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Progress Report

100K mark and 155+ subber update

It's update time again, gaiz.

I want to talk a bit about characters today. In the new demo ( coming out in late May/early June if my hand doesn't seize up on me ), there will be four playable characters:

Tristy/Ira, Ianna, Lance and Darcy.

A bit of the latter's back story will be revealed through a rather alarming cutscene ( for what you'd expect from Darcy, is it a bit disconcerting, since she is supposed to be the 'Genki Girl' foil to our calm Tristy ) as she reveals her true intentions to our titular lady knight. As it seems, the two of them share more in common than they'd like to believe. And later down the line, a little 'event' between them doesn't end well. Regardless, Tristy ends up teaching the game's resident Genki Girl a thing or two about the value of human life.

Dante is AWOL in this part of the demo, but I refuse to divulge anything about the charasmatic (?) blonde mage's whereabouts.

As for little Lancey, I'll be changing his portrait ( naturally ) since Aran from FE10 really doesn't suit him ( I liked Lance's older design better ) so he really looks the part of an innocent, woobie-ish soldier ( think Patrick in a suit of armour without the bodyguard crush and whiney-ness ). You know, like the kind of guy you just wanna hug or I dunno, snog...? ( if boyish-looking men with untidy white hair tickles your fancy ).


Not in the demo, but there is another scene like this involving them. Just more er... intimate. :3

Oh, and more TriAnna goodness in a bonus scene too. ^^ ( the demo includes that Inn scene where there are too few beds and Tristy needs to keep Ianna warm with her mane ). Speaking of them, the game will have three different endings depending on how you play. A variable will keep tracks of hidden points, and based off that value, I'll give you either a Bad, Normal or Perfect Ending.

Naturally, the Perfect ending will be the hardest to obtain, and will include finding obscure events/scenes, quests, or even choosing the correct dialogue options at certain parts in the game will determine Tristy's ultimate fate.

And screenies! All of the areas shown below will be in the demo ( I'm working on it as I type this blog post )


Spriting NPCs will be the death of me. ;_;





Regarding gameplay, the party's average level will be around Levels 16-18 since this part of the game is in actual fact 9+ hours into the full version, so there will be plenty of equipment and skills to mess around with when going up against foes like the Leonir ( a Coeurl-type foe inspired from FF12 who blasts you with EVERY SINGLE status in the game XD ) and Putrids ( vile slime-based foes who are very difficult to damage physically and who just love to Slap your party senseless. Literally ).

Because Tristy is a part of my life atm, I will not be entering the IGMC ( even though I had an idea for a real cute PLATFORMER-style game in VX. I'll shelve it for a small project, since it is quite personal to me too ). But it does involve a fat blue bird with round glasses who can't fly and tries to find components to make himself an airplane. XD

So long, and thanks for the Subs. :D


Progress Report

Out with the old..

And in with the new. Yes, fellow subbers and yuri fans ( for those of you who are into it, anyway XD ), I am doing away with the Fire Emblem portraits and doing my own. The idea was sitting in front of me all along. As an avid fan of the Sims series ( having played it since its inception in 2000 ), I realised I could use their stances as a base for some of my portraits from my old Sims2/Sims3 screenshots. The stances themselves are anatomically correct ( most of the time, anyway ), so I can flip the portraits now without getting those dreaded errors.

For their outfits, I just used the old FE edit portrait as a base from which to work from ( since Tristy's armour is tricky to freehand ) and ended up with this after about 5-6 hours of sprite work.



I was literally whistling as I did her, because I somehow managed to make Tristy even better looking ( if that were possible ) by changing her colour scheme and giving her softer, more feminine eyes. Matches her armour too. <3

But boy, she sure looks damn good in royal blue armour and a white cape. I'm happy with the way her shading came out as well. And dat sprite... Come to think of it, Tristy now reminds me of Fire Emblem's Geoffrey ( the same dude on whom Leon from FFD was roughly based ) in his third tier outfit ( as a Silver Knight, Geo has the same royal blue armour and wears a white cape. And looks damn fine <3 ).

HUGE image in hide tag.

That's Geo as a Lance Paladin for those of you who aren't well versed with earlier Fire Emblem games. =) And the character in my avatar's younger brother lol. Senri Kita did amazing work for the Tellius-based Fire Emblem games. She's the same artist who did Marth's Fire Emblem Awakening Spotpass artwork.



And there's Ianna's base, still waiting to be coloured. ^^ Her eye still looks a bit wonky though.

