Joyous Rebel 2 - Progress Report

Progress Reports The Progress Page has had

hits since Dec 16.

What's New (Progress Reports) From 1997

6/18/98 - Dungeon 3 is close to being done, more than half way there at least! I am going out of town repeatedly, and shopping for a house, so the going has been slow. Not to mention playing Gran Turismo and having someone else living in my space. It's very hectic lately. Give it time, Joyous 2 will ship someday!

5/27/98 - Dungeon 2 is done. It still needs monsters, lighting, and some dressing, but all the caverns are there! On to dungeon 3 tonight!

5/26/98 - Dungeon 2 is almost done. Tonight I can probably finish it. Then there are 2 dungeons left, monsters, lighting, various other tiles in the dungeon and 1 spell. Plus some story and cinema parts. It's getting there.

5/20/98 - Level 3 and part of Level 4 of dungeon 2 are done. This means that I have about 1.80 levels left before I am done with dungeon 2, then I have 2 dungeons left! Rock Rock Rock!

5/13/98 - Tossed my new game LobSter 1.0 up on the Download page. Check it out! Joyous 2 is on the move again. Doing the dungeon boogie!

4/29/98 - Well, as with most of the fantasy lovers, I was watching Merlin over the last few days, and another magic special, and Hercules, and Xena, and Simpsons, and King of the Hill. Plus, I bought a N64, some games, Secret of Mana, and Shining Force 2. Plus, I started work on a one-off game of mine, called "LobSter". It's an artillary game, it should be posted up here some time soon. Frankly, I am just not excited to finish up the dungeons and monsters of Joyous2. When I get excited, it will get done.

4/22/98 - I have 1 spell, 2.9 dungeons, 36 monsters, and ending animation to be done with the game. And last night I put the code in to get you from continent 2 to continent 3. Not that the story sets the right variables yet, but I debugged it, and now that works. Now, I need to do the transition to the 4 continent. I worked on the second dungeon, got all it's entrances from the main map worked out, and got my editor more helpful for editting dungeons.

4/17/98 - I have 3 spells, 3 dungeons, 36 monsters, and ending animation to be done with the game.

4/16/98 - Still got those 4 guys left, but I finished a new spell, and that took forever to perfect. Now I am almost done with another one. Then I will have 3 spells, 4 people, 3 dungeons, 36 monsters, and ending animation to be done with the game. I don't know how long that will take. Maybe 3-7 months. I want to be done at least by Christmas though. I was hoping to be done by July though. We'll see.

4/13/98 - Got all the towns done, with the help of Jason Evans to get the castle dialog done. He left 4 people for me to do though, so I have 4 people left, then I am done with dialog, except for needing to add bits and peices for the story later.

4/10/98 - Doing the routine. 8/10 towns done, plus Jason Evans should be done with the dialog for one town, so if I count that I guess I am 9/10 done!

4/7/98 - Work work work! 6.8/10 towns done, plus Jason Evans is back working on dialog for one town, so if I count that I guess I am 7.8/10 done!

4/4/98 - WooHoo!!! 5/10 towns done, and I am at work on Saturday doing the final fixes I need to Oregon Trail 3 DVD. WooHoo! Added some Warsong (Languiser) links to the Links page.

4/3/98 - Soul Asylum's new album comes out 5/12/98 the week after Tori's. I got another 15 people written up. I am shooting to be done with the towns dialog by next sunday. This will leave just dungeons/monsters/a few spells/ and some code hacking. Then it's done. Estimates: 3 Dungeons - 1 month 45 Monsters - 1 month 150 people of dialog - 1 week Code to make it all work - 2 weeks Spells - 1 week This leaves us with 3 months left I guess.

4/2/98 - Tori Amos got married a month ago, and her new album is out on May 5. I added some more music links to the links page. I got another half a towns dialog written last night. So now it's up to 4.5/10, and tonight I hope to bring that up to at least 5/10. I just feel like writing dialog lately.

4/1/98 - April Fool for you! I am listening to Grave Dancers Union, and it's April Fools day all in one! I got a town of dialog done last night, so that makes 4/10 of the towns done. I also may have fixed a freeze in combat that happens about once every hour. I am trying to record a new song, for my new album, but it's just frustrating, and I was too loud last night for the people upstairs, so I really need to get my own house so I can be a rockstar! David Cassidy's new album comes out soon!

3/30/98 - Just working on the rest of the spells I need to finish the game! Removed a duplicate link on my links page, added some reviews to the main page, and modified this page!!!

