Introducing Rage Emblem(Final Demo)

[MrNight48]

UPDATE: This will become a demo to Mechanics Emblem. Pretty much a 2 chapter hack to show off the flooding idea.

Hi, MrNight here, long time search lurker, first time showcasing, releasing Rage Emblem beta to the community for feedback and beta testing. Going to give a rundown of what to expect, why I am doing this, and ultimately what I hope to achieve. Let's begin...

Old crap

What is it?

Rage Emblem is basically a gameplay focused hack exploring FE7 mechanics in depth and what they can really do. Also to experiment with what ideas I can make real as well as build on them without ASM changes. (That's for my next series....eventually) This hack assumes players have cleared FE7 or any GBA Fire Emblems and will attempt to be Hard to Lunatic mode that is not punishing nor too luck based but Challenging and tests the players limits. Rage Emblem does have new maps and characters (except two that has more to do with the story and some old ones are mentioned for it is somewhat based off of FE7 but won't go into detail for now to not bias it) but need to make sure the gameplay is solid before I really polish it.

Edited

What to expect?

- Only Prologue and chapter 1 is ready for open testing, Working on chapter 2 with 2 new modified classes fufufufu.

- FE7 classes (mostly), keeping things simple for now

- Simple Story, Main character wants to be a hero, that is it. Basically one thing leads to another, it will not be nothing you haven't seen

before because I have never told a novel really. So I am sticking to what is reasonable of my writing skills. Which is generic levels

- Placeholder text's and boss portraits, Character's portraits subject to change.

- Multiple Game overs for bad play or not paying attention to all the information

- Old mechanics in new ways

+Some villages cause Gameover if not protected

+ Maps can be flooded or snowed in. (more on the show in a later chapter)

+ Unknown till ch.2 release

- FE7 music for now, will get to that good stuff once gameplay is soild

- Roughly 10 chapters for the official, subject to change depending on ideas+story

- Forgiving Death for Miguel and Rye due to it only being prologue, After that its Perm Death for all. (not implemented yet so perm death atm and yes, even the merchant gets perm death. More on that when ch.2 is released) Should have clarified that but was nervous and didn't think straight.

-Why play? To see other things FE7 could have done if they was given more time/budget. Honestly not sure if other hacks came up with the same ideas(and sorry if it does) but hopefully one or two may surprise you

Updates(v1.3)

-Chapter 2
-Healing Transporter and wagon
-Theif AI that can escape (has its damn limits will explain below)
-Gameplay only at the moment (Theif AI frustrated the hell out of me)

Update(v1.4)

-Chapter 3 Maze of Madness can be played and it will be a grade harder than the previous chapters

-A new unit given in chapter 2, later on he will be the reward for saving the death village in chapter 1

(yes he is a playable generic unit, will have a custom color armor and palette later.)

-Eclipse short bows, beware for they can be nasty at the wrong time smiley-The girl whom you are suppose to save has Sophia's face due to portrait i had prepared for her was not original enough and was too much like sophia to even bother with the effort of putting her mug in the game. Will change it once I redo it to satisfactory levels of being a placeholder.

-Temporary Rush blade fix, has 58 uses instead of 80 so it doesn't glitch out. Just to be sure the player can progress, I made another rush blade in chapter 1 that you have to kill for.

Link and ScreenShots

RageEmblem:

Update: http://www.mediafire.com/download/3c8h0gv1z02fcln/RageEmblemv1.51.ups

only prologue and the original chapter 1. That is it to preserve what the flood chapter originally was. As for Rage Emblem, will be changing it to Mechanics Emblem and all the chapters will be redone to flex my new hacking muscles. Do note chapter 2 will break after that.

Let me know immediately if patch doesn't work here or by pm. Lunar gave me the 16 MB limit so I am a bit nervous.

What would I like?

Constructive criticism. Good or Bad with in depth explanation. I value absolute brutal honestly as long as it helps my hack to be just brutal on being good. Even If I shed man tears in darkness, I will use those said tears to make my creative furnace hotter to forge this hack to near perfection. The sooner I get this out in the open and played by the community, the faster I get feedback to make it better during its development instead of doing all this work and polish only to be told the gameplay sucks and is boring. (made that mistake once and was crushed). That being said I will not explain too much about it to prevent bias thinking so beta testers can tell me their experience as well as what they find.

