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What the hell is VXA Pantomime?
VXAPT is the VXA Pantomime Theatre, where all your favourite VXA generated characters, scripts and mechanics are put to as little use as possible while they have some fun acting out a Pantomime of Final Fantasy VI with their not-quite-accurate costumes, insincere acting and cardboard cutout set pieces!

How long does this performance last?
The "Scenes 1+2" Demo takes under five minutes, while the full theatre performance will clock closer to half an hour.

Do I get to play or do I just have to sit and watch?
Yes!
You get to sit and watch. There is an interactive element involved, but it's only a very small portion of the performance. It is there to allow you to get more involved, but it's still pretty limited as it remains within a thematic setting. You'll understand when you get to it.
However, the section is within the longest scene in the performance, so at the end of the day, the interactive section actually takes about a quarter~third of the whole performance. How's that suit ya, eh?

So we just sit and watch a visual novel remake of FFVI?
Not at all! The characters are on stage the whole time and are acting the story out in a Pantomime fashion, so the tone is very different from FFVI itself. The story is also very heavily "nutshelled" to fit into so few scenes and with such compact dialogue, so it's quite a different experience.

So it basically has nothing to do with FFVI?
Apart from the story? There are plenty of direct references for FFVI fans, and all the cardboard set pieces are based directly on the game's graphics. Also, the music is 100% ripped MIDIs from the SNES, so you get to listen along to some rad tracks, too!

So who is this for, exactly?
FFVI fans mostly. The story is, I believe, summarised enough that fresh eyes could understand the basic plotline of FFVI and follow the Panto without needing to reference anything else.
However, there are also numerous references to the game that only fans will catch onto, and basically everything side-questy/character related has been forgone in favour of directly following the key plotline.

What characters is the Panto based around, then?
Terra, Kefka, Sabin, Edgar, Locke and Celes to varying degrees. Most of the other characters aren't mentioned, but it doesn't feel sparse without them; the size of the stage and the timeframe on each scene will only allow so much to happen.

Latest Blog

Updated download with minor fixes

v1.1 has replaced the main download (although I won't be updating the RTP file). This shouldn't affect anyone who already has the v1.0 download, as the changes are few and minor.
Couple of text window corrections, text codes in the interactive section, and during Kefka's appearance in the Thamasa scene there was meant to be an animation which accidentally got deleted, and is now back.

Just cleaning up for future downloads :)
  • Completed
  • Brady
  • RPG Maker VX Ace
  • Visual Novel
  • 03/16/2013 09:26 AM
  • 03/26/2019 09:24 PM
  • 03/20/2013
  • 43212
  • 12
  • 499

Posts

Pages: 1
Glad to see your working hard on another project.
Brady
Was Built From Pixels Up
3134
This is just a wee thing to give me something new to focus on. It's nearly finished already actually; am just trying to polish it up as much as possible now.

Other games are all about mechanics and balance, mapping and shit. This has been an experience in cutscene making and has such a different focus, trying to keep all the dialogue visually stimulating without just cutting out the story altogether. S'been fun!
This looks awesome.
You should totally make another based on FFX or XII maybe!
Brady
Was Built From Pixels Up
3134
XII? Haha! I could hardly keep up with that story when I played it myself...so convoluted it blew my mind right back to the gameboy era.

What can I say, I'm old fashioned!

Totally did have fun making this though, and am well up for doing another one if I can think up another interesting game that I'm familiar enough with, and can get free access to the music!
Yay! Full game's available! I'll download and play it tomorrow! :D
What? Who are all these people who are not Gau??
Brady
Was Built From Pixels Up
3134
Kinda glad Gau wasn't story-related enough to be perfectly honest; I'd probably have had to have made a fresh sprite for him since the VXA generated ones look absolutely nothing like him, and I didnae wanna spend too much time on art for what was meant to be a quick project :(

Gau coulda been fun in the Panto theme though; have him jump on the audience and shit :D
Oh gods that was a WONDERFUL performance!
Brady
Was Built From Pixels Up
3134
Well, while hoping that wasn't capitalised for sarcasm, am glad you think so! Was a great project to make, and the final scene was great fun, so was hoping it'd come out well; went through every scene so many times during event-testing that I reckon I'm probably blind to bugs or errors!
No. I'm not being sarcastic. It was a WONDERFUL performance! I saw no bugs or errors while I was playing!

I've never played FFVI, but now I want to! That ending... quite hilarious! What weird monster was that?
Brady
Was Built From Pixels Up
3134
He's one of the side bosses in the game; comes up, but never really has any plot relevant stuff, which is why I didn't include him in the play proper. But the music that was playing during the credits rolling is one of my favourite tracks in the game and plays during a boss fight of his. The sequence on stage during it is how I always imagined the boss fight in my head when I was playing FFVI, 'cuz it's just so upbeat and lively!
Guess what? ...There are still missing files in the game. Mainly those from the title screen; some system graphics and sounds. I could replace those easily, but in the part when the injured soldier walks into the Returners hideout, the game crashed again. This time I couldn't catch the name of the file, but I recommend you to check your code very carefully for any other missing files in there.

Also, I don't know why, but I couldn't see the text at first. I had to copy and paste the "Fonts" folder from another game for it to work.

My impressions so far:

-One of the oddest things is how the characters can just leap in or out of the stage, and in the case of Vargas, vanish into thin air. I think that takes away from the idea of a pantomime acted by regular people. The actors should be lowered onto the stage by visible wires, hide/come out from behind the props, or 'vanish' trough trap doors on the floor. etc.

