This update is a bit late due to difficulties with some issues in development, particularly trying to debug a game freeze that happened if the player faced the first boss’ map event in a specific direction.

What’s new?

Summarized edition:

• Bugfixing and a little bit of work on the next part of the game

Detailed edition:

• Tutorial is now playable
• Game doesn’t freeze upon finishing the first boss fight
• Unintentional shortcut removed (bug with moving the player to the wrong area after exiting one area), additionally stopped the event before this shortcut from endlessly repeating
• Started modifying the UI a bit more
• Added an “Afternoon” time to the game, will be adding a “Midnight” time as well.
• Fixed a glitch where the player would constantly be reminded that it was afternoon, thus being unable to progress in the day.
• The core time system has been adjusted to account for a full day rather than half a day (I changed how I’m counting some things which should make it easier to add time-based events)
• The day of the week will also be counted, but is not currently implemented. If this becomes too challenging to implement I may remove it
• There’s no UI for a clock yet but I’m strongly considering it
• Added one new mini-dungeon
• Adjusting the game’s soundtrack
• The next optional dungeon in the game is being worked on, recently started the first room
• Balance changes
• Fixed some buggy events that happen after the first in-game day of gameplay
• Dialogue for a boss talking about a boss fight that wasn’t implemented yet has been temporarily removed
• Fixed an issue where the player would be in a conversation with all playable characters at that point despite not having all those characters with them
• A (hidden) treasure chest visible without having to find it has now been made harder to find
• The player can now walk in chairs; this means certain events won’t “freeze” player movement anymore.

There’s not really that much work that’s been done on Infidemia yet, though this is only the 9th development update so far.

I’ve been “considering” a lot of things for this project and all what I can confirm for now is that it’s less buggy and that the core story content will be available. As I’m trying to focus more on gameplay, I decided that it’s better to keep going with the game and stop restarting development because eventually the boring introduction will be over and the parts of the story I find slightly interesting will be worked on.

However, there is not enough content for a demo, and, even if a demo is made, I would have to make sure that I carefully review what I have so far and that it’s possible to play the demo without any prior context (relying on everything the game tells you). Please do not expect a demo, screenshots, or any other form of gameplay to be made available. Additionally, the script will have to be reviewed much more before I decide if this game is worth making a demo for. On terms of release date, cost, etc., it is best to assume that Infidemia will indefinitely have a delayed release and I have no plans whatsoever to publish the game.

Since I’m still working on the game, I decided I should probably post an update every week about what’s happening with it, even though I’m not going to do anything with the game.

Until the next update,

-ZoruaAl

I’ve been working on some sprites for the game, specifically enemies that you can encounter in battles.

So far, a few basic (non-boss character / smaller sprite) enemies have a prototype, and one boss character is getting a full sprite (still being worked on) though will also require an animated spritesheet (which I will start off with a prototype for).

I have a few new themes that might play during the game, but I haven’t decided how these will work yet. Most of the music for the game has been worked on in reverse chronological order (end of the game –> beginning of the game) but I have a sample track for the tutorial room and a placeholder battle theme.

On terms of gameplay, the simulation-focused gameplay will mostly be about what you can do at the in-game school, while there will be opportunities to study, or visit dungeons outside of the in-game academics.

I’ve also planned to experiment a bit more with story elements, though since playthroughs can be impacted by your decisions, you might find out more about the story by doing certain things or talking to certain characters at certain times. …You could technically get all of the story regardless of how you play the game, but, events would turn out differently… There isn’t supposed to be a right or wrong way to make choices in the game, though characters will still comment on choices (especially in Coffee Time, the conversation-simulator minigame that is required to increase friendship levels between protagonists).

Anyway, until the next development update,

-ZoruaAl

This week’s update to the game has focused on changing the core gameplay, so there’s less focus on the story right now. As a disclaimer, I haven’t shared or built a playable version of the game, so this is mostly the list of things going on behind the scenes during development.

What does this mean for Infidemia?

–> Core story aspects will mostly be the same. Some events, like the tutorial, will be modified, in order to account for new features.

–> Unused gameplay features will be properly removed from the demo. Cleaning up the game files has been a goal with this week’s update, though this also means backing up unused events and removing them from gameplay if those won’t be used.

–> The time system has stayed the same, though now there are actions that allow you to “spend time”, using up the in-game time. Having the player wait 25 minutes for the next day didn’t work well in playtesting, so now it’s possible to go through an entire day, while doing things.

–> Added new shortcuts, optional to use in battle, but can still select actions using less inputs than menu navigation. This includes a pop-up menu that has selectable actions for keyboard, mouse, and controller input.

–> Fixed some dialogue stuff.

–>Planning to add the victory music back to the game, though now it will play regardless of how you finish a battle.

–> The gameplay progression system works differently now; this is to help address too much filler dialogue from taking up gameplay (depending on how this works, I might change it)

–> Fixed some bugs (trying to load a track that wasn’t included in the game to add it to the music player)

That’s all for this week’s development update. Adjusting the core gameplay will probably be the focus until the game has been playtested enough to ensure everything’s working, though nothing here should be guaranteed to be in the final game, either. Any of this is subject to change. Thanks for checking out this update.

-ZoruaAl

Today I have some more news about Infidemia, though, there are some things that should be mentioned first, as this was probably unclear earlier.

As you might know, this is the Capsule Dragons website, where I try to focus on blogging about the games I’m working on.

I used to post some Scratch games I worked on here as well, though check back on the “About” page and go see my Scratch profile if you’re interested in that. The reason I don’t talk about that often here is because I don’t want to associate an external website (this one) with my account anymore and I can be contacted directly about anything Scratch-related there, and it’s easier for me to work on Scratch-related stuff there.

