Nearing the end... but also new beginnings!

I spent today celebrating my girlfriend's success in the world of academia. She received her PhD after 7 years of dedication and hard work... and it paid off! She got a job at a prestigious university in Virginia. So... after spending the majority of my life in the Rochester, NY region I'm going to leave my full-time job, pack my belongings and relocate to the beautiful city of Staunton, VA. This could mean great things for my life as an indie game developer. While I will be job searching in VA, at least for the time being, I'm going to have a lot more time to dedicate my games. TAG is getting close to completion, and although it will still be released as freeware I have bold plans for a future commercial project. Of course, a lot of my plans are based upon how well TAG is received by the public. I hope you all love it as much as I do.

Here's to a fresh start in Virginia!

On another note. I discovered how to do some more interesting 2d dynamic lighting effects in MMF2 and decided to revamp the entire game with this new knowledge. It took me about a week of work but the results were worth it. Here are some before and after shots. What do you think?

 

A greenhouse

Level 2 (which is actually the only level I've worked on so far) is coming along amazingly well. I have all the puzzles worked out and coded. The only thing left is some tweaking and the boss room. There are now 4 global (meaning they can be taken anywhere) items in the level. There are also a number local items which can't be taken out of the room they're found in. Some items are just used as a "fetch this item" type quest, but a couple have an action associated with them which will help you solve the puzzles throughout the level. 

I figured out how to make some professional looking shading and lighting effects. You can see the difference in the two screen shots below. This has opened up a lot of new possibilities for the game's graphics. 

Before alpha channel

After alpha channel

BTW, the flowers in these screen shots are from RPG Maker XP and are placeholders. Does anyone want to help me come up with some originals? Message me and I'll definitly give, in-game credit to anyone who helps.