Progress Report: April 2025

So, while I didn't quite make my goal of finishing the mountain trail events, I did get pretty far along that it's almost done. A lot of it had to deal with inserting standard events for map functions (which include a change to how I do the action label checks for cutting down on code and organization), inserting story events and making sure they perform as intended, and making some sprite sets for a certain cutscene.

The cutscene in question is, appropriately, at the end of the mountain trail. You confront the ones that intruded and taken one of the trail guides with them; and one of them was absorbing mana from the sleeping giant. They leave behind a strange monster that, once I program a proper boss fight for, is revealed to be heavily affected by malevolence. As history shows, malevolence is corrupt mana that can either enrage and/or mutate whatever is affected by it. So, how they managed to bring one here or what they were doing here at all will relate to future events.

One boss fight I got working involves the Gentlemen. They were brought along by the mystery folk to keep any one that may try to investigate them, while they do their business. They were also responsible for one area of the trail being littered by boulders that aren't normally there. Unlike the Cambio Trail, the mountain trail is a bit on the shorter side and only has one main interactable area going through the first time. Again, this is because there's another dungeon that makes up the spirit trial, while this area is technically one of those areas you can visit at your own discretion. It's also why I left part of another area inaccessible for where it's possible to come back to later in the game.

But on the subject of this area, one problem I'm currently running into is something similar to the Cambio Nature Trail where one of the main maps tends to lag, presumably due to how many events are present. I'm still unsure how exactly it's supposed to work, but one thing I'm going to try doing is implementing a parallel event that will allow events to not be present unless it's near the screen. The script calls are as such:

!$gameMap.event(event ID).isNearTheScreen();
$gameSelfSwitches.setValue([map, event, 'self-switch'], true);

I will have to test this myself, it's something I found on the RPG Maker forums and while it seems to be for MV, it might also work for MZ? If it does work, it might help me rethink map design and prevent slowdown, if I can help it. Especially since I've yet to include enemies to the trail since I wanted to include a couple new enemies you can meet along the trail since, at its core, this is an extension of the Cambio Trail.

Beyond that, I got some basic work done on the World Map that allows for location labels to appear when approaching areas you can enter, sprites for while on the world map, and teleportation checks for when you press enter. What I think will be difficult to work in are random encounters. I naturally can't rely on the map editor's Random Encounter system since I'm going to need to change the battle background depending on location. The Holy and Dark Bottles will also have slightly different functions since there won't be visible enemies to repel or draw in, but that is more doable. In general, the World Map enemies can be returned to in the future, preferably after everything is said on done.

To wrap up, I feel like I got a lot done. With May, I may have other things to do, but I'm hoping to get work on Tua'tha started once I finish the mountain trail. Just need time and energy.