JUDE'S PROFILE

I didn't really notice that there was an FF8 event coming up. I forget what my synergy looks like but I might pull on the second banner (if I recall, I have three strong weapons and two armor, which ain't too shabby), which has a pretty amazing whip for Quistis and Rinoa's SSB. The problem there is I'd probably start having to use Quistis, and I've never been hot for teacher. Even the first banner has a Magic Blink, which I'm lacking, so filling that niche would be cool as well. I'll probably skip it, though.

Upcoming Seymour fight doesn't seem bad, but I'm indecisive about how to setup my party. Basically, I'm not sure if I should go Carbuncle, Lure Magic/Reflect, or Runic. All three routes change my party quite a bit. Carbuncle means I need to bring two group heals. Lure Magic/Reflect is my favorite option but it uses up a lot of ability slots. Runic is probably the least offensive option, but it does mean I could bring a R1 Flashing Blade or whatever that new samurai ability was called, which might make up some of the difference, plus it locks me into an RW. I'm unsure if I'll bring Drunk Cecil or not, since I'll likely only have three physical members instead of the usual four.

My main gear options are:
5* Lullaby Rod
5* Official Ball
5* Variable Steel
4++ Warrior's Sword
4* Nodachi
3++ Event Sword that I forget the name of

5* Emerald Bracer
5* Some Shield I forget the name of

The presence of Official Ball is actually a bit problematic. It would be simple if Jecht could Lure Magic, but I was disappointed to discover it was a 4* ability and not 3* like its physical comrade. Tidus is an option with Tempo Flurry and Venom Buster for medals, but I was really interested in Bartz for that role since he can Sap, which is more powerful than Poison, and because his Sap is AoE which helps trigger Seymour's parasite. I'm not really interested in bringing a support for this one since I have two targets to worry about, and also because I want Seymour's magic to remain intact so that Reflect is more powerful. Rikku sucks. Tyro might end up using it because I don't like my other options.

This would be so much simpler if Official Ball were Thrown rather than Blitz Ball. Speaking of which, gun arms should just be Guns. Darts/Cards should be Thrown. I get that they don't want to merge them since their respective games have both (Vincent/Barret, Setzer/Locke), but it's dumb that there are weapon types that are so completely locked into a few characters.

Some character ideas I like:
Gilgamesh with a sword, Banishing Strike, Flashing Blade, with a Runic RW (I have limited hones), and Emerald Bracer (Shellga).

Bartz with a sword, Tempo Flurry, Life Siphon, Ace Striker, with his Blade Wing limit break.

Tyro with Official Ball, Reflect, Lure Magic, maybe the Charge Attack RM, and with his new limit break I'm 4000 points away from mastering.

Yuna with Lullaby Rod, dropping sick bombs with Quetzalcoatl and Maduin, and healing with Hymn of Fayth.

Y'shtola, Curaja, Protectga, Stoneskin

I have a Protectga light armor from FF5 that's an option, which would mean I can give Tyro an offensive ability like Blade Blitz and give Y'shtola Reflect. I'm not even convinced Protectga is necessary for this fight, though.

Seems like a real mess to put all that stuff in every event. If you make any kind of changes to the system then you have to apply it to every event as well. Try to put as much as you can into a common event (though, this would be way more easily solved with a script). When you call a common event in VX Ace, does it have any information about what event called it... or can you give a common event some information when calling it, like the entity's position and what not?

Thanks for playing.

author=Pizza
The only section of the game which disturbs this smooth pacing is a prolonged lava crossing which forces the play to backtrack several times in order to build a bridge out of rocks.

I agree. This part feels like a chore. It's actually a vestigal puzzle that got scrapped, but instead of replacing it with something different I just added more throwable stones.

