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Amberstorm

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    Head Gameplay Developer: Starlit Souls

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    Thracia 776

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  1. On the continent of Tirnaanor, War has become a part of everyday life. For the past 311 years, the Republic of Qalinae and Kingdom of Ryless have clashed in what appears to be an endless Holy War. Once-good men have become corrupt with power and sinister shadows dance just out of sight. In this world of few pure souls, two individuals shine above the rest: Fledgling squire Opal von Alraiser of Qalinae and veteran commander Alhardt Ocrament of Ryless. Both of these individuals crave an end to this war and to rebuild Tirnaanor in their own ways, but little do they know that their dreams of an ideal world will set them on a collision course with not only each other, but with forces that have lain dormant for untold centuries… Hey guys, I’m Amberstorm and I’m here today to represent the whole of Team Tirnaanor to give you the first official demo release of Starlit Souls, a ROM hack that’s been under development by our small team of friends for the past year now. As of right now, we have 17 maps completed, 14 comprising Act 1 and the other 3 acting as the starting point for Act 2. with a planned total of 32 chapters across 4 Acts. However, due to some real world complications among our writing team that have been going on for a few months now, we have yet to fully complete the script for said maps and likely will not be able to for a while. Being a hack in which we want to focus on the script, we didn’t want to release a gameplay only demo, but still wanted to release something to show everyone. So, we’ve decided to instead make a compromise and release a 4 chapter demo that covers the beginning of Opal’s tale, with the complete script attached. The game is a bit dialogue heavy and has quite a few references to characters and locations that will be visited later, but we hope readers can still enjoy and keep track of what’s going on. You can download the patch -> here <- General Gameplay Notes/Changes: -Promoted units do not reset their level and the level cap for all classes is 30. -Avoid Formula changes to Spd+(Luk/2). This doesn’t make every unit have 100% hit though. Non-sword units will usually be sitting at around the 80%-92% region and enemies will at lowest be around the low 70%s -Critical Formula changed to (Skill - 10). A nice QoL feature to reduce the chance of annoying crits early game and also to adapt to the next change. -Stats, growths and caps have generally been deflated as a whole. The highest cap in the game outside of HP is 24 while the universal Luk cap is 20. The reason this is done is to create a larger focus on equipment rather than raw stats. -Going off the last point, Resistance as a stat has been massively deflated in a similar vein to the Archenea games. Mages also have lower magic stats and most of their Atk comes from a general buff to tome mt. -Weapons now have multiple subtypes: Blades, Polearms, Lances, Greataxes, Tower Bows and Crossbows. These subtypes are limited to specific classes. -Weapon Triangle has been outright removed. We did this since we feel like weapons already naturally counter each in which classes use them. Fighters punch through the fatter classes like Knights and Soldiers, Knights and Soldiers eat up Mercenary and Myrmidon’s weaker attacks and hit reliably back Mercenaries and Myrmidons’ high avoidance allow them to dodge Axes better and exploit their usually lower speed and defenses. -Because of the previous change, we tried to give each weapon type it’s own more unique arsenal and focus. Swords are super accurate and have a wide variety of utility weapons that make them adaptable, Spears are a good combination of power and accuracy but have lower durability then other weapons and cost a bit more and Axes and powerful, cheap and have high durability, but are heavy, suffer from lower accuracy and an extremely limited pool of utility weapons. While we can’t show these off directly in gameplay, we placed some examples of weapons in the base event shops at inflated prices that player cannot reach so you can see them, but not buy them and break the game -Ranged weapons like Javelins and Hand Axes are now rarer items. They have very limited uses at 10/8 respectively and cannot be bought from shops, existing as enemy drops or village rewards. They do maintain respectable stats and good accuracy to make up for it. This is to try to incentivize players to think more long-term when considering committing to excessive 1-2 range use. Major Gameplay Changes: -Supports are now innate bonuses that certain units have when near one another. There are no support conversations proper, but some base events may increase support level. As a result of this, support bonuses are smaller. We have attached a document with the exact values of the support bonuses in the same folder as the UPS file -Anima Magic has been radically changed, with each mage having their own affinities for magic and Max Rank they can use each magic type regardless of their Anima rank proper. (Ex: Fire Sage can only use S Rank Fire Magic, B Rank Wind Magic and C rank Thor magic) -Stats now follow a Bracketing system similar to the one found in Berwick Saga. For those of you who haven’t played the game, essentially, a unit will always remain within 2 points of their average stats (Ex: If a unit’s average Spd is 12 at that level, they can only have 10,11,12,13 or 14 Spd) This means that a units stats are more controlled, but also not completely static like a Fixed Growth Run. -Because Starlit Souls is meant to have a greater focus on character writing and has a smaller cast, making losing a single unit devastating, we’ve implemented not only turn saves that occur every fourth NPC phase, but also what I refer to as an injury mechanic, inspired by Dark Deity. In essence, Casual Mode is enabled for the entire game, however, a unit reaching 0 HP will result in them receiving a permanent -3 HP penalty as well as a -1 Str/Skl/Spd/Def penalty when they rejoin on the next map (obviously HP will not dip below 1 and Str/Skl/Spd/Def can’t go below 0). The Lords, as well as certain plot related characters (For this release Rosalie is the only unit in this category) are exempt from this, and will still cause a gameover if killed. -There are now base events, where you can have your allies interact with each other, potentially raise some support ranks, obtain items or stat bonuses and buy some extra supplies if you need them. As of now there is only one of these, but there will be more in the full release.
