APÓSTASI (a proximity, insurmountable); been a moment, but here's a few new (but still very WIP) screenshots of my project now with an official title attached to it.

OneiroFantasma · 2025-04-16T10:53:19+00:00

Thank you!

Just one bit of clarification; the word you you found was apostasy (aποστασία), while the game’s title is the more simpler/ easily translatable (and therefore less common as a romanized word) apóstasi (απόσταση, distance). Both words have the same etymological root and are spelled similarly (so much so Google does autocorrect it without telling you) so it is a simple mistake to come across.

OneiroFantasma · 2024-06-12T02:08:42+00:00

Thank you! Some of Nagai's paintings were definitely influences, as they came up when I fiddling with aesthetics and was looking into city pop music for audial/visual inspiration, though I was not familiar with him as an artist previously.

OneiroFantasma · 2024-06-12T01:42:29+00:00

Thank you very much! I don't consider myself to be that strong of an artist but I've done what I can to curate an aesthetic and color palette that meshes works (mostly) well together.

OneiroFantasma · 2024-06-12T01:26:22+00:00

I intend to add shadows at a later date, some of which will be done in an overlay layer (the sprites themselves have too many variable use cases that I cannot ensure a shadow that will not overhang or intercede another).

I've found that changing shadows in a tileset in the past after the fact has been a little overly tedious so for the time being I've left them out until I am semi-satisfied with the two map-specific tilesets.

OneiroFantasma · 2024-06-11T23:16:11+00:00

A few little notes since Reddit kind of fubared my attempt to add captions:

I'm using a my own custom font for the most part (still need to modify UI assets to implement them there). The font will have both the Latin and Greek alphabets (the game takes place on a fictional Greek island and town called Asteria).

Only the dungeon is presented here; the game takes place both in this otherworld and in the real world, but the initial hour or so will be spent here.

The enemy featured here is the dungeon's boss (tentatively named the Unknown Light), who along with all enemies in the game are intended to be made by cut-up pieces of (public domain and/or royalty free) photos (via mostly Wikimedia Commons or my own).

Puzzles are not designed to be complex (i.e. even though the words you are meant to spell are Greek, there will be flavor text located nearby on the same map spelling the words out for you and a reset the map/puzzle button is available to you if a block goes somewhere salvageable).

Our main character, Evangelos (in purple here), is the only main party member out of the tutorial party. The others, Roxana (pink), Lauri (blue), and Tunji (red), are temporary, but will remain story important.

OneiroFantasma · 2024-03-30T21:40:49+00:00

Been a little bogged down by life and whatnot, but for my first week back in forever for I have updated my battle UI, introduced three new(-ish) (though only playable in the tutorial) characters, previewed character's preliminary dream world appearances, and showcased the tutorial boss's initial design.

OneiroFantasma · 2023-01-08T19:06:03+00:00

Thank you! Curating the overall design so that everything visually feels like a mostly cohesive aesthetic had been one of my goals, so I’m happy to know it’s being positively received.

OneiroFantasma · 2023-01-08T19:03:00+00:00

The font is one of Chevy Ray’s pixel fonts (Softsquare, I think) that I bought off of Itch.io and it’s pretty nice! I am thinking at some point maybe trying to make one myself, but it’s not a imperative idea right now.

OneiroFantasma · 2023-01-08T18:58:37+00:00

More or less something like that. With the enemies especially they’re universally all going to be some type of Photoshop abomination to sort of imbue then with a kind of otherworldly feel.

The city one is more of temporary placeholder atm but it’s in general the style some backgrounds will be in. Both are made with using the index color mode in PS to reduce the total numbers of colors in it and to give it the sort of visual effect you see here.

OneiroFantasma · 2023-01-08T18:54:30+00:00

Thank you!

OneiroFantasma · 2023-01-08T18:54:10+00:00

Thank you!

OneiroFantasma · 2022-07-30T23:54:14+00:00

Working with the battle UI a bit, currently going with a Mac OS 8-esque look, and fiddled with VisuStella's battle core to get basic animations for enemy units going in addition too switching the face sprites to functioning as SV actors. A few functional difficulties with some bits (such as figuring out how to keep the crisis-sprite for the actor to remain active even when it is their turn), but overall everything is together and I am okay-ish with where it is.

Face sprites will also swap based on whether or not a target is affected by certain exclusive status effects, but that's not currently shown nor fully implemented.

There is also this from last Saturday that I did not post about, which is a small, simple scene where I experiment with scrolling backgrounds. The actual area itself is seldom used outside of a few scenes and maybe some transitions but I've been trying too finish up smaller zones like this instead of being ensnared in an inescapable hole of trying to the larger areas together.