So the end result is ultimately something that, while still rooted in traditional FE design, feels more like a work of my own rather than an edit/recolour. And everyone prefers original works over rips/edits, anyhoo. =)


I really, really, really like this new title screen too. It's very striking.

But dayum, Tristy ( had to fan myself several times, lol ). You can still create striking female characters without showing little to no skin. Tristy is living proof of that. Oh, and Ianna too. XD No bikini armour for my lady knight, no siree!

Will update with Tristy's expression set and Ianna's full colour portrait.

Progress Report

FE <3 PSIV

Well, I'm on vacation until Tuesday, so might as well get some good 'ol gam-mak done, right?


I should not have changed your design, Tristy. I should not have. That sketch was drawn on a whim too. And Fire Emblem meets Phantasy Star IV. <3

Yes, shoot me. I whipped up the sketch when I came home from work, took an image with my phone, then preceded to line-art the entire thing with my mouse. Aaand then coloured it. And I blame janus ( FFD artist ) for this. XD

So, how does she look? Should I use her old FE design in that style, or use her newer design? Admittedly, I will have to just redo her pauldrons for her sprites, and change her armour colour ( unless I keep the teal? ). And her tunic/craveat design is a small homage to my favourite Fire Emblem lord, Sigurd.

And speaking of gam-mak, Tristy may well be the last 'epic length' RM game I will work on. I know it will be a long wait, but I want to really savour the development process now. I'm more fond of Tristy and co. than even Laine and her cronies now. And I really want to make it an experience, rather than a mere game. I really want to pull you into this world I've been crafting over the last 21 months ( LoTL started development in late July 2013 ) and I've learned a lot over the last six years. In fact, had you seen my Phantasy Star 'phan-game' and seen Tristian now, I highly doubt you'd think it was the same person who developed them. XD


That mess of a bush towards the lower left and right is an unedited tree before I started adding in some more contrast.


Ta-da!

Some lore/history of the game I wrote up a while ago:



Genoa was once a suzerian state of the Valthorme Empire, but due to a family dispute that occured centuries ago, a royal member of the Empire severed ties
and went onto establish the country that Ianna and Tristian now call home. But now the Empire wants her lands back, and as such, has launched a full-scale attack on the pacifist country. The Empire is confident that this is a war the Genoans will not win, and it is their fate to bow once more to Lord Nestor and his vast Empire.
But there are other forces at work too.

What remains of the country is now under martial law, and only one lone bastion stops the country from falling completely into Valthorme's clutches. The Valthorme Empire, having exhausted their fleet of Drakeling Riders in the surprise assault, are recruiting yet more soldiers to march against Bastillion Fort...

Despite Genoa's pacifist nature, their military; though small, is skilled and have the highest morale code in all of Eridanus. The military arm consists of several Divisions, the former Silver Order and the Legionnaire unit, who primarily function as the army's fire support with their arrows and crossbows. Most of the elite members of this unit were trained by the Eagle-Eyed General herself, and stand guard over the duchy of Reglay's three tower defences, bows held at the ready.

Because magic is not practised anywhere in Eridanus but Connaught, many, if not all soldiers choose to specialise in one weapon field, such as the sword, bow, lance or axe. They then derive their battle abilites from this. However, several battle scholars have come up with 'ready to use' abilities in the form of skill scrolls, which were developed to aid the new conscripts, but have now been made readily available for the entire army.

Since Genoa is the educational heart of Eridanus, many did not find learning these new skills a problem.

The founder of the Genoan Royal Family's sworn swords; Argi the Light Crusader, was
one of the continent's most powerful warriors and undertook an oath with Dubhan, who became Genoa's first King. As long as their bloodline thrives, shall no harm come to either one of their descendants. She went on to establish House Liangale, and to this day, her descendants protect the royal line.



And 150 subbers! :D Let's hope I can double it come release day!

Thanks for your support so far, guys. The land of Aremen is truly an inspirational place. ^^

Progress Report

Sprites and planned demo

Time for another image-heavy and brief update. I recently started working on behaviour sprites for Tristian and while they were a bit tricky to get around doing, I may have got the hang of it for now.


I think it adds so much more character to them than a mere chibi sprite. They can also convey so much more emotion without uttering a single word. But I do like to show what a character is thinking at times.


Also did some dead soldier sprites, and I have to admit, that scene does look even darker than before. I'll probably add more variety to the dead bodies as well.


More sprites. I've only finished Tristian's full walking frames ( and other expressions ) and will probably start on Ianna's later today.

