BADLUCK'S PROFILE

author=Pizza
@BadLuck:You're probably sick of hearing it by this point, but those overlays make no sense.

Eh, those kinds of shadows are a trope games with forests like this. It worked really well in Chrono Trigger.



I agree they don't really make sense, but there just isn't a good way to make tall trees from this perspective. I think sometimes you just have to bend the rules a little to get the look that you want. Blood Forest (and the other places that use these overlays) really do feel differently with them.

I've got limited ways to make a forest actually feel like a forest, and hopefully people are willing to suspend their disbelief a little. The shadows, in my opinion, look great in the game, and make the forest feel like a forest. I'd rather it feel right than make perfect sense.

Anyway, I think you're making a totally fair point, and I appreciate the criticism. But I feel like the pros outweigh the cons of doing this.

As for the lightbeams, I may ultimately remove them. The outdoor lights can be justified by saying you don't know where the sun is, or what islands might be floating above you, but that's not why the lights are there. They're there because they make those scenes look a little less flat. But they're still the same "scroll with screen" pictures that plagued the original, and I can't tell if it's just nostalgia or if they're actually doing anything, but the game just doesn't look right to me when I take them out. I'll see what the beta testers think. People who have never heard of RPG Maker who have given it a try haven't mentioned that as part of their criticism, so we'll see.

And I might as well comment on the busy-ness of it all. That was one thing Ara Fell was criticized for somewhat regularly inside the community, but not something I've ever (that I'm aware of) been criticized for outside the community. Maybe that's a coincidence, or maybe I just didn't notice, but it makes me wonder if RM* games just tend to be more sparsely detailed, and lots of people in the community have acquired a taste for it. Regardless, that's another thing I'll be keeping my eye on.

author=Frogge
F yes those maps look amazing. The blood forest looks pretty not bloody to me. One thing that bothers me is how those enemies are placed on bad spots. For example the bald guy looks as if he is floating.

Thanks! Do you think it's their placement that makes them "float"? I was thinking it was more that the bald guy was above the light. If only I could show pictures in the default battle system...

author=Sated
It irks me how the battlers in the last screenshot aren't stood in any sort of formation as with most side-view battle systems.

They are, there's a 4th character that would round out that formation, actually. The issue is that RM2k3's battle system doesn't allow you to pick custom formations. Either you place the battlers by hand or you use their default formation.

Archeia with the A+ trolling.

It's real! I haven't really started promoting it yet.

Ara Fell "Remastered" will be mostly the same game, only with lots of new content (side dungeons, side quests, more treasure, new areas to explore), added custom graphics, original soundtrack, rewritten story and completely reworked battle system. It'll also be a complete game with a new ending, rather than just Part 1.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-Yto4Hs_ds&feature=youtu.be

After way too much work, we've made a title screen for Ara Fell (this one uses the Destiny theme song as a place holder). We'll probably add some more cloud layers yet.

RPG Maker 2003 recently made it so you could maker your own title screen, bypassing the default option entirely.

Gimp will work fine. Can you not open up any Rm2k3 sprite sheet and have a look at how those work? The grid size for those is 24x32. I think that should be all you need to get started.

What other sorts of questions do you have?