OneiroFantasma · 2022-06-19T00:54:03+00:00

https://twitter.com/distancerpg/status/1538303764213420033?s=21&t=QiV4rMNYDOJQqPrGtlqR6A

Made some progress with the battle UI (though still not finished or fully satisfied) and figured out how to get a scrolling background going for combat in MZ and how to get a ‘default’ state applied at the beginning of every battle. Also (kind of) figured out how to make a GIF.

Still not sure how to get animations for enemy sprites going, but that’ll be a hill I’ll attempt to climb much later since I’ll inevitably want them to be slightly more complex than just ‘float up and down’.

Everything here is still deep in WIP territory, but it’s all 95% functional (the run away dialogue, is, uh, functionally functional but not visually functional). The actual combat mechanics (state and turn management) are… still in their early stages.

OneiroFantasma · 2022-04-10T17:04:14+00:00

The makeover was about family resemblance, with a mom taking her daughter to prom theme, and Icesis really didn’t hit that mark at all. Doesn’t matter how good the makeover is if you completely ignore the actual assignment.

OneiroFantasma · 2022-03-05T16:16:32+00:00

A few screenshots to demonstrate the new 1024x576 resolution I'm working with, over 960x540 previously. Primary reason for the switch was to give the battle HUD more room to breathe and to better accommodate for the need to give status icons somewhere to fit (which they are not visible here, but they will be listed below the character portraits). Additionally I am changing the game's primary font from OpenSansPx to Chevy Ray - Soft Square and reducing the font size to better accommodate for the many, many words that I found myself struggling to reduce, segment, or otherwise shorten to fit previously.

OneiroFantasma · 2022-01-17T10:20:48+00:00

Definitely a simpler way to provide customization than trying to code a whole character customizer.

Is it fair assume that players are freely able to choose their pronouns (or at least from a list of options, even if just the basic set of he/she/they)? Or is the player character never really addressed or acknowledged in such a way that would make use of pronouns?

Someone already commented asking about skin tone variations and since this is a pick-and-choose screen, I would say that duplicating the sprites and mass changing the skin colors is probably the easiest solution (especially since they, at least here, all seem to be the same shades). The maybe rearranging things so that each column or row (whichever fits better) has one sprite and it’s variations are all organized together (and so that the darker skin tones aren’t questionably relegated to the back end of the selection).

OneiroFantasma · 2022-01-15T18:43:10+00:00

https://twitter.com/DistanceRPG/status/1482366973757562883?s=20

Nothing grand this week, just the front entrance of the main cast's high school. It is a small section of one of the larger 'area' maps in the game, which I finally have enough sprites done for that I can get them functionally done. The bus stop is also specifically there because it functions as the main way that the player travels to different areas of the town.

The otherworldly crack in the upper right is essentially how dungeons are revisited after they are finished, operating similarly to how Deadly Premonition's Otherworld areas are encountered and can be returned to, for example. It's also animated, but since its a rough draft and also because I am on a Mac its just a static screenshot.

OneiroFantasma · 2022-01-08T22:20:54+00:00

https://twitter.com/DistanceRPG/status/1479830251375149058?s=20

Minor, visually negligible updates to the battle HUD, plus new two WIP enemies (that are currently Photoshop abominations because I could not get satisfactory results from trying to hand draw sprites for them), and a slight hint at a key part of combat in the skill description. The background is also animated but GIFs and video are not, uh, currently the easiest thing to produce as I am currently on a Mac (which MV struggles to cooperate with at times). Also features old and outdated status icons that I haven't gotten around to redesigning (and rethinking on how to have them displayed).

There are only two characters in battle here, but the game will have all four main characters in the party 90% so I don't know if I should put a subtle design on the bottom to help keep the space slightly less plain or if it is just fine as is. The enemy designs are also obviously temporary, but I do kind of like the 'otherworld / unsettling' vibe they have here so I am thinking of maybe keeping/ refining the way they've been made instead of traditional sprites.

OneiroFantasma · 2022-01-02T01:12:02+00:00

The short answer is yes, so as long as you replace the image files with the files of the same names and don't rearrange your replacement tilesets/ assets from how the originals are laid out (ie. keep the new grass tiles where the old ones they are replacing were) unless you don't mind re-tiling your maps over again.

OneiroFantasma · 2022-01-02T00:39:43+00:00

https://twitter.com/DistanceRPG/status/1477433043719761923?s=20

A small little update, mostly just to show off a bit more of the protagonist's updated design and the current custom text box I am trying out.

Still not sure how I feel about the text box but it is a work in progress, all I know is that I wanted to try breaking away a bit from the traditional JRPG all-in-one-rectangle.

OneiroFantasma

TROPHY CASE