The soldier sprites still look a little rough around the edges because I realised that I made them too small and had to upsize them by about 150%, so it distorted the pixels a little bit. Same with the blood splatters, but it can be tidied up easily enough.

And some rough sketches, including an AU Tristy singing karaoke for Ianna and a younger TristianxDante.



Tristian is still a paladin in training here. This particular scene took place some five years before the start of the game.


A WIP sketch for a scene in the Diviner Temple.


<3 I couldn't resist throwing her into a suit.


Once I invest in a graphics tablet ( I'm aiming to get one around May or so ), then I can really start churning out some high-level art and image stills. Then again, Tristian and Ianna are so bloody gorgeous, I'm going to find it hard to do justice to them. ;_;

As for a demo, I was thinking along the lines of a new, interactive introduction scene, which goes a bit like this:

It shows Tristy and Ianna escaping from Castle Genoa, fending off a couple of Valthorme soldiers and cultists, then coming face to face with one of the antagonists in the game, before Tristian pulls Ianna onto her horse, and they both flee while purple flames engulf the entire castle. And leaves Tristy with an immense sense of grief and guilt as she leaves her soldiers to die.

As for what I'm aiming to do with this new demo, it should give the player a taste of the battle mechanics, and it should aim to pull them into the game with a combination of snappy writing, custom visuals and more new songs. The new title theme is fittingly called 'Heal Me' and is an absolutely beautiful piece by the same artist I used for some of Enelysion's music, greendjohn.



At least, that is what I aim to do. XD




Progress Report

It's over 9000!

Abridged script in words, that is. Pushing for 10K words atm( I'm estimating it will hit 40K by time I get to the part where I left off ). I didn't even realise I had written that much since I began the project in July 2013. I have written small pieces of lore and such, but not enough to warrant a preview yet. But I can show you a preview of the custom work that I've been slaving over for the last few weeks.



Current screen as of writing this blog. Now you know where I live.



Not entirely done, but getting there. I have seen people use the unedited version of these tiles for their games, since Hanzo's tiles are suddenly in the fashion again.



And of course, my RSXIII entry. I may add it to the Media section for 15 extra MS.




I pretty much stitched together 9 seperate screens to make this (even though there is a script for this, I felt like doing it manually, then adding in the effects.



And an animated GIF of Tristian's new sprite.


Such a cutie. <3 I like the way her armour came out, but her hair still needs a bit of work (her fringe still needs to flap a bit and may need to add a bit of shading to her breastplate so it doesn't look so stationary). Style is inspired from PSIV, but it's my own base.

Oh, and it's Ianna's b'day today as well. ^^ Funnily enough, the game page itself is 9K views away from 100K. >:D

Progress Report

Pushing Pixels

Hmm.. that actually sounds like a nice name for my tumblr blog. Work is keeping me as busy as ever, but I am trying to crank out an hour of productivity during the evenings when I get 'me' time.

I've started on the interior tiles and while they aren't anywhere near as daunting to do as the autotiles, there are still a great many of them to complete.

So, progress is still slow, but steady.


Wood tiles... more pain than what its worth...



And another exterior scene, this time testing out different textures. I'm not very happy with the way the cliff tiles came out, so I may redo them. Could end up doing a more stone-like texture like I did for the wall autotile.

As for other aspects of the game, I'm busy refining the game script. Even in its unabridged state, it's still sitting at around 6000+ words... all within the first 2 or so hours ( which doesn't seem long, until I realise that its something like over 200 message boxes, assuming I get an average of 30 words per block with no faceset usage so... ). Either way, it could still use some refining but I do enjoy reading through it, so that's a good sign.

As for the origins of Tristian herself...

Since some of you were interested as to where I got my new username when I posted my last status XD.

http://fireemblem.wikia.com/wiki/Lucia
Wiki entry for the curious.

Yes, she pretty much is the inspiration for our lovely protagonist in LoTL. =) And the queen she protects (Elincia) is obviously the inspiration for Ianna as well. I figured that when playing through the game, they'd probably make outstanding/interesting leads for an RPG, so I took the idea and ran with it. FE in general doesn't allow same-sex pairings, and because I ship LuciaxElincia, I took the idea over into Tristian. And the game script just wrote itself. There are major differences between the two pairs though.

But I figured I didn't want my Master Knight heroine to be only around 20-21 years of age, so I aged up her Fire Emblem counterpart by about 5 years with a hell of a lot more pain and grieviences added to her personal baggage.


In-game character portrait art from Radiant Dawn of Lucia and Elincia, as opposed to their 'counterparts'. Just looking at the two pairs gives me feeels...