  2. Here it is guys, the UGS: SRPG Edition Alpha! The alpha only contains the first chapter at the moment, as we are doing some pretty massive redrafting to the existing 1-1 script but want to show something. A couple of minor bugs have been found, and we are working on them currently. We also have a new server for all of my planned project, though UGS is the only one that is public at the moment. https://discord.gg/UGhctpP https://mega.nz/#F!OPwhRQxL!5OEcml3WshVmiuCMa-tP1w(edited) YOU SENT AN INVITE TO JOIN A SERVER Amberlabs Studio Official Discord 13 Online18 Members Joined
  3. alright guys, so I have a rather large update but before I explain the update let me just clarify: My goal in life is to become a video game dev, UGS has functioned primarily as a testing ground for ideas for the games that I actually want to make, but of course, using a hack of a GBA ROM is probably not the best thing to put on a resume and definitely not something I want to release as my own work. So, we're upgrading engines. Yep, that's what I've been doing these past months, I've been working on converting UGS to the SRPG Studio engine. This change gives me so much more freedom and creativity when it comes to making the game, and I've already made quite a few shifts to the mechanics (all hits are 100%, removal of crits, more unique skills, base conversations, side missions etc) and allows me to actually show off my work to potential employers in a non-legally questionable method. I know some people might be disappointed in the shift away from GBA but I hope that you guys understand. As for what comes next, I've finished translating all 7 maps of part 1 and gameplay is finished up to 1-4. There will also be 2-3 additional side missions added to Part 1. As for the script, I have been working to make the script feel more natural and cutting out unneeded fat (redrafting is super important kids) so at the moment I am finalizing 1-P today with the bulk of 1-1 finished but requiring edits and a final redraft. So, my current plan will be to release an early Alpha containing the first 2 chapters of the game, then I will be holding off releasing anything else until I have finished all of Part 1, which I'm hoping will also include original sprites and music if I can find the funds to commission all of the assets, as well as an artist/composer I feel, is up to my standards of quality and vision for what I see the game looking like. So, expected images of the SRPG version of the game to start trailing in soon and the public alpha's release coming in the next few weeks/month depending on how school goes. Thank you guys so much for your support of UGS and I hope you'll enjoy this latest update when it launches.
  4. Update: We've been doing some work updating the game for our 1.5, but since I have officially started university, time is going to be difficult to come by. We still hope to release 1.5 soon, so we'll keep you guys updated. For now, I'll just send a screenshot of a unit a lot of people called underwhelming, so we went ahead and buffed her quite a bit
  5. Update: After a multi hour call with my writing team, we have made massive changes to our original script for the chapters later on, as such, we have scrapped a story arc we felt unnecessary and are instead focusing on the primary conflict establish in Act 1 even further. Because of this, we are now fairly confident in our chapter count being around 31, with 28 main chapters and 3 Gaiden-type maps, which though I can't spoil, 2 of said 3 are some of my favorite maps as both a developer but mainly as a writer. Because of this, we will be restructuring our release schedule not in entire acts, but chunks of acts, as completing an entire act in a timely fashion when University exists is not going to happen. As such, the next patch will contain 6 chapters, 2-P, 2-1, 2-2, 2-3, 2-4 and 1 Gaiden chapter. 2-P is completed minus writing and eventing, with the gaiden not far behind and 2-1 and 2-2 are already on the path to being made. 2-3 and 2-4 have rough outlines but have not entered the design process yet. That's it for 2.0 updates
  6. When Part 2 comes out, we only want to do major updates, not small updates
  7. - That was an error on my part, this is already fixed -Hound does promote, it's available in Part 2 -Grassrunner used to be a second promotion for Thief, but we have changed it, Centurion is what should be the 2nd Soldier promotion, -Audrey should be able to use the Infantry Seal, it is fixed now -Yes, eventually
  8. Quick Progress Update: We have finished the first draft of 2-P and have basic ideas of designs for 2-1 and 2-2, and our writing team have been working extra hard to refine the script! All the nitty gritty changes can be found on the discord's public change log. I'll just leave you guys with an image of someone briefly seen in the final moment of Part 1 I'm sure many people will be appreciating far more very soon...