3/25/98 - Long time no update! I am still working on Joyous 2, I have just been taking it slower since the alpha came out. I have worked on the spell menu, a few spell effects, moved a bunch of hardcoded damage variables out to an array, so they are easier to compare and change. I worked on a bunch of data. Cleaned up a bunch of code. Last night I started making the changes so that I can compile a shareware version and a full version, and working on getting the full version up and working totally. Other things taking up my time are: recording a new album, watching Neil Peart drum videos, sleeping, petting my cat, talking to people about the Alpha. Take care, I am outta town this weekend, so who knows what will get done.

3/19/98 - I have just been fixing bugs, and last night I finished up another towns worth of dialog, that makes 3 towns out of 10 done. But, it was the fullest town in the game, so it's worth a town or two.

3/16/98 - I added a new mode of combat to the game yesterday that I can't go into detail about at this time, let's just say that now you can let the computer do the standard random number to hit thing that all games do, or you can try your hand at hitting the "sweet spot" on a meter, similar to golf games, to determine your hitting or missing. It's pretty cool. I am testing it with a small audience right now to see what they think.

3/15/98 - Playtesting is going well, mis-spellings, weird context, and other things are being found in the dialog. Along with a few bugs. So I am fixing up those right now. Then I am going to finish up the rest of the game so it can go shareware. I had a meeting yesterday with a couple friends that might write dialog. In a week I will call them and see how it's going.

3/13/98 - The alpha is going to be up for playtesters this evening. So if you are a tester, get psyched, and for the rest of you, get psyched that the final steps are in process to finish the game (this may take a few months though), but it's really coming out. It's mainly data entry from here on out.

3/11/98 - The alpha is coming out Friday. I know I said Wednesday, but this is worth it. Testers, get ready!

3/10/98 - The alpha is almost done. I worked some on a new combat background for the cave last night, I have to finish that and try to figure out a couple new feature ideas. But, otherwise I got all the bugs fixed last night. So tommorow is looking like a good day to unleash the Alpha, but maybe just for a little more testing before the final all playtesters release. We'll see.

3/9/98 - I got the early alpha out on last friday to a few people. This turned up a few bugs, so last night and tonight I am going to be focusing on those, then maybe tommorow I will have one more early alpha, then it will go to all my testers as the official alpha. From that I hope to find out any changes I should make this far, then just finish up the other dungeons, dialog, some more cinematics, monsters, and that's it. But, that will probably take a few months. TLOT and I could race, except that I am just doing data entry, and he is still coding away. I check on TLOT and Gamma and some others every few days, and I am looking forward to taking a break from the scene after Joyous 2 is finished. Let it grow and mature, and maybe all those people that haven't updated their page in a year (I am not exagerating here) will get to work, or get out. Then we can boil it down to a nice community of people that get stuff done. Ya gotta have the drive, or get off the road! Enough of my pep speech, or whatever that was. I beat Mario RPG this weekend, and just kind of took the majority of the weekend off of Joyous 2. It felt good, and I am ready to work again.

3/5/98 - So, all the dungeon tiles are done now, that I want for now at least. And, I got all the code in to support their various properties (blocking, lighting, whatnot...). So, now all I have is a little bit more dungeon layout map editting, then I have to populate the dungeon, and draw up a few more animations for the intro and ALPHA, here we come!

3/4/98 - It's Evan Dando's Birthday today!!! :) Everyone sing along to their favorite Lemonheads song. I got a new type of window introduced into the game last night for all the window types I had, and I did some more dungeon map editting. I don't know when I am going to have the time to finish up the alpha. Flea is on Conan tommorow night, Randy "Macho Man" Savage was on Later last night! Funny guy.

3/2/98 - Jon Bon Jovi's birthday today!!! Happy birthday Jon! You rock!!! And for Joyous news. I am working on finishing up the dungeon layout, then I have to make sure all the tiles work properly in the game, then I have to populate the dungeon, then finish up the intro animation, maybe work up some more tunes, and it's ALPHA time!!! :)

2/27/98 - Worked about 3 hours straight on the Dungeon last night. It's amazing how long these things can take. But, every hour I put into it, it's an hour closer to you seeing it! :)

2/26/98 - I did yet more tile editting and dungeon-dressing and layout last night. I re-did a forth of the dugeons first level, and it works much better from a mental standpoint now, of bringing the feeling across. I am hoping that if the first dungeon takes this much effort, the others will go faster.

