[LT] Milieu

[Cadbury]

Download Milieu

About

This is a game I cooked up for fun that I came up with a year ago. I’ve spent the last six months making it on and off. Originally it was named something else, but I split off a portion of the story and ‘Milieu’ was what was left. It is a self-contained 9 chapter fan-game made for Lex Talionis. It also serves as an introduction to a sequel I’m planning to make into a full 30 or so chapter game. Whether or not I’ll ever make this sequel is highly dubious, so just treat Milieu like it’s a standalone game.

The story’s about a pair of newlyweds, Marcel and Madeline, and their journey across the duchy of Setanta as they elope towards the border between Setanta and the kingdom of Crucible. Along the way they are pursued by various groups who want to put Marcel either in the dirt or in jail. Alongside this is another narrative involving twins named Claude and Claudia, who are chasing after a group of cultists who have kidnapped their mother.

The gameplay is an experiment in seeing whether or not its possible to cut out enemy phase entirely. Everyone has Galeforce and some sort of ridiculous staff, skill or weapon except James because he sucks (he still has Galeforce). The game is designed to be played by anyone of any skill level regardless of their experience playing Fire Emblem. Turnwheel uses are very generous and the game is locked to casual mode. The challenge is not so much beating the game as it is beating the game with as low a turncount as possible. There are other minor changes as well but it otherwise plays like regular GBAfe.

Features

• Original story
• New Skills
• All Units Have Galeforce
• No Permadeath
• Turnwheel Available

Screenshots

Known Bugs

The credits at the end mess up a few of the names due to missing symbols. For more accurate crediting check the credits tab here.

Credits

Many thanks to Rivian for playtesting.
Thank you to Diealot and wiisportsremote as well for offering to playtest.

Music
Tussle Among Trees – bo en
Deaf To All But The Song - ZUN
Yoru No Himawari – ryo, szak
Yoru No Himawari guitar cover – exiled puppeteer
Pokemon Ranger Lyra Forest - Takuto Kitsuta, Kinta Sato
Battle!Issac - Motoi Sakuraba (original composition), FreeJusticeHere, Coaltergeist (remaster)
Fight Against a Stronger Monster - Yoko Shimomura, (original) Xerxes (remaster)
Pokemon Ranger Wild Pokemon Battle – Takuto Kitsuta, Kinta Sato
Tension Pokemon Ranger - Takuto Kitsuta, Kinta Sato
Pokemon Ranger Ringtown - Takuto Kitsuta, Kinta Sato
Complication - Yuka Tsujiyoko (original) Xane (remaster)
Battle Rival Theo - Emdasche
Fight Against an Armed Boss - Yoko Shimomura, (original) Xerxes (remaster)
The theme of Arcueid - Raito
The World is Made in an Adorable Way- ZUN
Shining Finger Theme - Kohei Tanaka
The Narrow Path Instrumental - Exile
Rude Buster – Toby Fox
Battle Trainer - Emdasche
Battle Gym Leader - Emdasche
Places Everyone! - Emdasche
5 stories lost in snow op – Jun Maeda
Final Fantasy 5 Battle Theme – Nobuo Uematsu
Frosti – Bjork
Air op piano instrumental - Jun Maeda (original)
All other songs come from the Hidamari Sketch OST by Tomoki Kikuya (the one with the abbey road parody as its cover)

Portraits
Bella – MeatOfJustice
Tease – Kanna
Snyder – ShadowFlygon
Claude – Rohan
Claudia – Redbean
James – monk-han
Hemlock – Quotedotlass, Electric Serge
Simone – MrGreen3339
Marcel – VelvetKitsune
Mean Peg 1 & 2 – Peerless
Claude and Claudia’s Mother – Marlon0024
Benson – CapibaraInSpace
Eliza – RisingSolaris
Maddy – DerTheVaporeon
The purples – LaurentLacroix
Brutus – JiroPaiPai
Hamsen – BladerDj
Norris – Ganondorf
Cindy – Cravat
Generics– HyperGammaSpaces
Wormwood – BoneManSeth
Prepackaged generics – Intelligent Systems