A bit about my hacking background

So with all that said, I will discuss why I started making this. I came into fire emblem hacking due to seeing cool custom animations in 2012 and wanted to learn how to do them and I did just that. I googled like a madman and came upon blazer's tutorial package and worked from there. While working on animations I was looking for youtube videos of fire emblem to watch and inspire me while working in MS paint. That is when I came across ragefest because there was few fire emblem videos that was longer than 10 minutes and wow did that series blew my mind. It showed me the possibilities on what FE hacking can do instead of just reskins and class changing. Sadly, the more I watched, the more I realized it was really not for newbie's and tried to gain some skills before I tried to enter the contest. Later on I learned It was pretty much dead due to the "been there, done that" and the lack of interest which led me trying to make a submission for gaiden. This led me to make the horrible mistake of not finding dedicated FE experienced testers because the ones I asked to test were friends who did not want to admit to me they didn't really care about my fire emblem hack nor was that good at it. (they admitted they wasn't good after I sent it in) I took this as failure on my part and decided to really do some game design research while practicing key FE hacking concepts. The biggest thing I have learned is the mantra of "fail faster" hence is why I am throwing my hack to the FE community who is already interested in Fire Emblem and are more willing rip apart bad hacks so it can grow. I also found I am better at coming up with ideas and motivation if I designed chapters to be challenging to ragefest levels instead of basic fire emblem chapters that bore me to tears. I tried to do as much hacking on my own (the serenes search button has become my most valued friend) and to show the ideas I came up with to throw at the player to really make them think. (cathrine hard but chess style)

So yeah, feel free to say what you want about the hack or pm to make it private. Good Luck and Thank You.

Edited September 14, 2015 by MrNight48

[Kobazco]

While your splices seem, um, decent, I will say that if this is supposed to be a harder gameplay hack, why even give us players the shitty casual version side of fe, with characters able to die once? Doesn't seem very rage inducing, and I could prob get around alot of lvls by sacrificing someone knowing they will come back. Guess I'll try out the prologue and be back in like 5 mins.

EDIT: Use freaking mediafire, I don't appreciate you giving me stupid programs with your ips file. Also, all of the text at the start is completely broken, just a mumble of random letters and ????????????????s all over the place, but so far looks playable at least. Game resets when looking at pirates stats :/. Whatever Zel's third sword is is just a bunch of ?s again. Also, it seems when using the sword, the enemy has 125% chance to crit, and I don't know if this is intended but it seems to have devil reversal affect, but thats prob there cause its a 20MT sword on the start of the game. K, I think the prob with the pirate is his item, I cant even see what they are.

Edited June 21, 2014 by Kobazco

[Pixelman]

Let me know immediately if patch doesn't work here or by pm. Lunar gave me the 16 MB limit so I am a bit nervous.

If you're using Lunar IPS, I suggest you don't.

Use NUPS. I can't really explain what it does, but it works.

Edited June 21, 2014 by PixelmanFE

[Kobazco]

K, I finished, and i did the entire thing without being able to use my pirate on my turn, since their inventory was glitched or something, Mabey the potrait. I couldnt attack with the pirate without getting game over. Zel's ???????????? sword always killed himself in every part i attempted to use it. Also it always did.....69 damage. Not even joking bro. Made me think bout weapon ranges i guess. All i did was put the thief on the vilage and even the swordreavers couldnt hit him while Zel and glitched pirate went south. Managed to defeat boss last turn no problem with the thief. AHA?!? I went on to chapter 1 for lols, and found out iron blade is brave weapon lol.

Love the trobudaur bandits

Edited June 21, 2014 by Kobazco

[MrNight48]

If you're using Lunar IPS, I suggest you don't.

Use NUPS. I can't really explain what it does, but it works.

Ah, Thank You, posting the correct patch now.

While your splices seem, um, decent, I will say that if this is supposed to be a harder gameplay hack, why even give us players the shitty casual version side of fe, with characters able to die once? Doesn't seem very rage inducing, and I could prob get around alot of lvls by sacrificing someone knowing they will come back. Guess I'll try out the prologue and be back in like 5 mins.

EDIT: Use freaking mediafire, I don't appreciate you giving me stupid programs with your ips file. Also, all of the text at the start is completely broken, just a mumble of random letters and ????????????????s all over the place, but so far looks playable at least. Game resets when looking at pirates stats :/. Whatever Zel's third sword is is just a bunch of ?s again. Also, it seems when using the sword, the enemy has 125% chance to crit, and I don't know if this is intended but it seems to have devil reversal affect, but thats prob there cause its a 20MT sword on the start of the game. K, I think the prob with the pirate is his item, I cant even see what they are.

Noted, link is now mediafire.

[sirmola]

- Roughly 10 chapters for the official, subject to change depending on ideas+story

I actually like this. Far too many hackers feel that they MUST do a full length hack and end up leaving it unfinished because it was too much for them. It is far better to to have a complete a 10 chapter hack than it is too have 10 chapters of an abandoned 30 chapter hack. Also, if you have good 10 chapter ideas, it is better to give 10 good chapters than it is to give 10 good chapters and 20 bad ones.

