Just to confirm, the OP has the most current patch out to the public correct?
Hey @The_Bartle_Lord, the patch in the OP is indeed the most recent patch. It has 16 playable chapters in it as well as some purely story chapters.
I will warn you, however, that about four months ago I set about on a huge balance change for FE: Illuminated, and that in all likelihood, the patch in the OP will be pretty incompatible with the next patch I release (as for when the next patch is coming, I’m not totally sure).
By all means, the patch in the OP is very playable, has a fair amount of content and you shouldn’t run into many errors. But I just wanted to give you that disclaimer before you started. Thanks.
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Monthly update. A bit brief, but not due to a lack of progress. More due to a lack of things to show at the moment.
Still going through and doing balancing with the recent difficulty split. Hard mode generally has a few more reinforcements now along with the stronger enemies, so it now plays slightly differently than the other modes.
Added some new music here and there. It’s not a whole lot, but when I hear something I like, I drop whatever I’m doing in the hack and try to get it in (thank goodness for VGMusic and Anvil Studio). I’m still very much a novice with music stuff, but I’m a sucker for Final Fantasy music and I still take a good try at porting songs when I can.
A song that is not from Final Fantasy, however, has just been included for promotion music. I’m pretty stoked about it because it’s from one of my all time favorite games (though I may need to change the brass instrument to something else).
Also went back and changed a certain playable dark mage. She was hitting really hard due to a combination of her skills, and being that I actually designed her to be the weaker of the magic users, I needed to go back and reassess. She has since had the Opportunist skill replaced by one called Peer Pressure, which gives her -2 damage taken and +10 hit when within 3 tiles of two or more allies.
I’m almost caught back up to where I was at before the difficulty split. Keep on keepin’ on when I have time. Thanks!
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Bi-monthly update.
Back to where I was at before the difficulty split. Things are playing nice from what I can tell and I’m happy where things stand.
Like the previous update, I don’t have a whole lot to show at the moment. Spent some of the past two weeks learning how the battle screen works and how to change it (Spoiler, it’s harder than I thought). But I wanted to give Illuminated a bit more visual identity and it’s something I’m going to work on moving forward. I’m also considering incorporating a few of @Sme’s fine hacks moving forward, most specifically the “Refuge” hack and possibly some different status effects. Still a WIP here as I work to understand and implement them (still noobish with things outside of FeBuilder).
Probably won’t update before the end of the month, so wishing everyone Happy Holidays!
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Hey everyone, hope the holidays treated you well and that the new year is doing the same!
It’s been about a month since the last update. I’ve been really busy with some non Fire Emblem (life) stuff, so I haven’t had too much time for the project unfortunately.
That being said, I have finished all my updates to Chapter 11. The map is now VERY different from before, complete with much more branching to the boss as well as some incentives for not taking a direct route. This chapter took a lot of time to balance and will probably be better off after some external playtesting, though like I have mentioned before, I’m not totally sure when I’ll be releasing the next patch.
Here are some photos! The chapter is called “Mercy of the Tides”, so I can only wonder what is going on between the first two photos.
May not get around to updating the thread for a bit. My current plan is still to rerelease the previous beta with all of the new overhauls, including the balancing, difficulty splits, etc., when I finish with it. Will keep working when I have the time.
Thanks for reading. Until next time!
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Still have some touching up to do with some colors and the HP Bars, but finalizing a new battle screen. It’s nothing too flashy but it achieves the goal of making Illuminated just that little bit extra unique. Credits to @Snakey1 for the HP Bar color change ASM and @Pikmin1211 for the helpful tutorial on battle screens. Also worth mentioning, but if anyone likes the screen or wants to improve it (because it still is pretty basic), shoot me a message and I’d be happy to send over what I have. It is F2U/F2E, I just haven’t quite finished it yet to upload it to the repo.
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Hey everyone, monthly update coming in.
I wish I had more to offer this month, but unfortunately, I don’t. Working on some real life stuff at the moment that has kept me really busy. I apologize to those interested in / following Illuminated.
Will hopefully get a bit more settled here in the next month and have the chance to work on the project a bit more. Til’ next time!
