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Miscellaneous

It's Over 9000!

So, it looks like we passed our 9000th total download today! Pretty damn cool! It is bittersweet, though, since every time the game is downloaded, we feel a little terrible that players will be starting over with the next release, but it can't be helped, unfortunately.

Thank you for making it worthwhile for us to make this game for you. Knowing that it's being played is all the motivation we need. Seriously. Thanks!

Miscellaneous

Feeling Lucky?



Clever action pose writing in VE Animated Battle makes classic stuff like Death Roulette totally possible (for the curious, the skill forcefully and randomly chooses a new target with each movement of the cursor, then executes the actual skill's effect).

Also a quick peek at some of the new battle interface stuff I'm working on currently. Trying to get it to show up to seven status conditions on the right, but it's being a total bitch (I've gotten it to do it without issue in a vanilla project). Hopefully I can find the lines that are shortening the rect area for Window_BattleStatus and put this to bed.

Miscellaneous

Focus (not the kind that turns you into C'ieth)

We're adding a new type of equippable item to the game, called a Focus. Like the FXIII Focus, our version of Focus sets your characters on an objective path, with regards to stat progression.

We've tinkered with how level gains affect your party members. HP, MP, Attack Power, Defense, and Magic Defense will all rise with level gains, while other stats like Magic Power, Speed and Strength require the use of a Focus. Stats that raise naturally with levels can also be supplemented with the use of a Focus, as well. Now, it's important to remember that every damage formula in the game factors your level into it, so using Focus items are completely optional to the player, and you'll still grow stronger with each level in regards to the damage you deal to enemies. Players who like more challenge can forego Focus items altogether to complete the hardest battles at the lowest possible stats.

Each Focus follows a little set of rules I made. Each Focus raises up to four different stats, with some restrictions. If a Focus raises a stat by +2 on a level up, then that Focus has used 2/4 points. Each Focus uses all four points, and each type of gain is worth a certain number of points. This isn't something you'll see in the game, it's just a guideline on how I created each Focus, to avoid Focus items from becoming outclassed by newer ones you'll obtain later.

+10% HP or MP: 1 Point
+30% HP or MP: 2 Points
+50% HP or MP: 4 Points
+1 to a stat: 1 Point
+2 to a stat: 2 Points
+3 to a stat: 4 Points
+1 Speed: 2 Points
+2 Speed: 3 Points

So, by this guideline, a Focus with +50% HP at level gain cannot have any other stat bonus growth, but a Focus with +1 Attack, +2 Defense still has room for another +1 to a stat or +10% HP or MP. Get it?

Each Focus is named after a classic Final Fantasy job class, and in-game, the items act as magick items that house the soul of a famous Final Fantasy personality from that job class. It's mostly just another way to toss Easter eggs your way. For example...

The Focus called "Blue Mage's Insight" raises HP +10%, Attack Power +1 and Magic Power +1 at level up. I'd wager that Strago is the most famous of Final Fantasy series Blue Mages, so you'll see his name in the item's description.

Houses the soul of Strago, the legendary Blue Mage.
ON LEVEL UP: HP +10%, Att.Power +1, Mag.Power +1


Here's the good part, for you min-maxers out there: you have access to Focus items before leaving the game's first dungeon (which has been expanded a bit to allow for a few new tutorials). Unlike Espers in FFVI, which utilized a similar way of raising stats, you won't have to wait until your party members are level 20+ to start using it.

Obtaining new Focus items will come as normal as any other item: finding them, rewards for missions, etc. Focus items aren't unique, either; you can get more than one of the same Focus, to train multiple characters in the same stat gains at the same time.

BUT WAIT, there's more! You might be thinking, these items become completely useless at max level (99). Wrong! If you equip a Focus when you're maxed out, it will apply a small bonus appropriate to the job class it's based on, almost like a third relic.

The Focus item "Thief's Swiftness" awards a +5 to Speed when equipped on a level 99 party member.

On the boring development end of things, I freed up a TON of space in the skills database by getting a little smarter with the damage formula methods. Party members and enemies use different formula for attacks and magic damage, so I had made copies of spells and other attacks to allow them to use the right formula. The thought then occurred to me, "hey, why not have the game ask itself who is using it before it calculates damage and adjust it accordingly?" Now, all of those clone skills are gone, and it's freed up well over 100 slots in the database for new skills for enemies. =)

Miscellaneous

Quick Resource Release

While we have decided to protect all of our original graphic files in future releases of the game, any rips that I grab for use in FFD will be released, as they should be.