Battle animations
Zeke Star Lord - VelvetKitsune
Archer - Feaw
Gypsy-Muse -Alexsplode
Devisian
FE9 Fighter Repal - Glenwing
General Repal – Skitty
GK Repal - Skitty
Journeyman Repal - SamirPlayz
Light Mage - L95
Hatless Mage - GabrielKnight
Pegasus Repal - Flasuban
Pegasus Trainee - RiriK
Falcoknight Fiora - Greentea
Red Mage - Mycahel
Troubadour Sword – TBA
WR Helmetless – eCut
FE13 Cleric – BatimaTheBat
Bandana Archer – Der
Clothed Brigand – Flasuban
Axe Cavalier Noble – Leo_Link
Lance Cavalier Noble Repal – Leo_Link
Tellius-Style Fighter – Leo_Link
Knight Repal – FPZero
Blank Pants Myrmadon - Halberdier
Non-Sacaen Nomad – eCut
Lightweight Lancer - JeyTheCount
Arcthunder - BwdYeti
Magic animation compilation – BBHood217

Magic animation sourcing
BBHood217

Map sprites
Ephraim Axe - ZoramineFae
Adventurer - N426
Ballistician - Der
Bow Knight – flasuban
Clothed Brigand – Flasuban
Cleric Trainee – Tdim
Fighter Revamped – Alusq
Fe10 Style Fighter – L95
Light Mage – L95, Leo_Link
Thunder Mage - Leif
EldritchAbomination
Lucina Sword – BatimaTheBat
Black Beauty Pegasus – L95
Lance Pegasus T1 – Flasuban
Staff Pegasus T2 – Blademaster
Prince – EldritchAbomination
Princess – EldritchAbomination
Bard – ArcherBias
Rest are property of Intelligent Systems

Icons
Durandal (Ablaze) – 2WB
Imperial Axe – 2WB
Imperial Blade – 2WB
Arcfire – Batima
Resire – Batima
Staff of the Saint – Batima
Blood Mace – Beansy
Crystal Axe – Beansy
Tactics Ogre Sword - EldritchA, Indogutsu, Tenbuki
Icon Blitz Lance – GabrielKnight
Rest are property of Intelligent Systems

Backgrounds
Claude and Claudia’s dinner table - 7743
FGO Field 1 Evening -WAve, ZoramineFae
Title Screen - Yamamoto Nizo
Rest are property of Intelligent Systems

Status screen
LordGlenn

Quotes
In order of appearance:
In red – “Had I the heavens embroidered cloths” to “Tread softly because you tread on my dreams” – W.B. Yeats, Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven
In yellow – “Even for colour TVs, there are many different colours” - Akira Ito, Stop!! Hibari-kun! OP
In blue – “Johanna drove slowly into the city” to “She spied the ring on His Honor’s finger” – Vampire Weekend, A-Punk
In orange – “ ‘Oh! We poets always have… coming home to nest!’ - Edmund Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac
In yellow – “what kind of colour is now?” – Sketch Switch
In yellow – “Today’s weather will be nice on the canvas” – Sketch Switch
In yellow – “Even an absurd response is sensible for someone from Jupiter” – Hidamari Sketch x 365 OP
In yellow – “Death is personified as an anthropomorphic figure or fictional character from the debut of mankind.” - Excerpt from text visible in the Persona 3 OP
In yellow – “The cruel angel’s thesis will soon take flight through the window” - Neko Oikawa, A Cruel Angel’s Thesis
In green – “And the stone walls of Harmony Hall bear witness” to “Of wicked snakes inside a place you thought was dignified” – Vampire Weekend, Harmony Hall
In yellow – “A piano sends its melody to the field of dreams all over the world” and “The fluffy temptation of wheat” - Hata Aki, Soramimi Cake
In yellow –“The bats are in the belfry, the dew is on the moor” – Tom Waits, Innocent When You Dream
In grey – “And I wonder, should I offer you a chair?” – Tom Waits, I Hope That I Don’t Fall In Love With You
In purple – “And the whole wide world is on your case” – Bob Dylan, Make You Feel My Love
In light pink – “Hang down your head tomorrow” – Tom Waits, Hang Down Your Head
In grey – “Leaves are brown” – Paul Simon, A Hazy Shade of Winter
In red-orange – “It’s like you’ve forgotten your mind” – Rizzle Kicks, Mama Do The Hump
In pink-orange – “I could wait a year, but I shouldn’t wait three” – Vampire Weekend, 2021
In white – “The kids don’t stand a chance” – Vampire Weekend, The Kids Don’t Stand a Chance
In yellow – “Someone’s got it in for me” – Bob Dylan, Idiot Wind
In purple – “I do believe it, I do believe it’s true” – Paul Simon, At The Zoo
In light green –“Turning and turning in the widening gyre” to “Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold” – W.B. Yeats, The Second Coming
In blue – “Take it easy for the rest of the day!” to “We shall contact you at the appropriate time to arrange this appointment” – Dentist surgery aftercare pamphlet
In blue – “But the usher has seized my arm… and the morning already begun” – Delmore Schwartz, In Dreams Begin Responsibilities
In yellow – “Oh, the rag man draws circles” to “Oh, mama, can this really be the end?” – Bob Dylan, Stuck Inside of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again
In red – “Punctured bicycle on a hillside desolate” to “He knows so much about these things” – The Smiths, This Charming Man
In white - “Hey, the days are wonderful, in the midst of weakness and anxiety” – Be Yumi, Bokura no Jikan

