Hey everyone, even though this may be old news to some, I figure I might as well make an official announcement as the loose ends of Muse begin to tie up. Those of you who have been keeping up with the page may have wondered why my name mysteriously appeared as a developer just a few months ago.... well, here's the official announcement. I have joined up with Team Cascade to write an entirely original soundtrack for Muse. Every track in the game will be composed (and in some cases, performed) by yours truly, which will come out to about 20 tracks and 30+ minutes of music. All the tracks will be high quality mp3 with an overall dark and ambient atmosphere. I will be releasing the soundtrack simultaneously with the game's release (TBA.... soon) so that you can download it and put it on your iPod or whatever you so choose to do with it. :D

I'll probably also include a bonus track or two containing some commentary relating to the thought process behind the various tracks to help give a deeper understanding of the soundtrack as a whole and how it relates to the game. If you're wondering whether or not you can use the tracks in your game, well, I haven't talked it over with AznChipmunk yet, but the way I see it, I can't stop anyone from using the tracks and I have a habit of using tracks from games like Final Fantasy in my own games, so for me to say you can't use my Muse soundtrack would be hypocritical. In fact, I would be honored if people used my music, I only ask that you do not re-name the original files so that anyone interested in tracing the mp3 back to its source will have no trouble doing so.

And lastly, for those of you who are saying "WTF, who is DigitalMonk?" there's a semi-old thread on the forums that has some of my work.... I don't mean to sound cocky, but it's looking like the Muse soundtrack is going to blow those old demos clear out of the water. http://rpgmaker.net/forums/topics/6371/
My goal is to make a professional quality soundtrack for Muse. Stay tuned.

-Ben

Hey guys, I have told a few people before that the plan is to release Muse by year's end. Unfortunately... year's end seems like a very unlikely release date. There is still quite a bit of the game to make actually... I can say we are maybe only 50% done? However, we have the story written out, and the characters down, and we have a vision of what we want to do. Mainly we have to finish some cool graphical aspects and put in some puzzles and cutscenes... Fortunately, Christmas break is coming and we will have more time to work on this.
Sorry to people who are anticipating this! YDS and I have also taken on the Christmas game, and that has actually taken up the majority of game design for about a week or two. In fact, Muse hasn't really been worked on very much for a week at least, because currently YDS is on her finals week, and my finals week is two weeks from now. Apart from the Christmas game, we have begun planning out... other awesome projects we have in store for you guys, as well as something much larger than that...

Anyways... I'm looking at a February, perhaps January release? Between coding minigames and finishing up the Christmas game, as well as a competition game, Muse still has a few months to go. Then we'll get our asses in gear for NSN and hopefully release that sometime soon, before year's end.

Also tardis and Nessiah have now been listed as testers. Thanks for reading. (you are a cool coconut)

also. Cool gampage amirite?

What looked like this:


now looks like this:


The merge system, which is the system commonly found in adventure games to combine two inventory items, is now removed. There are several reasons:
1. It's not a necessary system -- it can add to puzzles, but puzzles can be made without it. You're not going to find parts of a screwdriver, but rather the whole thing.
2. It's complicated to code. Well, not that complicated but time consuming to do so, as well as think out all of the possible combinations.
3. Without this system, gameplay will focus less on intricate puzzles, and more on plot as well as characterization. That way, you won't spend all your time scratching your head over some puzzle, and instead can focus on the plot and exploration. I think that making some parts too hard or complicated actually breaks up the flow of the game, and I don't want that.
4. Seeing as... that I don't need this system, well, I have no more custom systems to code actually. That means, full speed ahead on everything else. This brings us closer to our intended release before the end of the year. Muse is supposed to be a much smaller project anyways... We have bigger fish to fry afterwards! (NSN, etc.)

Also, for those who haven't seen updated menu screenshots, you may notice the inventory looks a bit different from the demo. That's right, instead of items having set locations in a large menu window, the window now flips back and forth through dynamic windows. Beforehand, I did not have a dynamic adding system. Now, I have a system that lets me add items the same as using the built-in commands, and it automatically creates pages if you have more items. (That's why there are duplicate keys in the screenshot, and there is another page full of keys/meds before making the red page arrows display.)

Also, we may have an unfortunate setback. I have not had any recent contact with the guy who does the lighting: Malad. I can and have done it myself before, but it takes time to do it, time that would otherwise be spent writing college essays and working on other parts of Muse. Hopefully he will get in touch.

Anyways, for anyone who actually reads this, you are ONE COOL COCONUT.

Thanks, that's all.
-AznChipmunk

For the lovely "faceset." :)