Sacred Stones Revamp

[Priwinn]

Hi all,

I have been thinking of doing a revamp of the FE8, mainly redo the graphics and audio. I know its not the most popular FE but it was the first one I played and probably the only one  (of the ones I played) that would benefit greatly from a remake.

First of all, I want to clarify that this is on very early stages and will probably take years to complete. That being said, the plan is to code it from scratch. Why? Because I have been learning code for a while know but I have never used it on an actual big project, so to practice and maybe even learn more code in the way I came up with this. Also I always wanted to make an app so I plan to make it for Android. On the artsy side, I also want to practice my art skills with this, I am no artist but I can defend myself with a reference, so I thought that maybe taking the pixelated sprites and animations as references, redoing them in high res and adding elements to them would be a nice way to build towards being less reference reliant. 

So this project pretty much is aimed to hone my skills on art and coding, that is why for now I plan to do it by myself. Yeah I know it will take forever if I do it alone, but is only temporary, until I find my skills honed enough to be working with people without asking about everything I don't know. Except audio remakers, any remakes of FE8 audio tracks will be appreciated. Anyway, most certainly, no one will commit to this project until I show some progress, but one can hope right?

Anyhow plans for the future might be revamping other fire emblems and making a fire emblem editor but more user friendly (like no coding needed friendly). But those are only pie in the sky.

I might do some progress this week since I have not started college yet, but once I start college on 25 this month this will probably slow down or halt completely, since I am double majoring on Math and Physics and its pretty exhausting for me. (Personal problems time!) That is why I am learning to code more and also honing my art skills, because even thought I don't dislike my majors I don't find excitement in them anymore, so I am trying new things to see whether I like them or not. I will probably finish my majors, mainly because for now I don't have any other options in mind and well, I keep telling myself that whatever I do math and physics will be useful.

Back to the topic, I said that I maight do some progress this weeek but probably won't since I am familiarising myself with Java syntax, android developing as well as human anatomy for the artsy side.

Well that was a long and messy post and extremely one sided (sorry about that!), anyway I hope I can get something done and, if things go well, get your help in this in the future.

 Almost forgot, does anyone know whether I will get sued if I put this (once its done) on Google Play?. I looked up that nintendo does not grant copyright permissions, but I dont know if intelligent systems is the same or what. This is highly hypothetical, but if I got sued (probably would) would it be serious or just a little fine?. Even though we are really far from that, I may not do it on android if I cant put it on Google Play so I wanted to know as soon as possible. Perhaps we have some fellow Forest inhabitant lawyers that can shed some light on this?

Priwinn

Artwork thread for this project

Edited September 19, 2017 by Priwinn

[ukulelej]

2 hours ago, Priwinn said:

 Almost forgot, does anyone know whether I will get sued if I put this (once its done) on Google Play?. I looked up that nintendo does not grant copyright permissions, but I dont know if intelligent systems is the same or what. This is highly hypothetical, but if I got sued (probably would) would it be serious or just a little fine?. Even though we are really far from that, I may not do it on android if I cant put it on Google Play so I wanted to know as soon as possible. Perhaps we have some fellow Forest inhabitant lawyers that can shed some light on this?

 

Bro, what are you doing. Stop.

[Priwinn]

7 hours ago, ukulelej said:

Bro, what are you doing. Stop.

Is it thaaaat bad?

[Tequila]

I dunno about bad, but it sounds like an enormous waste of time. You're recreating a game that already exists with (theoretically) better assets. If you're going to go through all this hassle, you might as well make something original (which also solves the copyright issue). The goals (get better at art and coding) are worthwhile; the idea needs work, essentially. And if you really are double-majoring, I think you'll find that you have even less time than you think, unless you're a genius and don't need to sleep.

[Priwinn]

I did think about doing something original, but being creative is not my forte and I am specially bad at storytelling. That added to the fact that English is not my first language kinda pushed the revamp idea. I will reconsider doing it tho, at least I hope that there is no problem in copying the concept only (just as there are endless pokemon "like " games)

1 hour ago, Tequila said:

And if you really are double-majoring, I think you'll find that you have even less time than you think, unless you're a genius and don't need to sleep.

I used to think I was a genius (I was quite arrogant, probably still am haha) but when I got to college it hit me that actually high school in my country is too easy. It's my third year in college, so I am aware that I will have almost no time. 

[Ansem]

I think your original idea is fine. Maybe in your endeavor, you can flesh out some characters, or do a retelling of the events from your own POV, or from the POV of a character. 

[Priwinn]

I think I will start doing the revamp for now, then when I get more confident I will decide wheter I continue and finish it or start a new original project. Besides, the gameplay coding would probably be useful either way. As for the copyright issue I guess even if I do the revamp, it will be ok as long as I don't get money form it or I just release it as an apk and don't submit it to Google Play.

