Departure at the Beach
Download here
This was an interesting challenge. Of course, itās not quite where Iād want it to be, but it is what it is.
Screenshots of Final Product
Credits
SkillSystem developers and contributors (as of August 10th, 2023)
Assembly
Battle stats with anims off: Tequila
Chapter Names as Text: circleseverywhere
EventRescue: circleseverywhere
Fixed Autolevels: nat
MultiTileMarker: 7743
Per chapter quotes: nat
Show Heal Amount: Tequila
Portraits
Alusq: Valentius
Goldblitzx: Naima, Siddel, Alden
JiroPaiPai: Jerome
LaurentLacroix: Kaitlyn, Welf
Levin64: Darrion
Music
Alusq: Tearing Ring Saga - Knights of Lazeria
The Process
Disclaimer: In case youāre wondering how I would both work on this and get all of this stuff down, I paused the timer whenever I needed to write benchmark notes down down/collect screenshots (Iām not a time management beast).
Setup
- SkillSystem from August 10th, 2023
- Added eventing macros
- The āmourning or misguided creatureā prompt appealed to me, so I planned on starting around that. I initially thought of using some sort of FE8 monster that would seek revenge in their sorrow, but couldnāt come up with anything. Before continuing to try and fall asleep, I jotted down a brief idea (no lines/characters/names determined) that read as follows:
āMercenaries hired to escort mother and dead son to beach. Assassins attack them.ā
00:04:44 - map (draft 1)
00:15:35 - put player units on the map, boss is an Assassin
[5 to 10 minute break]
00:19:54 - removed skills except Canto and Crit +15, gave Assassin Crit +15, added Hero to player units and made NPC a Swordmaster
00:23:58 - enemy units wave 1 (draft 1)
00:32:01 - player stats (draft 1)
00:45:16 - enemies (draft 1), moved boss to the beach
00:53:50 - item stats [lowered silvers to B rank, javelin & hand axe -1 mt and +10 hit, steels have +5 hit; are all D rank; and have less wt], asm [added MultiTileMarker, changed vulnerary healing to 15], adjusted player inventories (draft 1)
00:56:25 - added FixedAutolevel, increased generic unpromoted enemies level from 10 to 13
01:00:45 - increased generalās stats, slightly increased a few other player unit stats, moved second wave of enemies slightly to the left
01:10:50 - first playtest
[60 minute break]
01:16:12 - +4 skl and +2 lck to player units, added ShowHealingAmount and UpdatedLButtonCycling, fixed FixedAutolevel not adding unpromoted levels to promoted levels (this was a change I made for LLF)
01:58:30 - inserted portraits, names (made through https://www.fantasynamegenerators.com/), and descriptions
02:29:16 - wrote text for the opening, boss fight, boss death, and the ending
[90 minute break]
02:48:08 - inserted text, made assembly to check if mother and son are on tiles during talk conversation
03:02:31 - map (draft 2)
03:07:58 - adjusted assembly for checking mother and son to also check action data
03:12:04 - set sonās hp to 0 during BeginningScene
03:15:27 - āfixedā sonās eyes being open by pasting closed eyes frame over portrait and blinking frame)
03:23:00 - added PerChapterBattleQuotes (donāt ask me why I didnāt just take the macros included with it), inserted battle and death quote lists
03:26:15 - added text explaining win condition and game over conditions
03:30:27 - changed text above, removed world map event
03:35:51 - added music to cutscenes, inserted Tearing Ring Saga - Knights of Lazeria as map theme
03:40:39 - added hardcoded check for son, set avoid to 0 if true
03:43:50 - general rescues son before chapter begins
03:53:10 - second playtest
03:53:56 - removed crit from swordmasters and assassin, set Darrionās max hp to 1
03:55:49 - removed crit from Thunder, increased hit by 5
03:58:37 - changed status text to reflect actual win condition; this was the last thing I did for development (after this, I just had to get a few more screenshots and make the credits list)
Screenshots of Process