Touhou Fantasy, Xenomic's RPG Maker game!

[かベリー]

I'll be downloading it these days so stay tuned for some feedback!

[Xenomic]

@Floral Pattern: Righto. Just note that the version that's up right now is not the one that has all of these updates. If you want the updated version, just let me know and I'll upload that one. In fact, I might upload it tomorrow whenever I get up, just so everyone can try out the newer version there (although there'll be some bugs here and there, like a few abilities not working at all and whatnot).

[Xenomic]

So the question of the day is: How to determine just how long a game is going to be? Currently, I am aiming for roughly 40-60 game overs for the main storyline (additional game time for sidequest stuff depends on if I feel like ever doing them), which at the 50-60% mark of my game as it is, it runs about 20-40 hours (varying on the player of course). The problem that I'm currently running into, however, is the later half of the game's content. There's a lot of dungeons still left in the game with storyline attached to them, and I hate to cut out storyline related anything, but I feel that I may need to to keep it down to a reasonable length. I know that many game companies do this often, and I can understand why, but just what exactly is best to cut out? Would it be wise to somehow relegate cut content to another part of the game? How do you determine how many dungeons your game has? How do you determine just how LONG each dungeon is?

For the record, this is what most of my dungeons tend to be (spoilers because it's going to go into detail on each one):

Beta1:

Total amount of dungeons: 5

Dungeon #1: Misty Lake (estimated time: 10-15 minutes)
Dungeon #2: Forest of Magic (estimated time: 10-15 minutes on both paths)
Dungeon #3: Scarlet Devil Mansion (estimated time: 20-25 minutes)
Dungeon #4: Bamboo Forest of the Lost (estimated time: 20 minutes)
Dungeon #5: Eientei (estimated time: 30-45 minutes, since this one is kinda a puzzle dungeon)

Beta2:

Total amount of dungeons: 5

Dungeon #1: Underschool (estimated time: 20-25 minutes)
Dungeon #2: Youkai Mountain (estimated time: 30 minutes-1 hour)
Dungeon #3: Winter Forest (estimated time: 20 minutes)
Dungeon #4: Hakugyokurou (estimated time: 20 minutes)
Dungeon #5: Eientei (estimate time: 30 minutes)

Beta3:

Total dungeons: 4

Dungeon #1: Road of Reconsideration (estimated time: 30 minutes)
Dungeon #2: Remains of Hell (estimated time: 30 minutes-1 hour)
Dungeon #3: Mayohiga (estimated time: 10 minutes)
Dungeon #4: Poltergeist Mansion (estimated time: 30-45 minutes)

Beta4:

Total dungeons: 12


Dungeon #1: Kourindou (estimated time: 10 minutes)
Dungeon #2: Misty Lake (estimated time: 15-20 minutes)
Dungeon #3: Scarlet Devil Mansion (estimated time: 20-25 minutes)
Dungeon #4: Remains of Hell (estimated time: 30-45 minutes)
Dungeon #5: Hakurei Shrine Ruins (estimated time: 10 minutes)
Dungeon #6: Youkai Mountain (estimated time: 30-45 minutes)
Dungeon #7: Dream Land (estimated time: 30-45 minutes)
Dungeon #8: Scarlet Devil Mansion - Dimensional Rift (estimated time: 20-30 minutes)
Dungeon #9: Icicle Caverns (estimated time: 20-30 minutes)
Dungeon #10: Insect Forest (estimated time: 20-30 minutes)
Dungeon #11: Eastern Forest (estimated time: 20 minutes)
Dungeon #12: Cave to Makai (estimated time 1-2 hours)

Beta5:

Total dungeons: 17


Dungeon #1: Cave to Pandaemonium (estimated time: 20-30 minutes)
Dungeon #2: Pandemonium (estimated time: 30 minutes)
Dungeon #3: Hollowed Caverns (estimated time: 1-2 hours)
Dungeon #4: Hollowed Caverns - Dimensional Rift (estimated time: 25-30 minutes)
Dungeon #5: Battlefield (estimated time: 20-25 minutes)
Dungeon #6: Makai Caves (estimated time: 20-30 minutes)
Dungeon #7: Valley of Corpses (estimated time: 20-30 minutes)
Dungeon #8: Valley of Corpses - Dimensional Rift (estimated time: 10-20 minutes)
Dungeon #9: Frozen Fields (estimated time: ????)
Dungeon #10: Frozen Fields - Dimensional Rift (estimated time: ????)
Dungeon #11: Fallen Shrine (estimated time: ????)
Dungeon #12: Fallen Shrine - Dimensional Rift (estimated time: ????)
Dungeon #13: Reimaden (estimated time: ????)
Dungeon #14: True Pandemonium (estimated time: ????)
Dungeon #15: Silent Shrine (estimated time: ????)
Dungeon #16: Palanquin Ship (estimated time: ????)
Dungeon #17: Hokkai (estimated time: ????)

Beta6:

Total dungeons: 17

Dungeon #1: Hakurei Shrine Forest (estimated time: ????)

(From here, dungeons could be gone to in any order)
Dungeon #2: Misty Lake - River Banks (estimated time: ????)
Dungeon #3: Scarlet Devil Mansion - Clock Tower (estimated time: ????)
Dungeon #4: Youkai Mountain - Tenma's Tower (estimated time: ????)
Dungeon #5: Youkai Mountain - Genbu Marsh (estimated time: ????)
Dungeon #6: Hakuygokurou - Netherworld (estimated time: ????)
Dungeon #7: Bamboo Forest of the Lost - Hanged Man's Route (estimated time: ????)
Dungeon #8: Forest of Magic - Stormy Path (estimated time: ????)
Dungeon #9: Road of Reconsideration - Sanzu River (estimated time: ????)
Dungeon #10: Sunflower Fields (estimated time: ????)
Dungeon #11: Probability Hyperspace Vessel (estimated time: ????)
Dungeon #12: Remains of Hell - Chireiden Basement (estimated time: ????)

(Dungeons return to gone in order from here)
Dungeon #13: Pandaemonium-R (estimated time: ????)
Dungeon #14: Lunarian Capital (estimated time: ????)
Dungeon #15: Dimensional Distortion (estimated time: ????)
Dungeon #16: Sea of Clouds (estimated time: ????)
Dungeon #17: Bhava-Agra (estimated time: ????)

Beta7:

Total dungeons: 4

Dungeon #1: End of Gensokyo (estimated time: ????)
Dungeon #2: Gaplands (estimated time: ????)
Dungeon #3: The Void (estimated time: ????)
Dungeon #4: Heart of Pandora (estimated time: ????)

Estimated time sometimes includes the boss fights, but sometimes it's grossly under/overestimated. So yeah, you can see the kind of pickle that I'm in right now, yes? ^^; I have already cut out 2 dungeons in beta5 (Ruins of Vina and its Dimensional Rift) due to how big they'd be (another 2 hour dungeon is not what this game needs). It'll be relegated to sidequest content only I feel. I ALMOST feel like cutting out the dungeons you can go in any order in beta6 (those are all dungeons where you have to go to to get party members back. Think of FFVI's World of Ruin, except at the end you have to fight each party member).

[かベリー]

I'd like to try out the newest beta, I'll start it when my third wave of tests ends. ; -;

[SEVA]

30-45 minutes seems like a reasonable time for one dungeon. However, that's quite a lot of dungeons you've got going on there even now. Are you really so confident in your abilities as as a writer as to claim that all of them are absolutely necessary for the story you're trying to tell? As the Mario RPGs have shown us, 8 dungeons can be plenty enough for a fulfilling game. You're going on 40 now, and planning even more. You'll exceed the length of Radiant Dawn at this rate! As our good friend Will Shakespeare once said, "brevity is the soul of wit".

Also, despite this (and other RPGs) being a story-driven game, it's still a terrible idea to stop introducing new gameplay things. Not mechanics necessarily, just... things. From major things like new party members to minor things like new puzzle gimmicks. If you need to cut out some dungeons, the ones that don't introduce anything new have to go first. If you get bored while developing, that should set off an alarm bell - of course, you probably will get a little bit bored since it usually takes longer to make things than to play them, but if you get really bored, the player will likely get bored too. After all, if you keep doing more or less the same thing over and over again, the player will be doing more or less the same thing over and over again.