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Just finished the beta for this hack and wanted to give some impressions, even if I’m working off a little bit of outdated information.
So far I’m really enjoying the story and the characters; I really like that it’s focusing more on politics and personalized character motivations rather than the more standard evil dragon/demon lord is trying to take over/possessing an emperor for world domination. The characters feel nuanced and not just the standard one note tropes that is so often found in Fire Emblem.
I love the small roster of characters, I’ve found playing a bunch of these hacks during quarantine that a bunch of creators just love to throw in like 3 new recruits per chapter and as such they all end up feeling kind of generic or forgettable. I will say I loved that in the early chapters talk convos not only enlightened relationships, but also came with tangible rewards such as items etc. I hope that as you work more on it these talk convos continue, I noticed in the later chapters they were few and far between and I was kind of disappointed. I also think Danielle, Ophelia, Syd and Frederick could use a little more action within the main story or some more characterization. You have a small roster and you should take advantage of that by trying to personalize them all a little bit more.
In terms of gameplay, it felt pretty balanced overall. A nice level of difficulty, I found when I died that most of the time it was either by my being risky or reckless. I will say money is super super tight, which is clearly by design, but if you don’t spend your purchases well I could see players getting softlocked as they don’t have regular access to shops and they’re generally 4-5 chapters between shopping experiences. I also found healing to be a problem, I think if you had a couple more dropped vulnerary or elixirs it could alleviate that problem. Especially considering the one chapter with all the thieves/assassins leads to several vulneraries being stolen and you likely don’t have funds to purchase new ones.
Character-gameplay wise I felt like everyone had a pretty solid niche to fill, with Clinton and Lana probably being my MVPs. Perhaps my Danielle got a little RNG screwed but she was definitely the weakest performer. I’m not fully sure what the rock that she gets in the last chapter is supposed to do so maybe that’ll benefit her after but before that she almost felt like a liability in some chapters.
The only time I felt the game was unfair was the chapter 16 boss. He has skills that make ranged attacks not very effective, has vantage, a relatively high crit rate, a skill that boosts his effectiveness if he initiates combat so it’s not necessarily the best idea to let him attack on enemy phase. You can’t use magic on him, and at this point, for me, the three lance users, Gerry, Danielle, and Teddy were frankly a little subpar compared to my other units. Danielle got doubled and still didn’t have the best hit rate, Teddy did little damage and Gerry did like literally none. I also at this point had used up my available elixirs and vulneraries wouldn’t really be effective considering his damage output. And you can’t heal due to the magic ward. It just felt very very very rng based. Or you would need something like a swordslayer/swordreaver which the one I had was all used up by that point for a while. Considering the last time you could purchase anything was like 4-5 chapters ago it just felt like you’d need a lot of foresight.
Out of curiosity, what is the answer for the appreciation card riddle? I assumed it was one of the bodies of water - or something at the coordinates of 13,18 - in the next chapter but couldn’t find anything so I just gave up.
Thanks for the fun hack really looking forward to your next release.
Hey @Minnnt, thanks so much for giving Illuminated a whirl. That beta is just over a year old and a lot has changed, but much of what you seemed to enjoy were core things to Illuminated and I’m glad you enjoyed them.
Working top to bottom from your feedback, I wanted to do my best to make a Fire Emblem story that was a bit different. Sure, there is a large conflict that is developing on the continent of Ralspar, but character interaction and motivation is important to me. I do my best to try and write conversations so that it doesn’t read like two people just throwing world points or story bits at each other but rather, that they are actually talking with each other, reacting to the things the other has to stay before moving on to the next point. I’m still polishing a lot of the dialogue but I’m glad you found it enjoyable.
I know the small roster thing can be divisive to some, but I’m glad you liked it. I remember playing Heaven’s Bloom a long time ago, and I remember one thing that stuck out to me was most every unit could join a chapter for the whole game. It made me feel a bit more involved with the characters and inherently forces you to value them a bit more. The pros for doing so, as a developer, mean that I can work to flesh out the playable cast as much as possible, and I fully agree that the characters you listed above deserve some more screen time. It’s something that I’ve been working to address in my rework, because with such a small cast, there is a big opportunity to make each character feel impactful and meaningful. I’ll keep your point about talk conversations providing items in mind. Especially because some of the chapters somewhat require a faster play style, finding the time to get a talk conversation in as a player should certainly provide more than just a story or character drop (it’s good to feel rewarded!).