Overkill cuteness factor. I just did those sprites for fun.

And no, I am not insane enough to redo every single sprite in the game to match that style. Even though they look better, the mere thought of it is torture to me and would extend Tristian's release date to 2018 and beyond. I do not want to be in my 30s when this comes out, no thank you. Working on Enelysion for 4 years was bad enough. XD

This game needs an updated review as well. The person who did a second review inexplicably took down his/her reviews and my MS plummeted by 130 points. >:|

MS is life here, after all. Until the next update, cheers!

Progress Report

Doing it one pixel at a time...

I have no idea how many spare hours I have sunk into Tristy's custom tileset. What with having a regular 8-5 job now, I can only at best, squeeze in an hour on weekdays and as for weekends, thank goodness I don't have much of a social life XD but the pixel agony is worth it ( playing Enya and Enigma's music on loop helps out a ton. One of my little secrets to gam mak, map-mak and pixelz).

Because a because says a 1000 words, take a look at the before and after images in the spoiler.



I am thinking of ordering a Wacom tablet as soon as I get paid because this mouse business must come to an end if ever I want to see a release before 2016. And I am thinking of calling my eventual tumblr blog dedicated to my pixel art 24-bit Heroine, because that's the bit depth I'm using for my work. I never expected to come this far in just over a year ( I started pixelling on and off some time in Jan last year ). In actual fact, I started messing around with pixel art when I started changing some of Phantasy Star IV's cutscene images way back in 2009 but never took it further.


January 2014. Urgh, I really was terrible. orz Thank goodness I ditched Black Tempest and made it part of the final release of Enelysion.


February 2015

While I am planning a new demo with the new graphics, it may be a while before I make enough resources for a say... 1-hour long teaser or so. But I need to make this one count, so I need to get battle balance down to a T, grab the player with the plot, never let them go and leave them hungering for moar. And let their eyes fall out at the state of the purdy GFX. XD That's how a dev is supposed to do a demo in a nutshell ( regarding that all-important 'player hook'. Graphics are secondary, but a bonus ).

Granted, I may have failed at this when doing Enelysion, but I don't think the game's ponderous start has turned players off from seeing the game through to the end. So while Lainey and co. joined me on my journey to becoming a 'name' in the RM scene, Tristy and co. will help me perfect whatever skills I gained.

So that's it for now. I'll let you guys know when my tumblr is up. ^^


Progress Report

Pushing Boundaries

Sorry for the lack of updates, my dear friends, but the RL bug has bitten me in the behind quite hard, thus cutting my development time in half ( actually, I only have time to work on Tristy on weekends now ) so am I glad I managed to make it to the ten-hour mark. =)

I've been making a few changes to the dialogue and adding in some class-specific skills ( the Characters tab on the game page has been updated, so you guys can view it over there ). Recently, I've been trying to read through the script like I would for a novel, so until I am throughly moved by some scenes, or cheering at its sheer awesomeness, will I be happy with the dialogue ( but TriAnna are such scene stealers; every single scene I write for them I love to death <3. May do a bit of Valentine's Day fanservice for those two. They just give me so many feeeels ). Or I'll try to draw a chibi Lance giving chibi Darcy a pressie. XD


Serious character development ensures.


You need a shady advisor for an equally shady Emperor. You know what they say: "You don't fix what ain't broke."

Been doing a bit of art as well.




General Liangale in all her glory with Soulanis. It appears as a scrolling image in the game.


And something a little more extreme. Because I want this game to be my magnum opus, I really want to go all out for it. As in, really all out. This game has grown very dear to me, and I want to throw everything that I've learned over the last six years of RMing into a glorious 15+ hour epic.

That includes a custom set of graphics done in pixel art style so it really looks like an RPG from a bygone age. Currently, I made a duplicate set of tilesets for the one I'm using in the game, and I am going over every single one of them using my pixel art. This method also prevents me from redoing the 300+ maps in the game so far, since the pixel art will merely replace the tilesets, but then I have to look at every other resource as well ( menu graphics, portraits, other character sets, but I can handle that, no biggie ). I'm keeping the current chibis though.


Example 1: WIP tileset with Tristian's current sprite. Does it clash, or does Tristian's sprite stand out enough?


Example 2 - Worldmap sample. Craze and Pizza already gave me some advice on how to spruce it up in the Watchu Working on? thread. This is still the old screen though.

