[From hack to indie] Path of the Midnight Sun

[CT075]

I mean, just look at the sprites of my first screenshoots and look at the ones I recently released

the improvements are minimal

[eclipse]

Hmmm, that shade of pink looks better. You can work on doing a better job of shading Louise's hair next. . .

I think I found out what's bugging me about Cristoph's sprite. Can you move the eye closest to us a couple of pixels to the left?

[Alfred Kamon]

as long as the sprites aren't deformed or use terrible colors, i think they're fine, given that its a hack

My exact thoughts.

But, obviously, there mustn't be deformed or terribly-colored sprites before saying that the hack graphics are good. ;P

Still need some polishing here and there.

the improvements are minimal

I love you too, Cam

Hmmm, that shade of pink looks better. You can work on doing a better job of shading Louise's hair next. . .

I think I found out what's bugging me about Cristoph's sprite. Can you move the eye closest to us a couple of pixels to the left?

Yep. I polish older sprites as soon as I finish new ones, so I'll get back to Louise in the future, don't worry. Like Astra told me some time ago, FE6 uses terrible shading and Louise's hair mainly come from Guinevere's.

Moving the eye... like this? Looks a little odd to me, and it's only one pixel to the left, uh... But maybe it's just me, what do you think?

Anyway I'm reviewing the general plot and then I'll take a break-

In the last months I invested most of my time in this project and, seriously, I need to focus more on studying for my exams and stuff.

So the next update may be a little late. ;P

But as I said before, I'll release a patch a.s.a. I finish chapter 8.

[eclipse]

If you want wavy reference, try looking at Limstella.

Moving his eye did the trick. There's still a bajillion other things you can do to polish it, but I'm not the person to ask for that kind of advice. Happy studying~!

[Alfred Kamon]

Thank you. =)

[mmKALLL]

Still working hard?

I can't wait for a release - everything seems so awesome! <3

[Alfred Kamon]

Still working hard?

I can't wait for a release - everything seems so awesome! <3

Thank you very much for your support. =)

Yes, I did work hard on this...

Now I have to focus on my studies for a bit, but I'll work on this project again for sure. Like I stated at the very beginning, I'm not going to abandon it.

[mmKALLL]

You sure are full of resolution - most of my projects fade away never again to be touched upon. Unfortunately it applies to schoolwork as well..

[Alfred Kamon]

You sure are full of resolution - most of my projects fade away never again to be touched upon. Unfortunately it applies to schoolwork as well..

Actually, I'm not.

I'm very lazy sometimes as well.

But hey, I believe that you can forge the future little by little. If your homework consists of 200 pages, it'd be lame to think "I'm not going to sleep till I finish them all!". It would demotivate you terribly.

But if you see it this way: "I can do 30 pages, then play FE a little, then other 30... hey, they're not so many", then you'll get your stuff done.

I think my only "resolution" is this, doing things little by little bringing them to an actual end.

No need to rush anything, unless obviously you put yourself in the conditions to rush things. =)

[Homicidal_Bunny]

Keep up the good work!! :-)

[Xeroix]

Is this still in works

[eCut]

Necroposting, we do not do it.

[eCut]

dbl pst OmG liek reepurt meh

Unlocked on request (I expect a super cool update, Kamon. ^_^)

[Alfred Kamon]

Thanks, Cutie.

Let's see... I last updated this topic on 25th December 2012... wow, that's almost a year.

Sunpath of Midnight wasn't coming out like I was expecting, and the hack was overall quite rushed and didn't meet my expectations, so I decided to scrap it and do it from the beginning. I've put a lot of thought in the story and the map/gameplay design this time, and with the support of the spriter and friend Arcfalchion, things this time went more smoothly.

So, I'm glad to present you Fire Emblem: Midnight Sun.

*What is this hack about?

First of all, this is an FE: Sacred Stones hack, and not an FE7 hack. I've really worked a lot to create some functioning and complicated events for the FE8 engine, and I also had to figure out how most things worked, like the world map or some particular story events. plus a billion minor things

The story takes place in a Magvel from a parallel world, after the War of the Stones. This means that I took FE8's folklore and legends (in particular the one of the Demon King) but not the nations and the characters, which are completely new. I just needed the legend of the Demon King for my story, and nothing else, so don't expect this game to be a sequel/crossover of sorts: it's a completely new project.

*How does the story begin?

After the War of the Stones, only one of the five Sacred Stones remained, and it contained the soul of the Demon King. However, the tremendous power of the monster in time started to overcame the sealing powers of a single stone, and so scholars searched an alternative way to contain the King's pressuring strenght. Eventually, they found out that it was possible to seal the Demon in a human body with particular magic powers, through a ceremony that was later called Vassalage.

Lady Faratrass is the Princess of the Kingdom of Hoikade, and she's the third Vassal of the Demon King. She was taught on arcane magic arts in order to control the Demon King better, and she's loved by her people who see her like the maiden who keeps all the evil under control, allowing them to live peacefully.

One day, however... Faratrass will be forced to fight her own soldiers. And under those circumstances, will the people of Hoikade see her as their beloved Princess, or as the fearsome Demon King of the legends?

*Graphics

Thanks to Arcfalchion, my splices have finally been replaced with some cool full-custom mugs.