However, there is a con to a small roster that comes into play, and its relation to your bits about gaemplay. When every character is expected to contribute in a chapter, every character needs to be powerful enough to do it. RNG has caused several characters in my own personal playthroughs to sometimes be underwhelming, and outside of handing out some early stat boosters, there aren’t any ways around it because there aren’t new characters coming. For what it’s worth, I have gone back and adjusted both character bases and growths a fair amount since the last beta. Danielle, for example, has gotten a bit more defense and strength and also now carries highest defense growth rate in the game. I’m doing my best to make each character have a role, be able to pull their weight, but not to be overpowered to the point of not needing other characters to help.
Money is tight. I have since gone back and made more steal-able gems and adjusted the economy a bit, and it may be worth having some sort of notification in shopping chapters about when players may see another shop. I’ve also gone through and added more droppable weapons, so in the cases of being in between shops that there are at least some recourse for being undergeared. I’ll be curious how this is received when I release another patch (but truthfully, I have no idea when that patch is coming).
Chapter 8 is a bit gimmicky, but it really is to introduce the idea that everything a thief can steal will steal. It is an interesting one because, to a degree, having the vulneraries is a backstop to getting attacked, so it is sometimes actually in the interest to have them stolen on some turns on that chapter. I agree that there should be some more drops in the upcoming chapters because of how many can get stolen in Chapter 8 and I will implement that change. I think it’s a great idea (especially because there is only one healer).
The Chapter 16 boss is tricky. He has some great skills and demands 1 range encounters, and with high stats and crit rates he can wipe some units out very quickly. Some of it is very RNG based, even up to the point where if you have weaker units that would be his counters, it becomes even harder. I personally found that from all the support skills many characters have (and piling them near Blitz), many of the disadvantages against Blitz can be evened out to some degree. There is even a unique item in the chapter that temporarily raises speed to a good degree (but who you use it on can also depend on if you’re trying to steal something from Blitz). However, in my rework of Illuminated, I haven’t gotten back to Chapter 16 just yet, but I promise to keep your feedback in mind about some possible updates to Blitz.
The appreciation card riddle!
Summary
The appreciation card is a member card. I try to make it clear in a house event in Chapter 13, but the first secret shop is actually in Chapter 13. You’ve got the numbers right, the description (surrounded by blue) is a clue as to where you might find it. I may move this secret shop, however, because it comes just after a story chapter in which the player likely spends the majority of his money, but the real purpose was to give the player an idea of what the next secret shop holds and how they should save their money.
Once again, thanks for the feedback. For the day I actually can get some more progress done, I hope you’re still around to give it another go!
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Monthly update coming in. Unfortunately, much like the last one, there isn’t much visual substance to it. Work has picked up quite a bit and I haven’t had much time to do much hacking in Illuminated.
But, while the hack itself hasn’t seen much actually implemented lately, I have at least worked a fair amount on some concepts and story elements this past month. When I first started Illuminated back in late 2018, it was more to get a fundamental understanding of how FeBuilder worked. I made a few chapters and started haphazardly putting together a loose story. Three years later, I realize why it can be really important to have a story made before actually starting the hack. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy with the story that is in the hack up to this point, but working around some of the elements that are in the game becomes a little bit harder when you don’t have a clearly defined endpoint for your story.
With that being said, there are many new parts of the story that I have developed and want to tell, but it will currently come at a cost. Right now, there is already quite a bit of exposition in the chapters relative to gameplay and to add more would probably make it overkill (though I may still go ahead and do it to save myself the time of making more chapters). The solution to this might be to add more chapters, but in order to do this while also keeping the same low roster of playable characters, I need to do one of two things:
- Adjust the EXP formula to be lower.
