sounds good, looking forward to seeing this progress further
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Thanks Rye!
Still have to play Berwick Saga. The turn flow will be different from how I understand Berwick works as it’s determined by how fast your “stamina” regenerates, based off of an endurance stat.
This looks very good, I’ll keep an eye.
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Eyyyyyy0! This looks fun looking forward to seeing how this project will come along!
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Hey Everyone!
Been quietly working on the map for a while now, and I tried my hand at two different versions. One is a parchment style that is more in line with the world maps I’m used to. The second one I tried my hand at coloring the details of the map.
The maps will mainly be used to narrate at the beginning of each chapter, setting the larger context of what is going on in the chapter.
Which map style do you like better?
- Parchment
- Colored
0
voters
Thank you both! The kind words are much appreciated. 
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I feel like the parchment map is classic. Pairing it with a fire camera filter or this effect would likely be dope.
Esp, if you draw dotted paths between points or place soldiers on certain locations.
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Wow good looking out! That asset looks perfect, I’ll definitely get some mileage out of it, thank you!
I can definitely see fading in some character art to show who is where during the prelude on each chapter.
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Thanks to everyone who voted in the map poll! I was expected more of a “parchment” bias due to that being how FE games usually handle it, so it was refreshing to see people like the colored version. If you haven’t yet, definitely let me know which you like better in the map poll. I’m leaning towards polishing up the colored one and using that as the in game world map, also using the plugin Copywright suggested as it is pretty slick.
Moving on to some new work, I’ve been able to put in some solid grinding time and have completely revamped the inventory system. I’m going to lay out some pros and cons of the old vs new system to explain my reasoning for the revamp.
Old inventory system:
4 “equipment slots”. 1 handed weapons/shield take up one slot. 2 handed take 2 slots.
Pros:
- Feels a little more realistic since two handed weapons are larger, they should take more space.
Cons
- Could have weird combinations like 3 shields, 1 sword. 4 Shields.
- Coding was getting messy as I always had to check if a two handed weapon was taking up two slots.
New inventory system:
3 “weapon slots”. 1 and 2 handed both only take up one slot. 1 shield slot, with shields being auto equipped with one handed weapons. This is accompanied by shields not having durability so they are unable to break, so you will only need one. 2 item slots for things like bandages, and potentially throwing weapons in the future?? Not 100% sure how deep I’ll go on items yet but the possibilities are there.
Pros
- I think it’s simpler. All weapons take up a slot so the main difference between 1/2 handed is now mainly more offense/stronger effects in 2H weapons, whereas 1H let’s you equip a shield giving you more defense.
- Shields are separate. Shields automatically equipped saving the player clicks.
Cons
- A little less realistic. Carrying 3 2-handed weapons doesn’t seem very realistic, but I don’t think most players will care THAT much about the “realism” behind it as long as it isn’t at ridiculous levels.
Here is a little demo of the new inventory:
It may be hard to see, but I also added a QOL feature in that hovering over an unequipped weapon will show the stats if it was equipped compared to the currently equipped weapon, and will highlight stats green if they’re “better” or red if they’re “worse”. Took a little bit of code refactoring, but I think it was ultimately worth it. Also got some new flat icons that I really enjoy using.
I’ve also been super happy with how recent character’s I commissioned turned out so here are those for those of you who are interested in them!
Thanks for reading and I’d love to know if you think I could have made any better design decisions. I like how the inventory turned out but there’s always room for improvement and I definitely have my blind spots when it comes to design. Cheers!
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I like the new inventory system, it’s pretty cool. And QoL improvements are always appreciated.
Also, cheers to whoever drew those characters, the art style is amazing.
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Thanks Gustabo. 
I’ll pass it along to him. I think he’s insanely good, he has quite a few different art styles too, but still manages to keep all the portraits consistent. His DeviantArt has a lot of fantastic work. Definitely feel lucky to have him doing art for the game.
Glad the plugin’s helping!
Very nice UI you have there! Really clean and easy to digest.
If I had any suggestions, it’d be to add a darker color to the Ui Image of the selected/hovering item slot.
That way, the player knows which is being selected. In the video, the equipped weapon changes but it’s a bit tough to know which I’m targeting without that color change or a cursor.
Edit: oops, you’re totally doing that. Was a bit hard to make out at first.
Also, really high quality portraits. 
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Hey everyone! Here with another progress update. The past two weeks I’ve been focusing on the implementation of classes and abilities. I think it’s going to be the most integral part of how the game-play feels so I’d love your feedback. I’ll try to keep it fairly summarized, but will always happy to go into more depth if you have any questions.