So, Capsule Dragons will mostly cover Infidemia now.

However, unlike the games I made called “Capsule Dragons” (series), Infidemia may not be suitable for all age audiences, and I’m still working on figuring out a content rating.

For now, please know that the dialogue in Infidemia may contain implied actions of violent or romantic things, (subject to change though) and that it may not be suitable to a kid-friendly audience, so if you’re a kid, I’d suggest playing a different game or reading about a different game instead. Most of my Scratch projects should be appropriate to all ages, though some of the content on this website has been more serious before, which is why I stopped linking it to my Scratch account (you can find that information on the About page of Capsule Dragons) so please take this into consideration.

Additionally, these development updates are not meant to be advertising Infidemia (it isn’t available yet, either) and are instead written as informative things of what I’ve been doing so far.

What have I been working on in the game?

–> Story: First few days should be mostly playable, though for this update, added another day that I didn’t playtest yet though it’s kind of functional. Doing story things (sorry, won’t give specifics on the plot details. Some things have changed, though).

–> Gameplay: The battle system is still a bit tricky (not very user-friendly) though I am trying to make it easier to use. Additionally, balance changes are required. (not much playtesting this week – only playtesting story battles and debugging stuff)

–> Mechanics: New concepts introduced in the story, trying to limit the feature scope (in both story and gameplay). I’ll likely stop the mechanics with what I have currently been able to do without delaying development too much. One battle mechanic (the “Wager” system) still needs to be fixed, though in general, battles are functional.

–> Revisions: Ended up writing the intro of a completed story dialogue sequence, then decided to redo it. I’ll keep revisions for later, once I have enough playable content, though I would really like to keep things functional, even if that means there’s a lot to fix right now.

–> Music and Drawings: Not much to write here. Experimenting with some random stuff in a complete side project that’s unrelated to Infidemia, so I can practice arrangement techniques (not sure what the official term is) without focusing on working on this game first.

That’s it for this update.

Thanks for reading,

-ZoruaAl

Another week of working on the game, so here’s what I’ve added:

• Boss mechanics
  To put this another way, specific actions and events that happen per boss fight, making these fights more unique but also focused on a primary mechanic
• Wager abilities
  New ways to talk your way out of battle have been added, a new ability that I won’t talk about right now though required quite a bit of eventing to do is working
• Tutorials
  Images have been added to mostly every tutorial by now… …This is to make using the menu more clear, and to help me use it as reference when explaining things through text only.
• Story
  The introduction is going along and I already decided to change the plot up. Starting over the intro a lot gives me a better idea on how the game world really works, so I hope this keeps players interested.
• Temporary content rating
  This game may not be suitable for children to play, not sure about recommended ages/content ratings specifically, adding a disclaimer in case.
• Map design
  The tutorial area, a few new optional areas, a shop, and the first café for the game, have all been added. Editing some events in a dungeon I made before to use it as part of gameplay in another area, so the player still ends up doing the puzzles there and such. I’ve added a reset button to one puzzle so far though I should probably do that for more…
• Puzzles
  A lot of the game is top-down, 2D, left/right and up/down, so I’ve been adding (more) puzzles to the game. Kind of like another fun thing to do in dungeons instead of constant battles, though I have been trying to update the battle system.
• Characters
  Introduced someone, have an optional introduction as well as other characters you may be able to meet earlier than usual. This includes characters who are part of the core story…
  …Still using friendship levels in the game though haven’t found many places to add them yet. Most actions from the introduction may look inconsequential.
• Skippable tutorials
  Want to learn how to play on your own? Following another guide? Already know how to play? Regardless of how long a tutorial is, I’ve noticed these can be a bit too long to have to go through and playtest multiple times, so I added an option to skip tutorials, though this should be usable by the player (especially if you get a game over in the tutorial area).
• New dialogue/script
  I don’t usually keep the content that was written as part of the earlier script, though anything that’s part of the original script and left in the game now has been modified to work with any characters currently in your party, hopefully slightly shorter to go through, and partially consistent with the story.
• Story inconsistencies
  This is part of the gameplay.
• Intentional weird stuff
  You may not want to report bugs/glitches for this game, since anything that happens should be normal. In the case of glitches going on there are some ways that I’ve added events in-game to account for this (how’d you get [item] so early?).
• Useful stuff
  Selecting different options when given multiple choices about something when you’re supposed to read each choice no longer forces you to exit out of the event. This makes more sense while playing, but, let’s say you’re asked to review the instructions for a mechanical device, and there are separate categories of instructions, but after viewing one, you have to restart that event to get to the next event, making it take longer…
  …In summary, trying to fix these kinds of things.
  However, boss encounters and random boss encounters have not offered the player many options to redo the fight and will usually result in a game over.
  I intend to add more save points than usual to account for that, though these save points will be in areas where you’re not forced to start the battle.
  You can save anywhere in the game, though this creates some issues:
  –> Glitch potential
  You can go inside of puzzle obstacles that move.
  –> Battle encounters…
  You might end up fighting enemies multiple times (though there should be a cooldown on after an enemy was defeated, because enemies walk around the map, usually)
  –> Right before a boss fight
  You might have to go through the whole boss fight or get a game over in it in order to change your save point. While you wouldn’t be restarting from your last save, it would still take a while.
  –> Multiple save files
  If you want to experiment with your choices in the game, this is a good way to do it, though it may make gameplay more confusing. Maybe this isn’t an issue, but an opportunity for the player to explore the game more?
  –> Saving inside of story events
  Regardless of your choices in the game, there are some story events that require the player to go through the whole thing before doing different things. While you could hypothetically leave those areas and come back to them, it’s usually better to do one of these events all the way through first, but if you’d like to record your progress while in the event, this may work better (as you can save anywhere).
  Unlike saving anywhere, the player doesn’t restore health and other resources by saving. More updates on healing and reviving characters will be added later.