So, over the last week I've spent time ripping the battle backgrounds out of Final Fantasy VI for iOS. Those following our Twitter page may have noticed that I mentioned it a few days ago. It took me a while because I actually had to play through most of the game to get them, and painfully rip them by molding together different screen captures.

There's a few missing because of screen effects that made my method for getting them ineffective, but all in all, there are 45 really nice battle backgrounds that I've uploaded to the FF Wikia page.

http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Final_Fantasy_VI_iOS_Battle_Background_Images

Check them out, and use as you wish! Enjoy!

(The only background that I can rip that is still missing is the rafters in the Opera House. I didn't have a save near that point in the game, so I started a new file and I'm working my way towards it now. I'll add it when I can)

Progress Report

Artist Blog 03 - So Much Grinding...

Hello folks!

It's the month of October and progress towards our next Final Fantasy Discovery build has been ramping up in intensity. As I've mentioned before, William and I trying to meet a specific goal within the next few months and we've been working extremely hard to try and reasonably make that happen within that time frame.

As some of you may have picked up here and there from comments, William and I have begun to overhaul many of the existing components of the game from its old 2013 RSW iteration. Battlers, maps, sprites, events, quests, fights and even the GUI are all on the chopping block/in the editing room in various degrees. What we're doing essentially is stripping away much of the old game and replacing it from the ground up. This is, and has been, an immense undertaking for two people so I'd like to thank each and every one of our subscribers and supporters for being patient with us. As many people on this site know firsthand, its difficult juggling real life and non-profit video game development at the same time. The difficulty is multiplied considering that I fully expect our finished product to be similar in length to a traditional Final Fantasy game.

Now... onto some more artistic information... Thanks to our decision to move away from the FF4:CC character battlers, we're now afforded the liberty of redesigning some of our main playable character cast! There are currently 3 playable characters who's past designs are now on the chopping block. They are Ashe, Reeve and Lyra. Lyra in particular had some major inconsistencies between her battler sprite and her field sprite (really... they were glaring!). I can now do away with such annoyances and simply redesign her from the ground up. I expect her physical appearance won't deviate too much from what some of you have already seen, but we can definitely say goodbye to her white dress and hideous armor pauldrons. :)

Anyhoo, as promised in my last blog post... here are some portrait spoilers for you all! Kudos to those of you who can pinpoint exactly who the characters on the left and middle are. The one on the right is the new design for our one eyed dragoon, Reeve Highwind. These will probably be the last artwork spoilers I show until after our new build has been released.



So... some small but important tidbits:

-William and I are still on the lookout for mappers and spriters! Don't get us wrong, we're fully capable of doing the jobs (as we have been up to this point). We're simply looking for an extra hand or two in order to lessen our enormous work queue burden. Like William stated in his last blog post, give either of us a PM if you're interested!

-If you haven't already, please click on the RMN Soundtrack Voting link towards the top of our game page and peruse the last few posts for some minor instructions. We're currently holding an open vote to determine the 'World Map' music that we will be using for our new Travel System. Please feel free to share with us your input!

-William has created an official twitter page for Final Fantasy Discovery! If you're on twitter or into social media in general, stop on by. Don't hesitate to follow us if you're interested in getting access to the more minute updates to FFD's development progress. The link is towards the bottom right of our game page on the twitter widget!

-I also want to thank those of you who shared with me your opinions on potential Final Fantasy guest characters from my last blog post. Make no mistake, your voices were heard!

~ ~ ~

Until next time!

Request

Parallax Mappers? Spriters?

Hey everyone! Paul and I were thinking of seeking out a few new people to help us finish things a bit faster. More specifically, Paul would like to speed up the production of sprite artwork while he works on map and character art, and I would love assistance in completing our parallax maps. Normally, Paul and I will settle on a design of a map, and I'll create the basic map. He then takes it, adds any original art he needs to, and sends it back to me, where I'll parallax the rest and finalize it.