I haven't actually seen that much of this game, so this is mostly just general advice. Don't take it to heart. Oh, and don't feel you have to include every little bit of Touhou canon. (fanon?) I find that more focus on fewer things is generally better.

[Xenomic]

@Floral Pattern: Here ya go! I copied the original one (from March) over in the Developer folder, just in case.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/66m3l4360klrb4t/Touhou_Fantasy.rar

@SEVA: Keep in mind though, that even with all those dungeons, the game is still about 30-40 game hours long as of right now, at about 50-60% done. I already cut out the 11 dungeons from beta6 (I'll just use the excuse of "Oh, what happened? Did we get knocked out or something?" for everyone that normally you'd have to go back to dungeons to fight and reget instead of having the player go back to old dungeons that has new areas. It's basically what happened in Final Fantasy VI with the World of Ruins in a way, or in Genius of Sappheiros). There's a couple scenarios that people question why they're there, but I don't know what to do to relegate the content of those to any other areas of the game without it seeming...out of place. I guess I COULD do the whole flashback bit like I'll be doing with Ruins of Vina (because that was going to be another 2 hour dungeon which the game doesn't need), but figuring out a good spot for that is going to be hard...

But yeah, pretty much every area in the game so far is needed for the storytelling bits. I know that I have A LOT of dungeons in this game, moreso than any Final Fantasy game has really, but a lot of them tend to not really be THAT long to traverse. Just the bosses that tend to take the most time out of the dungeons since some of them have some nasty gimmicks, while others tend to be a bit more tanky. I generally try to have unique stuff in each dungeon and boss fight, but I tell ya, sometimes it's really, really hard to keep coming up with new content lol. Even the very first boss fight of the game is unique with its gimmick. But a lot of the dungeons in the current game are pretty...sameish in that you just traverse them. Not many puzzle dungeons in the game at all, since I'm bad at puzzle dungeons. And yeah, I do get bored with developing, but that's moreso due to having worked on the game for the past 7-8 years and going ugh at doing anything. ^^;

I actually have a Let's Play of it on my channel (I don't know if the recent one has the updated areas or not though) that you could check out if you want to see it without playing it (if you can stand my terrible voice).

[SEVA]

I've seen some of the LP before. Actually, I've also watched some of someone else's LP of it. Chefmkt, I think. And your voice is honestly not that bad. You could use a better mic, but your voice itself is not bad. I've heard much worse voices.

According to your figures, the full game will be at least 30/60%=50 hours long. At least. Don't underestimate how long that is. Sure, that wouldn't be the longet game ever, but it's still pretty damn long. For an indie/doujin game especially. And the fact that you've been working on this game for so long is all the more reason to cut out unnecessary work for yourself. If it's something you haven't made yet, don't 'relegate it to somewhere else in the game', don't make it optional, consider just getting rid of it altogether. You don't want to be taking another 8 years to finish the project, after all.

What I'm basically saying is, you already have enought content for a full game. You've done a good job. Don't make it hard for yourself unnecessarily, especially if coming up with new content is becoming a problem.

I tell ya, sometimes it's really, really hard to keep coming up with new content lol.

I personally would much rather see this project be finished sooner and lose a few hours of gameplay time than keep them and take several more years to complete.

[かベリー]

Ah, I just tried this out and I only played a little (up to the Misty Lake itself), but it's really fun! Everything looked well executed and felt pretty natural, I really like the Skill system. Also, the hidden items are a super neat bonus, I can't believe I almost missed the YY Orb. Anyways, my main gripe with it were the huge interior maps, there's lots of empty space and you can perfectly fit everything you need in a much smaller space. Other than that, for now, I'm having fun. Also, I suggest you change the character's titles to actual titles instead of just their main element. For example, "Holy Maiden of Pain" fits Reimu, rhymes, implies her main element is Holy AND it adds some flair to it!

P.S. Also, SEVA nailed the thing about the length.