Anyway, that’s it for this development update. I tried a list format instead of using an introduction paragraph, so I hope that’s a quick read.

Thanks for reading this update.

-ZoruaAl

This week, or, this past week, I’ve been updating Infidemia’s introduction, again, as I’ve noticed this is a challenging part for me to plan out without having a clear path on knowing what I’m doing with the game.

I decided to change the second boss to be the first boss the player fights as part of the introduction, and to give tutorials immediately upon starting up a new game. There are some tutorials that will get annoying if you forgot to save at the beginning and you happen to start over, so I decided adding an option to skip the lengthier tutorials would be useful.

Additionally, thanks to a plugin I’m using (will update on which one it is by listing the credits for the game, though it’s not done yet and I may end up changing what resources I use. So, credits are to be decided for now, as this project is in its prototyping phase, still, though I’ve ended up using roughly the same resources and adding more), there’s an option to re-read dialogue, which may come in handy if you’re confused about what happened.

I’ve been focusing on getting gameplay working (Yes, the chat command finally works – wagers are being implemented, but I still have to finish working on the unlocking hearts mechanic) while doing some more of the game’s story (I’m not very good at writing, as you might be able to tell by reading this blog, so Infidemia’s script may be painful to read) and focusing on keeping things consistent.

The original introduction had the player moving around a lot more, which I thought was useful to show off the various areas that you can go to from the starting area, though this ends up being confusing if I’m trying to remember the last thing that happened in the story. I might add a “the story so far…” message that you can read if you want to, as I’ve played a few RPGs, and sometimes when going to play another game and then forgetting what I was doing in one that I started makes things a bit confusing for me to not really understand the story or what I was supposed to be doing. The intro is mostly “go to the next place you see” though I may have added an optional boss fight and optional event…

…Anyway, other things like music for the game and drawing enemies and bosses hasn’t really been a priority. I’ve been trying to come up with a new main battle theme, but I can’t think of anything that matches the style that I’m going for (as I don’t try new styles often) so I might end up using an earlier version of it. I was going to get around to drawing sprites for enemies though this is probably my lowest priority right now.

Here’s a list of what’s completed so far:

• Introduction: How to move, interact, use the menu, save the game, use the first few main battle commands
• Story: Explains that the player’s not given many details to start with (no spoilers)
• Gameplay: One new type of puzzle room has been added, used for the intro, wagers finally work (barely), and balanced the first boss fight. May need more balancing.
• Music: Experimenting with making a track for the intro area, the first city area, and the tutorial battle theme.
• Concept art: Planning to draw various enemies and the first boss, though haven’t started.

This game has been really fun to work on, though it’s also a bit tricky to try and get everything to a point where I’m happy with it.

Since a lot of this game does not make any sense out of context, I’ve been trying to focus on not giving away too many screenshots or gameplay of Infidemia, though that’s mostly my excuse…

I’ve been planning to get a demo ready, but I always feel really cringy about it because I’m concerned that people are going to dislike the game and it’s… a bad game… …though now that I’ve kind of accepted that Infidemia’s introduction was badly made, I’ve been using the game’s script to make fun of myself and poke fun at how ridiculous some things are in the game (because really).

A lot of the game feels embarassing to talk about because the basis for the game world was based on fourteen dreams I had telling one story, and that one story was pretty weird. A lot of it only makes sense in my head, so I had to give more context in Infidemia, and make sure to reorder events chronologically, as the structure of the game relies on telling the story in consistent time. There are some minor details like being able to tell what day of the week it is, so I hope players will notice the extra things like this.

The game itself isn’t based on those dreams to be exactly as I remember things being, though some of the dream sequences present in the game’s story may take a more literal approach of being based on that…

…Regardless, these details aren’t that important to know while you’re playing the game, though thanks for reading this anyway, since I’ve talked a lot about the game, revised the intro at least five times, and haven’t really shown any playable content yet. In summary, thanks for showing your interest.

Oh, yeah, the battle UI (user interface) still needs to be reworked. Just remembered that, since I have some plans to draw out some more windows and customize things.

I haven’t worked out things like what platforms the demo will be on, what user input devices will work (hopefully anything USB-compatible, though it’s going to take some work to get that ready) and what the content rating is.

Important Notice: No demo has been made officially available, published, or distributed. There’s not even an executable file for it. I’m adding this disclaimer because I have not actually made the demo yet. I’m working on it, but it’s not 100% ready.

And about the game not being 100% ready – it would be better for me to release a demo with what I have so far and getting players’ comments before revising it, but, I’d like to get a fully playable demo first before I decide feedback is important. Yes, there are tons of things that need fixing, and I am willing to listen to feedback, as long as it’s honest and hopefully (doesn’t have to be) specific. However, the game has many points where I didn’t use eventing properly (resulting in a character staring at a wall and freezing the game, or a character walking partially and then getting stuck because a non playable character has a pattern in which they walk around, and that pattern disrupts an event, freezing the game because I didn’t add an option to account for that, or maybe a battle’s about to start but it’s using the wrong battle theme file because I changed files around) and this is the least organized game I have made, despite having options for backup folders and source control, I have not used these options and have not used them efficiently.

Still, I’m focusing on making the story more consistent for now so I can add new story content without having to replay what I have so far (I try to limit my time playtesting to as short as possible, often adding in-game cheats or debug options to do this, but, playtesting with normal options and just going through the game each time is pretty useful in my opinion. I’ve been able to use a debug room, test individual battles, and stuff like that, though testing story events usually takes a little bit longer).

Anyway, thanks for reading, and I hope that this was interesting.

