Announcing Make A Really Terrific Hack, or MARTH for short. This is a chapter creation competition in the vein of Ghast’s Make A Fun Chapter series. This is intended to be a basic, no-frills contest. Prospective entrants will be challenged to make a quality chapter based on three fields of skill: gameplay, graphics, and story.
Engines include GBAFE, SNESFE, FEXNA, SRPG Studio, or Lex Talionis.
If hacking, entrants may use whatever method they prefer.
Though creating an SRPG chapter is recommended, it is not required.
Length
Entrants are restricted to a single chapter.
There are no restrictions on this chapter’s length.
There are no restrictions on map size.
Only one map may be used for gameplay.
Content
Entrants may theme their entry however they wish.
The FEU content rules apply. Submissions may not be rated 17+.
Entrants may have as much or as little text as desired.
If entry is not an SRPG, Fire Emblem must be relevant.
For example, a Mario hack featuring Marth is allowed.
Submission and Time Limits
Entrants have until 11:59pm GMT on the 16th of April to submit an entry.
Entrants may spend as much time as desired working on their chapter.
Entries must be sent to @Darrman on Fire Emblem Universe via personal message.
Entries must come with patching or running instructions.
There will be no extension to the deadline.
Disqualification
Entrants will be disqualified if they:
Submit an entry that does not boot.
Submit an entry that cannot be finished.
Submit more than one chapter.
Submit an entry directly recycled from another game.
Ranking
Entrants will be scored in the following areas:
Gameplay: How enjoyable the entry is.
There are many elements in what is fun.
A unique chapter with an interesting gimmick will score well.
An empty field with a unit walking from A to B will score poorly.
Adding ASM hacks without balancing around them will be frowned upon.
For example, using the Skill System default skills without change.
Presentation: How the entry looks and sounds.
Don’t be afraid to use mugs and animations from the graphics repository.
If the entry stands out visually compared to other hacks, it will score well.
Tile cut-off or poor-quality recolours will penalise the entrant.
Music quality will also be scored under here: midis with dummy instruments will hurt your score, while high-quality mixes help it.
Story: The tale the entry tells.
The story does not need to be serious. Comedy is more than welcome.
Whether serious or funny, the story should make sense. Avoid plot holes.
There is no need to have every blue unit appear in every conversation.
Having little or no text will result in a low score, as will placeholders.
Gameplay will be scored out of 10, while presentation and story will be scored out of 5.
This adds up to 20.
Four judges will review each entry.
These scores will be added up, for a grand total of 80.
The entry with the highest score wins.
The winner’s project will be set as the forum banner for two weeks.
Other Notes
Entrants are welcome to collaborate. However, they can only submit one entry.
Entrants are welcome to publicly post a patch in the entry thread upon submission.
Entries will be released to the public with the results.
Entrants and non-entrants are welcome to play and provide feedback to other entrant’s entries.
Judges will play each entry without save state usage. Please factor this in.
If you don’t know where to begin, this video is an example of what to aim for.
I’ve linked to Plunder Gone Asunder from MAFC4 as an example of a solid entry made by a beginner at the time. However, do not shy away from more radical gimmicks: the same competition had a Rubik’s cube submitted!
Remember, the deadline is 11:59pm GMT on the 16th of April. Good luck to all entrants.
Happy International Hack Release Day, or April Fools if you prefer. Two weeks have passed since the competition started, so about two more weeks remain. It’s not too late to start making an entry if you haven’t started yet.
Remember, the deadline is the 16th. Let this post serve as a reminder if you’re falling behind.
Looks like I’ll be the first public submission then, if anyone else wants to try it.
NOTE: This chapter contains spoilers for the ending of Four Kings, if you care about that.
Taking place a year after the end of the Four Kings main story, I made a little one-off map about Zoe, Cindy, Vin, and Patty. I approached it the same as designing the trial maps in Four Kings, so there’s some light usage of skills, and the usual personal weapons. Enjoy!
There is one week remaining, so it is time for another reminder. Several submissions have already been received. If you haven’t started yet, it’s not too late.
The deadline is 11:59pm GMT on the 16th: that’s Sunday. Good luck to everyone.
Two issues that prevent me from submitting right now.
One is that I genuinely do not know how to send a direct message.
The other is that apparently I can’t reply with links so I can’t send the patch.
The former is obviously a fixable issue but is there anything I can do about the latter?
You have to post more to be able to message users and send links, once you get the “member” trust level you should be good to go, just engage with the community some more
The reply I sent seemingly fixed both issues, as now I have the member level, I think?
Anyway, this is the public submission of my hack for this, in case anyone is interested in trying it. Also my first hack, so it’s not too great, but nonetheless I hope it is somewhat enjoyable.
If there are any problems with the link, the patch, or anything else related to this reply or the hack, please let me know.
I come out of retirement (or something) to offer you guys, once again, the experience of not playing Fire Emblem. Although I guess this time Vesly is joining me on that, the more the merrier.
Today I bring with me a hopefully fresh take on a classic board game.
This hack features...
Cute graphics! So cute that I had to post the title screen twice!
A Fire Emblem twist on snaking and laddering!
Stunning character development! Such a moving plot!
And a triangularly advantageous, weapon swapping, tactical board game action twist, for up to three players!
Also cool music by Alusq! But that’s hard to provide pictures for!
Did someone say not playing Fire Emblem? Clay no more!
Something strange is going on at Renais Castle! Traps have appeared all over the place, and Ephraim’s explosive personality has caused him to leave in frustration, leaving it up to Eirika to solve this problem. Will she be able to Sweep this mess under the rug, or will this powder keg blow up in her face?
Featuring:
Mined-blowing puzzles!
Classic, beloved gameplay!
Infinite* replayability!
5 boom-bastical audio tracks!
Of these contest submissions, won’t you play Mine?
Download
Trader Raiders is a FE8U submission; apply .ups patch to the appropriate ROM.
It’s a pretty standardish chapter, but I had fun making certain parts of it! If you’ve played Long-Lost Friends, there’s a lot of gameplay stuff that’s carried over from that. However, even if you have, there’s some new items to play with in this chapter!
This is your 24-hour warning. If you’re still working on a submission, please spend your last day wisely. No extensions will be given.
Overall, I’m very happy with the turnout. The full entry count will be revealed when submissions close, but this is shaping up to be a big contest. Thank you to everyone who entered for their time, and good luck to all entrants.
I had alot of fun making this map, as my first experience romhacking. The map has 11 playable units, each with one personal skill. The only enemies that have a skill are the stationary boss on the seize point and the Ranger reinforcement boss
Oh wow, so many more posts since I last checked in.
My chapter is just about ready, but I realized that I’d never made a post so… figured I should do some prep work to make sure I can post links lol
I wish everyone luck and hope I have time to check out some of these awesome looking levels
Play as a bunch of peasant rebels in way over their heads
Overcome superior foes with status effects, buffs, debuffs and AoEs
An excessive variety of weapons and items
Everyone comes with canto+/shove for quick smash and grab
All credits in the folder.
Shoutout to Vesly and Retina for helping me with technical issues, and to Bpat, Loog, Kyrads. Roze
and TorT for playtesting to refine the hack.
Roze made several player portraits (for a 1 chapter hack!), absolute legend.
The MARTH submissions are looking absolutely fire, definitely interested in giving them a spin.
