Fire Emblem: Celestial Alignment

[Baelyana]

Heya, Reddit! So you might've seen /u/ostianwendy's post a few days ago (it's here if you need a link) saying that we were planning to do a hack, but we needed a team. Anyways, after a few more days of planning, we have the background of the story and what ideas we would like to input down.

Ideas:

• Three lords; one specialising in swords as we usually see in FE, but one that specialises in staves, and one that uses bows. This can make for some really interesting strategy and gameplay. Do you use your bow lord for chip and ranged support, or outfit them to be a fully-fledged combat unit? Similarly, will the staff lord remain a staffbot, or will they slowly rise into a magic powerhouse? It's up to the player how they utilise their lords; which in the end is rather satisfying in and of itself. They would have custom-made battle sprites and animations, of course.
• Adding swords that only thieves can use. They would function similarly to knives, except they would be filed under swords.
• Adding some classes. We haven't finalized what classes we want yet, but we do know that we would like to implement thunder, fire and wind mages to give a more Radiant Dawn feel.

That's all the ideas we are set on for now, but feel free to tell us what else you would like to see!

Anyways, time for the backstory to the game. It'll be difficult to put this much backstory into the game without too much exposition, but I'm sure we can manage. We have just started on planning the story of the game itself. Warning: Wall of text.

Nations (Capital City), Founders, brief nation description:

• Diana (Apollon), Gemini & Pisces, with no living deity to define this nation, there is not much economical and cultural substance. The Myrmidons and Cavaliers roam the fields, while a small Troubadour community lives in the east. Little religion is found here; and Gemini and Pisces were controversial figures. Therefore, Diana is viewed as a renegade and dangerous nation.
• Shoson (Peruno), Sagittarius & Virgo, Sawyer, stormy mountains and rocky hills define the geography of this nation. Hardy Nomads and Archers train in the scarce flat areas that are in the country, while Thunder Mages protect the mountains from harm.
• Phane (Vichim), Scorpio & Libra, peaceful and serene, this perfect mix of Light and Dark showcases some of the best Magi scholars in the continent where large citadels loom over flat plains. Housed the Deities' former council, ruled by Scorpio and Libra.
• Borea (Alaz), Leo & Aquarius, windswept plains and forests are peppered with snow in the winter and plagued by droug hts in the summer. The population is used to erratic weather, and trains in Fire and Wind magic in their schools.
• Cynos (Sellasia), Taurus & Aries, Military-driven by Aries after Taurus's death. Halberdiers and Knights patrol the nation's keeps, while Pegasi and Wyverns protect the skies with incredible lance skills.
• Veles (Laloc), Cancer & Capricorn, filled with Pirates and Thieves; well-guarded keeps are on top of huge cliffs on the south coastline. The country's Mercenaries battle to quash the crime, much to Cancer's dismay, causing Cancer and Capricorn to fight occasionally.

Plot Outline:

"Thousands and thousands of years ago, the continent of Diakos was formed by many meteors striking the sea, triggering earthquakes that made volcanoes shoot land up to the surface. As the land cooled and life began to grow, twelve young gods came down from the heavens and established six nations: Diana, formed by Gemini and Pisces, Shoson, formed by Virgo and Sagittarius, Phane, formed by Scorpio and Libra, Veles, formed by Cancer and Capricorn, Cynos, formed by Aries and Taurus, and Borea, formed by Leo and Aquarius. The lonely astral beings created mortals to populate the land and make it prosper. Over the years, the mortals became envious of the gods' immortality, and they began to defy the deities' wills and created their own religion. In turn, the gods were angered and wiped out much of the religion's followers. They would've killed the entire continent, but Pisces convinced them to retreat back to the stars. Before doing so, they altered the memories of the remaining humans.

Fast forward a thousand years. Diakos is being ruled by a corrupted empire. Rebels began conspiring under the empire's nose, and after digging through thousands of years of information, they found documents preceding the time of the empire. One document told of a way to summon legends long forgotten. A ritual was then performed, which forced the gods out of hiding. Angered from this and their last experience with humans, the gods (excluding Pisces) murdered the rebels and took down the empire themselves using weapons they crafted during their time in the heavens. They reestablished their six nations and twisted history, making it seem like they saved the land and did no wrong. They made themselves legends, while using their physical form to worship those legends. This was to make them seem mortal and not cause humans to become jealous of their everlasting life. However, Pisces was still distraught over the slaughter of the rebels, and it caused her and Gemini's family to be split apart. Gemini, filled with anger and stress, found a village woman and had an affair with her. When he came home, he felt guilty about cheating on his wife but did not want to distress her, so he kept quiet, but Pisces was already stressed by Gemini's fluctuating personality.