-ZoruaAl

Update: All of my opinionated posts should now have an opinion disclaimer. I decided not to tag the articles as opinion, but I changed some tags that were… …subjectively described… …to be changed to “Opinion”. Once I have contact information posted, feel free to ask me about anything on the website if something seems off.

New Update: Added a privacy policy also. Please see Privacy Policy | Capsule Dragons if you are interested in learning how I (and third parties) handle website data.

I will now be adding an opinion tag and disclaimer to any website articles that I wrote covering my opinion of current events.

Although many of these articles were ineffective as I did not publish proper research and cite any sources, as well as not referencing analysis from verified authors to use as the basis of my claims (regardless of what those claims were), I would like to at least add a disclaimer that these were not meant to be proper “news articles”.

There are many better sources out there and I feel like having something only be opinion can contribute to misinformation (but that’s my opinion of the situation).

For the most part, this post is meant to provide clarity and to hold me accountable for my mistakes.

Thank you for your understanding.

-ZoruaAl

Here are some updates on Infidemia. This is a slightly longer update…

Story Progress

The first few events for the game have been planned. The introduction is almost ready, and the first 8 battle tutorials will be added to the game.

…So, there should be about one minute of gameplay. Some time walking around, some time talking to characters, and maybe watching a battle tutorial…

The “main game” (where the story really starts up) and the rest of the game have started a planning phase with specific details, while the entire game has taken over a year to plan, I’m finally getting to the specifics.

Though… it will take me a while to get to the parts of the story I find interesting, so…

Gameplay Progress

Most of the areas in the game are possible to enter, interact with people and objects, shops work, encounters work, and decisions are in the game.

Combat Progress

The battle system is about 75% complete. The other 25% means the graphic designs for the menus, the camera stuff, and some additional features.

Most weapons, armor, abilities, and items work.

Using “Pulse Check” will no longer result in an exceedingly repetitive sound played for an infinite time.

Mechanics

The “Summon” mechanic still needs to be fixed and finalized, while the “Combo” mechanic is mostly functional. The “Wager” system is acting strange again because I forgot to add the right dialogue events to the right battles, which made some very confusing events.

The exploration mechanic is mostly okay though you might be able to glitch out the game in a few spots, I’m not too sure yet. (Still have to add functions that prevent the car from going indoors in the newly-added areas).

Map Design

I plan on adding a market, bus terminal (it’s mostly done), and a few more areas outside of the city that will be part of the beginning to the story.

Compared to my other projects, Infidemia’s world will be narrowed down to 2 specific cities within 2 countries in the game world.

While it would be nice to have every mentioned place possible to go to, it would result in an unnecessarily large game, due to Infidemia’s main story and optional areas being only a few cities within a few continents of the game world.

Some of my other projects involve the whole game world (every continent, every country, every town… …it’s fun to work on and design, but it can get a bit too involved) and due to Infidemia’s disproportionately large areas, I’m limiting the scope of the game to the different places around the game world that it takes place in. I still hope to add variety and show off the game world, though it’s not going to be as large as it sounds, unfortunately. Fortunately, there should be enough places to go to and everything should be in walking distance.

Music and Sound Design

I need honest feedback on this because I don’t know if it’s earsplitting or if it’s slightly decent.

That’s all I would like to give on the music updates, because by now, only about 1/50th of the soundtrack is done.

I don’t intend on making a lot of music for the game, either.

For sound design, things are a bit different.

I’ve been recording various sounds around the house and I should have a lot of random things ready soon.

Content Rating Update

Nothing yet. I’ve been keeping an eye on games with similar content and all I have to mention right now is that Infidemia’s content rating will be announced when it’s ready.

Of course, I would suggest checking back here for more information.

This is something that is more of an official thing and I’ll mention the content rating when the game’s released.

Please note the content rating is subject to change, and the content from the game may not be suitable to display to all ages and/or children.

Academic Stuff

The game was going to have a grading policy for Infidemia’s various academia-related quests.

However… that’s kind of annoying in my opinion, because the player getting judged on their decisions and then how well they follow through with their decisions… that’s a bit… unnecessary?

Dialogue Boxes and Credits (Part 1)

Content Disclaimer: Please note the following screenshot is from an upcoming game I’m working on. The game and displayed content may not be suitable to all ages, though I’m trying to keep it that way whenever I talk about the game or show it online. Additionally, this is not an advertisement or a finished product. This is a demonstration of the current status of Infidemia’s dialogue boxes. If this content relates to a real quotation, place, person, object, or idea, it is coincidental and this is a work of fiction.

Please see the caption of the image below for more copyright information.

I do not have an official license about this, though I would prefer that if this image is redistributed, please link back to this original page https://www.capsuledragons.com/2021/03/16/infidemia-development-update-3/ so that the screenshot and the resources to produce the screenshot are properly credited.

Anyway, I won’t be uploading many screenshots of Infidemia, especially considering that this direct capture seems to be at the wrong resolution and I have a few things to fix before I can show actual gameplay.

Where Does the Name Come From? (Spoilers)

If you don’t want spoilers for the game, I suggest that you skip this section, and go to the “Credits” section next.

This contains major plot details for this game, titled “Infidemia”.

The name “Infidemia” comes from multiple words.

_{“Infinity” and “Academia”.}

Anyway, there’s a major plot detail involving those two words, but I won’t give away what it is yet.

(Spoilers are over)

Credits?!

Yeah, that’s right, the current prototype of Infidemia is being made with the RPG Maker MV software.

Due to terms of agreement (the EULA) with the RPG Maker MV software, modifications to the game will not be allowed in the game unless I find a way to make something that the player can mess around with inside of the game, like a debug room, without running user-made code. Allowing the user to add their own programs into the game files could lead to an issue with malicious code being executed, because the game is not meant to be used to cause these things… …If I find a way to allow user modifications without harmful actions being possible from running the game, this may happen.
Please note that I have also struggled to find a way to make modifications accessible to the user, as the only way I see modifications being possible is the player being able to access plugins that are already in the game, and giving access to the core structure of the game on a user level would be an issue.