Summary
- Each character will have on personal ability unique to themselves.
- 6 base classes, one per character.
- Each base class will have access to certain weapons. Example: A fighter will have access to 1 and 2 handed axes. A soldier 1 and 2 handed lances.
- Each base class comes with 1 unique default ability, and gains another at level 5 and 10 (3 total).
- At level 15 the player will choose a class to promote to from 3 options, 2 being the default upgrades for that base class, and 1 being specific to the character upgrading.
- On upgrade to the promoted class, the character will gain stats, an ultimate ability unique to the promoted class, and the ability to use weapons extra weapon types depending on the class.
- Other abilities are granted by weapons/items in your inventory. Example: a Claymore may have a Sweep ability that hits 3 units in front of your unit, but only if your character has enough levels in “Two-Handed Swords”. A Bandage in your inventory would give you the Heal Injury ability, that would heal your unit x% of their health, up to 80%. An Iron Axe might have the Axe Throw ability that gives you a ranged attack, only if you have the required weapon level in “One Handed Axes”.
- Come end game, with 3 weapons slots, 2 item slots, 1 shield slot, 4 class abilities (3 base + 1 ultimate promoted) and 1 personal ability, a unit will cap out at 11 abilities, with 6 being customizable from chapter to chapter. I think this gives flexibility to build your characters how you want to, while still making each character unique.
Would love any feedback you all might have. I know it’s really hard to judge it just through text, but any first thoughts/impressions are appreciated. I’ve changed this quite a bit over time due to feedback already to simplify it so it’s not too much of a hassle to manage a party of 10+ units a chapter.
Also got some new character art commissioned. One for a generic mercenary, and another for one of Fern’s senators that will play a large role in the story. The last time I had a “generic mercenary” commissioned, he made the character look so good I ended up using him as a playable character. So this is round two, and for real just a generic this time. 
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Hey everyone! Wanted to share another quick progress update. I’ve made the Fighter and Soldier base classes along with their default ability of Kick and Shield Bash.
The kick is a useful ability because it is high accuracy (though lower damage), so it gives the traditionally lower accuracy fighter an attack that will do a small bit of damage but very accurately, great for finishing off enemies or putting them in range of more accurate ally attacks. A great effect of the kick is it will move the hit unit back one tile. This is great for when the enemy is camping a strategic tile (fort, forest), to take away their terrain advantage.
The shield bash will be an ability available to the soldier class when they have a one handed weapon and shield equipped. Though the stamina cost is higher, it will have the powerful effect of inflicting stun on the enemy hit. “Stun” is also the first status effect in the game! It will make it so the enemy will skip their next turn, but also they cannot counter attack and all attacks against them have 100% chance to hit. This gives the player another way to reduce RNG through good use of skills.
I’m currently working on another status effect “taunted” that will change the AI of the enemy to attack the unit that taunted them. What will be interesting about it is that taunted units will take the shortest path to attack their target, so you can manipulate this to know exactly where an enemy will end up on their turn, allowing you to set up flanks while your tank takes aggro. The taunt ability will be the default ability of the defender class, which will be the class of one of the units you get at the start of chapter 1!
Also I made a little game-play change (with big repercussions) so now you can choose the direction of your units even after they attack (previously you were only able to do it if you didn’t attack). I think this will allow the player to be more aggressive with their play, as they can kill a unit, then rotate their unit so they aren’t easily backstabbed by enemies. That’s the thought behind it anyway, I’d love to hear your thoughts!
As always thanks for reading and any feedback is greatly appreciated in these early stages of the game. Have a great rest of the weekend everyone. 
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Holy crap, that is amazing. It’s not every day I see people turning they’re to hack into an original game and I’m excited to see the future of this game!
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Thanks a lot @Bacon_Eggs! I’m a year into it and I still can’t really believe I’m doing it either. 
Appreciate the kind words!
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Another quick round of updates. I have finished two more default abilities for the defender and skirmisher class. One that will look familiar, and one that while not completely new to the genre, is not seen in Fire Emblem. Also got two new character commissions done that I’m really happy with, one is an archer, the other a skirmisher. I’ll let you guess which is which.
Now let’s dive into the abilities, starting with something familiar, the agile (aka definitely not canto) ability!
We all know how OP moving again after acting can be, so I’m capping the movement after attack at 2, as well as making it affected by enemy zone of control. I think that should be enough to keep it in check, but I’ll adjust as needed once I have chapter 1 out for feedback.
Let’s end with some spice, the taunt ability:
It will inflict the taunt status on all units within two tiles, which will cause them to attack the taunter using the shortest path, meaning they won’t backstab if you’re facing the units you taunted. This allows you to “predict” where their next move will be so you can flank with other units.