  9. We have reduced the HP of Walls to 20, this should make it much easier to progress quickly through the map!
  10. Thanks for the review, I really appreciate it, and there is some good stuff in here! Just for a bit of reference into what we are doing currently that will more or less serve as a universal update on progress. -The writing is going to be receiving a major overhaul, it's just that our head editor and my assistant writer was busy with some IRL things -Likewise, our Art-Team has already done some of the blinking and mouth frames for Ray and Audrey -0 Luk enemies is just a quality of life feature, as all of our design team believes that having enemies with Luk can potentially lead to some hit issues. As per Lopez critting, our plan was to have Bronze Weapons be unable to crit, however our ASM guy found that there was something different in the ROM, likely due to patches, that made this unable to happen. As such, the only compromise aside from greatly lowering Lopez's Base Skl, which none of us liked the idea of, was to just have to deal with the occasional stray crit. -The logic behind the lack of 1-2 range was a suggestion by one of my assistant game designers in lowering the amount of Javelins/Hand Axes the player gets to further promote the use of bows, as there is no 1-2 range bows. Hand Axes and Javelins available to player units will be rarer then most FEs and thus gives incentive the use of bows and conserve the valuable uses of Hand Axes and Javelins -As for enemy hounds, we found a common thread among our players was that Beo was a bit underwhelming as he had no enemies the Fang was effective against until 1-4 where Cavaliers show up. As a result we have gone back and rebalanced some enemy placements and added some more enemy hounds and made Beo's fang, not all hounds, just Beo's base Fang, effective verses then, to give Beo a more specialized niche -The freeroaming archer killing Leanne was something we have never seen before. This is quite and issue and we will look into it because as your only healer in this part, having Leanne be so vulnerable if you don't play in a certain way is harmful to the more open-ended nature of the chapter, which we aren't a fan of at all. Overall, thank you for the feedback, your support and critique is very much appreciated!
  11. okay, I think you're misreading the story, Cole and Fern are indeed Lopez's children, however Lopez is not related to Bruce at all, he is a friend of Bruce's grandfather who was the one raised Bruce. Bruce is actually 2 years older then Fern and Cole. However I can understand how one could misinterpret this, I will look over ways to make it more apparent
  12. Hey guys! I'm here to finally announce the first public release of my ROM Hack, Under Grey Skies! For those of you who haven't seen my ramblings on the FEU Discord, Under Grey Skies is a project I've been working on since early January. It follows the story of a young villager named Bruce, who sets out with some of his fellow villagers in order to fight in a civil war that, if lost, threatens to destroy their home and country. The gameplay of UGS is heavily inspired by the idea of hard hitting enemies with lower durability, while also utilizing the Circles Skill Patch (though unfortunately there have been some complications with skills due to classes not being able to learn multiple skills immediately upon promotion). This first version contain 7 Chapters, with 14 playable units as well as a completed arc of the overall story and supports (though at the moment many of the supports only go up to C in terms of writing). Attached to this are some basic screenshots from the game as well as links to the patch for you to download as well as the public discord server I have for the project if you have any questions or feedback. Keep in mind we are aware of a few non major but noticeable bugs, so I'll just list them here. -The units Ray and Leanne are currently unable to be Shoved -There is a minor spot in the battle screen that covers up that weapon name That's all, I hope you enjoy! http://www.mediafire.com/file/8vxqyq7csce8yy4/Under_Grey_Skies_v.1.0_Patch.ups https://discord.gg/DmjnMHy
  13. Hey guys! I've trying to do an all Corrin run LP of Birthright for my channel but I'm lacking Corrins so someone suggested I try using Serene's for finding Corrins for the playthrough, if anyone would be willing to help me I would really appreciate it! I typed up the rules below (US Corrins) 1) All Corrins must be Lv10 and already classed changed, any class even hacked classes like Wolfskin and Songstress will be allowed with the exception of final boss classes like Empty Vessel, Garon Dragon and Silent Dragon, as well as no Great Lords because that is my Corrin's class and I want her to be the only GL. 2) Your Corrin can have 1 extra skill that isn't tied to the class (they can keep Nobility and Dragon Fang though). Any extra skill is allowed with the exception of Bold Stance and Dragonskin 3)The only stat boosters I will allow will be an Arms Scroll if your Corrin is not in a sword based class like Mercenary or Samurai or 1 pair of boots if your Corrin is a knight 4) Please make it so you set your castle defense units away from the throne and set tactics to hold for an easy capture, also make sure your Corrin has no equipment 5) Try to make the Corrins unique, not just overpowered, yet still usable, you could even make units based on past units (Ex: A luk+ Cav Corrin with Miracle based on Finn)
  14. Hey, I was wondering if anyone could help me out, so I'm trying to insert my chapter 2 map into the game, I made the offset the free space after my chapter 1 events end, switched the map tileset in nightmare to the proper set I used in Tiled, but when I loaded the map, the screen was black. I used Event assembler to add the OOBB, but it was still black, did I mess up the offset number or something, or did I write the events to the wrong offset? I attached screenshots of the two applications with the same data I used when importing
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