Continue on after the jump for the whole shebang.

Why is development slow?

It’s slow because we’re a small group of hobbyists making a fan game in our free time. We’re not professionals, though we strive to create things of professional quality. We’re a handful of people with lives and other things to take care of, so Mother 4 does not always come first. During the past few months we’ve all had our own worries to take care of, and thus the lack of progress.

If you’re not making as much progress as you’d like, why the website?

When we made the website, we thought things would be going faster. We also wanted to open a line of communication to everyone that was separate from our topic on the Starmen.net forums. We also wanted a place for people to put the fan art (and etc.)  they had made since we had received a number of them when we relaunched the topic.

Why the Facebook page?

We were going to wait until the game was closer to completion to create the Facebook page, but one had already popped up with someone claiming to be Chaisu running it. Along with the many requests we had received to create a page, we decided to go ahead with it. The page is also a way for fans of the project to receive updates without checking the website. It also gives us a way to gauge the interest in the project by means of the number of fans.

So what’s the deal with Fan Submissions?

Fan submissions were, as stated before, meant to just be a place to upload anything you may have created regarding the project, ie. art, animation, music, or what have you. After its introduction, we received some fan art, and some fan music, and as the months went on we started receiving suggestions and various ideas for the game. This is not what we had intended the service be used for. We didn’t really know what to do with them, but most of them seemed to have a substantial amount of effort put into them, so we let them through. Now, that’s all we get. Because we can’t use the majority of the suggestions, I’m going to close fan submissions until the game launches. All submissions that are already up will remain viewable, but no further submissions will be possible.

Why did you switch from Game Maker to C++ if you knew it would set you back?

Because 1. I had hit the limits with Game Maker and trying to work around those limits was a big headache. 2. Games created with Game Maker are often perceived to have lackluster quality and be all around terrible. And that’s not what we’re going for. 3. Creating the entire engine myself allows me to fine tune every aspect of it, so I’m in complete control. It’s sort of like driving an automatic versus a manual. The automatic is easier to drive, but doesn’t always do what you want at the right time. The manual is more difficult to drive and takes more time to learn, but offers much more control over things. (Also 4. cross-platform capabilities.)

What do we do in the meantime?

I suggest you visit the topic on the Starmen.net forums. We post there more frequently to answer questions and post smaller details. Also, more than just me posts there, so you’ll get a better line with Chaisu, Zephys, etc. If you have any questions about posting there, I’m a moderator there, so feel free to send questions my way. (It’s part of my job to answer them. )

If you have questions regarding this post, please ask them in the comments section below. Other questions should be asked in the Starmen.net topic, or via the contact page depending on the subject of the question.

Thanks for being a cool bunch of people. We all really do appreciate it.

But before you freak out, there is goodish news too.

So, last night my computer decided that Windows was going to have problems and just not start. I’ve run through a bunch of recovery options and have decided that I need an actual installation disc to recover the corrupted or damaged files which are freaking it out. However, I lack an installation disc. So unhappy Dave.

But the good side to this is that I installed Ubuntu again, which is always nice. Also, everything is still in tact and my hard drive has not been corrupted or gotten dead or anything like that. Even if it did, I wouldn’t lose much because I actually keep backups of my work unlike certain other fan game projects.

Now, onto Chaisu’s problem. This one is kinda big so be prepared to cry with us. His external drive which held all of Mother 4′s concept art and earlier graphics and audio was corrupted and the data on it was lost. We’re recovering what we can from Zephys’ and my own stashes of Mother 4 goodness. We hope we can recover most of what was lost.

So yeah. These issues could set us back a little bit. In the meantime, I’ll be developing from Windows on my laptop (inconvenient) and from Ubuntu on my desktop and Chaisu will be plugging away at sprites and tiles and all that. And as always Zephys will continue to work on the story and SNOBODYS will continue to pump out their excellent tunes.

Dave out.

(To clarify, nothing related to the engine and no new game content was lost. So we’re okay in that respect.)

We’re moving to C++.

What does this mean for me, Dave!?
More compatibility! We can recompile the game to run on a number of operating systems including Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. It also means more interesting graphical effects are possible like upscaling with algorithms such as scale2x, eagle, super eagle, or hq2x! (And more!)

What does this mean for you Dave!?
It means I can be way more organized! It also means that I have almost complete control over how things work in the engine, so I can get everything I need just right.

Will I need anything more to run this now?
Nope! Everything you need will come in one package! Or an installer maybe!

Dave you’re my hero! Where can I send you fan mail!?
The contact form will suffice.

Feel free to ask me more questions about the engine in the comments!

See it here

I have quite a bit to say about this. First off, and this isn’t the first time I’ve said it, I love finding things like this. It’s kind of a cool feeling to be big enough that you’re finding articles and multi-page discussions about your project on other sites. Let alone the fact that there’s practically nothing negative said on this particular board.

Beyond this though, is the fact that there are alot of facts that aren’t straight. Unless someone knows something I don’t, Itoi never said that he’d do anything official with a Mother 4, and our 2010 release date is definitely not a guarantee.

There’s more, but you get the idea. In short, if you want to know something about our project, please ask the main staff of Mother 4 if you want the truth. We apologize for any vague or unanswered questions, but that’s how the development of a mother game goes. If you don’t get an answer you’re looking for, feel free to speculate, but do your best not to assume your speculations are correct.

Much love to the fans. Stay in touch people. The way things are going, this game’s bound to surprise alot of people.

On the topic of actual production, we’re making alot of progress. We’re very happy with the storyline at this point, and even have an overworld map put together. We’ve got most of the status effects youll find yourselves dealing with put together, and alot of things of the like are coming together. Thanks for your support.