[FE8] Fire Emblem: Dust to Dust

[eclipse]

Gameplay mechanic - Does Something on the map.

Positioning mechanic - "Put unit X here, unit Y here, and unit Z there".

What you described is a gameplay mechanic, and I don't remember seeing much (if anything) about it. The demo is doable without it, but if the player has no clue about this, they're not going to employ it!

EDIT: I wouldn't recommend building the game around the triangle attack, because I don't think limiting a player's options is good game design. At best, I'd leave it for optional things on a map (like a General holding a promotion item way off in a corner).

Edited October 10, 2015 by eclipse

[circleseverywhere]

Well, there is this line:

In the final game, there's one particular boss I had in mind for the Triangle Attack but otherwise it's usually not a big deal.

[eclipse]

I don't mind if there's hints dropped along the way about certain things (Midnight Sun does this well), but if you told me that meant "triangle attack", my response would've been "huh?"

And fair enough with the actual game design (which I really want to see). The triangle attack was pretty gimmicky when I first saw it (FE7), but it's something that I felt was best left optional.

[circleseverywhere]

I figured out how to rip tilesets from FE7 and import into FE8, then I spent a bunch of time trying to map, and now the prologue looks like this:

The objective is to escape via the hidden staircase at the top. Snow will fall the first couple of turns to slow down the enemies outside, preventing you from getting mobbed.

I'm also considering a revamp of the weapons systems. Normal weapons are unbreakable but weak, and Dust-powered magic weapons have limited uses but do not disappear when broken and can be "reloaded" using a Dust Vial item. So the player has to care about Dust supplies, and not just because it's important to the plot.

[Agro]

... What's wrong with your Cavalier map sprites?

[InvdrZim13]

They appear to be emulating Awakening

[Tequila]

They're sinking into the snow/floor, duh. The real question is, who's playing Jumanji?

[circleseverywhere]

I'm using Eventiel, every map sprite has to be 1 tile large. You should see the Demon King.

[InvdrZim13]

show us

[circleseverywhere]

[VeryAngryBisharp]

Nice! I love me some RWBY! "Nino cosplaying Ruby?" is the first thing I thought.

[InvdrZim13]

It's beautiful

[BlueL]

Go find the FE8 English ROM on your own. Don't ask for where to get it, and everyone else, don't say a damn thing about where it is (I will warn anyone who wants to name-drop).

You'll also need the patch, which is in the first post, and NUPS. I believe the stickies scattered around Fan Projects should be able to help you with that.

Sorry, I've never played a hack of anything before before so I wasn't aware you needed a ROM. I assumed it came with it. Thanks.

[circleseverywhere]

Getting better at this ASM hacking thing: I now have working Dust Vials! They restore up to 10 uses of the first eligible weapon in your inventory, and can be used 3 times. Had to do it from scratch, since disassembling the Hammerne effect turned out to be unbelievably complicated.

I've also removed the 5 support limit, and replaced it with "only one A support" instead. Not that I have any support conversations yet, but it's something that always bugged me.

The Snow Castle tileset has been imported, the Prologue chapter's gameplay is good to go, I just need to add in some more cutscenes and world map events (incidentally, there's a whole new world map!)

And I've finally settled on how Ruby's animation will look. Now I just need several hours of uninterrupted focus to smash it out but who knows when that'll happen

[InvdrZim13]

Getting better at this ASM hacking thing: I now have working Dust Vials! They restore up to 10 uses of the first eligible weapon in your inventory, and can be used 3 times. Had to do it from scratch, since disassembling the Hammerne effect turned out to be unbelievably complicated.

I've also removed the 5 support limit, and replaced it with "only one A support" instead. Not that I have any support conversations yet, but it's something that always bugged me.

noice

[eclipse]

I can always shove you in purgatory, so you can't go anywhere else on SF until you finish Ruby's animation!

I'd like to see the support convo limit in action. That's something that bugged me, too!

[circleseverywhere]

There's not really much to see, it does exactly what you'd expect. The display can't fit all 7 support partners though so I might have to limit that to 5 or 6. Should also be pretty easy to make an FE7 version and release both patches.

EDIT This is what it looks like

Eirika and Seth both have well over 5 supports, but can still support each other:

However, give Eirika an A support with Ephraim and she can no longer A support Seth:

But she can still raise their C support to B:

And finally, when you have 7 support partners FoĘ̴̴҉d͟͜r̀̀͝҉͝i҉͘ka is born:

Edited October 22, 2015 by circleseverywhere

[eclipse]

Obvious solution is to cut max support partners down to six.

Still, that looks nifty. I'd love to see just how ridiculous the support boosts will get!