For more details, please see the “About” page: https://www.capsuledragons.com/about/

In case you didn’t see the copyright for RPG Maker MV, here’s the copyright statement, because I am not the creator of the engine and I would like to credit the game engine I used to create this game so far:

RPG Maker MV:
Copyright (C) 2015 KADOKAWA CORPORATION / YOJI OJIMA

I’ve also been designing custom graphics in the form of menus and window design, though the font is the default one from RPG Maker MV. The tool I’ve been using to design custom graphics is Aseprite, with the copyright statement below:

Aseprite:
Copyright (C) 2001-2020 Igara Studio S.A. https://www.aseprite.org/

Please note that the linked websites and contents are not owned by me and I am not responsible for anything that happens outside of the Capsule Dragons website, should any issues arise.

Additionally, these credits may change over time.

Until then, thanks for reading!

There is no demo or playable version of Infidemia currently available.

I will make an official announcement when it’s ready, though for now there’s still a lot of work to do on it.

-ZoruaAl

Disclaimer: I decided to write this without editing or proofreading. I will likely come back to correct my correction notice in the distant future.

Capsule Dragons is a website that is meant to be an independent blog about independent video game development.

I post news about browser games and link to an account where anyone can play any games I make there. (I plan on uploading a few tech demos, with detailed notes, if anyone is interested in learning about how/why I coded something.)

However, in 2020, after acknowledging real-world situations, the website started to take a virtue-signaling approach that went rapidly downhill, to the point where opinions and bias ruined everything.

This is not a website meant to take action in any community to support any cause. I have specifically added a disclaimer on the about page that this is an “unofficial, opinionated blog” (or something along those lines).

As someone who is describing a need to take action for issues that I view myself responsible for, I don’t think making this website into what I wanted to talk about for taking action is the way to go. I can encourage developers to be generally respectful and at least think twice before you act, but, political reform and community reform isn’t something this website was meant for, and it’s actually the wrong place to post it here.

So… why use all this virtue signaling?

The purpose was just one thing, to hold myself accountable for supporting some things I wanted to get involved in later, so that I would come back here and remember what standards I hold myself accountable to. Upon finding out that there were no more standards or notes, I began to cringe at failing to do anything useful.

On the outside, Capsule Dragons’ change in the description you see next to the website (there’s a reason I fixed that) made it sound like it would appeal to public relations, though my goal is not to become more popular or to virtue-signal anyone. (That is also the reason why I am not describing anything “about” myself).

It started with “I’m aware of what’s going on in the world.” to “I would like to help” to “You must take action if you read this” to changing that to the website’s mini description you see if you look it up, and now I’ve regretted all of this, because it’s not holding true to my point or values.

…And about Infidemia… Instead of a virtue-signaling game, it’s… literally just a video game. I noticed it didn’t feel genuine and that’s why I revised it (again). Doing some work on it today, and remembering what work I did, I feel like those changes have felt genuine.

That’s the important thing for this website, is being genuine. I’m honest that I don’t really like the games I make because I’m expecting a more professional result but I don’t follow through with my expectations. I’m honest that I care about people (even if I seem without emotion in real life), though this went way too far. It made it stressful to work on this website as well, as I felt that I had to portray the values I wanted to show, but then that just became what I didn’t want it to become – a huge virtue signal move.

What exactly is virtue signaling, though?

According to Oxford Dictionaries (citation needed), it means “the action or practice of publicly expressing opinions or sentiments intended to demonstrate one’s good character or the moral correctness of one’s position on a particular issue”.

That’s exactly what the website became, even if I had the intent of showing that I care (caring in general), it became filled with speculation and guesses as to why my opinions were right or wrong, and honestly, this is not the intention.

This is a website about games development and random things going on in my personal life that I sometimes discuss but don’t usually, mostly not discussing those things because I don’t want those things to gain attention or to be listed here.

Ironically, the changes in my personality to view my opinions as right or wrong (a personal event) had made their way to this website and now I’m talking about that event, but, I guess the focus here is that I started to become a pseudo-activist.

I don’t think social activism is bad, I think it actually might lead to more discussions (as long as it’s not just people virtue signaling each other. If it’s people being open to discussing topics that they deem societally inappropriate, that’s what I would like to hear). Though… the issue about all this is that it doesn’t get the point across.

And even getting across the point wouldn’t be appropriate to do here. Maybe on a political opinion blog, or maybe on another website altogether, but, we have to remember that Capsule Dragons is a website about the game series I made, and even if it’s changing to become a better place, this is, in my opinion, the cringy way of improving the website.

There are some changes I need to make to the Capsule Dragons video game series, actually, though this is just me having a moment where I realized I messed up. The renaming of the main enemies in the game will change, and I had a plan of what to change the enemy name to, though I don’t think I wrote it down. I think it was supposed to be something along the lines of “poison slimes” (though that doesn’t sound good) because the reason the enemies were purple was because that was like a poison element, maybe it was like a shadow/darkness element, though based on how it was used in the first game’s lore, it’s more of a poisonous element, as it damaged the game world (poison, toxicity, just like my toxic approaches that I talked about making me cringe…)

On an unrelated note, the dragons themselves need more creative names, as “Red”, “Blue”, “Pink”, etc., just aren’t good enough.

