Progress Report on FE Steel Over Blood (Journal Entries)

[Bacon_Eggs]

–Looking for playtesters, spriters, music people, and perhaps people with general knowledge of skill systems coding–

-Screenshots:

I am incredibly thankful for the support I have been given during the development of Steel Over Blood. I would also like to thank Yasako, Glaceo, BlindArcher, and HusbandoEmblem for the many commissioned portraits I have made them work on.

-Progress Report:
-Chapter 1 : Written 5/5 | Evented 5/5 | Balanced & Polished 5/5
-Chapter 2: Written 4/5 | Evented 5/5 | Balanced & Polished 4/5
-Chapter 3: Written 1/5 | Evented 4/5 | Balanced & Polished 3/5
-Chapter 4: Written 4/5 | Evented 5/5 | Balanced & Polished 3/5
-Chapter 5: Written 3/5 | Evented 4/5 | Balanced & Polished 1/5
-Chapter 6: Written 2/5 | Evented 2/5 | Balanced & Polished 0/5
-Chapter 7: Written 3/5 | Evented 2/5 | Balanced & Polished 0/5

-Plot:

The Ulkfold Empire is an old and mighty nation, finally reaching peace with its rival country, the Kingdom of Centaurus. At the cost of a small portion of the Empire’s own land, the two nations maintained peace for over half a century… until Empire’s Capital was suddenly attacked by invaders. An unpredictable invasion that came at the cost of the Emperor’s life, bringing chaos to its people.

Confused and on edge at this unspeakable event, they pointed the blame at the Kingdom of Centaurus, shattering the peace between the two nations and bringing forth a new age of war.

Our protaginst, Lenora. A young aspiring knight of the Ulkfold Empire, filled with ambition and excitement for the future will soon learn that war is not as pretty as the storybooks have led her to believe. She and her comrades will inevitably follow a path against the interest of her own motherland and the Kingdom she swore to fight against. Discovering the true motive behind this gruesome war.

-Credit:

Commissioned Portraits Exclusively for Steel Over Blood (SPOILERS)

Portraits Used From the Repo

-Sphealnuke (Prologue Chapter Captain)

-CapibaraInSpace (Teresa | Chuck)

-Sphealnuke (Palmeria)

-LaurentLacroix (Lenora’s Dad: Luther)

-Smokeyguy77 (Rudolf)

-Wasdye (Baldwin)

-XVI (Moriarty | Gronbérg)

-NICKT (Ludwig)

-Narumon (Empire Soldier)

Map textures:

-Zora (for the town map design for Prologue and Chapter 1)
-Zoramine Fae (For an Fe8 night-time tileset)

Music

-Sme (FE16 Edge of Dawn)

-SaXor_the_Nobody (Yggdra Union We_ll Never Fight Alone - Durant Sortie!)

-Dolkar (FE5 - Squadron A)

-hypergammaspaces (FE02 - Alm Player Phase 1 | FE02 - Alm Enemy Phase )

-Faranaja (Road Home)

-Psyche (Castlevania Order of Ecclesia - Chapel Hidden in Smoke)

-RSflame (Castlevania Portrait of Ruin - Bloodlines Bequeathed)

-Alusq (FFT - Anxiety)

-MrGreen3339 (MOTHER 3 -Memory of Life)

-Ristar (FE Echoes: Pride and Arrogance || FE Engaged: Bright Sandstorm || FE Awakening Jingles)

-Sokaballa (Gerudo Valley)

-Kascade VGM (It has to be this way)

Battle animations

-GabrielKnight (Unique female swordfighter anim)

-SALVAGED (Cavalries)

-Greentea (Sain cav)

-Narumon (Knights, Soldier, Female Pirate, Male & Female Myrmidon)

-Black Mage (Female Fighter)

-DerTheVaporeon (Twintail Archer, Female and Male War Monk)

-Leo_Link (Tellius Fighter)

-TBA (Halberdier, Phantom)

-Vilkalizer (Gladiator)

-Iscaneus (Male Brigand)

-eCut (Female Brigand)

-eCut v2 Repal (Female Warrior)

-FEGirls Baeserker (Female Berserker)

-Blue Druid (Griffon Rider)

-Ayr (Griffon Lord)

-Jj09, Leo_Link, DerTheVaporeon, flashuban (Dark Knight)

-Eldritch (Poltergeist)

-Pikmin1211, Jj09, 7743, Jey the Count (Malig Knight)

-Pikimin (Female and Male Dark Mage)

-Russel Clark (Female Mercenary)

Map Sprites

Pikimin, L95, Der, Glaceo, flasuban, Mikey_Seregon, Narumon, TBA, Rexacuse, Peerless, Alusq, Pushwall, Shin19, SALVAGED, Eldritch Abomination, N426, Blue Druid, Unkown

Weapon Icons

Beansy, Jubby, Zelix, Zarg, Zane, LordGlenn, Erishkigal, Celice, Orihara Saki, George Reds, 2WB

Special Thanks to Melledoneus, Apparoid, Xil, 7743, and several other FEU members of the discord community that helped me throughout the development of the game. And if anybody is interested in playtesting the hack, it is available in the FEU discord’s playtesting channel as a thread.

[Blasteroid]

Is this a fe8 ROM hack?

[Bowiechowie82]

Looks cool.

[Marimo]

Judging from the stat screen and the reference to FE8 in the progress report, yes it is.

[Blasteroid]

Good luck on this hack.

[Bacon_Eggs]

Thank you so much

[Yasako]

The fur on Ylva’s mug
I’m taking notes

[Bacon_Eggs]

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh, looking forward to what you’re planning to do with that!!

