I’ll add onto Arch’s post.
It’s really disappointing, for me personally, that FEXNA isn’t out yet. I totally agree with the community that I wanted it to be out this year, last year, or even five years ago. I’ve been too busy with my writing to make a game with it, and frankly the more people making fexna projects, the more fun stuff there is for me to play. From the perspective of my greed, I wish it were out years ago.
That being said, there are reasons beyond just elitism and whatnot that it isn’t out. Updating from one version of FEXNA to the next (Like from 1.0 to 1.1, as an example) is a tedious, annoying process. This process becomes ten times worse if you edit any of the source code (and you more than likely will, as several things like the ‘config’ files are still hardcoded) since there’s no EZ update button. You don’t just click a button and 30 seconds later boom, new version! It’s more of a multiple hour, and sometimes multiple-week process depending on if you skip a version or two or three.
There is the other issue Arch mentioned, which is that adding new stuff isn’t like GBA. You’re not editing an external file with a program that can be independently updated. You’re creating a game inside of said program. Adding new features is extremely difficult because it has no plugin system yet.
GBA: Update FEbuilder, continue working on ROM.
FEXNA: Port all project files over to new version. Load. Game fails to load. Spend two hours bugfixing. Load. Game loads but everything is wrong. Spend two hours bug fixing. Load. You fucked something up during that second batch of updates. Rinse and repeat.
It’s also missing several important features. Like, me, personally, I want some multiple promotions and choice branches. A bunch of items don’t function properly. The engine, last I checked, has no code for teleportation. Etc.
Well, that was not the case for the first two years of FEU. That has changed to be the case, but I assure you as someone who’s been a part of the FE community for … checks… 15 years (wow), this phenomenon is very new and only a result of the last two-ish years. Maybe three.
Edit: Worth reminding people that I, personally, pushed for a ‘community that shares’ back when FEU was first created. I was very unpopular for that opinion back then, and it took a few years for my opinion to gather broad acceptance. I’m not on the side of “hog all the resources,” not by a long shot.
See: 2015.