I mean, maybe if they have unique attacks (“This is the power of ‘Blue Fire’!! This flame shall deal 9,000 damage to the boss!”) there was a use in that, though it just didn’t feel creative enough. Still naming the dragons based on the colors of the rainbow, mostly (Blue should have been Indigo if Icey was named Blue… just a side note), is still possible in more creative names – Fredrick could be Red’s full name, as an example, or maybe alternate spellings are used in creative ways to add a pun to each name.

I’m not saying that this has some political association with it, I’m just unhappy with a naming convention.

The point of this correction is to apologize, but also to improve.

Around the time I finished one of the more ingenuine articles, I sent a letter to some people, telling them kind of the same thing, but it was too demanding and it was actually insensitive to the current condition of these people – assuming they were well off was a bad way to go, especially when I remembered that I ended up sending this message of demanding to help out when someone who would need this help was told that instead. …That was a huge learning experience for me, because when I got direct feedback on a message like that, that’s when I realized I was being told that I was virtue-signaling.

The term “virtue-signaling” might have some political connotation with it, but let’s just ignore that. In fact, let’s come up with a new term, of “subjective morality”, since that’s technically slightly more or less creative.

Adding a subjective morality to opinions is not really a good way to open up discussion about them – I’m writing this section mostly to keep myself accountable, where I remember what not to do – though since this article would be irrelevant if I wasn’t talking to the reader, I would like to tell the audience that I will try to keep things on this website clearer.

If I’m describing opinions about current events, I’ll label the article as opinion, and not making up a tag to tell the readers this has to be right or wrong.

If I am describing current events, I promise to cite any resources I use for analysis, and to actually provide some analysis of the situation, as practice for decent journalism. I had some complaints myself after reading pieces that either supported or went against my perspective, and in my perspective I think both needed more analysis of the issue and less opinion (maybe opinion, but at least label it opinion, or have a part where you analyze the issue and then talk about your opinion of it…)

Additionally, I will continue to add corrections, disclaimers, and anything else that I need to do to keep this website updated. (There should be one at the top of the page, telling the reader that this page will be updated should I find inconsistencies, although it’s currently low on my list of priorities, so please check back later if there are updates)

I have yet to fix my profile.

It would be easier for me to issue a simple apology statement, and that’s what I view this as, the easy option of a simple apology, though even if there’s not a point in doing this, remaining silent about my mistakes wouldn’t help me, as it would make this website less accountable than it already is.

I have some standards I’ll hold myself accountable to, but I won’t list them off here, because I think that trying to change the reader’s opinion is not what this website is about. If it were to be argumentative, sure, but, this is meant to be a list of posts about myself complaining that I never make a decent game (see the About page).

One of my major issues about all of the things I started to do was that I started to do them wrong.

That’s the purpose of this correction, to point out that I messed up, not because I want someone to forgive me, but because I want to remember that I messed up here.

When I started talking about all the things I wanted to do, I made it sound like I was demanding that the readers of this site go out and do that themselves. Though… I also didn’t know what I was talking about.

Now that I’ve done (barely any research) on topics of interest, I’ve come to the conclusion that my research is not done yet, and that it takes time to actually get involved in all this, and that this website is not the right place to get involved, and I was explaining everything the wrong way.

This page is also a chance for a correction at several other mistakes I made.

Infidemia’s description in one of my posts called the heroes of the story “activists”, though during that time, I was trying to add a subjective morality to the game, and make it seem like the characters were doing what I thought was right and what had to be right. I don’t agree with calling out specific opinions right or wrong (…that’s actually the premise of another project I have…) though the game is not designed around giving the player “right choices” or “wrong choices”. Upon playing some games that appeared to have “right” or “wrong” choices, I wasn’t happy with how the other choices didn’t help to make gameplay interesting, though instead I was glad to see story-driven games that allowed players to experiment with choices and determine their own opinions about the game world.

That’s the kind of thing Infidemia is supposed to be, where you can experiment with “what-ifs” (the one concept that started the game), and I decided to change the endings of the game to make the player learn something however they decide to play the game. The idea of a “good ending” and a “bad ending” I didn’t like, although it might be good for a platformer game to encourage the player to play through the whole game and experiment with all the offered mechanics, it’s not really suitable for a role-playing game. Maybe rewarding the player’s experimentation would be interesting, so then the player’s encouraged to try out different playstyles, though that’s my opinion.

Another thing to note – Infidemia is probably not going to be as friendly as the Capsule Dragons games, based on the content of the game so far. All what this means is that for players who may not like the presence of such content should at least check back for news on the content rating and listed content in the game, and maybe play the demo (check back for a demo, too) to see how that content’s represented exactly. I’m putting this out there to inform potential players interested in the game that you may want to review the demo first if you are interested.

Also… a big part of Infidemia’s story is the surprise, not one surprise or multiple, just adding an element of surprise, so I won’t go in-depth about story, game content, or how gameplay mechanics are involved in the story.

Sorry for those previous 2 paragraphs, kind of ended up talking about development instead of corrections to make.

I’ll talk about a correction to the modding policy, though I’ll also talk about development a bit more (sorry for including development info in an article about corrections)

Oh, yeah, the modding policy will be corrected at various points. That’s also another thing I wanted to correct, is that although there’s the potential to add mods to Infidemia, people could do potentially anything with a modification, and it’s impossible to control what people do with the game through modifications. Sure, I’d generally like modifications to be acceptable for anyone to download and use, but I can’t stop people from making modifications that could be potentially disrespectful or that damage the functionality of the game. That’s why there’s a loose policy, because trying to enforce uncontrolled modifications would not change much, though I do encourage players to modify the game with whatever beneficial enhancements or additions they find interesting.