2/25/98 - Last night I found Super Mario RPG for 6.99 at the local video store, so I picked that up and played it for an hour or so. I also got more dungeon layout done, and some work on my editor, and I went to a friends house and play some more Saturn. Some of my old friends called me up last night, they want to get back into doing dialog, so if this works out, I may have someone else finish up most of the last 350-400 people. That would help out immensly.

2/24/98 - Got a few more tiles editted for Joyous Rebel 2's dungeon tile set and did some more dungeon-scaping. Wee Wee Wee, it's a party now!

2/23/98 - This weekend, I defeated my cold! Well, almost, getting close anyhow. I finished up the quick modifications that I wanted to try on Joyous 1, now it may work for more people. I got a bunch of tiles done for the dungeon, and did some more layout. It's my friend Adam Rutkowski's birthday, so Happy Birthday Adam!!!

2/20/98 - Worked a bunch on the dungeon tile set and the dungeon layout last night. Who's tired? I think that my full version didn't get uploaded properly of Joyous Rebel 1. I will have to check into this this weekend and try to get a working version up there. I think it's supposed to be around 900k, not 500k. So, if the zip is bad, gimme a sec, I'll get a real one up there in a bit.

2/19/98 - Can't think about much, my head is very thick from the cold. Last night I unearthed some times for my Dungeons that I had done a long time ago. I got them put into the tile set and did some more modifying of the dungeon editor code. I actually didn't have any time to work on the dungeon. Assuming I feel up to it, I have a Karate Kontest to go watch at the U of M on Saturday, and might be having another multi-player Soccer fest this weekend. But, I am sure that there will be some time to work on Joyous 2 this weekend. If I felt better, I could miss some sleep to get more done on it, but as it is I feel tired all the time, and don't want to stay up late and prolong this cold any longer than it has to be here.

2/18/98 - I worked for a few hours last night on the dungeon for the alpha. It's getting there. I still have some intro to do, but I am not feeling the best. Added a Possum Dixon link to the Links page.

2/17/98 - Well, I didn't get the intro completed, I did get another 6 hours or so of work done on it, but I got a cold, or am getting a cold. I didn't feel like pushing myself to hard after 11:30pm last night. This week though I might be able to finish the alpha for my private testers and reviewers and publishers. Someday you might be amazed as the web page will look different. I have seen what my friend Chris is working on, and it looks much more professional. So, if you have a link to this page specifically, the name might change, but the address will stay the same of the entire page. I added a link to KLBB in my links area, they are the coolest radio station in the Twin Cities, and I found them in the AM on the web page, but I don't know if you can hear them over the web yet.

2/16/98 - Well, my estimates were off, hopefully by tonight I will have the intro finished, or at least enough for the demo, so then all that will be left is the dungeon. I will let you know tommorow how it came out. JOYOUS REBEL 1 IS NOW FREEWARE!!!! That's right, go to the download page, and get it! Complements of scott haag at Axe Productions!!! I want you all to have something fun to do this Presidents Day!

2/13/98 - The way I figure it, I have about 60 hours left of work on Joyous 2 to get the alpha out. 40 hours on the intro, and 20 on the dungeon. So, it should be about 2-3 weeks. I have to re-do all the work I did last night, the effect that I was trying to acheive in the intro was silly. Enough said, happy fun!

2/12/98 - WooHoo Mayhem, everyone dance in a circle and whatnot! I got a new monster done last night, some work done on the dungeon, and remixed my new song and filled it in more, and synced it to the animation of the intro. I have trouble lately working more than 1 to 1.5 hours a night. But, it will get done, I need to do maybe 3 more monsters and the dungeon and finish the intro. I might save the rest of my above ground monsters for the next islands. That sounds good to me. Chi Saga is back!!! That's right, the game everyone thought was dead and gone, is back, and coming out with a demo (shareware) tommorow!!! Of course, this means it will be released on Friday the 13th, so maybe even Jason will register a copy (watch out for that hockey mask!!!). :) Good luck Gronek!

2/11/98 - Last night was a busy night with concerts, movies, videogames, and a little Joyous. I got that monster done that I started the day before, and I got the first draft of the music done for the intro. Plus I did some coding. Jimmy Stewart is the man!

2/10/98 - I got the intro to Joyous 1 almost finished last night, just need to color in one part of the animation, and talk with Chris about the design of it (he is the only one to have seen it since it went beyond a running guy). Started on one more monster for the world map. I have about 4 monsters to finish for the world map, and the rest of the intro, and the dungeon to finish, then the alpha will be out. If I could just get more psyched each night, I could get more done.