Edited June 2, 2016 by Floral Pattern

[Xenomic]

@SEVA: Ah. Yeah, mic back then was kinda bad, and I don't think I had the right settings on mic for 2nd LP. More recent LPs are a better gauge of the voice but yeah. Kinda glad Chef didn't finish the LP, truth be told, due to how bad the game was when he was playing it. A lot of things changed over the past 4-5 years. ^^;

That's just estimates. At the 50-60% point of the game (Cave to Makai), I've hit 20 game hours before as well as a couple other people, but I've heard of people hitting 40-50 (some let the game idle, others grinded a lot, others had trouble, etc.). I did get rid of the 11 dungeons in beta6, since they can be opted out. And Ruins of Vina in beta5 is going to be purely optional. But all the other dungeons are necessary for the storytelling (and splitting the game up into 2 separate games just isn't going to work very nicely sadly).

@Floral Pattern: If you're talking about Human Village, that has never been updated lol. The interior maps are the exact same as the original beta1 versions (the village itself was updated in beta3-4, but it still needs updated super badly). If you want to see bad interiors, Chef's LP will show you bad interiors with SDM. ^^;

And yeah, a LOT of people miss that weapon, it's kinda funny actually lol. And the titles are the way they are so that people KNOW what elements the characters are. Otherwise, there's no way of knowing that Marisa is Lightning-elemental and whatnot. Plus, I have very limited room for text. ^^;

[Xenomic]

This has nothing to do with Touhou Fantasy per say, but I have no other place to put this.

So, since recently I've been getting into the Neptunia series, no thanks to a buddy of mine, I've realized that I really want to make a "fun" game; one that's not super serious like Touhou Fantasy (and as I thought about it, a lot of games that I've played or seen), and just tries to have fun. There'd still be serious stuff in it, of course, but overall I'd love to just DO something like that, akin to said series. I've been thinking on ideas lately (since that's really all I can do, carpal tunnel be making it impossible for me to do a lot of things right now), and the Touhou Fantasy crew (Hope, Fate, Death, Chaos, Order, Pestilence, and Gloom) would make for a fine cast of main characters, with Shyam (a Fire Emblem OC originally who never made it into a couple games that were both discontinued) acting as an 8th main character. I already have a full-on female cast there, so that's the easy part.

The problem though is that:

A) I've no idea what to do with a story involving that right now, nor what kind of mishaps/shenanigans the crew would even get into (keep in mind, the Fragments themselves are all from their own universe, they're not apart of the Touhou one, and Shyam is kinda in that same boat herself). I'd rather not make it TOO much like Neptunia, and I ALSO don't want it to wind up like a Kingdom Hearts type game (it could VERY easily wind up as that since these 7 are known to have been to other worlds/dimensions).
B) While I THINK I'm semi-decent with character dialogue and the like, I am in no way good with comedy/humor. In fact, that's one of the things I'm REALLY bad at, and seeing as that's something I'd like to have in a game like that, it kinda makes that really hard to do anything with heh. Especially when it comes to the goofball that is Fate (whom I linked to Neptunia. They're kinda similar in personalities actually, much like Hope is with Nepgear).
C) I'd LIKE to not reuse assets or sprites or things like that from other games like I did with TF (outside of the fragments sprites), but making it a 100% original game would be very daunting and out of my abilities (I'm in no means good at spriting, and I have zero patience with art)


So yeah...there's all that that's keeping that from happening (alongside carpal tunnel right now and TF being a big one, amongst other things). I also don't know if I'd WANT to reuse the TF girls too, but they'd fit in the best I feel, and anyone that knows TF would actually know them fairly decently I think. Plus, I feel that a game just for them that's original to them would do them well. Any thoughts, opinions, etc. on this idea? I'd really love to hear back from you guys on it. ^^

[Xenomic]

More on TF news! Spoilers for those who don't want to see the character lists.

Welp, now I know what to try to balance Frozen Fields around kinda. Might make it revolve around level 25-30 party. What do you guys think? The hardest part of balancing dungeons and whatnot is taking these things into consideration, since I'm basing it on my levels and party, and not everyone is going to be like this. These are the BASE speed values of the characters without any equipment, there's a lot of things that can increase speed (Rabite's Foot is an accessory that gives +50 Speed, Gale Ring gives +60 Speed, and those are the ones that gives the most speed that everyone can use. Rabite's Foot can be bought easily now too for 8000 yen. Most other pieces give maybe +5-10 speed, if that).