[MrNight48]

Ok, v 1.1 update

-More finished text in prologue, pretty much done with that until hack is in fine polishing stage

- Text to in chapter 1 to get the ball rolling. Will finish text for houses and villages tomorrow so chapter 1 will be done and I can start working on 2.

- Introduced secret warning sign for the more observant. Will not say what the warning is for.

- Added a easter egg, sadly not able to keep it but its extra stuff for the obsessive among you.

-Some weapon text changes

K, I finished, and i did the entire thing without being able to use my pirate on my turn, since their inventory was glitched or something, Mabey the potrait. I couldnt attack with the pirate without getting game over. Zel's ???????????? sword always killed himself in every part i attempted to use it. Also it always did.....69 damage. Not even joking bro. Made me think bout weapon ranges i guess. All i did was put the thief on the vilage and even the swordreavers couldnt hit him while Zel and glitched pirate went south. Managed to defeat boss last turn no problem with the thief. AHA?!? I went on to chapter 1 for lols, and found out iron blade is brave weapon lol.

Love the trobudaur bandits

Nice, sounds like the prologue did its job despite the bugs. As for ???? sword, will not comment on that. will let that be a surprise and let people figure why its there. Glad you like the faster bandits lol

I actually like this. Far too many hackers feel that they MUST do a full length hack and end up leaving it unfinished because it was too much for them. It is far better to to have a complete a 10 chapter hack than it is too have 10 chapters of an abandoned 30 chapter hack. Also, if you have good 10 chapter ideas, it is better to give 10 good chapters than it is to give 10 good chapters and 20 bad ones.

I agree, FE is massive in chapters and I know that can get overwhelming real fast (already getting tired of changing texts and trying to sprite women)

hence is why I am keeping it fast and furious with ideas I brainstormed with and to get them to work.

Edited June 25, 2014 by MrNight48

[MrNight48]

Update v1.2 is now up

- Chapter 1 is completely ready for testing with all the text. yaaaaaaay.

- More fixes with the text and various other stuff

- Slight buff to bandits so you get hit more and take a bit more damage. This hack needs to mock you a bit so it can push you to

have your revenge after some deaths.

- Weapon adjustment to slim sword, should not be as strong as a iron sword but more like a weak killing edge due to its lightness.

After studying for a test, ch.2 should be somewhat ready to be released. Also will try to update only when a chapter is ready to go

now that pro. and 1 are good enough for now.

Edited June 26, 2014 by MrNight48

[MrNight48]

Random update: Healing Transporter!

Tired of your Transporters just breathing air and holding your stuff? Wish they could play more of a role in the heated battle and adding another layer of tactical strategy? Well Now you can with Healing Transporters!

Video:

I wanted to make my Trasporter heal so I looked on FEplanet to see only one image. Then looked inside the game only to find out merlinus has no battle frames at all. Only the promotion images, so I changed it to a female version (based on one of the females in my hack) and gave it healing animations. Cool right? Link to the download is below and feel free to use them.

https://www.mediafire.com/?cr21l1hsg4j8glr

[Fateborn]

W-Was that a heart symbol when she used heal?

[MrNight48]

W-Was that a heart symbol when she used heal?

Naw, just an orb. I figured staff would be too complicated so I thought " why not an orb?" Although now that you mention it, a heart would be pretty cool

[ghast]

lol that's cool

[Klokinator]

Random update: Healing Transporter!

Lol, kinda wish I could get this for FE7 chaos mode. I'm trying to make all characters have utility, so Merlinus and Nils/Ninian being backup healers would be cool.

[MrNight48]

lol that's cool

thanks

Lol, kinda wish I could get this for FE7 chaos mode. I'm trying to make all characters have utility, so Merlinus and Nils/Ninian being backup healers would be cool.

Go for it, the healing transporter is free use. consider it a donation as thanks for all the great programs the community came up with. Might make a magic animation to go with it later, so far only the animation file is there. Haven't came up with a full class patch yet.

Edited June 29, 2014 by MrNight48

[MrNight48]

Mini progress report:

Was suppose to release chapters 3 and 4 soon however hit a snag that I should have foresee.

The animation for the healing transporter works for the transporter class however not for merlinus who has all the supply hardcode. Nor can I make any character who is not merlinus gain his supply ability as well as make them be able to trade outside the preparation screen. So from my tests and understanding this means...

1. Supply is hardcoded to merlinus

2. Transporters can't trade due to another hardcode

3. Merlinus has his animations permanently turned off due to some other hardcode.

So to summarize, I made a worthless animation until I rip apart merlinus hardcodes. (mrgrgrgr) Will just Keep going while convoys can still heal with no animation and no trading powers. (Also means I have to include perp screens) Sorry for the inconvenience. ​Feel like such a eager noob.

