no issue.

dapper arrow
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ooh that'd be cool, think it might be possible with it already being on armeabi-v7a

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no comment on how well this'd fare with circular watches though

wary pendant
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Yeah figured the dpad would get cut off a bit. Assuming all goes well would a sorta "watch mode" that just moves the buttons a little be possible?

stark ingotBOT
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You can continue with the character once you charges again :)

dapper arrow
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sure, reckon i could maybe squeeze it in with the android-only zoom features

wary pendant
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Sweet, appreciate it! betaup

sullen viperBOT
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SHINKA!

@wary pendant has evolved into Child!

wary pendant
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Maybe shrink the screen a bit as well? Losing 3 pixels at the corners isn't a big deal but I think it'd give a little more wiggle room for the buttons and look a little cleaner on circular screens.

dapper arrow
wary pendant
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Love the new ui ineedthis

dapper arrow
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On Editors

Doesn't really count as relevant news per-se, but I'm feeling pretty chuffed about whipping up this lil' zone editor. Doesn't even do what it's actually meant to in exporting edited .csv's, but ain't it nifty?

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As a side, Recut ain't at all built to be modded, but one of these days I wanna see if I can somehow slot in custom content somewhere. Plus eh, with this side project having the same(ish) databases, this still could work as a raw data viewer too if anyone's so inclined... 'least when all the other editor sections are golden.

cosmic umbra
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I love it! That looks so handy to have!

wary pendant
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After a few shipping delays my watch came in and honestly, it works just fine

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Just don't set it to full or wide

dapper arrow
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ah heck, if you got a sec like 12 hours later, i can give you a build with that wear zoom

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still, ‘s an awesome sight

wary pendant
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No kidding. But yeah, feel free to use me as a testing guinea pig

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One thing I have noticed is that the grid doesn't scale evenly, pixels alternate between too thin and too wide

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When you view the raw pixel art it looks fine though

dapper arrow
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mm, i've contemplated removing that foreground grid on android, what with the surely inconsistent sizes

wary pendant
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Wouldn't be a bad idea, maybe have a toggle for it.

dapper arrow
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on second thought, might as well go axe that grid on non-base zooms

dapper arrow
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Also uh, turned out quite a lot of new areas just, didn't have an encounter rate and/or limit set and crashed the game, plus a few had plain toast in the place of an edible egg as an item drop, something about item ID/dex numbers

wary pendant
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Looks fine but doesn't fill the whole thing

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The original didn't fill the screen either

dapper arrow
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aw hell

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seems awfully blurry

wary pendant
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The filling issue should be solved by not shrinking the image when using round view

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Here's a better picture of what it looks like

dapper arrow
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ah that's clearer, defo looks like it could be zoomed in a lil more

wary pendant
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The galaxy watch resolution is 480×480 if that helps

dapper arrow
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lil hard to gauge the difference between the old and new viewports on a tablet, but then again, this ain't a square split screen

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iunno for sure

wary pendant
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That should work, or at least be close enough

dapper arrow
dapper arrow
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fiddlesticks, figured as much

wary pendant
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The base layout is scaled perfectly

dapper arrow
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it just ain't adding up

wary pendant
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So I don't know why round wouldn't be

frank loom
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Now that I see you on watch, I have to ask since our projects probably have a lot of overlap, are you doing anything in the background or are all updates to your pets when the app is in the foreground? If you've got anything in the background, I'm curious how you are dealing with doze mode.

dapper arrow
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Oh it's all gonna be foreground stuff, the real time support's just going to be comparing an autosaved time stamp to whatever time a save happens to be loaded

wary pendant
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Honestly seeing how well the base layout works on wearos I wouldn't make it a priority at all to work on giving it a dedicated layout

frank loom
wary pendant
dapper arrow
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next on the chopping block, uh, babies, bosses and busts

torpid raft
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AWESOME LOOKING

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❗❗

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🎉

wary pendant
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Do you ever plan on making a manual for this. Some mechanics can be rather confusing as to how exactly they work.

dapper arrow
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oh there is one, but then i don't think it's on the neocities page proper, only itch.io

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this should be the latest one, not that it goes over absolutely everything on top of the fact that some things (like certain abilities) just, ain't in-game yet

dapper arrow
frank loom
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I find the "What would you consider your biggest taste as?" question confusing

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I wouldn't consider cute, cool, or creepy as tastes...

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For the quick 20 questions, I've gotten the strategy game question twice now.

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and time traveler question twice in a row, but the second time with a different answer set...

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I got the moody type... I think that's the last thing people would choose to describe me... so... Yeah... Is there a robot type? haha... cause that's been used to describe me before... polar opposite of moody.

dapper arrow
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hmm, there’s definitely a few repeated questions nearing the end with different answers, but that strategy one should only have a 1 in 10 chance of rolling in that particular stage

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there’s also a blank personality type that a certain robotic species natively has, but that’s mostly just there as a failsafe

dapper arrow
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ahh fiddlesticks, seems some question scores really aren't adding up to the right personality by id

dapper arrow
torpid raft
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I've just downloaded!1!

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Excited to pla version 3 hehe

dapper arrow
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killer, you're on the latest revision 27?

torpid raft
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oh whoops I was looking at riftcast's manual

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I'm reading the manual that came witth the download for recast now

dapper arrow
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if it's mentioning the imago update, you're good

torpid raft
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Oh I see the updae log

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27

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Ah there seems to be a visual bug here in the pdf

dapper arrow
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aw heck, maybe i mistook an x emoji for a typical symbol

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oh, word of warning, quite a few areas (generally the mid-game unlockable ones) have invalid encounters and’ll cause a freeze, might be worth saving before you go somewhere new

torpid raft
dapper arrow
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oh yeah that

torpid raft
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Haha

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Yes, that

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Might be good to split the table to make two

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Oh, important qn

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is the birthday day month or monh day

dapper arrow
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day/month

torpid raft
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Sweet

dapper arrow
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birthday also doesn't do anything as of yet, but setting something might still work though

torpid raft
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Can you not use user on phone?

dapper arrow
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you should be able to, but only RECORD works iirc

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even then, that kinda requires you to start playing to have something to show

torpid raft
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right right

torpid raft
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I can't seem to start a duo mission when doing a quest

dapper arrow
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shoot, lemme see if i can snag that bug after school

dapper arrow
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so the problem is that multi select doesn't advance to the ready screen?

torpid raft
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pawsome

dapper arrow
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really curious what kind of parties people are packing at the moment

torpid raft
fresh gust
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Do you have an install guide for android?

dapper arrow
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ehh, you just have to locate the apk and launch it to install it

dapper arrow
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sad cat, glad cat

dapper arrow
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nothing kills my talkativeness more than radio silence