Serenes Forest Emblem (Proof of Concept)

[Von Ithipathachai]

@eclipse @BergelomeuSantos @Von Ithipathachai @Joshii @Interdimensional Observer @Rezzy @Acacia Sgt @alatartheblue42 @Anacybele @Dragoncat @Nym @thecrimsonflash @Pengaius

For those of you not aware, I've been collaborating with Joshii on a Fire Emblem fangame starring the users of Serenes Forest.  What I've cooked up here is a simple one-chapter proof of concept demo to show off the viability of a more complete game.  The project is still in its early stages, so what you see in this demo might not accurately reflect what's in the final game.

Features returning from Sanctaea Chronicles:

• Single RNG
• The Weapon Triangle (Swords, Lances, Axes), which grants Accuracy ±15
• The Trinity of Magic (Light, Anima, Dark), which grants Attack ±3 and Accuracy ±15
• 2-3-Range Bows and Fates-style Daggers, which are triangle-independent
• AS = Spd - Wt (you need 5 more AS than your opponent for follow-up attacks)

New features:

• Proper weapon ranks
• Mystery of the Emblem-style Manaketes (and a Cat Laguz-like class called Therians)

Planned features (for the full game):

• Base (including Bonus EXP)
• C-A Supports (will probably be implemented last)
• Alternate endings
• New Game+
• Reclassing
• Ironman Mode (Merciless Mode?)

Dropbox link

(NOTE: This game is best played with the mouse, along with the Left and Right arrow keys of the keyboard for toggling between the various pages of the unit menu.)

(Don't let the thread title fool you, we still have room for up to 40 characters)

Screenshots:

Spoiler

Edited June 6, 2019 by Von Ithipathachai

[Anacybele]

I gave a mug and sprites to use as reference and it looks like they weren't bothered with at all? Or are the final character mugs still being worked on since you said this isn't reflecting the final build of the game? Because my character currently looks nothing like me or that mug sprite I gave. Just wondering.

[Von Ithipathachai]

1 minute ago, Anacybele said:

I gave a mug and sprites to use as reference and it looks like they weren't bothered with at all? Or are the final character mugs still being worked on since you said this isn't reflecting the final build of the game? Because my character currently looks nothing like me or that mug sprite I gave. Just wondering.

I would prefer to wait until I have more GBA-style portraits before I start using them.  So far only me, you, and AzuraxCorrin(M)4Life have portraits for our characters (mine is a Canas recolor).

Until then I have to go with default portraits that are rough approximations of either your GBA-style portrait (if applicable) or your avatar here.  Some people like Joshii and Acacia Sgt change their avatars so often I had to pick an earlier one to try and replicate.

[Anacybele]

13 minutes ago, Von Ithipathachai said:

I would prefer to wait until I have more GBA-style portraits before I start using them.  So far only me, you, and AzuraxCorrin(M)4Life have portraits for our characters (mine is a Canas recolor).

Until then I have to go with default portraits that are rough approximations of either your GBA-style portrait (if applicable) or your avatar here.  Some people like Joshii and Acacia Sgt change their avatars so often I had to pick an earlier one to try and replicate.

I didn't mean you had to actually use the portrait I gave you. Like I said, you could also just use it as a reference to make one of your own, especially if you don't want to actually use GBA style portraits.

[Sub Zero]

@Von Ithipathachai If possible, just make a blond Lugh sprite. Closest thing to me anyway.

Good looking game btw!

Edited June 6, 2019 by Joshii

[Von Ithipathachai]

13 minutes ago, Anacybele said:

I didn't mean you had to actually use the portrait I gave you. Like I said, you could also just use it as a reference to make one of your own, especially if you don't want to actually use GBA style portraits.

I do want to use GBA-style, though, and will probably just use the one you provided once we get enough to start getting rid of the default portraits.

[Anacybele]

Just now, Von Ithipathachai said:

I do want to use GBA-style, though, and will probably just use the one you provided once we get enough to start getting rid of the default portraits.

Ohhh, okay then, fair enough.

[Nym]

Holy it looks pretty!

Good job!

[Von Ithipathachai]

Crap, uhhhh...  Forgot to add to the credits, Lady Rena did the graphics for one of the weapons (the Ban Hammer, which is a gold recolor of the normal hammer graphic).

[Pengaius]

Just asking is this a patch or do I need a specific program to run this, or what. Do I need a computer to run it. 

[Von Ithipathachai]

1 minute ago, Pengaius said:

Just asking is this a patch or do I need a specific program to run this, or what. Do I need a computer to run it. 

You should just be able to download the .zip file from the Dropbox link, extract the contents, and run the game.exe file.  (Ignore any warnings your computer might give you.)

...You're not a Mac user, are you?