Edit: decided to make merlinus a detachable wagon for the transporter while copying the transporter class to the female general.( no point in saving that class, full armor anyway) I am pleased to announce that solved all the problems dealing with that class and adds another layer of strategy as well as a somewhat new mechanic.

Edited July 6, 2014 by MrNight48

[MrNight48]

Update 1.3

2 of the biggest problems was the transporter and the theif AI but I found good enough solutions for now

Transporter:

-Has a detachable wagon with working healing animations, that is good as it gets.

(fuck you fe7 and your hardcodes, I wanted a healing transporter with animations and I damn well got just that)

Theif AI:

-This was a bitch, This took me all day to beta test to get down, basically it comes down to the 4 bytes in Enemy AI which looks like this [0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00].

1st place = Attack AI

2nd place =Movement AI

3rd place = Healing AI

4th place = some kind of flag

(credit goes to the theif AI topic in fe universe and VincentASM in serenes forest AI question topic)

So this got me thinking that I should try messing with movement because I have seen FE AI do some cool shit by running away from me or moving randomly. I played around and found out 0x8,0x13-0x16, 0x19,0x1A, and 0x1D (that is as far as I tested) caused the thief to run like he was escaping then will stop at a random point. So it will look like this [0x6 0x15 0x9 0x0] once you change it from opening chests.

I have confirmed this works however it seems it strongly works best during turn events. Couldn't get conditions events to work with it. Hopefully someone with more patience and know how can figure it out. >.>

[Passionfruit Cappuccino]

I really like the idea of the Healing transporter. It makes them more useful instead of being just sitting ducks, and it gives them a way to level up too

[Alusq]

I played the demo, and I like what I see so far! Not perfect of course, but it is cool enough to make me want to post critique even though I'm no gameplay expert. I can also try to clean up the portrait sprites if you want?

Healer-transporter sounds great already: two defenseless classes merged into one with a whole lot of utility. Also congrats on the AI stuff; thieves are a bugger to work with.

[spoiler=thoughts on the demo]Prologue:
·Visiting the village giving the player a game over is funny and doesn't set the player back much, and also prevents them from visiting the village to stop the bandits from destroying it. Well done.

·There are two types of enemies here: bandit fodder, and bandit fodder with swordreavers. And right now, it isn't very challenging or rage-inducing. I would suggest separating them into bandits with swordreavers and soldiers with axereavers, so all of your units are weak against something. The enemies need more skill, too: Rye didn't need forests to dodge the swordreavers and Zel barely needed forests either. I think Miguel only got hit once during my whole time playing, too. Make it more of a challenge balancing the enemies between your two sword users and your axe user.
·The archers next to Zagan don't really add anything either, just sitting there. Make them move (or have them placed so you have to step into their range to fight Zagan) and be more challenging. Zagan is also easy to defeat, but I got a lot of dodges, so he's probably fine as is.

·The chapter's called Train Your Jagen, but who's the Jagen? Zel? I assume that this is advice for later since the three guys are all pretty equal.

Rage 1:
·I think that letting the player keep the other two guys from the prologue would make the chapter more interesting. You can only do so much with one dude moving around this huge map, especially with the rain. My guess is that they were intended to be in the chapter, but you forgot to add them back when making the forgiving death in the prologue? I don't even see why there needs to be forgiving death in the prologue in the first place.

·The enemies at the beginning are all pretty easily cheesed by putting Zel in a fortress and/or having him move through the giant swath of forest. Yes it slows him down, but there's already rain anyway.
·Village-destroying troubadours, heheheh. And the prize for the middle-right village is a... vulnerary. That's underwhelming and also just enables me to continue letting Zel tank everything. (I find out later that I can't do this because of the map flooding, but it can still be done for quite a few turns)
·Ach, I got stuck in the cliff-area of that village because I didn't move fast enough and a flood appeared in front of the exit. You got me good there.
·Oh, the bottom-left village gives you a game over if it's destroyed. Consider warning the player that they shouldn't let that village in particular get destroyed: not letting them know is more unfairness than difficulty. Unless all villages are supposed to cause game overs when destroyed, in which case you should fix that. Additionally, you could make game-over-causing villages look different from non-game-over ones, similar to how red and yellow houses are different in vanilla FE7.

