23 replies to this topic

[Rachel]

When my last laptop died, I lost my activated copy of Game Maker 7.0 Pro. Unfortuently, I haven't been able to activate it on my current laptop. Unless Softwrap Support can do something about it, I have a feeling this will be the last demo of this game.




Ranch Story: Hiragana Racing

Demo v2.2
Download: https://docs.google....TTXlIdmVKRHFKZw

Buttons and Credits
Press F1 to see buttons guide and credits
Drag and drop hay over to horse to feed

Features
Choose Gender NEW
Boy or Girl
Racing mini-game
Three courses
High score viewable in stable
Thomas as MC NEW
Announces player’s place
Audience NEW
Music emoticon when player gets hiragana correct
Exclamation mark when player gets hiragana wrong
Opponents NEW
Including Claire as a rival
Extra points towards high score for winning the race
Mason NEW
It's not an HM game without a love story!
Horse maintenance
Brushing horse
Feeding horse
Filling trough with water
Entertaining horse with music
Increases chance of starting with a higher speed
Leveling Up
Experience Points
Starting off with a base speed
Increases speed capacity
Choose Horse NEW
Color
Personality
Name
Horse Color
Chestnut
Cream
Horse Personality NEW
Sassy
Energetic
Speedy
Hardy
Saving and Loading
Save through the diary located in the stable
Load at the menu screen or through the diary

Soon to Come
More Horse Colors
Perlino
Black
Audience
More villagers in the audience
Random Visits
Such as May coming to see your horse
Mason
Heart events
Mystery Bachelorette
Heart events
Facesets
Villager's faceset shows when talking
Outfit Rewards
New outfits rewarded for winning races
Hiragana Chart
Hiragana chart in the stable
Second Horse (possibly)
After winning all three races, Barley brings a foal for you to raise. When raised to an adult, the foal can raise in katakana races. (then the game would be renamed Kana Racing)
Barn Cat (possibly)
Another option is to award a barn cat after winning all three races

Bugs
Horse sometimes gets stuck (Temporary fix: Horse's position restarts when entering stable)
Player's collision when walking along an edge is not smooth
Letters in text are not aligned
りゅ (ryu) combination does not register
When playing as a boy, player cannot reach the diary and if attempts to do so will get stuck

Screenshots





Screenshot Four

Screenshot Five

Edited by Rachel, 22 September 2012 - 09:42 PM.

[NukeTheCat]

Konnichiwa! I played your game, I found it very useful because I am trying to learn Japanese (and I also like Harvest Moon. Yay for Harvest Moon).

Here are the few bugs I found in your game:
When pressing the 'Continue' button, the game hangs.
You didn't write in you info that you had to press H to return to the barn, just to tell you.

There is no story but I can see your adding one.
Also I think you should create a hiragana chart for beginners.

My highscore: 3

EDIT:
I also creating a farming game just so you know, maybe I can create a sprite of my main character and give it to you

Edited by Jlm07, 20 February 2012 - 06:28 PM.

[Rachel]

Konnichiwa! I played your game, I found it very useful because I am trying to learn Japanese (and I also like Harvest Moon. Yay for Harvest Moon).

Here are the few bugs I found in your game:
When pressing the 'Continue' button, the game hangs.
You didn't write in you info that you had to press H to return to the barn, just to tell you.

There is no story but I can see your adding one.
Also I think you should create a hiragana chart for beginners.

My highscore: 3

EDIT:
I also creating a farming game just so you know, maybe I can create a sprite of my main character and give it to you

Thank you so much for the feedback! Yes, I noticed this morning I forgot to put "h: return to barn" in the buttons guide. Also, while playing with the girl I'm teaching Japanese, I realized that when you press continue without a save game, it stops the music. The game doesn't hang (I think), because you can still click on start. So, I fixed the script just now.

There are a lot of bugs actually. The horse sometimes gets stuck. I need to fix that.

I am adding a story, but only a little one. I actually have a larger scale Harvest Moon game that I'm making that focuses on Celia and finding a cure for her sickness. This is just a little mini-game I'm making for the girl I'm teaching Japanese, and for other people who might be interested. I found I was able to use some of my scripts from my other game as well. So, in just a couple of days I've gone far with this game. The other one has taken years, as my scripting ability slowly progressed.

That's a good idea! Perhaps it can hang in the stable. I will work on that. Do you have a demo out for your game yet?

Edited by Rachel, 20 February 2012 - 11:55 PM.

[NukeTheCat]

Well, um, my game is still developing and it still needs some more features before I can release a demo (it very buggy and I need to fix tons of things)
but I could send you the .gmk to show how it looks like.

[Rachel]

Well, um, my game is still developing and it still needs some more features before I can release a demo (it very buggy and I need to fix tons of things)
but I could send you the .gmk to show how it looks like.

That's okay. I was just curious. I'll wait for the first demo. My other farming game isn't quite ready enough for a demo either.

Edited by Rachel, 21 February 2012 - 11:15 AM.

[NukeTheCat]

I completed my sprite for your game, I can send it via email.

[Rachel]

I completed my sprite for your game, I can send it via email.

Thank you! I will PM you my email address.

[Rachel]

Update: Demo v2 is out!

Edited by Rachel, 04 March 2012 - 04:39 PM.

[Rachel]

Update: Demo v2.1

-Temporary fixes for player and horse getting stuck added.
-Experience Points originally weren't accumulating, merely rewriting themselves. Now, they accumulate.

Demo v2.1 is compatible with save files from Demo v2, so feel free to continue from your last save.

Edited by Rachel, 04 March 2012 - 04:41 PM.