We can definitely manage this stuff as we have been, but we'd rather speed up things where we can. So, if there's anyone experienced subscribed here who would like to lend a helping hand and become part of the crew making this game possible, by all means, contact either Paul about spriting or myself about mapping (specifically, towns or cities at this point in time). We'd love to cut the production time in any way we can and get ourselves even closer to a new release. =)

Some of the maps we're currently working on are...

- Giza Plains (mostly finished)
- Mysidia (new design)
- Chocobo Ranch (mostly finished)
- Lix (expanding)
- Figaro Castle (exterior parallax)
- South Figaro (new design)

And the next areas in our queue to be made next...

- Fovoham Windflats (connects Mysidia, Lix, Chocobo Ranch, & Mi'ihen Highroad)
- Corel
- Chocobo Forest(s)

Other maps around these areas are finished, or only need small additions or adjustments (Carwen, Sanubia Sandway, Mi'ihen Highroad, etc.), and make up the entirety of the Burmecian Kingdom, which is where our next release will cover (and maybe a little further, we hope).

Progress Report

Artist Blog 02 - Status Update

Hey folks!

I realize its been a while since our last blog post (2 months) so I figured I'd make a small update letting you guys what's been in the works. Real life usually gets kind of busy for many of us around this time of year so naturally there haven't been as many updates. Hopefully that will change soon!

I've decided to be a bit more transparent with my FFD artist related work news. Obviously I won't be spoiling much of anything concerning the story, characters, etc...

As some of you may have gleaned from past posts, William and I are making some additions to our new travel system and enhancing it a bit further. If successful, it will dramatically change how location based traveling will be conducted. We're quite excited about this change as it hasn't been seen in very many RPGs. We'll come back to this once we have a visual mockup that we can show you... hopefully soon!

Recently, my focus has been primarily on... Battlers! Those of you who have played through our last demo know that the battler sprites used for the playable characters were taken from Final Fantasy 4: The Complete Collection from the PSP. In an effort to further enhance FFD's visuals, I've decided to create new ones to replace the aforementioned sprites currently being used. It is my hope that, with these new battlers, the visual action in battles will become much more dynamic as character sprites will no longer share the same uniform pose or animation set. Individual choreography will be assigned to each character to further differentiate their fighting styles on the battlefield and my ultimate goal is to provide graphics that invoke both a sense of kinetic energy and a FF7-AC / FF13 feel. Having custom battlers also allows some freedom with the sprinkling of familiar guest characters that you'll undoubtedly come across during your playthrough of FFD. Its a daunting task... so wish me luck.

Some other tidbits include:

-Limit Break cut ins are now also on the table. Expect to see some in the near future.

-Game Menus are being visually overhauled (as some of you may have seen in our image gallery). More on that whenever William deems it appropriate.

-Changes are being made to some of the original locations. The Palamecian Research Facility... the Magick City of Mysidia... etc. Don't expect them to look the same in the next game build!

-For those of you who read my first blog post... character portrait creation is ongoing. There's a lot of freaking characters (literally hundreds) and portrait work has been slow but steady. Expect some teasers next month.

~ ~ ~

For those of you who don't know, William and I are potentially scouting for a talented spriter to do some FFD work. There is always work to be done. Additional info can be provided in pm's to William or I from appropriate and interested parties.

~ ~ ~

Finally... out of curiosity (maybe), if there was ONE Final Fantasy franchise character you could choose to be a playable guest... who would it be? (Again... this is just out of uh... curiosity...)

The rules are thus:
1. The character cannot have been a playable main character in any Final Fantasy game.
2. The character can be from any FF franchise game. Non-flagship titles like FF Tactics, Type-0, Dirge of Cerberus, etc are fine.
3. The character needs to have been somewhat combat capable or at least not obviously combat incapable.

~ ~ ~

Until next time!

Progress Report

New Items, Cid's Tools, and Synthesis

Pretty cool update for our main protagonist today. In the last released version of the game, Cid teaches players about his Tool abilities, and unlocks his first Tool ability, Auto-Bowgun, after escaping from the Palamecian Research Facility. I've done some updates on Cid's Tool abilities, so that's going to change a little bit.

First off, Cid will have the Auto-Bowgun ability unlocked as soon as you begin the game. It was always a little awkward to me that he suddenly busts out the Auto-Bowgun during his escape, rather than using it the entire time during the mission. His tutorial on how to use and obtain new Tools will be split up into two parts, one for showing how to use Ability Sets for all character, and one for obtaining new Tool abilities, due to the updates being made.