·The luck blade screws me over more often than it helps me since I inevitably break my weapons and then have to equip it because it can't be thrown away... I LIKE IT. GOOD RAGING.
·On the tile above where the Employee can rescue-staff Zel (top-left of the mountain), there's an invisible FE6 killer ballista. Is this intentional or perhaps you just used a wrong grass tile there?
·The music changes to Silent Ground temporarily when the weather is changing to rain before changing back. Intentional or just leftover in the events somewhere?
·Heheh, the "floods" of river tiles appearing in different places are pretty funny~
·Does the lightning hurt whatever unit is on that tile? I never tested it, but it would be funny (and require the player to memorise where the lightning strikes, too). You should make it play the thunder sound effect when it strikes, too.
·The 15-use vulnerary is very welcomed, but the first use for it that comes to mind is just having Zel sit in the forest near Athos and tank all the enemies.
·BOOTS? NOW WE'RE TALKING.
·Wait, the bottom-left village ALSO gives you a game over if you visit it? I suppose I'm stuck trying to keep the troubadours from moving onto it.
·Ah, the soldier dude in the house makes a barrier in front of the village. Well-played. I wish he'd join my side or something afterward because I'm still stuck with just Zel.
·I wonder if the warp-and-rescue lady joins if I visit the house that she returns to... eh, she probably just kills you for peeping on her or something.
·I visited the village in the top-left, which made a shaman appear and then disappear in the top-right of the map. Is this a glitch and he's supposed to stay, or is it just hinting his location to me?
·Does the luck blade always have the devil effect when you attack using it? Seems that way to me... Argh, I would've had Athos beat if only I had used two less uses of one of the other swords.
·I restarted from the prologue, this time trading the luck blade for Rye's iron sword. Miguel died that time, but I'm not getting him back anyway (and you mentioned that death in the prologue is forgiven for the two who aren't Zel).
·The rush blade loses almost all of its uses when I restart the chapter. No wonder I was having problems with weapon uses. Try nerfing it to 50 uses or something and make sure the uses don't decrease when you restart the chapter; I think 80 is too much for the game to parse properly.
·GOTCHA, ATHOS. And not a moment too soon, because a flood just blocked the exit. xD
·Aw, the luna shamans appearing right as you hit the wall is pretty cheap. You were probably going for that, though.
·... I can't do any damage to Bauker. I should've kept the luck blade after all.
·The cracked wall comes back when the map floods more, meaning that there's a wall with 0 HP that can't be destroyed anymore and I have to restart.
·This time, I'm training Zel in the prologue. I only managed to get him one level higher than before (4, with similar stats to how he was at level 3 last time), but now he has all four swords.
·No idea how to beat Bauker; the luck blade doesn't work because he crits for too much damage, and with the rush blade, I would need Zel to dodge an impossible amount of 80% hits, only doing 2×2 damage each round.
·This chapter was a pretty fun puzzle, in retrospect. The big issues are that the player only has one unit, Bauker is just boringly hard (I still can't beat him, and it's because of a lack of patience for RNG abusing rather than clever difficulty), and the chapter starts slow with that stretch of forest and army of enemies. I suggest letting the player keep Rye and Miguel from the prologue (maybe have the soldier who barricades the zombie village join after doing that, too) and also having the mysterious guy at the start mention the warp-and-rescue lady's services: I assumed that the houses were just useless villagers talking until I visited all of them. Also, I don't understand what the village in the top-left is supposed to do. It adds that invisible shaman to the map, but he's a weak generic unit, so I'm assuming it's for some other purpose. Is it supposed to be the healing merchant?

All that being said, good job so far. This is a big step up from your Ragefest entry, and ten chapters is a good length to shoot for.

[MrNight48]

I played the demo, and I like what I see so far! Not perfect of course, but it is cool enough to make me want to post critique even though I'm no gameplay expert. I can also try to clean up the portrait sprites if you want?

Healer-transporter sounds great already: two defenseless classes merged into one with a whole lot of utility. Also congrats on the AI stuff; thieves are a bugger to work with.

[spoiler=thoughts on the demo]Prologue:

·Visiting the village giving the player a game over is funny and doesn't set the player back much, and also prevents them from visiting the village to stop the bandits from destroying it. Well done.

·There are two types of enemies here: bandit fodder, and bandit fodder with swordreavers. And right now, it isn't very challenging or rage-inducing. I would suggest separating them into bandits with swordreavers and soldiers with axereavers, so all of your units are weak against something. The enemies need more skill, too: Rye didn't need forests to dodge the swordreavers and Zel barely needed forests either. I think Miguel only got hit once during my whole time playing, too. Make it more of a challenge balancing the enemies between your two sword users and your axe user.

·The archers next to Zagan don't really add anything either, just sitting there. Make them move (or have them placed so you have to step into their range to fight Zagan) and be more challenging. Zagan is also easy to defeat, but I got a lot of dodges, so he's probably fine as is.

·The chapter's called Train Your Jagen, but who's the Jagen? Zel? I assume that this is advice for later since the three guys are all pretty equal.

Rage 1:

·I think that letting the player keep the other two guys from the prologue would make the chapter more interesting. You can only do so much with one dude moving around this huge map, especially with the rain. My guess is that they were intended to be in the chapter, but you forgot to add them back when making the forgiving death in the prologue? I don't even see why there needs to be forgiving death in the prologue in the first place.