2/9/98 - The intro to Joyous Rebel 2 is a recap of the beginning and ending of Joyous 1 (I am assuming most of the people will be introduced to the Joyous saga with number 2, so they will need a recap). Then it will carry on after the ending of Joyous 1 to bring you into Joyous 2. I am almost finished now with reworking the beginning of Joyous 1. I am sort of re-telling the story, adding to it's action, leaving less to the imagination. It's turning out well. I don't know if this is going to be a prototype that I have some hand drawn artists draw up the official frames, or if this will be the final version. It will probably be the alpha version anyhow.

2/6/98 - Hello. Long time, no update! It's Ronald Regan's Birthday today! I have been working every night on Joyous since the last update, as usual, but I am working on stuff that I want to just wait and show my testers. I am working on the final monsters for the first chapter, and on the intro animation. I am trying to see if I have the talent and time to do the animated peices myself. Just figured I would keep you informed.

2/2/98 - Rockin' into February! I got the enemy mages done last night. So that concludes all the monsters I wanted for the enemy posse, now just some for the outside world. I was gone for the weekend, so I didn't get much done besides draw up this mage, but each new enemy embodies about 35 frames of animation or something, so it takes awhile. Chi Saga is supposed to be out today or Thursday, but he doesn't have a website, so I don't know where we can go get it! :)

1/30/98 - Last night I got the "5) a few masking problems and graphic issues with characters" part done of the alpha. Going away for the weekend, maybe get some stuff drawn up, and work on Sunday maybe. We'll see. Have a good weekend!

1/29/98 - Working on the animated intro. Confused what's best, but wanting something for the alpha. I may have to talk with my drawing artists and get something going, but if I can figure it out myself, I don't need to ask them, and then it could go faster.

1/28/98 - Scott climbs up to the top rope, and DROPS THE BIG ELBOW on his arch enemy, game progress frustration! That's right, I now have all the code done to beat the first chapter of Joyous Rebel 2! Now I am just going to get all the data the way I want it, and then the alpha will be going out. Technically if I photocopied the story and handed it and a disk to all the testers, they could play it right now, but that be the true test that I want. I want my testers to feel as though they are playing the shareware version of Joyous 2. I want to see if they get excited to register, if they don't like certain parts, if I need to drop an elbow on any of them, that type of thing! :) Programming Rush now subsiding..... ahhh back to normal! Hulk Hogan could now defeat me again! I might disapeer this weekend for awhile, so I don't know exactly when the alpha will be done, but here is a list of stuff I want to finish: 1) animated intro 2) magic throwing monster 3) special "outside the dungeon" monsters (probably animals) 4) dungoen layout complete 5) a few masking problems and graphic issues with characters 6) maybe some new combat screens But, like I say, its win-able now! Then, while the testing piranas are munching on the shareware alpha, I can finish up the rest, so they can tear into that, and then all of you can play it!

1/27/98 - Last night after 3+ hours of coding, I got the new joining characters engine done, so now my new method of having characters join your party is in full effect. It's kind of sad that I spent all that other time getting it to work the other way, and putting joiners in there actual cloths walking around, and well nevermind my ramblings...... I think that within a month (or two at the most) I should have the first official alpha version out to my testers, it will be the first chapter of 5, then while they are playing that and giving me feedback, I can finish the data for the other chapters, get them set with that and then they can play all the way through it. Then there will be some modifications, I am sure, and then the shareware will be released. Probably before we lose the snow up here in Minnesota for the season. We'll see, but it looks promising. It's just a lot of data entry, and a bit of coding.

1/24/98 - I added enemy Crossbow men between yesterday and today. Dungeons are still progressing, but I don't have any idea when they might be done. I am feeling sick, and so I am very tired and can't think all that well, it must be the RPG'ers illness that everyone gets. I am anxiously awaiting someting new from the Gamma Flare people. It has been almost a month since the last update, they said on their WWWboard that the new demo might not come out, but a page update is due by the 1st. Since MurMur took him 6 days, I don't know whats taking so long with the new one, but I should know that RPG's take a LONG TIME! By the time Joyous 2 gets done, it will be 3 years in the making. I wonder if Richard Garriot had this much fun trying to complete the early Ultimas? Probably. Well, down of my soap box I hop!

1/23/98 - Rock to the east, Rock to the west, I am doing dungeons, and it's a big cha-fest! I am drawing new tiles nightly for the underworld and manipulating the editors and game to use these new tiles. It is taking longer than I thought, but soon I should be ready to finish up the first underworld. Then the others shouldn't take as long. Once I have the first underworld done though, I might put in the rest of the time to get a demo disk ready to ship out to publishers to see what they think.