HOW TO OBTAIN NEW TOOLS
I went the FF6 route with Tools before, letting players either find, win or buy them and that would unlock a new Tool ability. That's pretty lame, lazy and way too simple for me. Cid is also the character who introduces players to the Synthesis system borrowed from FF9, so you can see where this is going: all of Cid's tools (except the Auto-Bowgun) have to be made via Synthesis using parts. This has added 31 new items to the game, and players can start collecting the needed parts right from the beginning. Don't worry, you can't sell or lose the parts once you've obtained them.

Like all Synthesis recipes, creating a new tool requires the proper items and a catalyst item (Mythril, Millerite, etc.) to complete the process. Parts can be found in various ways, like treasure chests, the Coliseum, Auction House, Chest Lottery, Battle Arena Shop, rewards for Missions, etc. Players will probably find duplicate parts after they've created a new Tool, and might even be able to craft a duplicate Tool (I want to make sure I give players more than one opportunity to obtain parts for tools), but having more than one of any Tool won't have any effect on the game.

In our next big release, players will most likely be able to find all the parts needed to create the Bio Sprayer and Noise Blast tools, and maybe some parts for future tools (but they won't be able to complete those collections just yet).

http://rpgmaker.net/media/content/users/2409/locker/Tools_Parts.PNG


In the above image, you can see the names of the parts needed to create new tools. All of these items are Key Items that cannot be used or sold, and can only be consumed by creating a new Tool. Finally, as a result of Cid being able to deal AoE damage right from the start, the enemies in the Palamecian Research Facility (which have undergone some cosmetic changes also) have had their HP boosted slightly.

Miscellaneous

The bosses of the Macalania Woods

Just gonna briefly go over how the different bosses of the Macalania Woods function, since I just finalized and tested all of them. But before I do that, there is one small change to talk about. The status conditions that lower a target's parameters have been renamed to fall more in line with their Final Fantasy counterparts, rather than names I thought were good at the time. :P

Fatigue is now called Power Break.
Shellshock is now called Armor Break.
Migraine is now called Magic Break.
Weakness is now called Mental Break.

Onto the bosses!

MINI-BOSS: OVERSOUL
Oversoul is a demonic pest that lures unsuspecting people into traps by projecting an image of a treasure chest. Once opened, he ambushes his victims, feeding on them and leaving nothing but a pile of bones in his wake.

This undead creature attacks your party mostly with draining attacks, meaning you'll want to have plenty of items to restore HP and MP, since you'll be losing a lot of both during the fight. What's worse, he drains with area attacks, hitting all party members, and draining HP and MP from each on independently. One might argue it's more strategic to let three party members perish, and make it a one on one fight to reduce the amount of HP and MP Oversoul can restore to himself, using only items to heal.

Feast of the Flesh drains HP from your party, while Feast of the Soul drains MP. He sometimes regularly attacks, but beware, his critical rate is very high. Sending this demon with no honor to the Farplane nets the party a pair of Relics that halve certain elemental damage.

BOSS: SPHERIMORPH
The boss of the area is the Spherimorph, a huge ball of collective energy capable of changing its density, shape, and resistances on a whim. It is incredibly important to keep Vicks and Wedge alive during this fight, as they have the highest damage capability against this foe. Spherimorph will commonly change his elemental weakness with Elemental Shift and follow up with powerful physical attacks capable of nearly destroying a party member in a single hit.

Players will have to pay attention to the abilities it uses to determine its current weakness, and use Wedge to exploit it. Every so often, Spherimorph will Solidify, reducing all physical damage by 75%, regenerating HP, and absorbing all elemental damage for a few turns while it rests. It cannot attack while solidified, so take the opportunity to heal yourselves or set up defenses again, like NulBlaze and Protect. Finally, the Spherimorph will use Flatten when it has suffered enough damage, dealing physical damage and applying Mini on a party member.

If you've got enough items to endure a long battle, it's a good idea to use Reeve to drain Spherimorph's MP away and apply Mental Break with Lancet, as Spherimorph will no longer be able to use magic spells or Solidify, making the rest of the battle much easier. Using White Draw to apply Armor Break periodically will also make Cid and Reeve's attacks a little more reliable.

