[FE8] FE: Clock's Ticking (Non-Linear Chapter Progression! Pick Your Own Path!) [WIP, 20/24 Chapters finished]

What if you could pick which maps you want to play and in what order?

Here’s the big hook: You have access to a hub where you can pick what map to play next. Each map will come with its own unique units, item rewards, etc. However, you have limited time! After getting to play only a few maps, you’ll be sent to a mandatory, main story map, and then it’s back to the hub. You physycally won’t be able to see all the maps and units in one, or even two runs, so the game is extremely replayable! Plus you can always try tackling them in different orders.

Oh yeah also On the Edge was a spinoff prequel of this. You may recognize some faces, but this is a more standard, “serious” hack, and you don’t need to have played On the Edge at all to play this. This project has been on the works since 2020 and was conceived long before OtE was a thing.

Pictures:


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A taste of one of the game modifiers:


Plot

A generation ago, a band of noble heroes, carrying holy blood and legendary weapons, fought against the scheming Mordred, but were swiftly crushed. The Grand Empire of Avalon now stretches across the globe, ruling with iron hand across its many subjugated nations. However, the children of those fallen heroes have started a Liberation Army and are marching across the continent.
Yeah this story isn’t about those guys. This is about the ragtag bunch of misfits who are going to need to save their city on their own before shit hits the fan and the city burns. The clock is ticking.

Features
  • A hub where you have access to what maps to play. Playing specific maps unlocks higher level maps, and comes with it’s own recruitables and rewards.
  • A time sensitive plot that will limit how many maps you can play before you need to play a main story, forced map. Pick wisely as you won’t be able to play all optional maps on a single run.
  • A condensed, fast game progression, so you can experience full training arcs in a short hack.
  • A cast where everyone has at least a skill or a personal weapon.
  • Fully custom portraits for everyone, including generics and one time bosses (disclaimer: a few f2us remain but will get changed very soon). New portraits on promotion are WIP, for now the prologue squad has them.
  • Optional game modifiers you can completely change every map!
  • A thief lord.
  • A jagen with the highest growths of the hack who still falls off.
  • A big cast of villains to love and hate.
  • Fe4 Status Staff accuracy, meaning you have 100 hit on enemies with less res than your magic and 0 hit if they have more.
  • Some silliness anyway.
  • A (yet to be implemented) revolutionary support system that, among other things, will have you play a miniature paralogue in each support line to immerse yourself in the characters.
Current state of affairs

The hack is currently WIP. Some of the most recent maps and interlude scenes are still missing some dialogue, but the first half of the game should be fully written, pending revision. Some other relatively minor things like the support system haven’t been worked on yet. Scenes written since the previous patch have, for the most part, not been tested. Still missing music in many scenes. A single run, with current level of completion should probably have 9 maps of gameplay. My thanks to anyone who plays WIP versions and reports their experience!

-------------->>Download the Patch Here <<------------
Credits
Discord server for talking about the hack

33 Likes

I playtested for this, really cool hack with one of the most creative promos I’ve ever seen.

Alguien-0
Alguien-1
Alguien-2

Never figured what the hack was about though, odd.

10 Likes

Woah, what an interesting premise! I’ll have to check out in my spare time, but it already looks promising!

1 Like

This seems cool, coming out of playing On The Edge!

(Also don’t take this too seriously, but I hope one of these levels makes up for the sin that was the Stairs level)

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Don’t worry, I made one worse :smiley:

1 Like

Peak gaming now available to play. Can’t recommend clocks ticking enough.

1 Like

That was PEAK response :joy:

1 Like

New patch. Contents:
-Lots of writing (not fully up to date), involving one new event with very minor gameplay consequences.
-Started creating custom generic civilians.
-General unimportant details. Minor fixes and the like.

6 Likes

Finished implementing generic villagers. Also did a tiny bit more writing, added quicksaves replacing save points, and added picking modifiers at the start of the game. Some pics.

image

5 Likes

Hey uh, letting you know, I may have accidentally breaken the game’s sequence progression and will have to make previous saves non compatible. Oops. Working on hotfixing this, but will drop some extra writing along the way.

New patch, issue fixed, hopefully I don’t need to make things non compatible again.
-Implemented music on some maps that were still vanila.
-More writing, including the creation of a new pseudo map for narrative purposes.
-Oh yeah you can now also play in Overclocked mode (currently only functional during prologue).


2 Likes

Tried to play the engrevian retainer rescue chapter, but the game crashes during enemy phase. Then when I restarted the chapter, the map had different enemy units. Also, the monsters that deploy during the Ephraim route chapter still appear, and the boss (with cenon’s mug) quotes caellach’s lines from the Ephraim route chapter.

I think I know the issue. I had just finished a stealth patch fixing a few things, try if the new version works. I believe it should be fixed now.

1 Like


getting this as a bug, not just hador, but any unit after a specific number of turns gets stuck in a forever canto loop

1 Like

I’ve found and fixed the issue, and shouldn’t repeat itself in future attempts. However, I believe continuing from your mid map save will make the map end after an action. At least you were right at the end anyways.

Also I really need to signal Diana’s recruitment more, huh.

how do you recruit her? The stairs block the path.

You go the left, there’s that balcony corridor and she can reach you there.

Cleaned up the thread a lil and a nice update.
*Many new custom mugs, including promotion mugs for the prologue squad! Some of the new mugs are mine but most are from Alexmanpersonguy, big shoutout to him!
*New title screen.
*Overclocked mode now functional in all playable maps.
*Green/Brown bags signaling droppables/stealables
*Various small minor edits I forgot to type down, as usual.

Edit: Why the hell is the gif misaligned.

6 Likes

Quick hotfix because I found a bug that would prevent some units from joining the party.
Also, more promoted mugs for tier 1 characters by Alexmanpersonguy, and I finished making mugs for all the remaining f2u bosses/cutscene people. Since I’m quickly sending this hotfix I haven’t updated credits for f2e mugs used in making these but I’ll do soon.
Next 4 maps have been playtested and should be functional but are still missing all the dialogue, including the one that explains basic map mechanics. Expect a patch soon to make them playable.
Also, known bugs: sleep status will have the bag icon show in a few frames instead of ZZZ. Will also get around to it soon. Sometimes the game will hang after Tormes uses the convoy. No idea why that happens but I’ll get to it.

3 Likes

Alright, the 4 maps of the batch now have enough dialogue to be perfectly playable, and I fixed the droppable/sleep/bag thing. Plus caught some error in one of the mugs.
We’ve almost made it out of the whole hub part of the game, but I have to do something first…

3 Likes