Originally, I wanted the sacrifices to scramble back and forth when tossed into the lava, using the same behavior pattern as the birds except with little chat bubbles that exclaimed, "Help Me!" because I'm a horrible person and think that's funny. I wanted to have an area where you used a sacrificial virgin's head as a platform while she runs across the long stretch of lava--again, because I'm a horrible person--but this created bigger problems with puzzle solvability that I didn't think I'd be able to hash out in a short amount of time. It was easier to just make the virgins accept their fate and be static objects, rather than add new features/code and complicate the level design process that I'd only allocated a few hours for.

By the way, you can grab stones that you're standing on top off too, if you hold Down while pressing Grab, which can help mitigate the problem of throwing too many stones into the lava. Some control stuff was never really introduced adequately. I think a small puzzle where you would have to grab a rock below you in order to proceed would clarify that idea, probably.

author=Pizza
The apparent lack of i-frames on the player character is sometimes a problem, as you can get stuck between an object/wall and a bird quite easily if you aren't careful and lose a lot of health very quickly. This is mostly due to player error of course, but a slight invincibility might have been nice.

Yeah, the only invincibility window is also a period where you don't have control of the player character... I think like 16 frames, I forget. An invulnerability period after that would be useful.

author=Pizza
Even though the game is a puzzle-platformer hybrid, there aren't too many platforming challenges included other than jumping across boulder bridges through lava and one tricky jump in the temple area. This seems intentional, but even so, I think the inclusion of a few more platforming specific challenges could have been interesting.

Yes, there's not really any platforming challenge. There are a few ways to make platforming challenging. One of them is with the controls/physics, like in a Sonic or Mario game, where the player uses momentum to reach distant platforms, but that momentum also reduces your timing window to make jumps and quick decisions, so the game is about mastering your control over the character.

However, I was going with more of a Mega Man feel, since in my mind this game was going to be designed more around the action. This means really tight controls and physics, where friction is really high and acceleration is almost instantaneous. However, there's obviously a big problem there: this game is really light on action. There's only one enemy type and it's really dumb/slow. The only trap is lava, which is largely non-threatening. The level is just very static in general, so there's no timing-related decisions that the player has to make, like having to time a jump between two moving platforms or between hostile projectiles or whatever. This is something I should've recognized very early on, knowing that I wouldn't have time to code and draw art for a variety of enemy types and traps and moving platforms, while also still trying to make the puzzles compelling enough to exist, but over-scoping is always a problem for me when it comes to making games. After all that, the only space left for challenging platforming is with pixel perfect jumps where your toes barely reach the next platform, but that's something I actually despise about old platformers and actively seek to avoid. As a result, I kind of tilted my commitment to the puzzle side of the game instead, but it was too late for too little, I think.

author=Craze
I'm really curious how the oldschool "no extra leveling/gold" works out in FE:Fates. I'm considering the $80 bundle so... yeah, curious.

It works pretty much like you'd expect. There's no navigable overworld that allows you to grind out gold or experience points. There's still plenty of both, though. I've been playing it on Hard mode and it's still really easy, so I've considered just starting over in Lunatic.

Never seen that one before and I'm not sure how to fix it. I use a library called cx_freeze to bundle Python packages into an executable since that's sort of the easiest way to distribute a Python project to most people. The executable is inside the lib folder--the '.lnk' is just a windows shortcut to that, if you're wondering what that is, but that's not information that will help you run the software.

Something you can try is downloading Python 3.4.4, which you'll need to install first, and then the Pygame library, and then my source code. I suggest getting the 32-bit version of Python if it prompts you, and then make sure you get the corresponding Pygame package (1.9.2a, win32-py3.4, sixth link down... amd64 if you installed 64-bit Python, which is the third link).

https://www.python.org/downloads/
https://bitbucket.org/pygame/pygame/downloads

I've uploaded the source, which is available on the downloads page. You can run the scripts directly and that should work, assuming I'm not overlooking any other dependencies.

For the source, you'll want to execute main.py in the scripts folder.

And feel free to tinker with and do whatever you want with the source, but I wouldn't use it as a great reference for good habits because it's hacked together for a game jam and does a lot of things I normally wouldn't recommend doing. You can also modify the level if you've got Tiled Map Editor.