[Wayward Winds]

Obvious solution is to cut max support partners down to six.

Still, that looks nifty. I'd love to see just how ridiculous the support boosts will get!

The problem with that is that the RWBY main main character list essentially consists of an A team (Ruby, Weiss, Blake and Yang) and a B team (Jaune, Nora, Pyrrha and Ren). Those two teams are very heavily interlinked, to the point that it would be difficult to pick which pairings to cut. It gets even more complicated with obvious relationships/friendships that stretch outside the main 8; Blake is getting plenty of ship tease with Sun, Yang and Neptune are getting along fine, Weiss has her older sister Winter about to show up (although I don't expect her to be fully on the side of good, so she might not need Supports), Ruby and Yang have uncle Quan, Ruby and Penny seem to have a full on friendship underway, Yang's mother Raven is just popping up and looks to be more friend than foe... you get the picture.

[spoiler=A few ideas...]

If you were to cut them down to six per character, the only ones that absolutely have to exist are all of the team RWBY to Team RWBY connections, Pyrrha and Jaune (and Jaune had better start noticing her interest!), Blake and Sun, and Nora and Ren. Ren's not the most talkative, so he probably doesn't need many other support options. I'm not yet sure if Yang and Neptune is going anywhere serious. Jaune's obsession with Weiss could be another option for him, and Ruby has good "both teamleaders" rapport going with him.

Ruby's actually the biggest problem with Supports because of the sheer number of people she gets along well with. But at present for her, Weiss, Blake, Yang, Jaune and Penny seem to be the most important. At least until Qrow shows up.

Anyway, about the demo. I quite enjoyed it, even if the standard arena map isn't all that representative of Beacon's canteen. The CG of RWBY looked a little jagged, but not too bad for cramming a massive screenshot into a dinky little GBA screen. The custom animations were all nice, and I was pleasantly surprised to get all of RWBY's crit's in one run (but not Pyrrha's. So as far as I'm aware, it could just be a reskinned Halberdier crit.). Hopefully you're planning Nora's crazy hammer/RPG thing at some point; she just doesn't seem right using magic.

RWBY music works pretty well in midi form! Hope the rest of the music list in the OP turns up in the next patch.

One gameplay quibble; I couldn't get any triangle attacks to work, even when it was the start of my turn and all of my gals had Pyrrha boxed in. No matter who I moved first, no sign of a triangle attack. Who exactly is needed for it? I got a few lucky crits and managed to do a no losses run, but Nora and Pyrrha could easily have ended someone with one lucky crit (and did on a couple of attempts).

Looking forward to the first actual story release!

[circleseverywhere]

Eh, it's not so bad. I only have 5 solid options for Ruby (WBY, Jaune, Penny) and there's room for 6.

Pyrrha's crit is unfinished, currently it's just a longer pause before the normal attack. I have a scribbled concept but Ruby comes first.

I might convert Valkyrie into a flying staff/axe user, I need early game flying and Pyrrha is already too much like Cordelia.

The triangle attacks don't show the quote or the pegs, but the slashes still appear and it's still a guaranteed crit.

[ErrantDShepherd]

Color me intrigued... Will have to check this out. Very impressive from first impressions however. :)

[scott99]

I like it, and I'm very impressed with the progress so far.

[circleseverywhere]

RWBY Volume 3 is out! Motivation is high! I've got a ton of new ideas!

In other news, with help from Brendor I've finished the Dust Vial/Repair Kit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHh7YwmGYDk

Currently it repairs the first eligible weapon in inventory by 10 uses.

[Toriel]

Blake's animation looks amazing but Weiss is just sad.

-She's way too blue.

-She's using her right hand.

-She never used Myrtenaster the same way Eirika did.

My sprites are still WIP and they're not that good but at least she's wielding Myrtenaster the right way.

http://radiantdolphin.deviantart.com/art/Weiss-568619764?ga_submit_new=10%253A1445942624

P.S. Except the Weiss animation the hack looks very promising. I noticed that Yang lacks an unarmed dodge animation and that the game crashes when Ruby is attacked when she's unarmed. Also, the whole Cat-Swordmaster, Huntress-Myrmidon thing will mess you up. Feel free to throw any betas and such towards me, I'll gladly help.

[circleseverywhere]

Weiss is the first animation I ever made, and without it this hack would not exist. Obviously I've improved since then, but fixing up existing assets is low priority when so much other stuff still needs making - like map sprites for Ruby and Blake. And I'm rather fond of the crit.

The disarm animation is a known issue. I narrowed it down to FEditor shenanigans, but it's not in the final game so I don't need to fix it.

Thanks for your input.