- Change the level cap. This would likely translate to me changing level caps to 30 and moving promotions to anything after level 20. With this change, I would also need to revisit stat caps. I could just increase the stat caps to reflect this change keeping all else constant, but if I were to go this route, I’d actually lean more towards universally lowering growth rates and leaving caps the same.
Trying to figure out what makes the most sense, but I won’t make a decision until I have the story entirely nailed down. If anyone reading this has any input about one vs. the other, it might make for an interesting talking point. I also understand that the premise of adding more chapters will just make the time to completion even longer… But hey, this is a hobby and I enjoy working on it.
Anyways, thanks for reading. Until next time!
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Monthly update coming in. Got to work on Illuminated the past week and I’ve implemented a few new changes. I’ve released a patch on the discord that I am releasing here as well. I have updated the OP with the patch.
Note that there are technically 16 chapters of playable chapters in here, but only the first 12 have been overhauled since the long overdue difficulty split. If you decide to give the patch a play (which I’ll certainly appreciate), I would recommend making a save state after finishing Chapter 12 or just leaving your save file as is.
Couple of patch notes. This is the first patch that I’ve released in over a year (I think), and there are a lot of changes.
- Sam now has access to E rank staves in order to heal small amounts. This will make more sense as to why in game.
- Bunch of new music in the hack. Some of it has not been put into chapters, but many new songs are in the sound room. Stop by and give a listen if you’d like.
- Difficulty split. Outside of increased stats, there are usually additional enemies in hard mode that give each chapter some extra difficulty. There is also an option to change the difficulty chapter by chapter when holding the “Select” button upon starting a chapter.
- The EXP formula has been toned down. For killing an enemy at an equal level, you are awarded 25 EXP instead. Higher level player units are also awarded less EXP for killing lower level enemies than vanilla FE8.
- Map changes and enemy placements have been changed around a lot to accommodate the newer enemy stats.
- Growth rates and base stats of characters have been changed around a fair amount. The patch is still fairly new and in need of some playtesting still, so I may need to go back and tweak things as needed (especially for later player characters).
- Added new stat boosters. There are smaller stat boosters that only raise a stat by one point, and there are your typical (in this hack, stronger) stat boosters like the Secret Book and Goddess Icon. I have changed the latter to have 2 or 3 uses (respectively), for example, but still offer one point per use. Essentially this allows a larger stat booster to be shared among allies.
- There is a Casual/Classic split. In classic mode, several of the characters you recruit will cause a game over upon death until their smaller side stories complete. Due to the low roster of the hack, this is to ensure the player doesn’t run themselves into a corner later on in the hack. I would recommend, however, that if you lose a unit that doesn’t cause a game over, seriously think about the consequences of moving on without him/her.
- There is a guide that lays out most of the gameplay changes from Vanilla FE8. It is accessible after starting Chapter 1.
- A new battle screen!
That’s all for now. If you happen to play and have any feedback, please don’t hesitate to let me know either here or come join in the discord. Chapter 12, in particular, was a pain to try and balance and still has some funkiness with the AI, so if you run into that, please let me hear it. Thanks!
Edit: Added some new screenshots to the OP!
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you could have them pull a bismix and go
“ugh I’ve been defeated but I can’t fall here I must make my retreat” as their death quote instead of actually dying.
Presumably it’s necessary that those characters also actually be physically present in gameplay and on the maps.
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@knabepicer has got it. The hack is designed with a very low roster size in mind, and at least in the beginning parts of the hack, giving the player a game over upon a unit death prevents soft locking. For what it’s worth, there is a casual mode as well that circumvents this gameplay mechanic
Hey everyone, new patch coming in. OP has been updated. There are no new gameplay chapters in this patch just yet (there is an interlude and a shop chapter that have been updated and included, but I’m not calling these gameplay chapters), but this patch fixes a huge number of bugs/glitches/oversights. Here is a list of some of these changes:
- Weapon Lock was borked. It is now fixed.
- Droppable items that should have been dropping are now dropping, and a few items were dropping just into gold (like the Topaz Axe). These have been fixed.