On another note, I found out that my HP+%/MP+% accessories are very buggy. When equipped and unequipped normally, they're fine, but if a character levels up with one equipped (similarly, if they level down with it equipped), the HP/MP values are skewed and will never fix themselves even if the accessory is unequipped and reequipped. It requires getting the character back to the level they were at when they first equipped that accessory and then leveling up normally to fix the values, which obviously is not a thing that can be done in TF. So I may have to either get rid of them, or make it so that the accessories increase the stats by a raw value. Not sure what the values should BE but...ya know. On top of that, I'm trying to figure out what the hell I was doing with Frozen Field's gimmicks. Well, I KNOW what I was trying to do, but I forget exactly HOW I went about doing it.

The long leg of blue blocks are the sliding ice. The ice blocks strewn about are what you have to melt. Simple enough, yes? I just feel like something better can be done here though maybe. These are the only 3 screens that you have to really worry about (there's 3 others, but they're more pitstops than anything else), and there ARE random encounters here with a bit of a gimmick (Fire and Ice enemies, takes reduced/no damage from elements that aren't their weakness, several of them are resistant/immune to physicals). Short dungeon, like most of beta5's dungeons honestly, so I'm hoping it's not TOO bad to deal with...

[かベリー]

SO I REACHED THE MANSION AND IT WAS ALL REALLY COOL AND INTERESTING AND THEN I MET RINNOSUKE AND YUKARI AND THEN I LOOKED FOR MARISA AND I MET YUUKA AND I DIED AND I DIDN'T SAVE AND NOW I DESIRE DEATH.

P.S. There's a random fairy in the mansion, I think Yukari said "aruement" instead of "argument" and I think that making a spoiler-free permanent missable items list would be very cool. Also, seriously, why did Yuuka fight me, this isn't fair. ; -;

Edited June 10, 2016 by Floral Pattern

[Xenomic]

Oh herp. I didn't even get a message about this post. I think EVERYONE'S died to Yuuka at the start of the game now. Why does nobody save before entering new areas!? It should've gave the option of entering, so there's no reason not to save in case of things like that. >_<

Speaking of the fairy in a wall? That's intentional. I left it there since I forgot about it, then saw it and then went "I'll just leave it like that...why not?". So now there's just a random fairy stuck in the void of the walls. Poor fairy.

There's honestly not many permanently-misseable stuff in the game. For instance, the Ying-Yang Orb that you can miss (as most do somehow), you can get again...at the end of the game through a sidequest where it's no longer useful. But it's needed for an ultimate weapon so that's why it's still around. I don't like permanently misseable stuff, always hated it when Final Fantasy games did that (or any game really). Especially when you aren't expecting it.

In other news!

I am currently working on redoing the prices of skill scrolls, because I feel they're not very well done. Especially as the game progresses, though figuring out a good price for them is the hard part. I have to take the power of the skill (or effects in some cases), any special abilities it may have, who uses it, etc. into consideration for the prices, and then from there have to gauge how much the next level will cost and so on and so forth. Not easy at all! If anyone wants to try to help with it, that'd be great. I also have new weapons to do Weapon Bless coding for (oh boy...), and will probably be doing something about the Weapon Bless system (that nobody probably uses...).

As for the game itself, it is currently about 50-70% done with beta5. Frozen Fields is done, and what's next is to cut out Ruins of Vina and replace it with a cutscene involving three characters and their interactions, and then a flashback afterwards about what happened at the Ruins and then go from there with the game normally. Still don't have Reimaden or Hokkai fully mapped either, so that's a problem. I still need to fix up the HP/MP+% accessories because they're broken and break characters...

[かベリー]

Oh good! I should go back to playing the game, but my schedule is in a bit of a chaotic state. Also, it would be cool if you added an option to turn off the character's animations to a degree, it sometimes gets really choppy and affects the gameplay and gets a little clunky, at least on my normally fast laptop.