He would frequently approve of Pisces's kind acts, yet some days he seemed to want to commit the awful acts of violence the gods had committed before. These conflicting thoughts still could not overcome his love for his wife, and they had a son together a months later. Things were not all well with the other gods either. In particular, Scorpio and his rival Taurus were constantly arguing about who should be leader of the Diakos' political board, so Virgo; known for being neutral, stepped in and called Taurus and Scorpio to a duel: the winner of which would inherit the throne; the other one faced death. They fought a long, arduous and brave duel, but it was Scorpio's dark hexes that won him the throne. Aries, Taurus's wife, was heartbroken, which led her to become stone cold, ruthless and bitter, especially to Scorpio and Virgo. Instead of taking out her anger, she opened a military camp, where she trained the finest warriors in the continent. Scorpio and his wife, Libra, were a perfect mix of light and dark, and they led the council of deities with both strictness and fairness.

Cancer and Capricorn led a crime-ridden country, even though it was filled to the brim with mercenaries from Capricorn's guild. Cancer supported the thieves, who he said stole to make a living, because no one else in "their useless country" wanted anything but mercenaries. Not everyone was a fighter. Thus, Cancer and Capricorn fought often over mercenary control and crime control. Borea was ravaged by droughts in the summer and blizzards in the winter, but the citizens were used to and prepared for these conditions. Nonetheless, it was impossible to grow food or raise animals, so they had to import great amounts from other nations in the spring and fall. Bad weather aside, Leo and Aquarius' fire and wind magic school was one of the most prestigious in Diakos. Phane, under its air of prestige and sophistication, had cracks just like the rest of the world. Scorpio insisted on upholding their well-mannered and civilized society, whereas Libra wanted to strictly punish Phanians who did not follow the Church of the Stars, which was the main shrine to the twelve gods. The lower class, which could not afford to travel to the coast of Phane to worship and were mainly viewed as uncivilized, was mostly ignored by the higher-ups.

In Diana, Pisces was hysterical over the death of Taurus at the hands of his own kind. The weight of all the deaths caused by her kind took a toll on her mental state. She began thinking of death, even though it wasn't possible for a god like her. Instead, Pisces set off for a land that Diakoans weren't sure existed. She had caught mention of it in her research of who-knows-what. And so, she disappeared from Diana without a word, leaving Gemini and her child alone. As soon as Gemini realized that Pisces had vanished, he made a decision to go and find her; wherever she may be. However, someone had to take care of their child, as he was still only an infant. Therefore, Gemini entrusted the care of his son to Sagittarius, a close friend of his. Sagittarius vowed to protect the child with his wife, Virgo. Soon after, Gemini left on his expedition. Weeks later, no news had surfaced about the whereabouts of Gemini or his wife. The remaining gods sent out many search parties, reaching the very edges of the continent, but to no avail. Gemini and Pisces were pronounced missing and their child orphaned, left in the care of Sagittarius indefinitely. Things were not all well in Shoson regardless of this, due to Sagittarius's wish of having a child with Virgo (along with the boy left in their care), but Virgo would not comply. She grew tired of Sagittarius's constant requests, so she decided to live a life of solace in the towering mountains of Shoson where she trained Thunder Mages to protect her settlement and defend the mountains. Both deities had equal power over their country, but Sagittarius barely ever intervened with Virgo's affairs. Though he had Gemini and Pisces' son to raise, he had a child of his own with a noblewoman. The two children were raised together, as if they were twins. Sagittarius had not, nor did he plan to, tell his adopted son about his mother and father.

In a Dianan village lives a young girl and her single mother. Her father had left her mother years ago. At least, that was what her mother told her."

So yeah. Once again, we're looking to see if anyone's interested in programming, spriting, animating, composing, or writing. Here's what /u/ostianwendy and I can do in terms of hacking:

/u/ostianwendy has used Nightmare to change classes, bases and growths but that's it. We can recolour sprites decently and so can you, and we're working on splicing. We both don't know much at all about advanced hacking, but /u/ostianwendy has read the hacking guide by someone a few times. We're planning to use FEXP to create the game.