[Pengaius]

Just now, Von Ithipathachai said:

You should just be able to download the .zip file from the Dropbox link, extract the contents, and run the game.exe file.  (Ignore any warnings your computer might give you.)

...You're not a Mac user, are you?

iPad actually, and I don't have anything to extract it with. 

[Von Ithipathachai]

5 minutes ago, Pengaius said:

iPad actually, and I don't have anything to extract it with. 

...Crap.  You will need a computer that runs Windows to play this.  Sorry.

But I can tell you the default portrait I picked should be a pretty good approximation of your avatar.  Yellow hair, light skin and clothing, and bits of a green sash(?) visible.

EDIT:

Spoiler

 

Edited June 6, 2019 by Von Ithipathachai

[Pengaius]

2 minutes ago, Von Ithipathachai said:

...Crap.  You will need a computer that runs Windows to play this.  Sorry.

But I can tell you the default portrait I picked should be a pretty good approximation of your avatar.  Yellow hair, light skin and clothing, and bits of a green sash(?) visible.

Ah well, c'est la vie. 

The portrait thing should be fine too. 

[Sire]

Finished the demo. Overall, it was a fun enough experience. I'm guessing the project will be going the lighthearted route when it comes to storytelling.

1. Manaketes needing to transform first before going into combat took some adjustment, but using the Manakete character we had was fun. I look forward to a possible Manakete Triangle Attack in the full game (if that's gonna be a thing.)
-- I played and finished Shadow Dragon, but my memories of the game is basically nonexistent. If I sit back and think hard on it, I'll recall some things, but that's it...

2. I had fun with my first full playthrough of the demo, but the SRPG assets seemed to hinder my enjoyable a little. When I turned off the music and just had the SFX and unit graphics, I had a lot more fun with it.
-- Granted, this is more of me complaining about SPRG Studio than the demo itself. I don't know why, but SRPG Studio's stuff just looks off to me. The battle sprites and animations are all right, but the overworld map sprites and tileset bother me...

* * * * *

These are just my first impressions. It took me some time to look up the controls and see what all I could do (such as looking up tooltips and unit skills). I could try to deep delve into it, but on the surface everything looks good from my end.

I look forward to the full version whenever we can get around to working on that.

[Von Ithipathachai]

3 minutes ago, Sire said:

-- Granted, this is more of me complaining about SPRG Studio than the demo itself. I don't know why, but SRPG Studio's stuff just looks off to me. The battle sprites and animations are all right, but the overworld map sprites and tileset bother me...

Funny.  Usually when I see people complain about SRPG Studio's assets it's the opposite, i.e. the map sprites look fine, but the battle sprites and animations look ugly (probably because they're not GBA Fire Emblem assets).

I'm fine with SRPG Studio's default assets, though.

[alatartheblue42]

Thanks for making this!

The things I noticed:

Wow, I've played way too much SRW and not enough FE lately. I made some serious noob choices because I forgot SRW has things FE doesn't.

Crimson is broke af. Part of that's her def, part is her targeting Res, and part is that there doesn't seem to be any benefit to staying unshifted, nor penalty for being essentially permanently shifted other than using 2-3 uses of your stone per chapter. I'd personally consider giving some sort of incentive to being unshifted so that its not 100% inferior, or maybe reduce the shift duration.

Eclipse kinda is too; the only things that give her any trouble in the slightest are the axes in the second area and the shaman. Depending on how hard you want the gameplay to be, I'd consider reducing a couple of her bases by a point or two.

It'd be nice to have an in-battle indicator whether someone is attacking 2 times.

A shapeshift turns remaining counter would be convenient. Not that its a major inconvenience to unshift; I can just reshift that same turn anyway, but its still preferable to know how much time I have left.

Not really much reason to use Ana's Mythril sword when it only adds 2% evade, 5% crit, and 1 AS in exchange for losing 5% accuracy and 2 damage. Unless you're on an AS threshold, I suppose.

Is it possible to get the left village without using Kat? I think the thief starts moving a turn too soon to realistically do it with land units, other than maybe rushing Ana out to kill the thief as the #1 priority and hoping for the best.

The Therian transformed map sprite looks more like a giant squirrel than a cat.

Bane is a cool concept, but (imo) you should either not implement it or you should look into a way to make it never trigger on an attack the enemy is going to die from. In the two times Bane has activated for me (once here, once in RD), both times it ended up sparing someone I thought I was going to kill.

[shanni20]

i've seen discussions of portraits and the like, a brown haired Innes would be nice

[alatartheblue42]

Oh, yeah, portraits. Uh, I'm useless when it comes to art stuff, but if anyone wants to try their hand or knows someone who'd (probably) be willing, a portrait of my avatar would be cool. Otherwise, I'll see about asking around the forum or something if anyone's willing.