-I thought curious you deemed necessary to introduce the Slave Crow, an useless literary device in FF6.

-Even more curious was that you didn't deem Moogles important enough to include them. I'm disappoint.

-Also, I was reading the script... No Cyan? No Gau? No Setzer? No Strago? No Relm? :(

-Kefka doesn't look anything like Kefka. He reminded me more of Kuja, for some reason.

-So far so good. The few battles that are in there could use some interactivity, though. ;)

...I'll give it another try once you update the download.
Brady
Was Built From Pixels Up
3134
That's good to know about the RTP files, but I've honestly no idea what's missing o_o
I went through all sound effects, animation files, system etc; s'why the filesize jumped up 10x.
Obviously missed something, just can't think what. Can go have a look at it, though!

Anyhoo; good you took the time to give some feedback though:

-I had them leaping in and out in a big jumpy fashion because I was going for the VXA vibe with the chibi animations. I was actually thinking about having them lowered in and out with strings (and had an idea about an airship being visibly held up by ropes) but passed it over in favour of the chibi RPG maker style. Althogh I will admit an elemnt of laziness may have factored in, since adding ropes wouldd be pretty damn awkward to event.
The vanishing was more on the FF6 battles vibe D:

-fair point

-moogles never actually played a crucial role in the basic story, and I was condensing everything down to the most basic story elements.

-As above, really. I was going to add in more scenes (the screeny includes the Doma Camp one) but there's a threshold where adding in some of them would require adding in more to keep the continuity, which would lengthen the runtime by a hell of a lot. The intention was to keep it all within a half hour or so to remain concise and not overly long.

-I know, was gutted about Kefka, but specifically wanted the characters to be VXA generated instead of custom made...I did lampshade the fact that it sucks BUT did make a custom graphic for Kefka at the end just because his sprite is so horribly off! x

-Yeah, they're not totally exciting, but the last one has a decent interactive element :)
-VXA vibe? Chibi RPG maker style? What does all that mean? Do VXA chibi characters jump higher than regular characters? ...You can make the charas do anything you want regardless of what kind of vibe or style. And I really don't see any difficulty in eventing the kind of thing I suggested you. It's just more "move character" "move image" commands.

-But Jarvis never showed any fighting aptitudes either. It was as easy as making some Moogles walk on the stage and fight on his stead... Btw, something I forgot to mention before. Those chocobo graphics you're using for the escape from Figaro are too tiny. They look like chickens released on the stage. Try to do something like this: Link

-I'd argue Cyan is a very important character story-wise. He's the only one who losses someone on-screen because the Empire's hunger for power, and his coming to grips with this fact is as poignant as any of the main characters resolutions. ...Also the poisoning of Doma's water supply is the one key point in which you realize Kefka is a real Psycho.

-Additionally, I'd argue about the importance of Setzer, if not only because of the importance of his Airship. xD ...But also, it couldn't hurt to introduce all the other characters and give them a line once in a while.
Brady
Was Built From Pixels Up
3134
I just mean the kind of style that goes with the chibi/36bit era graphics. Everything's very exuberant; characters jump ten feet tall etc. I was thinking of ropes and such, but felt that was erring a touch too much on the side of realism, and I wanted to keep the same style as the game; FF6 has a very emphasised characterset, with the emotion sprites jumping up and down a lot, making very "big" effects.

-Fair point to that degree, yeah. I went with having Arvis fight them instead of the Moogles because I wanted to skip "Noob Cave" since it wasn't story relevant, but I suppose there'd have been no harm in having moogles come on stage with Locke; just didn't think of it.
Also, that would have been great for Chocos. They were small; to be perfectly honest I was feling a bit lazy with the choco sprites because they were only on screen for like ten seconds :(

-That's an interesting point about Cyan's scene enhancing Kefka's character; I'd decided against using those scenes before my thought train reached that stage. The thing is that Cyan has basically no continuing story after that that's relevant to the core story, which is the main reason I avoided using him.

-As for Setzer, I did want to include him because he's badass, but his story arc has basically no connection to "the" story other than the airship, which is only a driving device which never actually directly affects the story. Again, it was just an attempt to cut straight to the key points without continually adding in side details that distract :(

-As above really; I just didn't want to put in too many characters. With over a dozen characters in the game overall with varying degrees of relevance and interest, I didn't want the story to feel "crammed", if you follow. I wanted each scene to follow directly on and keep a decent pace. I was trying to avoid having every scene put on hold while another character got introduced.
Although, I suppose brief appearances wouldn't have hurt.

Just to clarify btw; I do feel you'ree making good points. I'm not trying to argue or ignore what you're saying, I'm simply just trying to explain why I ddidn't go with it. I was going for a certain theme, and was definitely trying to keep the whole thing quite concise (as we've discussed on other threads; visual novels don't really want to be too long, and all), but I did spend quite a lot of time trying to decide what was worth taking out and what must stay. My script changed so, so much :(
This.... Made my day worthwhile.
Brady
Was Built From Pixels Up
3134
Well I'm glad to hear that! Nothing better than sharing FFVI to the world, even if it is in parody form ^^
This deserves far more attention, it's beyond epic...
I subscribe. :)
A recap of FF6's plot, it cuts some corners to expedite the story. However the final battle took a long time to finish and i wasnt sure how i was interacting with it. Still it's a nice recap or fast trak version of the game and cuts the non essential stuff out. Pretty good.
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