The Poppytales (Journal Thread)

Hey everyone,

I know there is a thread for this in another Stencyl section, and no, I’m not trying to spam.

The reason I have started a new thread is because the other thread was about a completely different version is the game. Most of it is either crappy old images or “new ideas”. I couldn’t decide and I do not want to continue this cycle of replacing old ideas with new ones and that game has been on pause forever.

I am going to restart this from scratch, and work on this while I am developing the other games. I know I’m probably making a stupid mistake by doing this, but I’m still waiting on other people to continue my other games, and so I am waiting.

Poppytail 5’s “demo” is nearly done and I haven’t touched Pixeltail in a while because of Stencyl storage issues. My laptop I’m using is running out of storage and my game files are becoming corrupted, so I may have to move over to another laptop.

Anyway, the art for The Poppytales will be done entirely by me and I’m going to try out a new game mechanic I don’t think I’ve seen anywhere else AND a new art style I haven’t tried before. Like a major mechanic of Pixeltail’s, I want to keep both of these to myself and surprise everyone when I’m finished the game.

I’ve started making some idle sprites for Poppytail (the character), which are not finished yet. I will not be confirming character rosters or talking about my plans because I don’t want to increase my games’ scope by too much (considering PT5 and PXT are going to be bigger than anything I’ve ever done before).

For those who haven’t heard of this, this game is pretty much just going to be a spin-off RPG based on my book The World of Elecreatures and my game series Poppytail. I’m still messing around with the plot, so I won’t say anything about that yet either.

Tl;dr New game, new thread. New things. Starting work on TPT.

Thank you for anyone who is supporting me or helping me with the main series, and I hope that I can make these games better quality than my previous 7 games.

Poppytail 5’s “demo” is nearly done and I haven’t touched Pixeltail in a while because of Stencyl storage issues. My laptop I’m using is running out of storage and my game files are becoming corrupted, so I may have to move over to another laptop.

Check the logs subdirectory in your stencylworks directory. I accumulate from 300MB to 600GB 600MB per month of logs, which adds up if I don't remember to clear it out every so often!

Sometimes a fresh start is necessary. It may feel like you're starting over, but you're really not if you can take and apply what you learned from the first generation to your next. If I may offer some advice: consider trying out new mechanics or anything experimental on a smaller scale project. I like Ludum Dare for this sort of thing--lots of feedback from a supportive community and if the idea is a total flop, I only lost 48 hours.

Sometimes a fresh start is necessary. It may feel like you're starting over, but you're really not if you can take and apply what you learned from the first generation to your next. If I may offer some advice: consider trying out new mechanics or anything experimental on a smaller scale project. I like Ludum Dare for this sort of thing--lots of feedback from a supportive community and if the idea is a total flop, I only lost 48 hours.

I have actually restarted making a few of my previous games during their development (PT1, PT2, PT5, TPT). With the old version of PT1, I wasn't making the sort of thing I wanted. The old version of PT2 kept glitching out in an early version. I couldn't make the sort of thing I wanted with PT5, and even then I couldn't get the system working. Now I have that working exactly how I wanted it to, but the delays for that aren't because I'm stuck, but because I'm usually busy with other projects.

And finally, the old TPT. I couldn't make that the way I wanted either, and I did not have the knowledge nor the skills to make that properly. Plus I didn't have the 3D art assets for some of the PT5 characters (which I still don't have months later).

I'm trying out new mechanics and art styles because I don't want my games to be too "predictable" among others. Pixeltail's getting a new mechanic so that it's not simply an upgraded clone of the first four games in the Poppytail series. I think The Poppytales' mechanic may work well as a combination of the existing idea for the RPG battle system and suggestions that have been given to me by other users from Stencyl about my other games.

Let's just see how this one turns out...

Check the logs subdirectory in your stencylworks directory. I accumulate from 300MB to 600GB 600MB per month of logs, which adds up if I don't remember to clear it out every so often!

