2/15

Sorry this is taking forever. Eventually the game will come out.

3p0- Woke.
4p1- Internetted. Exercised.
5p2- Exercised.
6p3- Showered. Ate.
7p4- Ate. Internetted
8p5- Took a nap.
9p5- Played some games. Okay, totally ready to get this going.
10p6- Worked on Elaine's story. Thought my way through some logical story problems during my exercise, so I'll be able to move quickly through this now.
Difficulty 8/10 Efficiency 7/10
11p7- Worked on Isabel's story. Getting through this.
Difficulty 8/10 Efficiency 6/10
12p8- Took a break hour. Speculated on having AD3 made with RPGMaker XP. Just a thought experiment... This isn't actually happening. The game would work great on the system... It'd probably be more fun than your average RPGMaker game. I wrote some notes down, and remember, these notes are just for fun.

 Adapting AD3 to RPGMaker
Limited resources: Unlike your average final fantasy romp, surviving against aliens and zombies is about resource management. Instead of casting spells that cost mp, you fire guns that cost ammo, ammo which must be found, and finding ammo costs time.

Daytime mechanics: The player plays a group of characters that can venture out of base and try to collect ammo or other resources. He'll fight monsters similar to how RPGXP works, but with the catch that actions cost time. Examples of actions that cost time would be entering a fight, entering a room, attempting a skill check that takes a while (like hacking a computer). The player is expected to return to base before nightfall, and failing to do so results in a difficult combat which would most likely kill the scavenger group. This part is superior to the current iteration of AD3, which at the moment is simply assign tasks to survivors or date them. Another cool addition is partially destroyed rooms that don't have atmosphere, costing time and oxygen to enter.

Impending threat of loss: Most RPGs encourage the player to grind their character levels so that they can beat a boss. In AD3, you're welcome to grind monsters, but grinding costs time. You can't really lose in a normal RPG because you can just backtrack and level up, but in AD3, attacks happen every night and strain resources. Mistakes are more costly this way, and typically require the player to entirely restart their game.

Night time mechanics and Fighting: Night time is played as one plain combat fight. Rest assured, AD3 need not use RPGmaker's default first person fighting (like Earthbound). Characters will fight from a side perspective like in Final Fantasy. It lacks the complexity of AD3's current area attack mechanics, so actually, apart from the fact that the player is managing his resources (barriers, character healths, stamina), the night time combat is inferior to the current iteration.

Hentai: Unfavorable to implement; not using flash for animations means that animations will either have to be compressed or take large amounts of space in a video file format.

Hypothetical Review: The game would be much more fun to play in terms of the day time mechanics, but would suffer from the loss of the night time mechanics. The game would also lose most of its relocation features (where the player chooses where to set the base), but the daytime mechanics more than makes up for this. The game would graphically look more complete, since using stock RPGmaker art is preferable to the game's current blank looking map system. Sales wise, the game would definitely suffer from a lack of exposure that AD2 enjoys from being on several websites, but being able to market the game on Steam Greenlight is a definite plus. Other than the slight negative about the hentai, the dating sim part of the game would be largely intact. Overall the game is vastly different, but I can't forsee if it'll be better or worse.

1a9- Did some game design. Yes, it's pretty late in development, so it's questionable if what I'm doing will be implemented.
Difficulty 2/10 Efficiency 10/10
2a10 More game design.
Difficulty 2/10 Efficiency 10/10
3a11 More game design.
Difficulty 2/10 Efficiency 10/10
4a12- Same.
Difficulty 2/10 Efficiency 10/10
5a13- Worked on Elaine's story
Difficulty 4/10 Efficiency 10/10
6a14- Worked on Elaine's story.
Difficulty 5/10 Efficiency 10/10
7a15- Worked on Elaine's story.
Difficulty 6/10 Efficiency 10/10

Today went well. Just a crap load of typing. I feel like I didn't use my time very wisely, but at least I was consistently working.