Some fun things about modifying Infidemia:

–> Language Patches (Speculation – a possibility, but as of right now this would probably be a pain to do with the current system)

I’m not sure how many people would be interested in Infidemia, though I am interested in hearing responses about the game from a larger audience, and by allowing semi-open modifications, additional resources that can be added to the “mods” folder means that the Infidemia script might be able to be translated… but I’m not sure what tools would be needed. As this isn’t something I know much about, please note that it might actually be a pain to make language patches to the game using the mods options available and that this may not be a fun thing if that’s how it works.

–> Difficulty Options

I haven’t decided whether or not to include difficulty options or to leave everything at a default setting. Level scaling for enemies wasn’t going well when I playtested, so maybe letting the players decide what new options to adjust could make Infidemia’s combat more interesting.

–> Useful Stuff!

Minimaps, clocks, and a lot of UI (user interface) elements are a standard in many games now, though Infidemia’s UI is only on the menus and battle screens, so the potential for more UI stuff on the overworld could be really useful.

Another thing that might be cool to add would be a progress tracker kind of thing; while I had plans to do a quest tracker, I felt that I still need to consider that option more and I think letting the player add this option if they want could be an interesting thing to see.

Anything to make the game more accessible (maybe adjusting window sizes, UI elements, scaling settings – those kinds of things I find useful whenever playing a game, though that’s just what I find more accessible) Every player will have their own things they may want to add or remove, so anything you consider useful could be added!

–> Cheats

There are a few cheat codes in Infidemia already, though the way to activate them would currently require savefile editing. Luckily, mods may be the way to add cheat codes. Unlimited currency, items, levels, etc., would be fun to mess around with, though until I decide on using a cheatcode database for my game or not, it would be interesting to see players come up with a cheat system.

Anyway, I’ll hold myself more accountable in the future, and will try to fix things I notice that are going badly on this website. There may be more articles like this one (or not), just note that the purpose of these kinds of articles are for accountability and reliability.

Thanks for reading!

-ZoruaAl

…Also, if the website is not secure, try going to

https://www.capsuledragons.com

(Adding that “www” helps to go to the secure version; I’m not sure what certificate issues are going on behind the scenes, though I hope to figure those out to eventually fix the website on my own, when these kinds of things happen)

Update: Renamed the article, it sounded confusing to have two posts named “Infidemia Development Update”. This is the second one. After more than two weeks, it seems.

Hi there, just wanted to announce some upcoming details for Infidemia.

This game has been a challenge to work on, mostly due to the issue in development where I restart scriptwriting and end up writing several variants of the same intro, without getting to the significant parts of the plot… (even though the intro is significant, as it’s what gives the first impression, but also may have some plot to it as well)

Anyway, challenges aside, here’s how development’s going:

–> Intro #? – Redoing the game’s introduction again (Chapter 1’s development has slowed down a lot due to this).

–> Battle System – New abilities added. Haven’t playtested much recently, though it’s easier to build up the Heart Gauge without waiting ten turns or spamming the Guard command, and now I fixed the combo system and have temporary status conditions added to Wagers. (More info on that later.)

–> Maps – Dungeons 1, 2, and 3 are fully complete. 2 was a bit rushed, so I might finish adding content to it. Currently, there’s a bug with Dungeon 2 where you can hold the dash toggle button while running to count as running… …instead of counting as walking. The overworld is getting there… …at least, trying to work on the main city of the game, as it’s where most of the story will take place…

–> Characters – Last names to school faculty have been added, and more of the faculty members will be added to the game (finally). This means academics should be more interesting. Dialogue has been modified, but I am currently keeping the line that involves “…a demon in the shape of a cat” because I removed it earlier and decided it sounds better in the actual context of the game. Renaming the main characters has been tricky, although I will go for a better naming convention and I am working on coming up with names that will work well (sorry… I’m not very good at explaining things.)

–> User Interface – I figured out how to do the battle UI a while ago by making a prototype in another application. I was really happy with how it turned out, so battles will have a custom interface… …for now, everything in the engine is represented by default resources, except for a customized window texture.

–> Story – I made up an ending to the game a while ago. Then I started thinking about it. Then this started distracting me in daily life. So I got an idea to improve the ending to make more sense and also fit better with the game. I’m not saying what it is.
Other story stuff – Figured out multiple characters’ backstories, and I’m now working on making characters dynamic. Although you can’t change your friends’ actions, your decisions affect the story, and your friends’ personalities will change as well… …just don’t make anyone mad.
Character relationships – Friendship levels between friends and family members have been considered to impact some battles. Just know that the game has a friendship system… …even if it doesn’t do much yet.
Cats – There was a cat who seemed to be unfriendly. That cat is still in the game, but, it’s hard to tell if the cat will be a friend or an enemy.

–> Boss Fights – The first midboss and the first boss have been added. I won’t say if they’re optional or not, if they’re part of the main story or not, though there are some tough foes out there in Infidemia.

–> Dialogue – Considered adding character portraits and backgrounds to style the game like a visual novel, just because I noticed writing lengthy dialogue in somewhat empty areas felt like it could use at least different character expressions and more detailed scenery. However, I don’t consider myself good at drawing, I haven’t made much concept art for this game, and… …just know that this is a consideration in development…
Dialogue choices – Added a few more options to some things… Added a new option that should appear in (most) scenarios.

–> Glitches – Still putting together a compilation of various bugs. Well, at least characters no longer jump on the table instead of attempting to sit in a chair. Also fixed an issue where characters would jump onto the same tile and stand there when attempting to use a bed to rest. Now characters should be able to have their own space and resting areas.

–> Secret things – (??? was found.)

–> Fixing some things – Screen flashes will not happen anymore. Applying a filter to the screen is still possible, and fading the screen in and out is still possible as well. However, that was from an update a while ago. The font size has been hard to work on, as I have to make sure characters’ dialogue fits inside text boxes (regardless of how much they’re talking or not) though it should be better off than where I was before. I’m making adjustments to the game to fit anything that would make it user-friendly for me, although in a later feedback survey after the demo to be released in some time, I will see what I can do to add features of interest.