- Added two new classes. They are enemy only classes. These include a bow fighter (which is simply a fighter with a bow instead of an axe, credits to @Scraiza for the map sprites and @Leo_link for the battle animation) and a mage knight (which plays somewhat similarly to Titus from @Pandan’s Vision Quest, and in Illuminated is an armor knight with anima and dark usage. Credits to @Orihara_Saki and @TheBlindArcher for the Battle Animation and @flasuban for the map sprites).
- Added in @Nuramon’s soldier animation for male soldiers and @Flasuban’s soldier map sprites for both males and females.
- Changed Teddy’s Portrait to one from @XVI in the repo (Xavier).
- Adjusted some bases slightly and growth rates. Enemy shamans received a small buff.
- Added slim weapons to the first shop which give +2 speed to their wielder while equipped. Slim weapons have 4 less MT relative to their iron counterparts and there is a slim weapon for each physical class (bows and axes included).
- Ophelia’s personal skill has been buffed to give +10 hit when next to two allies within three spaces, rather than +5 hit.
- When changing the game to start with fast text scrolling and unit movement as a default, it borked a lot of my events into acting improperly and with poor timing. This has been updated and fixed.
There are a few other things in here, but none of this changes the core game play in any way. This patch should certainly be compatible with the last patch.
Here are some screenshots.
Next goal is to revamp all of the content in the hack that has yet to be updated (Chapters 13-16, an interlude chapter, and two somewhat playable interlude chapters). This will be released at Beta 3.1 when it’s available. Once I’ve completed that, I’ll finally be back to making new chapters and new content. At the moment, it looks like the hack will likely have 23-25 gameplay chapters by its end.
Quick edit: Updated the battle screen because I felt the item boxes were a bit barren. Here is the newer version!
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Quick update today. While I still have plenty of revamping in chapters 13-16, I’ve recently had more motivation to work on some of the maps in the upcoming chapters. I finished four of them with a rough basis for how the map will play, one of which was heavily adapted from @ZoramineFae. I don’t wanna spoil too much, but here is a bit of a teaser for the Chapter 18 Map and the Chapter 19 Map (ZoramineFae’s adapted map). The map theme for Chapter 18 will also come from Castlevania’s Portrait of Ruin “Hail from the Past”, which I adapted from VGMusic (with credits, of course).
Also, I’ve gone through and finalized the number of chapters in the hack. I have a rough basis for how to wrap up the story and the number of playable chapters I have planned now sits at 31. This means that I’ve got about 6-8 playable chapter maps to make/adapt, as well as about 6-8 cutscene/shop maps, before the mapping component of the game is done. My plan is to go ahead and steam roll through it because I’m really enjoying making them right now.
Thanks for reading. Until next time!
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Big fan of those ruins bisecting the desert, aesthetically
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Thanks for the compliment! I’m happy with how it came out and it also coincides with some story elements, so if I can nail the gameplay I think it’ll be a really good chapter.
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Ngl, I was expecting a literal 1 for 1 usage of that old map of mine, but these are some excellent changes to it! The opening of the corridor to the right and bridgeway to the left give it a lot more personality than that old one. You even managed to keep the height errors in check, which is better than I can say of myself from back in July lmao
The desert map looks a bit janky with the central but, but I also understand exactly what you’re going for. I’d recommend not using the darker sand tiles as mich, as they’re really meant to be the shadow of objects, but aside from that looks fairly comprehensive.
Good work so far, I’m looking forward to seeing more in the future!
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Thanks for letting me use your map and for the compliment, @ZoramineFae! Yeah I saw it as a great defense map, so I wanted to try and open it up to four sides as well as tighten the size up just a bit. I think I have a fun gimmick for the chapter too, so I’m excited for when I get to making it come together.
I see whatcha mean about the dark sand tiles, and I actually use them as shadows on an earlier desert bastion map, but here I thought it made a good substitute look of a worn down tile. I may go back and amend it things down the line, but truthfully I probably won’t mess with the map again until I get to how the chapter is going to actually play out. That’s when the smaller tweaks will come back into play for me. Thanks for your thoughts!
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