·The enemies at the beginning are all pretty easily cheesed by putting Zel in a fortress and/or having him move through the giant swath of forest. Yes it slows him down, but there's already rain anyway.

·Village-destroying troubadours, heheheh. And the prize for the middle-right village is a... vulnerary. That's underwhelming and also just enables me to continue letting Zel tank everything. (I find out later that I can't do this because of the map flooding, but it can still be done for quite a few turns)

·Ach, I got stuck in the cliff-area of that village because I didn't move fast enough and a flood appeared in front of the exit. You got me good there.

·Oh, the bottom-left village gives you a game over if it's destroyed. Consider warning the player that they shouldn't let that village in particular get destroyed: not letting them know is more unfairness than difficulty. Unless all villages are supposed to cause game overs when destroyed, in which case you should fix that. Additionally, you could make game-over-causing villages look different from non-game-over ones, similar to how red and yellow houses are different in vanilla FE7.

·The luck blade screws me over more often than it helps me since I inevitably break my weapons and then have to equip it because it can't be thrown away... I LIKE IT. GOOD RAGING.

·On the tile above where the Employee can rescue-staff Zel (top-left of the mountain), there's an invisible FE6 killer ballista. Is this intentional or perhaps you just used a wrong grass tile there?

·The music changes to Silent Ground temporarily when the weather is changing to rain before changing back. Intentional or just leftover in the events somewhere?

·Heheh, the "floods" of river tiles appearing in different places are pretty funny~

·Does the lightning hurt whatever unit is on that tile? I never tested it, but it would be funny (and require the player to memorise where the lightning strikes, too). You should make it play the thunder sound effect when it strikes, too.

·The 15-use vulnerary is very welcomed, but the first use for it that comes to mind is just having Zel sit in the forest near Athos and tank all the enemies.

·BOOTS? NOW WE'RE TALKING.

·Wait, the bottom-left village ALSO gives you a game over if you visit it? I suppose I'm stuck trying to keep the troubadours from moving onto it.

·Ah, the soldier dude in the house makes a barrier in front of the village. Well-played. I wish he'd join my side or something afterward because I'm still stuck with just Zel.

·I wonder if the warp-and-rescue lady joins if I visit the house that she returns to... eh, she probably just kills you for peeping on her or something.

·I visited the village in the top-left, which made a shaman appear and then disappear in the top-right of the map. Is this a glitch and he's supposed to stay, or is it just hinting his location to me?

·Does the luck blade always have the devil effect when you attack using it? Seems that way to me... Argh, I would've had Athos beat if only I had used two less uses of one of the other swords.

·I restarted from the prologue, this time trading the luck blade for Rye's iron sword. Miguel died that time, but I'm not getting him back anyway (and you mentioned that death in the prologue is forgiven for the two who aren't Zel).

·The rush blade loses almost all of its uses when I restart the chapter. No wonder I was having problems with weapon uses. Try nerfing it to 50 uses or something and make sure the uses don't decrease when you restart the chapter; I think 80 is too much for the game to parse properly.

·GOTCHA, ATHOS. And not a moment too soon, because a flood just blocked the exit. xD

·Aw, the luna shamans appearing right as you hit the wall is pretty cheap. You were probably going for that, though.

·... I can't do any damage to Bauker. I should've kept the luck blade after all.

·The cracked wall comes back when the map floods more, meaning that there's a wall with 0 HP that can't be destroyed anymore and I have to restart.

·This time, I'm training Zel in the prologue. I only managed to get him one level higher than before (4, with similar stats to how he was at level 3 last time), but now he has all four swords.

·No idea how to beat Bauker; the luck blade doesn't work because he crits for too much damage, and with the rush blade, I would need Zel to dodge an impossible amount of 80% hits, only doing 2×2 damage each round.

·This chapter was a pretty fun puzzle, in retrospect. The big issues are that the player only has one unit, Bauker is just boringly hard (I still can't beat him, and it's because of a lack of patience for RNG abusing rather than clever difficulty), and the chapter starts slow with that stretch of forest and army of enemies. I suggest letting the player keep Rye and Miguel from the prologue (maybe have the soldier who barricades the zombie village join after doing that, too) and also having the mysterious guy at the start mention the warp-and-rescue lady's services: I assumed that the houses were just useless villagers talking until I visited all of them. Also, I don't understand what the village in the top-left is supposed to do. It adds that invisible shaman to the map, but he's a weak generic unit, so I'm assuming it's for some other purpose. Is it supposed to be the healing merchant?

All that being said, good job so far. This is a big step up from your Ragefest entry, and ten chapters is a good length to shoot for.