[Xenomic]

There is no way to give such an option. If you're referring to how the game pauses after actions, that's probably due to the Weapon Bless system itself.

[Xenomic]

I apparently like to make things depressing in this game! Why yes, that is Zodiark. Why yes, that is what happens when Final Eclipse is used. Why yes...HP is not at 0 because I wouldn't be able to trigger this cutscene. Why yes...you CAN see Zodiark's HP/ATB bar still! Why yes!!! HOPE STILL IS USING REIMU'S SPRITES! Why yes...I only have one more ability to do for him before I can really test him out in-game.

Why yes...someday this game will get finished! Maybe. I hope...

On that note, for those interested, I am nearly done with beta5! I need to set up some abilities (Tonberry's Voodoo, Zodiark's Darkening Cloud, and Death's special Doom ability) and then I can test out Fallen Cave and Fallen Shrine. After that, all that's left for beta5 is the Dimensional Rift for Fallen Shrine, followed by Reimaden (need mapped still), True Pandaemonium, Silent Shrine, Palanquin Ship, and finally Hokkai (also needs mapped). Then, all that remains are the following:

Beta6: Hakurei Shrine Forest, Pandaemonium-R, Lunarian Capital, Lunarian Palace, Dimensional Rift, Sea of Clouds, and Bhava-Agra. 11 dungeons were cut out entirely from this beta.
Beta7: End of Gensokyo, Gaplands (trials might be axed out except for Reimu's), The Void, and Heart of Pandora.

The big problem though is that at this point in the story, I don't really HAVE the story mapped out really well at all for several of the dungeons, in addition to none of the dungeons being mapped. Well, I have SOME of the story planned out and whatnot, but not full story nor dialogue so that's gonna be a thing.

Getting close to being done, but still so far away! Once beta5 is done though, that's roughly 71-80% of the main story done. Sidequest stuff is still going to wait until main storyline is done. Anyone willing to do any mapping, spriting, or brainstorming, do let me know~ That'd help me out a lot (especially with mapping. Lord knows that takes me forever to get through, and being able to bust through that will make the development go by so much faster!).

Once this game is done, still thinking of that Neptunia-esque game with the fragments too. I actually have ideas and stuff planned out for that, but not the story and whatnot as usual. >_>

[Xenomic]

It begins! This is the first frame of the idle sprite, done by the wonderfully talented Graphicus! First try in this style, and I have to say...it looks VERY much Hisoutensoku style! Here's to more of his great work for Hope! ^^

[Xenomic]

Thinking on this, but what do people think of stat boosting equipment? Do you think it should be fixed % (HP +10%, HP +20%, etc.), or fixed values (HP +200, HP +400, etc.)? Which do you guys normally prefer? Since I'll be fixing up the coding for stat-boosting equipment, thought I'd get the opinion on this now. There are weapons that increase specific stats by a fixed % while still increasing that stat (for instance, Marisa's got a weapon that increases her Magic, but also increases it more by +5%), and then there's some gimmicky weapons like all of Aya's special craftable weapons which give +% Speed to the party at the cost of reducing Aya's speed by the same %).

On that note, currently nearing being done with Fallen Shrine. Two more bosses to fix up, and then testing will commence with that area. After that is the rift which shouldn't be any problem to do, and then it's time to go back to mapping since Reimaden is next! Still need ideas for Reimaden in terms of mapping and gimmicks, if anyone has any~

[Xenomic]

I forgot that I needed one more skill for Hope's version of Death's skillset. Whoops! I need to do that before I continue on with the game. On that note, I ALSO need to update Hope's version of Pestilence's skillset. So here's what I have for each of those:

For Death:

*Extinction: Costs 100% MP. Kills all enemies (excluding bosses) and ignores resistances, kills all allies, and leaves Hope at 1 HP.
*Doomja: Inflicts Doom on all enemies. Starting timer varies. 30% accuracy.

Only one of these can make it in. Doomja's easier to code, but less interesting I feel, while Extinction, whilst being really freaking powerful, is also really costly on resources and the like (1-Ups (revives with 10% Max HP) and Bs (restores 100 MP) cost 500 yen each, and Ps cost 200 yen and restore 200 HP. That adds up after a while, and that doesn't include using MP for recovery too. Extinction also wouldn't be too hard to code. Of note, both would require yet another battle event page to do. Extinction could POTENTIALLY be given to Chaos's or Pestilence's skillset for Hope too, if all else fails.