Changelog

12/04/2024

• Stun now lasts through enemy phase
• Certain cursor positions during events are now centered
• New combat animation palette for Cecelia
• Mercy can no longer be selected using a vulnerary
• Powerstaff no longer crashes the game if used with healing staves
• Triplication now grants Rule of Thirds
• Claude now deals more damage to Ian during their battle
• Both of Chapter 5’s midpoint event bugs have been fixed
• Valkyries no longer have Shine

19/04/2024

• Made it more clear that the soldier is being healed in Chapter 5’s midpoint event
• Bow knights now have class cards and a description
• The doors for the houses in Chapter 5 are more clearly visibly open.
• The transition between the credits and the title screen is less abrupt
• Brutus Res nerfed from 21 → 10

20/04/2024

• Accented letters have been removed from song titles
• Chapter 8’s intro event has two new background characters
• Brutus has a new combat animation palette
• Accidental pixels have been removed from Headwrecker

Notes

Text speed is locked to ensure certain events play at the correct speed.
The code in the project file is open-source and free to use. This includes the custom components.

Todos

Chapter 6 and Chapter 7 map re-designs
Add more battle convos between Ian and certain party members
Fix some positioning in 7’s outro event
replace armor walk-cycle sound with the metal pipe sound effect
fix the fe7 color palette

Download Milieu

[Rivian]

Congrats on the release, looking forward to finishing it.

[maduka_maguca]

banger of a game, would knock myself out with a metal pipe to induce amnesia to enjoy it again

[FE7Dragon]

Looks cool! I’ll have to give it a try sometime soon!

[Fringus]

this was a wild ride to play through, and it definitely had some of the best cutscene eventing I’ve seen. alotta the more humorous stuff landed super consistently and made for a great treat to read through after each map.

to anyone even curious about milieu, even if you dont dig the gameplay the writing and eventing go hand in hand in making something really great. please do give it a try, it’s not an experience you’d likely be forgetting any time soon.

[BigMood]

Just finished the game.

There are very few thoughts I can give because this is a game that should be experienced with as few spoilers as possible. I would say that if you’re a fan of plays and theatre, you should absolutely give this game a go.

Possible Bugs/Remedies

Stun does not last through the enemy phase, which is pretty funny if intentional. If it’s not intentional, simply use the “end time” component instead of the “time” component on the stun status (with the duration still set to 1).

Adding “item_system.damage(unit, item) is not None” to the Mercy skill will prohibit it from showing up as an option for Vulneraries.

You can set “clear_turnwheel” after 5’s midpoint event in order to prevent turnwheeling back from it.

On the topic of 5’s midpoint, after seeing the event, I was able to press B and completely undo the entire turn. I would suggest forcibly ending the unit’s turn that triggers the midpoint event and then refreshing them in a unit_wait event to prevent this.

Great game, hope you slept well.

[HeroVP]

Just a quick bug report, loving the game so far, it’s very unique.

Bug

On chapter 6, the game crashed when healing Simone with the Georgina, and it spat out this error message (AttributeError: ‘HealHit’ object has no attribute ‘main_attacker’). Let me know if you need the full error log

[Ouyanagi1]

I also had the same error. Just to report too.

[Rivian]

Also just finished.

Milieu’s dialogue was very compelling and had a good chunk of the humour landed with me, some of it pretty out of pocket. Definitely worth playing to experience the writing.

The infinite galeforce mechanic was pretty fun to play around, especially in combination with some of the personal skills. The last chapter got pretty tough with how strong enemies were and it turned into galeforcing as much as possible to player phase enemies before they will wipe you out, which is a neat change of pace.

A minor note is that a few of the portraits have fe7 colors, having more saturated outlines and colors, such as Liz. Some others too, unsure of who.