Ah thank you, much appreciated on the in depth feedback and glad to see the reaction was close to what I was going for. As for the portrait help I will have to say not yet because I really want to make sure the project is really solid before I dare ask for others handwork and time. (Basically designing the hard skeleton with beefy muscles before making the skin look beautiful. That is not a creep analogy at all...maybe I should have went with the sandwich structure)

Also my replies are in the spoilers below as well as what I thought the player would do against boss in rage 1

Prologue:

-Will keep that in mind about the archers now that I am finding out how to really mess with the AI. They are basically there to waste a bit more time without it being annoying. I am really trying to cut down on fire emblem elements that are more of an annoyance than a challenge.

- The reason Miguel and Rye's deaths are forgiven is due to them being really important to the story later as well as the reason why they join your team in later chapters. I have big plans for those 2 and having them die right when you need them is a problem because I do not want the player who spent time beta testing my hack having to go all the way back to prologue just to make sure they are alive. However due to the decision I made to emphasize gameplay over rich but complicated story means I can play around with the story elements to fit the gameplay better so will keep this in mind as well.

-Other than that, can't go in depth on the real goal of the prologue chapter just yet till I have more feedback.(although you figured a part of it by training Zel)

Rage 1:

-Huge reason why I made the player solo the chapter because a lot of the puzzle's challenge I felt was destroyed with more units. Also to prevent unexpected results (trust me, there were a lot with just Zel) that 3 units the player could fully control and to just send each unit to a village then completing the chapter before seeing what makes that chapter a challenge (basically getting flooded, Miguel alone could break the entire chapter and make the flood way less of a threat.)

-I did included a test warning sign for gameover villages but if you never even saw it, that means I should try using the other warning sign I had in mind for it and this also tells me something very important on how players usually check enemies.

-Hahaha good, the Luck Blade is suppose to be tempting. Think of it as a last resort for desperate gambling players

-The different grass tile was a leftover from what I had originally planed for that chapter.Just decided to keep it in so players can tell where the preferred spot they are suppose to land when they get rescued.

-Sad you didn't try to warp in the boss spot *whistles*

-The Music as a failed attempt to permanently change it while it is raining. That is on the list to figure out.

-Glad you like the river + flood tiles, they will be polished but I really wanted to go for the rushing water look.

-Lightning is there for looks and a sign about the weather instead of, you know, the immersion breaking 6th sense from the hero >.>. Just trying something new.

-Just note that there is a reason for the vulnernary spam, you should need them later lol.

-Not just going to give a considerable big map with no rewards or reasons. Incentive for visiting houses too.

- You do have a point about having some reward for saving that village other than not restarting. I debated having the house give a chest key or the reason Vetta joins, but made last minute changes. I am thinking about a end of chapter unit reward though

-Ah the shaman, did not consider the player would assume that shaman would stay. Plus probably should have emphasized the location of the shaman more.Huge spoilers on why that shaman is there.

That shaman carries your amourslayer to beat the chapter lol. Basically that village is making you go pick up your reward for saving them and I am introducing to the player that sometimes, villages make you go get your loot at a more convenient spot that you can pick up later instead of carrying it through the whole chapter and accidentally using it.

-Good reasoning, she is also important to the story. the hint is in all 3 of her conversations

-How the luck blade functions is a secret for now due to a future plan I have for it. Just know if you have to use it, you are pretty much screwed or really lucky if it works. It's my way of giving the player a somewhat controlled luck based mechanic. Also trying to make it so if you ditch the luck blade, you are going to regret much much later.

-Ok, the rush blade I do need to fix, In my play tests 50 was too small but will try to find the right number that doesn't screw up. If worst comes to worst will just make the player hunt another rush blade down now that I can mess the types of bandits that spawn.

-The Wall glitch I did know about and planning a fix. Didn't mention because I thought the chances were very small (suppose to be anyway, it only happens on one turn and if the wall was destroyed before a certain map change) and wanted to see if players would notice before my fix for it.

-Ah the ambush spawn, If you wasn't prepared that means you missed something I was hoping players usually wouldn't miss. Guess I have to think about it.

-Will keep some of this in mind, Thank you again for the feedback and glad you enjoyed it despite my in game hints failing to do it's job.

Edited July 8, 2014 by MrNight48

[Alusq]

I see, that makes sense. It /is/ a gameplay hack after all, so good idea to give it lots of milk first. may as well continue the metaph—[stabbed]

Miguel and Rye: ah, alright. Now that I think of it, there is kind of some encouragement to have them not die in ch0 because they'll presumably return with whatever level-ups they got then.

Solo ch1: oh wow I hadn't even thought of the fact that Miguel is a pirate. Somehow I instantly started thinking he was a fighter after I was done with the prologue xD

Warning sign about ambush enemies: ... was actually in the one house that I didn't visit. Heh.