1/20/98 - I am revolutionizing the gaming industry! (Aren't all shareware CRPG developers though! :P ) But, what I mean, is I am designing the first cave system (1 of 4). And instead of just being a twisting dungeon maze, it's got lots of features and stuff. And the monsters call it home, so they have a society down there, and a structure somewhat to how they live. You will just have to see it, so I don't give to much away to my competition! :) But seriously, I wish the best of luck to TLOT, and Gamma (the update king! :( ) and wish that I could find Chi Saga again, and that I could get a beta copy of DOTS. Oh well, it seems everyone is re-writing the whole game, not me! I am going to keep buffing this up and release the best shareware RPG I have been able to grow in 3 years. And on a sad note, Carl Perkins past away yesterday. I think he was 62. Pretty soon all the rockstars will be dead. If you didn't know who Carl was, go find out, he was around when Evlis was starting, and Elvis covered his "Blue Suede Shoes".

1/19/98 - Well, I got all the men named now in towns and whatnot. I may have to add more women to the mix before doing dialog, because it's about a ratio of 3:1. For quiet awhile I have been able to set each individual's speed for walking around and the pitch that they talk. Last night I wrote up a quick function so that I was able to set base values for everyone based on their graphic, so now the kids in town talk high and move fast, where as the old people move slow. Now I can customize as I feel like it, but it's nice not having to set 500 other variables! :)

1/16/98 - Sorry about not updating in a few days, I haven't had that much to say though, each day could say, "Added some more guy names, and drew some more frames of the enemy archer" but that's not very exciting. Anyhow, I got the enemy archer all drawn up last night, and got him fighting correctly, a proccess that took an excess of 4 and a half hours. But the Archers add a whole new side to combat.

1/13/98 - I got a new hard drive on Saturday, hooked it up on Sunday, and spent last night and Sunday night trying to get back to normal. Last night I did more dialog and naming, and started on the enemy archers. Tonight I am having some meetings regarding dungeons. Then hopefully sometime this week I am meeting up with a couple artists for discussions of hand drawings for Joyous Rebel 2. The links page has many new musicians, and Joyous Rebel 2 got mentioned on Oscar's RPG page.

1/12/98 - The ladies have names!!! Last night I couldn't sleep, so I got up and gave all the ladies in Joyous names (66 women). So, that may not sound that exciting, and compared to the men that I am going to name tonight (probably closer to 350), it's not many. But, tonight or some night like tonight, maybe I can name the men, then they still all won't be talking, but at least you know who you will be talking to! :) Besides that, I got doors in dungeon done, they are wooden doors, that block your sight, until you bust through them! I actually can't think of too many overhead RPG's that have doors in their dungeon, I can think of plenty that have holes in the wall that when you walk into it goes to the next map or whatever. I also enhanced the AI of the monsters in the dungeon.

1/9/98 - Well, now Joyous has clouds in it. And the first Magic/Rare weapon, the famous "Dark Blade". Now I can figure out what I am going to do with all my special/rare weapons and get them added to the game. And for the web page, it has buttons now on the main screen, and has been re-arranged some! Enjoy!

1/7/98 - I guess you can tell that the progress report page is broken into two pages now, 1997 and 1998. I will probably break it up more later. I got the start on the new forest tiles last night, new boarders that look a lot more natural. So, forests will be done tonight and then I think I might just start work on monsters, get them shooting arrows and casting spells, then I can seperate the world and dungeon monsters, and get to building the dungeons with monsters in it. Or I might just work on Dungeon layout some more. You'll just have to stay tuned, and if you or someone you know likes to draw monsters and guys in armor, write me!!! I need someone to draw monsters, and someone to write awesome computer music (S3M/MOD format).

1/5/98 - Well, I spent the last few days rendering instead of working on Joyous, but it made for a nice windowed environment background, go check out the link to the JPG on the Index page(hit back on your browser). I should be back to work on Joyous tonight.

1/2/98 - Happy New Year!!! The other guy from Wham!'s name is Andrew Ridgeley! It's not the heat it's the humidity! Ok, that's enough knowledge flaunting! Joyous is moving a little slower through the holidays. I am fooling with the dungeons and I got little castles placed on the world map to indicate cities instead of the pink dots. "Enjoy what you do!"

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Please contact me at:

haagsa@AOL.COM

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