Pestilence:

Current skillset is this:

Fear: Inflicts Fear: 50 turns to one target. 16 MP.
POW Hammer: Inflicts Debrave: 50 turns to one target. 8 MP.
Deprotect: Inflicts Deprotect: 50 turns to one target. 12 MP.
Defaith: Inflicts Defaith: 50 turns to one target. 8 MP.
?????: Unused slot.
Bleed: Inflicts Sap: 50 to one target. ??? MP.
Mind Bleed: Inflicts MP Sap: 50 to one target. ??? MP.
Lock: Inflicts Lock: 50 turns to one target. ??? MP.

And the three abilities you must choose from once you get the skillset:

Reverse: Reverses statuses with the complete opposite version (i.e. Poison becomes Regen, Regen becomes Poison) to the party. 50 MP.
????: Unused slot.
Diseased Tempest: Pestilence's Limit Break, requires Hope to be under 25% Max HP and a 10% chance each turn to show up. Inflicts 1500 Wind-elemental magic damage, Fear: 50 turns, Debrave: 50 turns, Deprotect: 50 turns, Defaith: 50 turns, Sap: 50 turns, MP Sap: 50 turns, and Lock: 50 turns to all enemies. 100 MP.


Of note, Diseased Tempest and Reverse are staying for Pesti's skillset. The rest needs updated badly I feel, since they're...kinda not that useful? I still want to make the skillset very status-oriented though, so that's going to be interesting.

*Disease: Halves status resistances on all enemies for a set amount of time. This is actually something that I'm debating if I want to do. I mean, I would LIKE to, don't get me wrong, but dealing with status resistances for enemies OR allies is...really cumbersome due to how many statuses there are unfortunately.
*Pox Alleviate: Removes all statuses from Hope and heals her based on number of statuses removed. This would be one of the three abilities you could choose from.


So, any ideas for skills to give to Hope for these two skillsets in particular??

[Xenomic]

Still working on skillsets right now. I think I have a solid one for Hope's Pestilence skillset, but may need input on it.

*Banescissor: Inflicts Poison-elemental physical damage and Poison: 25, Sap: 25, MP Sap: 25, and Venom: 25 to one target.
*Bad Breath: Inflicts Poison: 25 turns, Blind: 25 turns, Silence: 25 turns, and Slow: 25 turns to one target.
*Stone Breath: Inflicts Earth-elemental magic damage and Petrify: 25 turns to all enemies.
*Wither Shot: Inflicts non-elemental physical damage and Fear: 25 turns to one target.
*????
**Pox Alleviate: Removes all statuses from Hope and heals her based on number of statuses removed
**Seven Sins:
**Diseased Tempest: Inflicts 1500 Poison-elemental damage, Poison: oo, Blind: oo, Silence: oo, Lock: oo, Fear: oo, Sap: oo, MP Sap: oo, and Slow: oo to all enemies. Requires Hope to be under 25% Max HP and a 10% chance per turn to show up.

The ** ones are ones that must be picked upon getting the skillset. Not sure what Seven Sins should do, but it should be really good to be picked. The last ???? ability is one of the normal abilities that is always accessible when in that skillset. Keep in mind that these skills cannot be used outside of Pestilence's skillset, so if Hope goes into another mode, she won't have access to these abilities!

I still need one more ability for Death's skillset too. There's an idea for it, which is this:

*Extinction: Costs 100% MP. Kills all enemies (excluding bosses) and ignores resistances, kills all allies, and leaves Hope at 1 HP.

But I'm debating if it's better for Death's skillset to have it or if Chaos should get it. Hmm...

[Xenomic]

And the animation is done! Looks amazing, no? Hopefully Graphicus will keep on-board for the rest!

