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.