1 hour ago, libtard snowflake said:

I think your original idea is fine. Maybe in your endeavor, you can flesh out some characters, or do a retelling of the events from your own POV, or from the POV of a character. 

You just gave me a great idea: what about introducing My Unit like the modern FE and changing the story a bit to introduce him/her?

[Thany]

19 minutes ago, Priwinn said:

 

You just gave me a great idea: what about introducing My Unit like the modern FE and changing the story a bit to introduce him/her?

if you plan to go that route, mabey try the way FE7 did it, since doing something like awakening and fates may be to much programing to work with. but with em there can be some small ex positional dump for characters you get newly introduced to.

But if you do go awakening or fates style, try to share information on a character not said in other support conversations when supporting with the my unit. (ether from your own perspective, or something not told in the game itself.)

Edited September 17, 2017 by Thany

[Dr. Letha]

2 hours ago, Priwinn said:

You just gave me a great idea: what about introducing My Unit like the modern FE and changing the story a bit to introduce him/her?

No.

[Priwinn]

10 hours ago, Thany said:

if you plan to go that route, mabey try the way FE7 did it, since doing something like awakening and fates may be to much programing to work with. but with em there can be some small ex positional dump for characters you get newly introduced to.

But if you do go awakening or fates style, try to share information on a character not said in other support conversations when supporting with the my unit. (ether from your own perspective, or something not told in the game itself.)

I think I'm gonna go awakening style since I prefer them to be a playable character, and since I want to build the code from scratch it may be not so terrible to code. I guess it would disturb the balance of the game, so I would need to give the enemies an edge to rebalance.

8 hours ago, Dr. Letha said:

No.

Please elaborate 

[Dr. Letha]

If you're going to change the story to accommodate an OC self-insert, why not just make a whole new story that isn't about the Sacred Stones? That particular story is about the return of the Demon King being thwarted by an army led by Eirika and Ephraim of Renais, not some shmuck in front of a computer screen.

[Priwinn]

2 hours ago, Dr. Letha said:

If you're going to change the story to accommodate an OC self-insert, why not just make a whole new story that isn't about the Sacred Stones? That particular story is about the return of the Demon King being thwarted by an army led by Eirika and Ephraim of Renais, not some shmuck in front of a computer screen.

I wouldn't make the character quintessential to the story, I would just change it enough so that their presence doesn't feel awkward. Also this is highly hypothetical, I'm just brainstorming here, my goal now is to get something playable.

As I said making a whole new story is ruled out for now, since my storytelling skills are quite subpar.

I'm sure you didn't mean it to be like that, but I find that last sentence to be quite discouraging. Of course it's the truth, but you don't need to say it like we are boring, meaningless people. I for one feel offended. Anyway, I don't want to start an argument off of this so I am gonna stop right there.

[Tetragrammaton]

18 hours ago, Priwinn said:

I wouldn't make the character quintessential to the story, I would just change it enough so that their presence doesn't feel awkward. Also this is highly hypothetical, I'm just brainstorming here, my goal now is to get something playable.

As I said making a whole new story is ruled out for now, since my storytelling skills are quite subpar.

I'm sure you didn't mean it to be like that, but I find that last sentence to be quite discouraging. Of course it's the truth, but you don't need to say it like we are boring, meaningless people. I for one feel offended. Anyway, I don't want to start an argument off of this so I am gonna stop right there.

No, you're not boring, meaningless people.

It's just that what you're going to do will be meaningless and waste of time because Nintendo will try to sue you and throw you into jail.

[Priwinn]

Well the main goal of this project is to hone my skills, so even if I don't get to publish it, it won't be a waste of time. Also even if I can't get it to play store (which I should be able to as long as I don't get money from it) I can just upload it anywhere as an apk file.

I understand that it is not the same releasing a hack since they are not realeased through official channels but aside from that (again I could do it the same by uploading the apk anywhere), what makes my project so different from those? Ok, I want to use the same story as the one nintendo used. Does that alone make it a completely different situation? With a hack you are still using a part or most of their base animations, coding, gameplay, concept, items, classes, music and their name.

Anyway, I am counting the eggs before they hatch, it will be long until I have something worth suing.

One last thing, should I upload the artwork I do for this here or can I make a new thread in the creative work for it? Since I want to improve it would be nice to get criticisms and maybe some help from artists there (as I guess few artists visit this thread haha)

Edited September 18, 2017 by Priwinn

[Tequila]

Definitely make a new post in the spriter's forum if you want feedback. It won't be seen here.

[Priwinn]

Already did haha, couldn't wait for someone to critique my first sketch so I put it up last night before going to sleep.