Paper Mario: Showtime!!

What's a #screenshotsaturday again? The new fake-3D system has required a complete rewrite of the particle system. As well as better camera controls. I think the effect is pretty worth it. #fangame #PaperMario

Fixing up menus and stuff so that combat's a bit easier to work through. My default control scheme was a little confusing, and I figure separating card selection and target selection into their own phases should help with that. #fangame #PaperMario

Nothing special. Still a work-in-progress and very rough. But this is essentially exactly how I pictured the effect working in my head this entire time. #fangame #PaperMario

This is genuinely something I had been brainstorming on how to do for quite some time - I'm beyond stoked that it came out as well as it did. It also affords me a lot more options (and space!) for HUD elements, which were starting to get a bit cluttered.

It's some Real Fake 3D: the effect was actually surprisingly easy to get working and moving everything over is also proving pretty simple as well. This should allow me to create a greater sense of depth and dynamics during gameplay. #fangame #PaperMario

It's been a minute since my last post - it's just hard to find motivation sometimes what with how busy my life is. But uh... here's somethin'... interesting...

@TooSmugForYa So there's a few TOK battle themes in the game, but not all of them, as I didn't want them to dominate the track selection too much.

@PaperShowtime On another note: Are there any plans to add the other Normal Battle Themes from TOK to the game? (I.E. the other Streamer Battle Themes, the one from Autumn Mountain, the Unsettling Area one, the Vellumental Area one, etc.?)

It's Showtime! A concept demo is going live at the Nintendo Community Fangame Convention! nintendocfc.com/booth.html?id=… It's still pretty basic - it's a concept, unpolished, and not a full-fledged demo - but you should be able to get a feel for the game. #fangame #PaperMario

@TooSmugForYa It's funny; I'd considered a combo system, but would rather put that much effort into an original title, rather than a fangame. (Which I am hashing out on the side.) I've never actually played the Battle Network games, though - mayhaps I should give them a try...

@PaperShowtime Oh, and to activate Hammer Dive, the cards would have to be played in that exact order or the combo won't activate. (Probably should've mentioned that earlier)

I know it's been a while since I've posted anything, but I've just been trying to improve on the little things here and there, like smoother camera movement, and finally fixing audience members suddenly stopping mid-spin. #fangame #PaperMario

So, lemme ask you - enemies are set up like this. Would you rather change targets using the shoulder buttons left-to-right, or up-and-down on the D-Pad to scroll the right-side menu? Or perhaps both? And what sort of tooltips would you prefer? #fangame #PaperMario

The really unfortunate thing is that I *had* tooltips programmed in - but I'd removed them to make room for other HUD elements. This was clearly a bad decision on my part, because it relied too much on familiarity with the engine... which was only publicly available recently.

The biggest complaint I got in the demo was that it wasn't clear you didn't have to spend all your points to play the turn. I've added a Ready Up tooltip that should hopefully convey that much more clearly. #fangame #PaperMario

I'm also changing how scoring works, going with a base score and rank multiplier, on top of the audience multiplier. It's inspired by the ranking system used by PlatinumGames' stuff. #fangame #PaperMario

As I work to tighten up the game experience, it involves writing and rewriting a fair amount of code. As I'm going, I'm working to add even more options to tailor the game experience to your own comfort. #fangame #PaperMario

@Penky_PMTOK Glad to see other people are enjoying the demo, despite how quickly I slapped it together, ha ha ha. Hopefully I'll have something a bit more complete out in the not-too-distant future.

Oh, yes, and wow, we've hit 200 followers! Not too shabby for a fangame based on the "worst Paper Mario games."

In the meantime, I'd like to share more conceptual stuff that I may not actually have up-and-running per se, but that I plan on implementing. I'll make sure that I'm actually WORKING ON IT so that I don't make impossible promises, so this ain't gonna be a flood, but just for fun.

In the end, though, I'm just glad people were willing to give it a try, considering how divisive the inspiring game itself was. Next time I provide a demo, I'm gonna make sure it REALLY gives you a Showtime experience.

The demo's provided some pretty good feedback so far, and I can definitely see where things need to be tweaked or added (in particular, control tooltips). Unfortunately, the small scope of the demo kinda limits how close it is to "the real deal," but most people seem positive!