A few of the bugs people have described already. About the ch6 final fantasy tileset town, the closed door is typically used to indicate a house that was already visited, I can see players missing them due to not realising they’re for visiting.

Spoilers

The ending left me with a feeling of… Something. No idea what, but it sure made me feel things, which is pretty damn good. Unsure if my interpretation of the events was correct, but I suspect its meant to be this way.

I was a little confused about the whole twins/Bella/cult sideplot that didn’t end up going anywhere with how the project concludes. Did I miss something or was this the intended approach?

[HeroVP]

Just finished as well, this is a game everyone should play, and I think it is best experienced blind, so I will say nothing else.

Thank you so much for making this game

[knabepicer]

Played it, was an interesting time at least.

Bug

There’s a valkyrie in the final chapter who has a shine tome that cannot be used.

[Solstice]

I’m kind of at a loss as to what to say about this project. I really enjoyed it. There’s a lot to it in a relatively small package. For one, I thought the characters were funny, interesting, fun to use, and all fit into their own niche which made using each one to the best of their abilities really engaging and rewarding. The dialogue got legit laughs out of me multiple times, and at the same time…

Spoilers

I’m such a sucker for both the borderline-hopecore dialogue at some points and the much sadder dialogue at others. Especially right at the end, something about the final event between Marcel and Fintan, and later Marcel and Madeline really got me. Tugged on the heartstrings a little. With how much I enjoyed this hack, as well as how much it leaves completely unanswered and incomplete at its conclusion, I’m really hoping to see more from you in the future.

Bug-wise, I experienced the same crash when using Georgina as others have reported. I’m going to assume James’ Stun staff is meant to be player-phase focused as a way to negate counterattacks, but I guess it’s something to keep in mind…

Anyway, amazing job! It’s not often something I complete in a single afternoon sticks in my head for days, but I can already tell Milieu is going to.

[PKLucky]

Hey there! I haven’t played this yet (I will eventually), but I do have a fix for that Mercy bug. I actually ran into the same problem when implementing the skill in my own project.

So, in the skill, you’d add the Allowed Weapons component and put in this line of code:
item_system.weapon_type(unit, item) == 'WeaponType'

With WeaponType being whatever type of weapon that unit can use. And if the unit can use multiple weapon types, just put a copy of that code line with an ‘or’ statement.

[Darkiway]

Alright I finished the game and really enjoyed the experience.
Is it weird that the writing reminded me of Waiting for Godot?
It’s a pacing and thematic thing, though the dialogue between the twins
(and their mother) really hits those vibes as well.

[HeroVP]

Very interested to hear the inspiration, I personally thought it felt a lot like The Great Comet of 1812

[Cadbury]

dont worry guys im not dead, reading through the replies atm, ik the gameplay’s a little rough but i thought itd get more attention to post it up here, and so get more players etc. to get the improvements rolling faster, i was kinda under a self-imposed time limit to get this done. i’ll detail the story more, design decisions, home address, ip address, credit card information, etc. in the main post anyways thanks for playing if you did play i slept pretty well thanks for asking.

[Solstice]

Don’t forget those 3 wacky numbers on the back! (Don’t push yourself too hard, I’ll be more than happy to wait to play through this project again)

[Cadbury]

Fixed the bugs mentioned so far, and added a few QoL improvements to certain events. Cecelia also has a new palette.

[diealot]

Thanks for spilling your heart out to us in your
Retrospective. Really help us to understand your creative process.

[diealot]

Ok just finish this game and I can say that I understand nothing of the deep meaning behind the story all I know is: That I Know Nothing
So all the unit can move again after killing an enemy but what does that do. I don’t understand the game mechanic. The enemy in this game is crazy strong how am I suppose to kill them in 1 turn and take advantage of that extra turn.

Spoiler Here

Marcel die trying to fight against the Setanta Army at the border while using the last of his strength and will to deal the final blow to the entire army. Madeline is left alone and cry over Marcel death.
Also The Twin Claude and Claudia could not save their mother from the Cultists. What is up with that storyline.
Also didn’t see the betrayal of that shaman lady comming. That took me by surprise

I am really confuse about the Meaning of the Story and would be really glad if someone who finished the game and understood the story behind the game could explain to me the meaning behind all the dialogues and conversation. It was like I was reading the words but they just don’t compute in my brain. They just could not convey the meaning and emotion that I was expecting the game to convey.