–> Mods – I considered allowing players to modify the game without having to open up the executable file or mess with data structures inside the game. (While you may have to do that to modify the game anyway…) I’ll see what I can do to modify the base engine of the game to allow players to easily modify the game, without causing issues in playability. However, I’ll be testing this myself, it may be a demo feature, and the feature will only be used if it is considered safe. (More details on that at a later time.) I’ll test this feature quickly then report on my findings. Oh, it looks like it works! (*Game crashes twice in a row before working*)

–> Platforms – So far, this game has been tested to run on the Windows operating system (copyrighted by Microsoft Corporation) and the Android operating system (copyrighted by Google LLC). In general, PCs and mobile devices are not even playing ground for gaming, though my goal is to focus on performance and playability for Infidemia, and so far both of these platforms work, although not with the minimum requirements I hope to meet. Hopefully this game can run on a lot more devices than I expect, though it will take some optimization to get there. After finding a setting for building it as a mobile application, I was able to improve performance and only face slight lag while in the overworld (I think the dialogue text box sound effect may have lagged the game considerably, so I may have to change how that works on mobile) while having battles momentarily pause after playing animations that affect the whole screen or take longer to load. Anyway, for now I don’t know what platforms the game will be playable on, though I am testing platforms that I am able to.

–> Content rating – Compared to the Capsule Dragons series of games I worked on, Infidemia is a much more story-driven game, and I’ll have to review the story in order to establish a proper content rating. It also has a different style to it and I’m not sure what audience it will be appropriate for, although I am doing my best to keep Infidemia how I see the game, as well as keeping it a respectful and fun experience. There are various battle actions like using swords, spears, or magic spells, while some scenario actions include flirts and taunts. Out of context, a lot of this may sound strange, though it should be noted that this makes more sense when playing the game… …the content rating can only be based on how these things are represented in the game (and what things are represented), so without context of the game, I can’t give a proper description of what audience I think will be suitable, and I don’t have any official approval of a content rating yet, though there may be one in the future.

–> Drawings – Experimenting with some concept art, area design, a little bit of character design from last year, and I’m not sure what artstyle to use. I’ve been doing a little bit of this, but I do not consider myself an expert at art.

–> Paintings – There may be some background scenery that I decide to paint for the game. Please do not expect it to look good, just know that I am wanting to experiment with art and design as part of game development.

–> Progress – Development’s still going slowly.

–> Screenshots – Will be added once I think the game is in a presentable state.

I’ve been busy with random side projects (mostly just the music, and one day when I made a few sound effects) though I hope to be working on Infidemia more and write more posts about development.

I haven’t been in a good mindset for… …a time I will leave unspecified…

…and working on this game has been a challenge for me to keep working on it. Even when development gets tough, and I watch characters stare into doors instead of opening them, or somehow winning a battle perfectly by not doing anything after selecting an action-based command, I’ve decided I’ll try to work on this game a bit more. I view working on it like a test of “…can I make this game?”

Even though this project has been interesting to me (…working on Infidemia is at the top of my priorities, besides things I have to do) it’s been really hard to focus on doing it and also to focus on admitting the intro is going to be bad instead of trying to revise it… how many times… nine times? …What I mean by this is that I’ll have to admit that there will be many failures along the way, and I’ll have to learn from mistakes instead of trying to avoid them.

It’s interesting to learn a lot about making a role-playing game and trying to make it a game that I want to play (the focus on this game is making it how I want, while respecting the audience of anyone who plays the game). I’m not complaining about the amount of work or about time or anything – this is what I spend most of my time on anyway – and I just want to talk about the learning process involved for this game.

I’ve been taking inspiration from various games I’ve played, books I’ve read, etc., though I hope to make Infidemia feel unique. If you find anything that might sound like a reference or seem to be copying off one of the sources I was inspired by, it probably was either unintentional or happened to be something I used as a source… …anyway, I’m also accounting for copyright and trademark regulations, so references aren’t going to be completely obvious (if there are any noticeable ones, that is…)

Working on this game has made me think that it would be cool to see more people make games – I went from not knowing anything about programming to figuring out how to customize functions in another platformer project I’ve been working on – and I believe that anyone can make a game. It would be interesting to play more diverse role-playing games from more people, too, since role-playing games focus on stories, and maybe RPGs are the way to continue storytelling in a digital and interactive format.

I’m not an expert on games myself, though my best advice for anyone wanting to make a game would be to find tutorials about a style of game you want to make.

In my opinion, game design itself isn’t something that requires intricate knowledge of programming or art or music, it’s something that you just have to experiment with, learn about by examining it in games you play, and focusing on figuring out how to make a game that is fun to play – whether that fun comes from clearing a challenge, a reward system, or a complicated strategy that you build together and see the result of, game design is something that you can learn about by playing games, and studying games to figure out how to make a game you want to play.

Infidemia doesn’t really feel like it’s a game that has a meaning attached to it, though I’m making it just because there was something I wanted to talk about, and making a game seemed like it was the approach I could take to this. …I don’t want to talk about what “it” is, because that would spoil the story, though maybe the player will notice that when the game’s ready to play.

Even though the game feels ambitious and I’m making it sound like it’s a big project (it’s… a very short game, actually…), none of this would have been possible for me to do within one day, or an hour, or even one year. Although I started on it a while ago, and managed to get some base concepts and structure setup within the game on the first day (the first draft of the first script… …it’s not well written at all, but, it helped me figure out how to start the story), it still took a while to figure out where to go with the game.

Anyway… that’s all I wanted to mention for now. I’ll update this article if I notice anything seemed off.

Thanks for reading this.