Progress Report on FE Steel Over Blood (Journal Entries)

[Bacon_Eggs]

Alright. So I have been working on and off with my romhack. So far I have completed three chapters but have been busy with implementing other things like skills, commissioned portraits, and rewriting the story and dialogue.

Gotta say that it’s a tiresome but STILL an exciting task.

ALSO! I have yet to name my hack, I’m trying to consider a title with Steel in its name. Like Steel Heart or Feathers of Steel, I don’t know. It’s a WIP so I guess I can call it uhhhh, Project Steel? Maybe?

-Screenshots:

I would first like to thank the amazing artists that helped make some of these portraits possible! Such as
Glaceo, HusbandoEmblem, and Yasako. I have a lot of placeholder portraits for more characters that I plan to have visuals for very soon but let me just go into detail about what I am planning to do as well as what I HAVE done so far.

-Progress Report:

• Completed 3 chapters so far. The first two use custom tilesets while the third uses vanilla fields. The dialogues and events that transpire are not finalized yet.
• A total of 10 units have been made so far, only 4 of them have finished sprites.
• I added several custom animations and map sprites to just make the game look slightly different from OG Sacred Stones.
• One custom skill has been made for one character that is basically Soliel’s skill from Fates, Sisterhood. A skill that increases damage by 2 and damage taken by -2 if adjacent to a female unit. Perfect for one of my characters that is basically a hopeless skirt chaser.
• Some music is taken from the repository but I am leaning towards adding Awakening or even some other GBA game’s music that I personally like.
• My biggest mistake is adding mountains in Chapter 2… because of mountains, that map will take a long time to complete.

-Plans:

• Gonna commission more sprites and stuff. It’ll mostly be playable units of course but if possible, I may get essential NPC or enemy units some portraits too.
• I want to comprehend the skill system so I can manipulate and add more skills yet I keep breaking my game!!!
• Get a nice status screen that fits the theme of my hack.
• Gonna be rewriting events and dialogues until I finally am satisfied with the presentation.
• I don’t what technical ideas I’ll be doing, but I definitely considered ice elemental weapons and possibly adding Fate’s Kitsune class along with animations for it.
• At this point, I may need an advisor for gameplay stuff lol. Writing is one thing but I’m no fool to think that alone can carry a hack.

-Plot:

The Ulkfold Empire is an old and powerful 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:
For the Sprites:

• Jorts (for the original concept of Lenora, the protagonist)
• HusbandoEmblem (for being a supportive friend and aiding me with portraits and advice)
• Imperial Firekeeper (For a Knight Portrait from the repository)
• SSHX (for a portrait from the repository)
• Sphealnuke (for the pegasus knight portrait)
• Glaceo (For the booba Barbarian lady portrait)
• Yasako (for portrait edits and custom portraits)

For Map textures:

• Zora (for the town map design for Prologue and Chapter 1)

Music:

• Sme (for Edge of Dawn music)

For animations:

• Blue Druid, SALVAGED, Nuramon, Ayr. (I am sorry if I forgot any names, I write notes on which sprites I use by hand and I forgot to note down who did who and if it is even everyone, so if I forgot anybody or incorrectly credited someone, I am very sorry)

Special Thanks to the people that got me into this:

• Definitely Purple Mage who showed screenshots of his hack that got me very curious about hacking myself.
• My IRL friend introduced me to the several talented sprite artists that I now work with.

[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.