Taken from here.

TL;DR We're looking to recruit people to work on this hack. We're mainly very short on hackers/programmers, spriters, composers, and animators. We'd also like more ideas from you guys.

Edited August 26, 2015 by Baelyana

[Nanami Touko]

What are you offering in terms of payment/what are you willing to provide?

[Baelyana]

What exactly do you mean in terms of payment?

[ghast]

at least you have a story set out. But you'd have better luck if you showed a proof of concept or something. Screenshots are a must need.for this kind of stuff.

what he means by payment is more or less compensation.

A lot of concepts don't really have any actual proof of concept, so asking for help doesn't really work out since there's no really proof that their efforts can go some where meaningful. This is esp. true for newer project makers, since as contributors, folks don't know whether you're gonna work on the project or if this is gonna float around and eventually be dropped :P

There's a lot of open source maps and sprites in the community here. So I suggest you try to show some characters and map stuff. You know, tangible stuff that makes people interested.

[OstianWendy]

What kind of screenshots do you mean? We have not worked on maps/character sprites yet, which is why we'd like some advice/help on these things.

[Nanami Touko]

What exactly do you mean in terms of payment?

money? a reason to contribute?

it's nice and all that you have an idea, but more often than not these FE hacks/ideas just get dropped to the wayside, leaving the artists who've worked on them with things half finished, and time wasted.

at least if you pay someone for your sprites/animations/hacking, they'll get something out of it if you drop the project, so they didn't waste their time.

you can think that's stupid, to pay for pixels or hacking, but these things take hours of work

if you're not sure it's worth it, you're free to ask questions about these things and try yourself

but i wouldn't expect any of the quality hackers/spriters out there to jump into another idea for free.

[OstianWendy]

We never said spriting was easy; we're fully aware it takes time and dedication, which is why we want to get a general idea of who is interested and what we can do to further development in the project. Myself and Baelyana are willing to try our hand at spriting because we're passionate about the ideas and concepts we've put forward.

[ghast]

We never said spriting was easy; we're fully aware it takes time and dedication, which is why we want to get a general idea of who is interested and what we can do to further development in the project. Myself and Baelyana are willing to try our hand at spriting because we're passionate about the ideas and concepts we've put forward.

great! Then I'll look forward to progress. See how the thread goes and play it by ear, i suppose :o

[Baelyana]

Okay, thanks. We're discussing a form of payment.

[CT075]

you might get more success on FEU; I can't promise that people there (myself included) will be noticeably more charitable, but it has a far more expansive collection of "bleeding edge" free resources (anything from random mechanic mods to free sprites, etc)

[OstianWendy]

Well, I tried splicing, so here's Aaliyah, the main character: http://imgur.com/460Sw5f

Tell me what you think.

[ghast]

Not bad! By the way, these threads are all open source. You can either use em as place holders or full out use them!

http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=54282

https://www.dropbox.com/s/qe2fsidnadbg2sv/NicktCollection.7z?dl=0

[OstianWendy]

Thank you! Is there anything I could do to improve?

[Baelyana]

So I know it's been a few weeks, but we've tried to crank out some sprites.

http://i.imgur.com/zpvdDuk.png Here's another one of the lords, Percy.

We'd like some tips on how to improve!

Edited September 18, 2015 by Baelyana

[Toa]

His hair looks kinda slapped on, not a lot of shading integrating it onto the face and neck. His body is kinda hard to tell what's going on, the trim blends in in a lot of places. The cape also looks weird without having a third shade. Also he has 35 colors O.O If you're looking for sprite feedback you'll probably have better luck on the sprite forum, too.

[Baelyana]

Thank you! We'll try to fix that. And okay, I'll try posting these in the Sprite forum.

[TerryPrince]

Hey aspiring author here so If you need help with the story I'll be glad to help.

[TerryPrince]

.

Edited September 20, 2015 by TerryPrince

[Reboot]

A want to try a hand at mapmaking. So if you need help with that I can try. here is something i have made(http://imgur.com/KifiRde)

Edited January 21, 2016 by Reboot

[JamesMuddy]

I wouldn't mind doing some splicing for portraits, and possibly some events.

Edited January 21, 2016 by JamesMuddy