Edited July 20, 2016 by Xenomic

[Xenomic]

So, I've been discussing my game with someone over on another forums. They think that it'd just be better to move my game over to a more recent program, such as MV. However, obviously I do not have the money to buy such an extravagant thing (and I don't particularly like the idea of having to be on Steam to even use a program...). I did get the trial version to see how it differed from 2k3, and I can see quite a few differences in it that I like. Being able to check monster statuses is a big plus, but also having built-in Encounter Half, Encounter None, Double Gold, Double Item Drop Rate, Pre-Emptive Strike Up, Nullify Back Attack, MP Cost Rates, Hit Rate adjustments, Item healing, forcing action, built-in Cover, etc. are all something that I really, really wish default 2k3 had. I mean, yes, there's DynRPG which I use, and it has been a great tool for my game.

However, would it be wise at this point in time to even TRY to transfer a 8-9 year old game, 40+ hours worth of gameplay, roughly 70-80% finished, to a newer maker at this point? I understand where the person is coming from, 2k3 IS really outdated and there are glaring issues with the maker that makes my game in particular kinda...jarring to play and really outdated?? But imagining all the work I'd have to do put everything back in, IF I could (I don't know if 2k3 sprites and tiles would work with MV, and I don't know what things from DynRPG I would lose transferring over. Add onto that that I don't know anything about scripting and that kinda kills some things here and there. And oh god putting in all the skills and enemies and maps and characters and auuuugh!!). I don't know, I just need opinions on the matter...

[Xenomic]

Well, gonna stick with 2k3 and finish this game. That is all decided because it'd be way too much work to move all of this to another engine, especially at nearly 70-80% completion, and it would probably never get finished for sure then.

Anywho, I'm thinking of another idea for Reimaden, which may be more fitting, in that instead of being like the Mausoleum from Tales of Symphonia, it'll be more like...Arianrod Labyrinth from Valkyrie Profile. Don't know what that is? Let's just say...even to this day, I don't understand the mechanics of the puzzle there. Basically...well, take a look at it on YouTube is all I can say. The place is kinda like a math dungeon of sorts but...it's weirdly done and there's no good hints as to what you're supposed to do at all and whatnot. The main goal would STILL to be open the main door in the front foyer, but the library would have two switches that would give two different values and possibly +, -, x, or /, and from there depending on the result will teleport the player to that specific "floor". The way to open the main door would be to find the activation seal through here, but I may have it so that the other hidden treasures are hidden either in here, or the player has to find more seals to unlock locked doors in the rooms to the left and right of the main mansion part.

Yay or nay? It's more complex and involved, but totally fits with the whole "pocket dimension" thing that Reimaden is usually involved in and whatnot. Plus it totally seems like a thing that Mima would try to do too.

[Xenomic]

So since Graphicus has been helping me with Hope's sprites, I've been thinking of fixing up all of the character sprites to be...bigger. Of course, this means a crapton of work that'll need to be done and a lot of fixing but...well, I'd rather not have his nice spriting animation put to waste by downsizing too much. So, what's a good size for characters to be?

Default size the sprite is (around 83x96), which seems TOO BIG for 4 characters on that side of the screen at once. Not to mention I don't know how the cursor would like handling that and other things like status icons:





Normal size (aka the size that most of my sprites are at. 66 height is usually the rough maximum). It really butchers the spriting badly, and it makes me feel really bad:




Current size (between 96 and 66, so around 80 for height is roughly the estimate). This seems to be the way to go for this particular sprite, as it's not TOO degraded like the other sprite. Cursor doesn't seem too far off, though I can't speak on status icons. Those shouldn't be too hard to deal with though):




I also tested this particular sprite with 4 characters (having them all use Hope's default sprite):




So...would the default size be good to use (or is it too big)? Would the above be good (not TOO big, but not TOO small nor degraded)? Or...would the normal size sprites that I use for battle animations be fine (smaller so can see the characters, but really degraded sprites)? Just trying to find that right medium before I attempt to fix up character sprites and all that.


EDIT - I GUESS I should probably show this new animation too, right? Right! Skill use animation for Hope~

Edited August 8, 2016 by Xenomic

[Xenomic]

See video description for more information. Basically just testing this kind of sprite resizing. It's blurry, yeah, but it's not all garbled up. Hmm...