HMMMMM
There is a third boss in this area, but I am going to keep quiet about it for now. Unlike the other two bosses, this one is optional and requires players to take certain steps to make it appear.

Request

Killin' those bugs!

So I've spent most of the day today hammering out bugs in the game, instead of finishing the last 10% or so of the Macalania Woods maps. I think I mentioned a nasty bug that was plaguing me forever in a previous blog post, but in the spirit of this post, I'll list that one again. Plus, I feel damn good that I finally beat it into submission.

FIXED BUGS
- Command windows in battle have a visible line height of five commands instead of four, so players won't have to scroll the window to get to Items, or back up to Fight, or hear a scrolling sound when holding down L/R to escape a battle while a command window is active.
- Windows in battle are now opaque to prevent overlapping.
- The battle log window will no longer appear empty or clear text early when applying or removing status conditions with skills (this was the one that was driving me nuts for a long time).
- This isn't so much a bug as it is a feature addition, but players can now scroll to the right of the Fight option to select Limit Break or Nethicite. These commands are disabled unless the party member's Limit Break gauge is full, or if the party member has no Nethicite equipped. Players are no longer forced to use a Limit Break in favor of a normal attack. The Limit Break command is always disabled for Beclem, since he doesn't use Limit Breaks.
- I made an update to my Land Vehicle script (which is used to ride chocobos in the game) to 1.03, which allows users to choose whether or not to be able to activate events on "action button" settings while riding the vehicle. This has no real effect on players in FFD, because it's a script option for the user (me), but I figured I'd list it here, anyway. That script can be found on my Pastebin account here.
- The arrow cursor will no longer remain on the screen in battles when a battle ends before an action or a target is chosen.
- Bosses now complete their collapsing animation before the victory text appears. Victory music still plays as soon as the boss reaches 0 HP, but I'm working on that.

As with any round of fixing bugs, I've noticed a few more while testing. I guess I'll list those too, in case any RGSS3 geniuses see it and recognize how to fix it.

PERSISTING BUGS
- Victor Engine Animated Battle & Victor Engine Active Time Battle & Moghunter Weather EX scripts cause scripted battle events to freeze the game if that battle has weather effects activated. Battle time will still pass, but commands and targets cannot be selected, effectively locking up the game.

- Raizen's Triple Triad script allows players to restart any event from the beginning by pressing the button reserved for challenging an NPC to a Triple Triad game while that event is running and if that event is set to "Autorun." I've not seen this bug reported before with anyone else using this script (UPRC, mind testing? You're the only other person I know that uses it), so there's a possibility it's a compatibility issue. I'm looking into it.

- Certain notetags in Craze's Regrowth Options (1.02) no longer work with the latest versions of Victor Engine Animated Battle & Victor Engine Active Time Battle. In my testing, I'm using a status condition with the notetags <hit hp regrowth: -100%>, <crit hp regrowth: -100%> and <miss hp regrowth: -100%>, which would cause the attacker to die on their next action, regardless of whether or not they successfully land the blow. When applied, the attacking enemy or party member suffers no damage when attacking.

- When applying the "Normal Attack" state and "Normal Attack" element to a skill's damage type, status conditions are ignoring the "Atk Element" of the attacker, rendering status conditions like Protect and NulBlaze useless sometimes. On the other hand, forcing a character to use an "Atk Element" renders Relics designed to add status conditions or elements to attacks useless. I have no idea what script is causing this to occur, or if it's just an RMVXA bug itself.

In my example, Cid's weapon has an Atk Element of Physical. The status condition Protect increases resistance to the Physical element by 50%. He is still taking normal damage from enemies attacking with the Physical element as their Atk Element. If Cid's "Fight" skill is changed to have a damage type of "Physical" instead of "Normal Attack" (which should inherit the Atk Element traits from the Actor/Classes tab and any equipment worn), Protect functions as normal. However, if Cid was equipped with a Relic that applied status conditions with attacks, such as the Lag Shock (20% to apply Slow on attacks), then it will never be applied as long as his damage element is "Physical" instead of "Normal Attack." The same applies to elemental damage. This bug is very annoying, as it is crippling the balance of certain battles.

That's all for now! Back to work. If anyone is having similar issues, and knows or has an idea on how to fix them, I'm all ears!