[Bacon_Eggs]

Hello everyone, it has been a while since I updated my progress and it has been very slow if I have to be honest. I recently finished finals and will soon start my next course very soon so I decided to leave a post showing all the improvements I have done to my romhack that I have now given an official name.

The name is Fire Emblem Steel Over Blood.

I will now split this post into three parts. The major updates, plans, and of course, credits.

-Major update to my progress report:

• More custom portraits made by Glaceo and HusbandoEmblem. I won’t reveal them all because I still want to keep some cards against my chest and let it be a surprise to players if anyone eventually picks up my hack.
  

• Scripts have been rewritten to a certain extent and proofread. Though there may be plenty of mistakes that have been overlooked.

• Custom skills have been added. Most notably, Hopeless Romantic, a skill exclusive to the cavalier, Roar. Grants +2 attack and +2 defense when a female unit is within 3 spaces of a unit.
  

  

• Custom classes added such as Malig Knight, Gladiator, Female Fighter, Female Berserker, Female Warrior, Female Pirate, Griffon Rider, Griffon Lord, and Recruit.

• Soldier units are given similar stats to spear fighters in Fates. This was inspired by the hack Wrath of the Crusade (this isn’t the only thing that Wrath of the Crusade helped inspire).

• Knights use axes instead of lances. Cavaliers will only use lances and Griffon Riders will act as the generic flier unit instead of Pegasus Knights.

• Cutscenes have been added to further flesh out the plot and story of the hack. As well as plenty of optional dialogue between units during specific chapters.
  

  
  
  
  

• I have made four chapters so far, two have been made by the Appariod himself (though I did a chunk of the work despite what he would say, trust me)
  

  

-Plans:

-I would want to add more custom skills for specific units, Wrath of the Crusade has shown me possibilities on how to approach that idea in very interesting ways and I hope to implement them well. Though my lack of experience in coding could make this longer than necessary, I may consider looking for someone to aid me with that part.

-One of the various reasons I take so long to complete specific tasks in my hack is that I tend to overcomplicate certain tasks. For example, I was put off into making scenes in chapters similar to the Sacred Stones cutscenes before the first chapter. Then I realized it was MUCH MUCH easier than I thought.

-I want to at least get fully custom portraits for all of the characters in the first half of my story, as I have this idea of completely switching POV with a completely different character after a certain chapter. And it’ll be focused on the newly introduced second protagonist playing catch up to the first one.

-I really want to look for an animator to commission for a Fate’s kitsune-style animation. As I want to replace the manakete class with a Kitsune class. I still haven’t found anyone sadly.

-I really need some gameplay balance consultant, lol. I just don’t feel satisfied with some of my enemy placements.

-The story still hasn’t been drastically changed but various sources of inspiration influenced me to tweak certain aspects of the romhack.

-Credits:
Portraits:
Glaceo
HusbandoEmblem
Yasako
Jorts
Nuramon
Imperial Firekeeper
SSHX
Sphealnuke

Map Textures:
Zora

Map design:
Apparoid

Animations:
Blue Druid
SALVAGED
Nuramon
Ayr

Special Thanks:
Purple Mage
Contro
Astaroth
FrecciaVerde
7743

I will be busy with studies again but hopefully, I can return with more progress to show to you all. I aim to release a beta of the romhack at some point and hopefully it’ll contain at least 6 chapters, that is the plan. So, I hope everyone can look forward to more potential news of my romhack, officially titled Steel Over Blood.

Thank you for reading and have a great day.

[Bacon_Eggs]

Got a shoutout from BlindArcher on 5 portraits I commissioned!!!
You could check them out through this link:

[Bacon_Eggs]

I can now officially say that I am ready to start making an overworld for my romhack and it is exciting yet intimidating.
It did clip a bit of the map but it’s no big deal.

I also have two new countries to introduce:

Yarhook: The kingdom of Golden sands and beauty. A strictly religious land that harbors close relations with Ulkfold.

The Iron Plains: Once part of the Ulkfold Empire’s territory but soon cut off and became its own independent country after the great war between Ulkfold and Centaurus many years ago. It is ruled by several Lords who work together as a republic. Despite their relatively new foundation in the continent, they gained a close alliance with the Kingdom of Centaurus. Preventing the Empire from retaking its land.

[Bacon_Eggs]

Quick update: Progress is going smoothly. Added daggers finally,

Uhhh, a lot more portraits have been commissioned but I want to keep them a secret until further notice and Busk is now officially the fifth artist I commissioned, starting to feel like I’m getting prominent artist’s to participate in my work and it’s getting really exciting.

Also, still haven’t gotten any Kitsune animations sadly.

[Bacon_Eggs]

New Year Update: My original plan was 6 chapters. But now I feel like 4 chapters are more possible for a demo release. So, I will do my best to iron out the game and make it as presentable as possible.

I will say the recently released Fire Emblem game has some designs that got me inspired for future playable units.

[Bacon_Eggs]

So I have officially posted a thread on the FEU discord to allow people to playtest my hack. And in honor of that massive milestone. I want to post several fan art/concept art of my main protagonist of Steel Over Blood, Lenora!

Here we have concept art made by BuskHusker:

Then we have fanart made by somebody who wants to remain anonymous within the FEU community:
(Lenora alongside one of the protagonists of Fire Emblem: Hiraeth)

(The second image was more of meme drawn for a specific scene)

AND another fanart drawn by the creator of the romhack Curse of Lagdou with one of his characters! :

I feel incredibly honored to have beautiful art pieces of Lenora and this hopefully will be enough motivation to push me to one day release the game in a complete state!

[Yasako]

Why is that one fanart based on the one piece dong handshake meme

[Bacon_Eggs]

[MercenaryVictor]

I hope this will have fixed growth mode