Shaman: AAHHHHH I SEE. brb replaying chapter

Changing phase music: if I recall correctly, if you activate event ID 0x04 in the events, it will change the phase music to whatever music the "Secondary player/enemy phase music" option is set to in the chapter data editor in Nightmare. De-activating it changes the music back to normal, obviously

Wall glitch: just my luck to run into it then. xD

In-game hints: they were my fault to not notice them because I didn't visit all the houses for some silly reason, so all good.

Edited July 8, 2014 by Alusq

[MrNight48]

Update 1.4

Sorry for the lack of story update, that is why this will be last chapter update untill I polish chapters 0-3 up more to the point I find it decent enough. Will also take a bit of a break to work on my Ragefest4 submission

and various life stuff (failed a credit test for college which means more class I have to enroll, yaaaay =_=)

edit: broken

That being said, What to expect from this update;

-Chapter 3 Maze of Madness can be played and it will be a grade harder than the previous chapters

-A new unit given in chapter 2, later on he will be the reward for saving the death village in chapter 1

(yes he is a playable generic unit, will have a custom color armor and palette later.)

-Eclipse short bows, beware for they can be nasty at the wrong time :smiley:

-The girl whom you are suppose to save has Sophia's face due to portrait i had prepared for her was not original enough and was too much like sophia to even bother with the effort of putting her mug in the game. Will change it once I redo it to satisfactory levels of being a placeholder.

-Temporary Rush blade fix, has 58 uses instead of 80 so it doesn't glitch out. Just to be sure the player can progress, I made another rush blade in chapter 1 that you have to kill for.

Will replay my hack to fully test do the changes do not break the game as a whole during this break period and as always, Thank You for playing and feedback is always welcome.

Edited November 26, 2014 by MrNight48

[MrNight48]

There was a minor problem with chapter 1 resetting at turn 6 for some unexplained reason. For those who already patched v1.4 please patch again due to the issue that has been resolved. Sorry for the inconvenience.

[Sleepy_Tactician]

This is pretty fun, I've literally bursted out laughing a few times. Noticed a bug though. In chapter 2, the game freezes on I believe turn 4 when the lightning strikes. I have a savestate of it but I can't link it right now. You probably noticed it already, but if not, thought I'd point it out.

Edited August 18, 2014 by Sleepy_Tactician

[MrNight48]

This is pretty fun, I've literally bursted out laughing a few times. Noticed a bug though. In chapter 2, the game freezes on I believe turn 4 when the lightning strikes. I have a savestate of it but I can't link it right now. You probably noticed it already, but if not, thought I'd point it out.

Thanks for the response, sorry about the glitch, thought I re-posted the working game but it seems I didn't. (found out it was the thunderbolts causing the game to freeze if you were too close the edge the map)

edit: nvm, sorry for the bugs, will link again once I fully believe everything is functioning later

Edited November 26, 2014 by MrNight48

[MrNight48]

will take some time to re plan things before I get ready to go back to college. will leave this up and improve on it but will not add any more chapters past the maze of madness. I feel like I failed to introduce this project properly and updated way too much when I should have been more honest and expressed my ideas and changes instead of just trying to show them to prove I can do something. Will reveal some things about this hack I wanted people to find out and not spoil the surprise but I actually need to be good to be on that level. will put it in a spoiler if one still wants to be surprised.

-the first chapter was meant as a way to warm up the player. to get them back into the flow of fire emblem before I start throwing different ideas and mechanics at them.

-the second chapter was originally suppose to be my second ragefest submission but I felt that a lot of the challenge was moot if you knew this was a 1 chapter thing. I decided to make a full blown hack after to increase my skills and to explain wtf happened to the tactician and why he wasn't in fe6 through the eyes of a orphan boy named Zel who grew up in Lucius orphanage. He dreamed of being a hero after hearing the passed down tales of lucius and raven's adventures. again not that good at writing but it was something I felt like I could design hard chapters around.

-the luck sword was what I like to call a rage element. the urge to use a very powerful weapon with the gamble of dying. what people didn't know was I increased the chance of dying to it. first it was 80% in my tests but I decided that is no fun and reduced it to 50% at 0 luck. the more luck you gain the higher the chance it can kill you. at capped luck you have a 80% chance to die using the blade. Also was going to do a gaiden chapter that if you had the luck blade, you would get something fucking incredible before rye or Miguel comes back in your party with the luck blade if you traded it to them.

will update this when I remember the rest of the shit I had planned.

anyway will be play testing other hacks just to be active in the community and help other hackers while at the same time, learning how to make good hacks.

Edit: got dammit I forgot to take out another game freezing thunderbolt in rage 1, Most of the rage is debugging this damn thing, expect fixes and content redo folks soon.

Edited November 19, 2014 by MrNight48