[FE8] Fire Emblem Deity Device: Saint's Blood (Act 1 Available 11/6/2022)

Hey all, another quick update. After a somewhat stressful summer, I’m at last moved in at my new place (though it’s still quite a mess :stuck_out_tongue:). I’m nearly done putting Chapter 11 together, though I do expect that playtesting and fine tuning of cutscenes will take some time.

I also just finished redoing most of the enemy pallets. Some were kind of ugly. I think FEbuilder autogenerates pallets if there aren’t any alt pallets in the animation folder.

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Wind mage before and after:

Battle Animation Palette Saint's Blood.gba_6C

Battle Animation Palette Saints Blood N.gba_6C

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You are amazing

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Thank you!

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I’ll just be sitting in the corner pouting over IS showing off a posh looking (major?) character named Alfred in FE: Engage before Alfred appeared in Saint’s Blood.

Alfred Redacted

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Hey everyone. I just wanted to do an update on the status of the project. A lot of my dev time over the past few weeks has gone to adding new music to the game, and I’ve just begun playtesting and fine tuning the new chapters. I don’t think I’ll have a new release out by the time the game’s FEE3 video comes out (it’ll be go up on October 17 at 6:00 PM Eastern; please watch). But I am aiming for a release in Late October or early November. The cutscenes in Chapter 11 are fully scripted, but I haven’t run them yet, and I know they’re going to be a bear to fine tune. The event script for the ending cutscene is sitting at 3248 bytes, which is roughly three times longer than even most more involved cutscenes that I usually deal with.

Please be patient for the next release. :slightly_smiling_face:

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Hey everyone, I just wanted to give a heads up. I just became aware that the event instruction I use that removes an item from all inventories and convoys as part of the spell restoration system has a bad interaction with convoy partitions and any convoys not in use get deleted when the instruction is called. As such, if you have an existing save, you may want to start over when the new patch is released as any items you put in Milton’s convoy in Chapter 5 will all but certainly be gone the next time you play as his party, as well as anything in Leticia’s convoy, which would be bad if you put any important items like her spells in the convoy.

To avoid using said instruction, I’m rewriting the spell restoration script to use other commands, but now any spells that are not in the user’s inventory or completely exhausted (“broke”) during the preceding chapter will not be restored (otherwise the player could build up large stockpiles of limited spells because I don’t have a way to remove ones in the convoy right now).

I know this sounds inconvenient, but on the plus side, because the spell system stresses the inventories of some characters, more units have access to the convoy now. Of the characters who have appeared in content released so far, Poseidon, Georgette, and Clarabel can access the convoy in addition to the standard party leader access. Also, thieves can steal with full inventories and send an item to the convoy (like any other item acquisition). These changes were already decided on before I encountered this bug, but I thought I may as well share some good news about item management.

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All right everyone. Act 1 of the game is finally out and can be downloaded from the top post. It goes from the Prologue through Chapter 11 with one Gaiden. Permit me to shill for a bit and say to anyone who has been holding off on playing because the hack is in progress, the current version of the game covers the first story arch, and the characters are in a much different place at the end than they were at the start. You can think of it like the first season of a television series.

I’ve implemented a few more changes from previous versions other than stealing with full inventory and more units having convoy access. Being rescued and dropped will not consume a unit’s turn, and units with canto/canto+ can rescue and drop on the same turn. This opens up some interesting mobility options, so please experiment. I also finally took the time to set up the soundroom with the custom music tracks.

The one bad bit of news is that I ran into more trouble with the convoy partitions. If the game was reset or closed while playing as Milton’s or Leticia’s parties, Martha’s convoy would be erased (or both Milton’s and Martha’s if playing as Leticia). It has to be an issue with the game skipping the earlier partitions when writing SRAM, but I haven’t been able to locate where the problem is. Therefore, the current release does not use convoy partitions, and Leticia does not have convoy access. You can probably do some cheesy things by sending items back and forth between Martha and Milton through the convoy, but I really didn’t want to delay releasing this any longer. The bright side is you do not need to worry about spells not being restored in the convoy because what I described in the previous post isn’t an issue when not having separate convoys.

The next release will probably be awhile because I need to figure out how I want to pace the next part of the story in terms of in-game chapters. I’ve also pushed building my model railway layout off to the side for a few weeks to get this out and want to get back to my railway. But there’s a good amount of content in this version, so please give it a try (and if I find out anyone skipped the ending scene of Chapter 11, I’ll cry myself to sleep)

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Hi there, congratulations for the release of the first complete arc!
Been a fan of yours since the first release of Deity Device, as it’s one of the most unique and fun experiences I’ve had whit a fire emblem game.
I’ve also been playing every release of this work as well, and for what I’ve seen it shows great promise, getting better whit each update.
With the latest patch tho, I’ve encountered a strange bug: in Chapter 4, the conversation between Richard and Phineas, that should yield the Pugi as well as a support increase, only seems to give the latter.
I’ve tried a couple of different emulators, but the bug steel happens…
Though, apart from this the rest seems to be fine.

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Hi thanks for reporting. I had been using that talk even to test something else and didn’t fully revert it back to the way it was supposed to be. I’ve updated the patch. Anyone who has started playing should download the fix so that Richard won’t miss his PRF.

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Thanks for the quick fix!
I’ll be sure to download the new version as soon as possible!

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Thanks for sticking with the series through all the ups and downs. I really appreciate it!

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It’s been a pleasure!

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I finally got around to updating the OP with current screenshots and removing out of date information.

