Here's me pretending I still know how to post images up here. Same tag as the Weaver image way back when, but like said image it isn't coming up consistently. Ah well, if all else fails it's at http://z9.invisionfree.com/HamstaPowah/index.php?showtopic=175&st=60&#entry1370034

I've been working on the forest tile set, evidently, and it comes along well. Lens flare courtesy of Photoshop, expect to see it anywhere particularly sunny, as I did that with Camaza in RMXP and liked it. I thought it was dropping my frame rate, but that was a misconception,a s the only moving thing there at that time moves half a pixel every step, thus resulting in the jittery motion. So I was relieved.

In short, look guys, something new for HPE. You can scout my previous post for general plans and such for the near future, but until then…

Tile set made for first area, and has some work to do yet, but as you can hopefully see it's not totally worthless at this point (actually, I rather like how this is turning out so far). Took some nods from some old Square RPGs o SNES where tiles didn't necessarily appear constantly seamless, but tehy were still considered pretty darn neat, and it's not as noticeable as I'd like to think, so I'm kind of easing off on making sure all shading and what not is PERFECT AT ALL TIMES because, really, it rarely matters that much, anyway.

Beyond the tiles, I've sketched out a rough draft map for area 1, which at this point consists of 13 rooms (not counting a central town), 8 monsters, a boss fight, and a possible two bounties to hunt down. While this isn't final, it does illustrate my goal to make even the earliest areas give players a reason to make return trips - bounties are tucked away in areas where on the first time through you'd ahve been lunch meat. Since monsters are fairly indifferent on the overworld (all four bees will look about the same outside of battle), areas will have their names and difficulty rating (1 to 5 stars, much like Odin Sphere except you best be payin' attention, 'cause 5 stars doesn't jsut mean more monsters, it means these monsters are about 20 levels above you) displayed upon entrance, and monsters will behave accordingly. If something is too weak to fight you, it may try to bail, and vice versa.

So, yes, exploration, choosing your battles, all that good stuff. The game's story entails going north from Haron, but I may include some of the country's southern regions just for the exploration bit. Some does not mean all, however, as… there's a few rather distinct towns down there that would take a lot of extra effort beyond what that plan would already entail. Guess we'll have to wait and see.

In any case, here are your signs that the game is slowly but surely finally starting to, uh… start. Stay tuned. :D