Naturally, the pixel-art style is similar to Accelerated World's. Just this time, I'm applying the pixel-style to a genre that is nearest and dearest to my heart. =)

So that's what I'm up to for now. Call me crazy, but it might just work. XD

Progress Report

Artsie stuff and gam-mak ( as usual )

There's no fire in my belly. ;_;

I haven't made much progress on Tristy since the last blog and because my gam-mak drive will slow down when I start work again in February ( that is, assuming I cinch my interview tomorrow ), I need to get a cracking on. But I have been channeling my artsy side again to do a few more cutscenes for the game and try a different visual approach for the narrative ( I won't be re-doing anything though ).

I just wanted to get your guys opinion on a scene that looks like


this...



as opposed to one that looks like this. Previously, these scenes could only be accessed through the Scene Viewer.

Same scene, different approach. While the maps and other aesthetic details are nice to see, Tristy as a whole is meant to be a fairly dark game ( horrors of war, destruction of the human spirit, even incest 0_o ) and using those chibi sprites for major scenes makes it a tad difficult to take it seriously ( the actual drawn scenes are few and far in-between since I figured using them too many times would cause the novelty to wear off ).

For the other option, I'm not limited to how many expressions I can do for the full-body portraits, as seen below. Even though I can use face-sets, I just like using the portraits more. And I like the approach more, since the game is supposed to be a RPG/Visual-Novel hybrid.



The actual drawings themselves are supposed to be pretty dark as well ( hence no colour, just sepia-tinted images )



Other stuff:

From a gameplay point of view, both Darcy and Ianna can now become pretty capable fighters, since Ianna can use swords which uses her MAG stat, and Darcy's knives/daggers use her SPD stat. And I figured it would be good from a storyline point of view as to how Ianna grows as a character ( going from basic healer/light magic caster ) to badass spellsword.



The enemies in the above screen were hard before, until I threw a Flame Blade on Ianna. Her astronomical 52 MAG ( at level 17!!! ) destroyed these things with that sword. And with perfect timing as well, because the Ebony Strain hits Tristian again and her ATK, DEF, MAG and SPD stats plummet by 8 points. In a game where low numbers rule, this is devastating. Poor Lance is still below average though, until he promotes ( then again, the guy will probably still be outclassed by Tristian ).

As for everything else, still testing. >< So no real new content to show yet, apart from some small maps that have been added to existing areas.

So that's it for now. =)

Progress Report

Another milestone

And the first blog post for 2015! :D



Yes. The 3/4 mark of the game has been passed and I've gone past the 300+ map mark as well. I have just completed the maps of the Imperial capital ( a 60x60 juggernaut ) as well as the 'slum' version ( 40x40 ). Tristy and co. will end up here after going through an underground passage, then they need to find a way into the capital, as it is barred by the usual guards ( granted, Tristy can just fire an arrow into the geezer's head, but they have to be stealthy ). I'm probably taking a bit of inspiration from FF12 for this section of the game where the inhabitants of the slums operate on the basis that 'knowledge is power'.


A grim place where the inhabitants are looking for 'a better song to sing'( that comes from 'Educating Rita', btw; one of my favourite movies of all time ). Justice only for the rich, and one kind of punishment for all the lower orders ( you know how it goes by now ).



And the grandiose Imperial capital itself. Most of the inhabitants are paranoid and bar their gates shut, usually with an Imperial guard stationed outside. You can't blame them. Revolt is starting to spring up everywhere by this point in the game. But hey, you get to start travelling in airships at this point in the game as well. :D ( FF12-style, unfortunately. The world map is simply too HUGE for the traditional FF4 method ).

Characterisation-wise, Darcy goes through a bit of it at this point in the game and you get to know a bit of her backstory ( she isn't a stereo-typical Genki Girl, after all ). Plot-wise, the heroes are on a 'rescue mission'. A role-reversal one, at that.

Gameplay-wise, I haven't even touched Darcy and Lance's branching promotion classes because I've been so busy with the level-design process. Because I don't want to make LoTL a 600+ map monster, the player will find themselves backtracking and as a result, I'm adding new areas to the older maps that can only be accessed once the player has some 'Dynamite' in their inventory. Because we all know that going through the same old areas again and again becomes mighty tedious.


The arrow means you can climb the vine and take a shortcut route ( got that idea from Linus ^^ ).


No wonder Laine is angry with Tristy ( comparison-wise, Enelysion was nearing the end of the game at the 10 hour mark, whereas Chapter One has only just begun in LoTL ). And I really want to make Tristy my 'magnum opus', my signature game, but as it stands, Enelysion is still the one to beat.

Here's to a year of successful gam-mak!