[Robert3DG+]

It's nice but I don't know anything about typing those symbols so me and poor Applejack always come in 4th place

Theres also a few cases when the player will get stuck while walking along something in the stable. I'd recommend you use a grid based movement system like Pokemon for those parts.

[Rachel]

Thank you for the comments. Applejack is a cute name (). I will be adding a hiragana chart to the stable eventually, but really those who are learning Japanese already have their own methods to learn the script and the game is for reinforcement. Thanks for playing even though you aren't learning!

I've created a temporary fix for when the player gets stuck coming back from a race. The player sometimes stops walking when walking along something in the stable, but as far as I know doesn't get stuck because can move away from the edge and continue walking.

Do you have any tutorials you can point me to that have an example of the grid based movement system? I have Game Maker 7 Pro.

Edited by Rachel, 04 March 2012 - 05:09 PM.

[Robert3DG+]

Davve wrote an example on this that should suit your needs. It can be found here.

[Rachel]

That's actually the version I use for my movement script...

[Robert3DG+]

Interesting.

SD also made a (fairy old) example of grid based movement. Theres actually quite a few on the first page just by doing a small Google search.

I wish I could be of more help.

[Rachel]

Thanks for pointing out the glitch to me at least! I will add it onto the list of things I have to fix.

Update: Demo v2.2

-Player no longer gets stuck when coming back from a race. (Temporary fix removed.)
-Race ends when ending Thomas's dialogue, rather than when pressing "H".
-Experience points roll over when leveling up, rather than resetting to 0.

Demo v2.2 is compatible with save files from Demo v2 and v2.1, so feel free to continue from your last save.

Edited by Rachel, 04 March 2012 - 05:34 PM.

[Mr. RPG]

I absolutely love Harvest Moon, I wish this was a full-fledged Harvest Moon game..

Anyway, on to the game.

What is with the pop-up menu? You really should just have that all built in to the game itself.

The resolution could be higher, it is even less than even the SNES resolution.

Walking feels slow and the collision detecting seems clunky

What am I supposed to do after I spread hay?

Edit: Why it doesn't matter too much, version 2.2 suggest that you have already completed the game. A game's initial release is usually 1.0.

Edited by Mr. RPG, 04 March 2012 - 05:56 PM.

[Rachel]

Thank you for all your feedback. Yes, one day I hope to complete a full-fledged game. I'm working on one, but it's a long way from being completed. It's also in English. I wish I could make it bilingual, but game maker doesn't support Japanese characters.

What is with the pop-up menu? You really should just have that all built in to the game itself.

Of course that would be ideal. But my scripting ability is amateur.

The resolution could be higher, it is even less than even the SNES resolution.

Can you explain to me resolution in a game? I don't understand what you mean. Where can I fix this in Game Maker?

Walking feels slow and the collision detecting seems clunky

Hmm... compared to a video of the actual game, I'm pretty sure the walking is at the same speed. I know I need to make the collision smoother.

What am I supposed to do after I spread hay?

Drag and drop the hay over to the horse. There is no pick up system. I still haven't figured out how to make a good pick up system. When I do, I will put it in my full-fledged game.

Why it doesn't matter too much, version 2.2 suggest that you have already completed the game. A game's initial release is usually 1.0.

It's released as demo v2.2, not [game title] 2.2. There's a difference. It's just a way for me to keep track of how many demos I have released and where my progress is. I expect to release 3 demos total. The third demo will have a completed rewards and events system. Then, the final version of the game will be released once all bugs are fixed, as well as some extra side-features added.

I don't really plan on releasing v2.3, 2.4 etc. I just released 2.1 and 2.2 because there were some major bugs I added fixes to that I felt it was important for people to update just in case they were using the game to practice their hiragana.

The main purpose of this game is to give people a tool to reinforce hiragana (and possibly katakana). I don't expect to get all the bugs fixed or to make the game perfect (such as getting rid of the pop-up boxes). As long as the game is playable, I'm satisfied. For my full-fledged game, I do want to get all those things fixed.

Edited by Rachel, 04 March 2012 - 06:28 PM.

[iphoneiv]

woah, this is the best fan-made harvest moon game ever XD
and i'm glad i'm japanese (now i can get a super high score, muwahahaha)
thanks for the game, btw!
i'm also making a harvest moon game, but of course i'm still like a complete beginner, so i'll be working on it for a long time
it'd be great if i can make one that's awesome like yours ^^

Edited by iphoneiv, 04 March 2012 - 10:26 PM.

[Rachel]

woah, this is the best fan-made harvest moon game ever XD
and i'm glad i'm japanese (now i can get a super high score, muwahahaha)
thanks for the game, btw!
i'm also making a harvest moon game, but of course i'm still like a complete beginner, so i'll be working on it for a long time
it'd be great if i can make one that's awesome like yours ^^

Aww, you're sweet. I know all the hiragana, and I can complete the game in a day, so it should be no problem for you. Enjoy (). It's still a little bit of a challenge, since you have to hold all the buttons down at the same time. I'm excited to make the heart events and villager events now, since there's someone who can beat all the courses to enjoy them. Is there anything you would like to see added to the game?

[iphoneiv]

Aww, you're sweet. I know all the hiragana, and I can complete the game in a day, so it should be no problem for you. Enjoy (). It's still a little bit of a challenge, since you have to hold all the buttons down at the same time. I'm excited to make the heart events and villager events now, since there's someone who can beat all the courses to enjoy them. Is there anything you would like to see added to the game?
[/quote]

> i'm really bad with keyboard pressing-ness if you know what i mean, lol, but i still enjoy it XD
i can't wait for the heart events too!
as for now, i can't really think of anything to add(you have everything, it's just so perfect ^w^); i'm just really glad with all these things that you're coming up with, really awesome :D