Just a general question to begin; how often are screenshots desired, and what is a decent number of images per screenshot post, before the viewer starts to get sensory-overload? I'm considering adding the occasional screenshot, with the proviso that "features may change before release". In my opinion, I'd try to give a screenshot or two, at least every third or fourth post, more when necessary, with a likely cap of four screenshots per post, max. But, on to other matters; a bit more of a description of some of the things I intend for my ARPGM.

First, the most noticeable of the competition is that game-creation seems to be a solitary act -- Enterbrain's makers are fairly good at presuming it's just one person making a game; however, I know from reading the English rpg-maker forums that it's somewhat of an economy of asking for project help, and recruiting for the project. I am hoping to include some form of versioning for project data, for those who wish to split development to specific persons on a project. So, it will no longer be so solitary. Also, support for I18N/L10N (allowing a game-maker, et al, to provide for game accessibility and translation to additional language-speaking players).

Second, is the fact that I do want to support larger screen dimensions than Enterbrain's products; although to make it make sense, it will be a per-project setting where the game-maker can specify minimum, maximum, and default resolution ranges, so that it makes sense from the developer's point-of-view. One game-maker (herein abbreviated GM) might make a project title screen for a 800x600 resolution, while another might go for the 1280x1024 -- and I need to keep track of that on a per-project level. As well, in multi-GM projects, settings for testing fullscreen versus windowed is important, as well as various other editor state-remembering factors.

Third, adding new aspects from a particular "Suggestions for the next RPG Maker" forum thread-listing. To me, it does make a little bit of sense to also include a Database tab for specifying Races and Genders, so that further specifics of Character creation and eventing can be implemented. I know that some GMs wish they could make certain classes dependent upon certain races or genders, or even inaccessible to certain others. It would also be nice to be able to check in the Events whether a target character is Male, Female, or even Neuter -- like Final Fantasy Tactics, seducing enemy NPC with "Vixen's Whisper" or other skill....

Fourth, some aspects of an RPG Maker will remain similar to what people are "used to using"; but some things will by necessity be different, due to how I may implement my ideas for such. The items list, for one; I want armor, weapons, and consumables to all be in one Database tabbed hierarchy, but I also want it to make sense, in the implementation. Armors can be sub-typed, and weapons are most definitely categorizable by manner of use or form. As well, I also am planning to allow for a default implementation of Item Crafting to be included -- with item ingredients, recipes, tools or utensils, et cetera.

Fifth, Eventing and Scripting. Yes, I want to provide both, but I am still figuring this out. Events are a must; I have several ideas on that end. Scripting is desired as well, but this needs a little more thinking -- along the lines of which scripting language would better go with a Java-based application, and therefore either be natively supported in Java or have a class-library to implement these features. Then, figure out how it works on the editor side and engine side. Actually, I do have a decent idea that will work in the editor part, of how to store and write the scripts, but since the engine part is behind in percent-completion, it'll be a while until I can test it.

In conclusion, I have more ideas than this; I just wanted to start with a few aspects, to keep in touch with people following this journal, as well as allow for input where you have ideas or questions for me. The image included is of the main editor UI, using FXML with CSS for styling.