Where do I find this?

Early version of Poppytail. He was drawn by hand, then outlined, photographed, emailed from my phone to my laptop, the background was cut out, and then I coloured him in pixel by pixel. I've still got another 16 images of him left to go... And that's just five frames for each idle animation that I've made so far...

Here's the original:

Check the logs subdirectory in your stencylworks directory. I accumulate from 300MB to 600GB 600MB per month of logs, which adds up if I don't remember to clear it out every so often!

Where do I find this?

I'm not sure for Windows. For Linux it's /home/username/stencylworks/logs

I'm not sure for Windows. For Linux it's /home/username/stencylworks/logs

Well, it shouldn’t be too much of a worry now. I’m switching development to another laptop.

Well, Stencyl hates me. The file with my sprites just became corrupted and I lost a Pink Poppy and Classic Poppytail sprite as well as Poppytail's "up" sprite that I had been working on for an hour, and even before that it deleted my work I had already saved multiple times.

Also, my other laptop I was switching development to is extremely slow, and it sometimes takes nearly half an hour just to log in and get an application such as Google Chrome running without it immediately crashing.

Oh well, at least I uploaded my existing (two) Poppytail sprites to the internet so I can get them back easily.

When you say sprites--do you mean the image files or the actor?

That laptop sounds really old. Might be easier to just the faster computer and use a flash drive or external drive for storage.

When you say sprites--do you mean the image files or the actor?

I mean image files.

That laptop sounds really old. Might be easier to just the faster computer and use a flash drive or external drive for storage.

I have two: the one with half it’s storage being taken up by an unknown source (the one that corrupts .STENCYLs) and the slowest one (takes nearly half an hour to just log in). The first one is two and a half years old, and the second only twelve months. I’m thinking of getting another laptop.

Here are two of Poppytail's re-colours for the game: Pink Poppy and Classic Poppytail.

To differentiate Poppytail and Classic Poppytail, "Classic Poppytail" is Poppytail from the first game and Poppytail is the same character, but his colour scheme is more based off of his Pixeltail version. TPT is not canon to the main series, these two characters are one and the same in the main series

Here are some progress and other updates:

• Poppytail has new re-colours- I’ve made some animations for Wicked Poppytail, and two new variants: Virus Poppytail and Virus Pink Poppy.
• TPT now has a plotline- I won’t talk too much about this, but the player will have multiple options of where to go next if they are struggling to get past certain areas, and now I also have a reason why Poppytail’s “friends” are against him that actually makes sense.
• Boss Rush-Instead of the random encounter system that most RPGs have, I’m going to give the player the choice whether to fight certain characters or not. Each character’s fights will also be different than just “randomly uses assigned moves. By this I mean there will be small or large changes to certain elements of the game during battles.
• I now know how to create atlases- As stupid as it sounds, I use atlases for my games, but I didn’t know there was an “Add Atlas” button because I couldn’t find it. That may be helpful considering the amount of characters and attacks that will be in this game.

Now, I’m hoping to complete this game by late 2019, so I realise this is no small task considering what I want to get done, but I think making this game will be worth it.

Haven’t done much in a while, but I have some more art to work on. There’s Poppytail after being attacked, a flying heart attack, and a few images of SLiM from Easter Fun.

There’s Poppytail after being attacked, a flying heart attack...

I have worked on these drawings and I have the following images: Poppytail getting hit, Pink Poppy getting hit, and that heart attack. What do you all think about the art style?

I have worked on these drawings and I have the following images: Poppytail getting hit, Pink Poppy getting hit, and that heart attack. What do you all think about the art style?

I think it's a definite improvement over the original. I remember the assets from the first game were blurry and had a lot of artifacts. These are a lot cleaner and better defined.

I am curious what mood you're going for, though. From the description of PT1 I was expecting something a lot darker and foreboding, where as your color and style choices suggest a more cartoony and light-hearted atmosphere.