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Hello everyone. I’ve been asked before how many chapters I expect Saint’s Blood to wind up being before. While I still don’t have a definite answer, I have put together an outline for the next part of the story, and it goes through Chapter 26 with two Gaidens planned so far. Obviously, this is subject to change, but as the next part will cover roughly the middle of the story, I can safely say that the main story will be over 30 chapters when all is said and done.

Honestly, when I released the Act 1 patch, it was a little daunting to realize just how little of what I have planned has actually been covered so far. I’m still enjoying working on the game, so I hope that those of you who have played the gradual releases will stick around for the ending whenever that may come.

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I decided to make some changes to Clarabel’s “Fervent Prayer” mechanic for future releases of the game. There are some spoilers for Chapter 10 of the game below, so you may not want to click the spoiler if you haven’t played that far.

Fervent Prayer

From now on, utilizing Fervent Prayer will require the use of the Trance command (this is based on the Dismount mechanic).

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It will now be displayed that entering Trance will give Clarabel the Provoke skill (before, the skill was attached to the Fervent Prayer Item. While the staff utility of Trance is very powerful, Clarabel will be vulnerable to attack with 0 Attack Speed and harshly reduced Resistance. Fervent Prayer can no longer be removed from Clarabel, so it cannot be switched off by trading.

To exit Trance, use the Awaken command.

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Other than that, I’ve been working on implementing a couple of new characters, and I have some work done on Chapter 12.

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Just another update on what I’ve been working on for the game. This time it’s two characters who weren’t in the trailer at the end of the current demo (because they didn’t exist yet). I was reviewing my outline for what I had going forward and realized that not enough was going on in Martha’s section leading up to that group’s next story climax. While they weren’t doing nothing and they were (and still are) on track to meet an important character, some of their chapters felt like just checking in between Milton’s story beats to remind the player that Martha’s party was still out there. And it led to what was going to be a rather over-stuffed climax. So I’ve reworked Martha’s section and moved part of that climax earlier so that two major events wouldn’t be happening at the same time. Because this major story event will introduce a new gameplay mechanic, I like the idea of having it occur earlier in order to give the player more time with this mechanic.

AgathaChester Promo

These two are Agatha and Chester, and they live at a cathedral in Erdus. Agatha is mainly a staff unit who can use some magic, and Chester is a Fire Mage with a kit based around speed control. While I won’t spell out what’s been happening in Erdus in this post, there is a house in Chapter 7 that gives a hint about the state of Erdus by the time of Saint’s Blood. There is another character I’ll be adding, but I haven’t made her portrait yet, and she is going to be a Gaiden Chapter recruit.

That’s all I’ve got for now. I hope those of you who have played the latest release have enjoyed it, and I’ll see you in the next update.

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Oh yes. Oooooooooh yes! We will be able to follow Leticia’s adventure’s too! I loved Deity Device so much, my favorite hackrom ever so far, with very gppd written dialogues and situations. That game made me feel like I was reading one of those fantasy novels I love so much. I guess you won’t be finishing this hack anytime soon, but I’ll be eager to try it once it’s finished. I also remember Leticia’s final words in Deity Device, mentioning some guy called “Mark”. Mmmmm…

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I’m glad you’re excited for the game, but you’re right that it’s going to be a long time before the game is finished. You can always play the gradual releases while you wait.

Hey everyone, just another quick update of how progress on the game is going. Chapter 12 is finished, and I’ve started writing Chapter 13. In Chapter 12, you play as Poseidon’s sister, Lacus, and her knight, Lilith, who is Eve’s sister. I know that some players took issue with the small chapters with atypical party set-ups in the original Deity Device (like the one where you play as Bertram, Olga, and Ivan), saying they should have been cutscenes. But I would compare these to the effectiveness of the Princess Peach events in the original Paper Mario.

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For those that don’t know, each time Mario saved a Star Spirit, there would be a short interlude where you play as the captive Princess Peach, sneaking around her occupied castle to uncover information that would be relayed to Mario by her star kid companion, Twink. The gameplay in these sections consisted of some light stealth and puzzles, but playing as Peach does a much better job of conveying that Peach is contributing to Mario’s quest than watching a short cutscene of her uncovering something would have. The Peach events return in the sequel, The Thousand Year Door, but they are streamlined to the point of feeling more like interactive cutscenes because the player never has agency about where to go. In Thousand Year Door, the Peach events center on Peach befriending the enemy’s main computer, and it always has complete control of where Peach can go as opposed to her gradually opening up more areas of the castle. This side-plot isn’t bad, but I find it much less impactful than Peach’s role in the first game.

So that was all a long way of saying that I think it would be harder to get across what characters outside the main party are doing without giving them their own gameplay sections.

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And I guess because I keep saying that I’m making slower progress right now because I’m working on my railway, I can show how that’s going to anyone who’s interested. It’s another kind of map making.

Railway

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Another small update on the progress of the hack. I’ve mainly been working on getting a few assets done when I work on the game, and I’m about a third of the way done with Chapter 13.

GiselleMoris Promo

The character on top is Giselle who is the Gaiden Chapter recruit I mentioned when I showed Agatha and Chester. Giselle is a haughty mage who specializes in repositioning skills. Her portrait took me a while to make because my original idea for her design wasn’t coming out right, but I think what I wound up with is all right.

The character below her is Moris who shows up in the trailer at the end of the current version. What’s new is he now has map sprites based on his sailor suit while in the trailer he was using Nathan’s sprites from Deity Device as placeholders.

As far as character portraits, I know I still need to make ones for Leticia’s daughters. Her sons appear in the trailer in the Deity Device Bonus Patch, but I still haven’t made her daughters. However, I don’t need them for quite a while yet, so I’ll probably continue to put them off and focus on getting the next release done. The next release is still a while away. I’m planning to go through Chapter 17, and I’m working on 13 as of this post.

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