[Von Ithipathachai]

8 minutes ago, alatartheblue42 said:

Crimson is broke af. Part of that's her def, part is her targeting Res, and part is that there doesn't seem to be any benefit to staying unshifted, nor penalty for being essentially permanently shifted other than using 2-3 uses of your stone per chapter. I'd personally consider giving some sort of incentive to being unshifted so that its not 100% inferior, or maybe reduce the shift duration.

Eclipse kinda is too; the only things that give her any trouble in the slightest are the axes in the second area and the shaman. Depending on how hard you want the gameplay to be, I'd consider reducing a couple of her bases by a point or two.

It'd be nice to have an in-battle indicator whether someone is attacking 2 times.

A shapeshift turns remaining counter would be convenient. Not that its a major inconvenience to unshift; I can just reshift that same turn anyway, but its still preferable to know how much time I have left.

Not really much reason to use Ana's Mythril sword when it only adds 2% evade, 5% crit, and 1 AS in exchange for losing 5% accuracy and 2 damage. Unless you're on an AS threshold, I suppose.

Is it possible to get the left village without using Kat? I think the thief starts moving a turn too soon to realistically do it with land units, other than maybe rushing Ana out to kill the thief as the #1 priority and hoping for the best.

The Therian transformed map sprite looks more like a giant squirrel than a cat.

Bane is a cool concept, but (imo) you should either not implement it or you should look into a way to make it never trigger on an attack the enemy is going to die from. In the two times Bane has activated for me (once here, once in RD), both times it ended up sparing someone I thought I was going to kill.

I really only included Nym and Crimson to show off the shapeshifting classes.  I would like to have a weapon family akin to anti-Laguz weapons that would be effective against Therians and Manaketes, but am willing to consider other options.  The final game probably would not give you a Manakete in the first chapter, for example.  But I'm also interested in having different varieties of Beast/Dragonstone that give increasingly powerful bonuses, i.e. Beaststone, Beaststone+, Beaststone++.  Shortening transformation duration from, say, 5 to 4 could work, too.

Eclipse will probably have a lower starting Level in the final game and have her base stats lowered appropriately.

There should already be an indicator for follow-up attacks.  Maybe none of your units could double-attack, so you never got to see it.

Making that House reachable with units other than Kat wasn't a big priority of mine since there's only the one chapter.  But when I rework it for the final game I'll probably address that issue.

The only units I ever give Bane are the Jagens, mostly to discourage you from overusing them.

[alatartheblue42]

5 minutes ago, Von Ithipathachai said:

There should already be an indicator for follow-up attacks.  Maybe none of your units could double-attack, so you never got to see it.

No, I know the one that shows on the battle preview screen. I meant during the actual combat animation, it would be nice to have one.

6 minutes ago, Von Ithipathachai said:

The only units I ever give Bane are the Jagens, mostly to discourage you from overusing them.

Isn't the point of a Jagen to be an emergency "Oh hey, I need X dead" or "I need to tank Y with something other than my main lord's face"? Can't really deadify things in emergencies if you randomly leave them with 1 HP instead of actually killing them sometimes.

[Von Ithipathachai]

1 minute ago, alatartheblue42 said:

Isn't the point of a Jagen to be an emergency "Oh hey, I need X dead" or "I need to tank Y with something other than my main lord's face"? Can't really deadify things in emergencies if you randomly leave them with 1 HP instead of actually killing them sometimes.

I thought they were for wearing things down so weaker units could kill them easier.  That's probably the lingering FE noob side of me talking.

[alatartheblue42]

17 minutes ago, Von Ithipathachai said:

I thought they were for wearing things down so weaker units could kill them easier.  That's probably the lingering FE noob side of me talking.

Hmm, I suppose that's another way of looking at it. Personally, if I ever needed a Jagen to soften up an enemy, I'd just use an Iron weapon (for something like an armor mook) or whatever was needed to reduce the boss effectively without killing them. No need for Bane to activate. It also annoys me that it was Sothe's T3 skill rather than just Lethality or something.

Edited June 7, 2019 by alatartheblue42

[AnonymousSpeed]

Oh boy, excited to play this eventually probably!

There are a few ways to interpret the gameplay role of a Jeigan, but ultimately I think "crutch character" (kills things in the early game and doesn't do much afterwards) is the best interpretation. That's why they give Marcus a Silver Lance, so that even very threatening enemies can be killed with him. Weakening enemies is the job of Marcus with the Iron Sword.

[Von Ithipathachai]

5 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Oh boy, excited to play this eventually probably!

There are a few ways to interpret the gameplay role of a Jeigan, but ultimately I think "crutch character" (kills things in the early game and doesn't do much afterwards) is the best interpretation. That's why they give Marcus a Silver Lance, so that even very threatening enemies can be killed with him. Weakening enemies is the job of Marcus with the Iron Sword.

Ah, I get it now.

Guess I will need to figure out a different Skill for Rezzy now.