This helped me work out the framework for AoE abilities, as well as forced me to implement a basic version of ranged attacks! Excited to implement bows and throwable items in the future. Shout-out to Saint Rubenio in the games Discord for awesome suggestions!
I also had someone send me a link to their live stream of playing through the game, and it made me realize just how dialogue heavy the prologue is. I went through and cut out some parts I thought were unnecessary exposition this early on, and made the writing less verbose where I could. Still think I might need to just hire a writer in the future. I have fun with it, but if I’m being honest with myself, I’m an average writer at best. 
Thanks everyone for the continued support hope you’re all having a great weekend!
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Hey everyone!
Been heads down a bit working on code to transition saves to the new chapter. I’m making steady progress on chapter 1, currently outlining the battle map first before I do any environment design. This will give me a solid foundation to build off of as I know how the “flow” of the chapter is going to go. Expect much more combat than in the prologue!
Also, I may be in the market for a writer, but it depends on how my finances shape up. I wouldn’t ever expect someone to work for free, and I don’t think offering a cut of revenue would be sufficient payment this early on in development. What I am realizing is how much of a gargantuan undertaking all the different parts of the game are solo, so I may be looking to create a team in the future. Nothing set in stone though, but DM me if this sounds like something that might be interesting to you or if you know someone who would be interested?
Back to actual updates! Here are some new characters being introduced in chapter 1:
Playable
NPC
Enemies (recolors for variety)
Some other quick updates, I got some feedback that the tutorials were too “stacked” together, and should be spread out to when the actual action is happening. So I did just that! Low quality gif, but I think it gets the points across. Basically the tutorials will pop up for each action the first time it shows up in a turn.
A couple of things that I’m looking to change AFTER I finish chapter 1. I will poll these changes once I have chapter 1 out and playable, as players will have a lot more combat to base their preference off of. However I’d love to get any early feedback you all have!
Attack UI: I’ve had thoughts of trimming down the UI by a LOT. Right now it takes 5 clicks just to do a basic attack on a unit. 1 - click the unit to show movement range, 2 - click the tile to move to, 3 - click the ‘Attack’ action, 4 - Choose the weapon, 5 - Choose the target. This can be optimized to just the essentials. Since the turn system allows one unit at a time, we can remove choosing the unit and show the movement range automatically for the next unit in queue. The UI would be one bar at the bottom, showing all the weapons you can equip, and if you hover over it, the abilities you can use with it. Items, class, and personal abilities will show in the bar too. Then you’d just select the target once you’ve hit a weapon/ability and you’ve trimmed down 5 clicks to just 3 a turn, which over the course of the game would be massive!
Turn System: I’m thinking of simplifying it a bit and only allowing one attack per “turn” per unit, but the endurance stat will decide who goes first. Right now I’m running into a balancing issue where i never want player units to have low END because that means someone’s favorite unit might act way less than others, which wouldn’t be a ton of fun. Making this change still rewards high endurance by letting them strike first, but that’s it. It also makes the “algorithm” of who goes next much easier to understand at a glance.
Shields: Right now shields operate as a % chance to reduce damage by a set amount. 50% to reduce incoming damage by 5, for example. This leads to the player needing to do more calculations, and also a potentially frustrating RNG factor against enemies where you keep getting your damage reduced. Whereas with your units you don’t want to have to rely on a 50% chance to keep them alive. I’m thinking of changing it to shields acting as an added “health bar” that recovers each turn. So at the start of each units turn their shield would refresh to block 10 damage, for example. Weaker shields would block less, heavier ones more. But the damage absorption would only happen if they get hit, so it’s a good way to keep your units topped off without overly relying on heals.
That’s it for now, stay tuned for hopefully a new map in the next update!
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I’m in favor of END determining turn order rather than turn frequency.
As for the shield idea, the extra shield HP fully restoring every turn sounds pretty strong. What if the amount that a shield regenerates each turn is a unique stat for each shield?
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YES! I love that idea. I was actually going to put as a “con” to the new shield idea that I don’t know how I would differentiate shields besides from their total value, but that completely solves that problem, while also making sure shields aren’t “too strong”. Basically a shield with a block value of 5 will regen 5 at the start of the turn, and a shield with 20 could regen 2, or maybe not at all? Love it!
You honestly don’t know how many nights I’ve been mulling this change over and couldn’t figure out how to make the balancing work, and you solve it in 5 minutes.
I might put this into chapter 1 tbh, it just seems like a better all around system now.
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