Some of you might have already noticed this since it was in my signature. Yeah, new statsheet, and I personally did it.

omg I'm quite proud of my work for once

New weapon icons thanks to GabrielKnight.

We still need some time to have some full-custom graphics, though. As of now, I still need all the bosses mugs and some characters' mugs. I would also like to make a custom battle template and custom menu graphics. The title screen graphic is still a placeholder, but it does its work quite well for now.

Also, I have to thank Primefusion for giving me some advice on my maps.

*Music

I've redone the whole OST. 95% of the songs you'll hear in this hack won't be Fire Emblem-ish. It took me a while (I have a folder with more than 700 midis I searched and downloaded for this project), especially with the ELF Method, but it was worth it. Now Master Sound Technician Agro-sama is helping me too, so hopefully this hack will at least *sound* good.

*Two words about Gameplay

Since I'm a Fire Emblem fan myself, I wanted to create something "new" and different, possibly never seen and fresh. You'll find plenty of chapters with unusual goals, and most chapters have alternate endings based on how you played them. Also, recruiting new units might be a little tricky in this hack, because: a) Faratrass' position is complicated and it's obvious that most people won't join her side. b) I like to play with events and rewarding the player with some extra units instead of giving them at the beginning of each chapter seemed like an interesting option to me.

However, don't worry, I marked in red some words in the dialogues to give you hints on how you should behave in the chapters in order to unlock the achievements.

*Which is the state of the project?

I've almost finished chapter 6. A patch will be released when chapter 8 is done. It will take a while, though, because I'm lazy as hell and I need time in order to produce high quality chapters.

*Can I help?

At the moment, I only need a proofreader since my English has improved but it still isn't that good... I'm not a native speaker, after all.

*Special Thanks:

- To Blazer and MK404/Ray. The first wrote that epic Ultimate Tutorial which helped me getting started, the latter gave me some really useful hints on FE8 hacking when I was a noob.

- To my friend Stefano who has cheered me up when I wanted to abandon the project, and has helped me in many situations, though he didn't work directly on this project.

- To those harsh but lovely fellas that killed me psychologically offered their critiques last year.

- To those who are yelling "Hey! You forgot to quote ME!!"

- To Rey, who will probably be glad to know that Louise is not in the project anymore.

Cheers.

Edited December 11, 2013 by Alfred Kamon

[Book of Ereshkigal]

Ahahaha, wonderful.

Just letting you know I'm very excited for this hack as soon as I find my flash drive with all my games on it I will play it.

EDIT: Literally just found it...whee Now I can finish TRS lD

Well, maybe not the saves I had for it must be gone, or this is the wrong flash drive ;_;

Edited December 11, 2013 by L95

[X-Naut]

TBH you still have the face shape of one.

Also I looked at what was on the first page and this looks a lot better, so keep up the good work.

[NobodiePichu]

i am disturbed by that hood on the shaman, it looks weird.

other than that looks promising, cant wait to give it a shot.

[Pixelman]

Lol guyz remmber wen faratrass ws a recolored karla??????????

...

Anyone?

...

Jokes aside, the new portraits and stuff look really good so far. Heck, you're even taking a risk and using FE8 as a base. Nice work.

Hope to see more progress on this hack! :D

[eclipse]

The menu backgrounds are distracting; I have problems reading the the non-highlighted items. Would it be possible to make the background darker?

[Alfred Kamon]

My quote button doesn't work for some reason, so I will reply in a very unprofessional way.

@L95: Thanks! ^^ I really appreciate all the support, Lindsy! And glad you found your flash drive, lol.

@X-Naut: Yeah, I made some big progress since the first time I showed this hack to the public. But it's still not enough. I'll keep up the work indeed.

@Pixelman: Lol. It wasn't a Karla recolor! She had... umh... some perfectly sprited hair instead, yes!

Ahah it sure has passed a lot of time. Well not even that much but it feels like that

@eclipse: Hmm.... I think most people don't have a problem with that, but in any case... even if I took your critique in account, I wouldn't be able to edit it at this point. There is some repointing problem that I'm not able to fix.

Edited December 12, 2013 by Alfred Kamon

[Tamanoir]

That already looked promising last year, but this looks even better now !

I wish you luck !

[Agro]

phenomenal hack

could definitely use a dedicated proofreader because alfred kamon speaks engrish only

I actually missed characters in this hack. That never happens.

[Alfred Kamon]

^^ Thanks, Agro. You're one of the 5 people who have already played this hack so far... you should feel very honored right NAO

But yes, like I've already stated in my update, my English is understandable, but not good nor professional. From my point of view I don't make a lot of mistakes, but probably a lot of my sentences sound funny or weirdly phrased from the point of view of a native speaker, so... If there is someone willing to help me with some proofreading, I'd be glad of that. Though, beware: it won't be a short or easy task at all.

[The Joker]

coolstuff brah. keep it up. This looks really nice. :)

[Wayward Winds]

Looks good, though that shaman's face seems to be angled wrong - makes the hood look awkward. Otherwise those portraits are lovely. Sounds like you'll need to think in terms other than survival chances to get through as well.

...Why has no one actually offered to proofread yet? Well, I'm free, though you may want someone with more of a track record...